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80-year-old widow takes on Nedbank 00220

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CYRIL FOR HIRE n KZN KILLINGS: PROBE ON TRIAL

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k218 ee DECEMBER ewThe spy at nos Nkosazana’s side Paedophile thief mining the 2017

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104042 771025 KZN killings: 9 Probe on trial

Page 16 Makhosi Khoza sinks 4 Letters her claws into Zuma’s ANC 6 Editorial 31 Smalls FEATURES AVAILABLE 7 Notes & Updates Survé keeps it in the family n Fishy response from ON YOUR COLUMNS MTN over iPhone theft n Law Society moves slowly TABLET to get Gihwala struck off 26 Books 9 Eighty-year-old widow takes on Nedbank 28 Letter from After years of battling for justice, pensioner faces Umjindi off bank in Jersey court Download your digital edition today 29 Not rocket 11 Cyril for hire science Is the new ANC leader a canny statesman and successful tycoon or is he just a political hack? both single issues and 30 Last Word subscriptions available 12 A modern Galileo? The backlash against Tim Noakes’s ideas about PLUS never miss a copy – diet is just the voice of vested self-interest with back issues available to 16 KZN killings probe on trial download and store Is the Moerane Commission a cathartic exercise or just another fruitless enterprise? DOWNLOAD YOUR DIGITAL 20 The aerotropolis in Zuma’s back yard EDITION AT Madcap collaboration with Russians included www.noseweek.co.za 100MW nuclear power station outside Maritzburg or % 021 686 0570 23 Never accept a drink, a fag and a sarmie Veteran journo Len Ashton chats about his long career in newspapers – and lessons he’s learnt

NOSEWEEK February 2018 3 Letters

Water shortage: who benefits? Take into account that the city has Helderberg. We can be sure that the THE SPEECH BY MAYOR OF CAPE TOWN been taking from agriculture without value of the land will not increase on the city’s water giving anything in return. due to water shortages. Of course at situation, quoted in your editorial The disastrous rainfall pattern this stage, this is all speculation but (nose218) may not go without a over the past few years changed a it is not nonsensical. comment. In the mid-80s we were serious situation into a disastrous In your Editorial you express informed that the Western Cape one, without any initiative from the the hope that learning comes from was going to become a water scarce authorities. The De Lille prayer could mistakes. This raises the question: area as a result of climate change/ be heard in the city hall: “Please Can people who seem to have no clue global warming. Global warming did Father take this cup away from us”. what they are doing make mistakes? not decrease, neither did it remain Unfortunately the Father did not Pieter Wesselman constant: it increased. listen and we have to contend with a Waterfront, Cape Town Fast forward to 1990 when the flood situation resulting from a total lack of action by the authorities. Even of people from the then and n THE CITY OF CAPE TOWN, ESPECIALLY began, resulting in a sharp during the summer of 2016/17 they Dear Leader Mayor De Lille, has increase of the population of this were counting and praying for a been useless, useless, useless. And city, putting severe pressure on its rainy season in our 2017 winter. Only could someone please explain how an water resources. This development when this appeared to be a real pipe 80-year-old widow living on her own compelled the administration to start dream did they start to impose ever- on the sixth floor of a block of flats in using water from Theewaterskloof stricter water restrictions. A real case Sea Point will flush her toilet? Dam – which farmers say was origi- of “after the horse has bolted”. Robert de Vos nally built for agriculture only – for What we have seen developing is a Cape Town domestic purposes. destruction of the water security of the Western Cape, an endangering of To compensate, the dam in the n MAYOR DE LILLE HAS BEEN APPROVING Berg River at Franschhoek was built. the food security of the area, a threat upmarket developments all over the However, it was already stated at to job security in the area and an City for years, in the face of strong that time that this development was undermining of the financial position civic resistance and professional going to be insufficient to satisfy of the metro. With the imposition of advice. All these new projects have the water needs of the area. Add the an illegal DA-incompetency-tax/water large water footprints in construc- decrease in rainfall, then one can levy, they have placed the metro in a tion, diminish groundwater recharge, only start counting down. kind of Sanral situation, with a tax/ increase consumer water demand, Always keeping an eye on the levy that is not going to be paid. pollute more watercourses and satellite photographs of the southern It is infuriating that a party which require provisioning with water- Atlantic, I got a big shock in the hopes to form a government after the dependent industries. She does not winter of 2008. The fronts over South 2019 elections can willingly allow talk about this we note. America, which take about seven this situation to come about. Patrick Dowling days to reach , had Teddy Roosevelt said that “in poli- Kommetjie disappeared half-way across. What tics nothing happens, everything is was left were some cloudy areas from very carefully planned”. This state- ment will make sense when we look Knysna: ineptitude or worse? which we received some rain when SO, MORE INACTION AND INCOMPETENCE into who may possibly gain from this they reached the Cape. from the Knysna municipal authori- disaster. What immediately comes to This development most certainly ties, then a farce of an expensive mind is “property development”. should have set some alarm bells investigation and report that Since last winter we have ringing. It did, with Agri-SA, and the blatantly lies, and then, when the been bombarded by development company in Strand that is building lies are exposed in Noseweek, some announcements: Maiden’s Cove; desalination plants in the Far and other fantastical story is concocted as a R1.8-billion project somewhere Middle East. The latter went public, an alternative but also factual expla- in the Eastern part of the CBD; stating that, due to new technology, nation of the “facts”. If you’re going to The Culemborg area; the develop- desalination and purification of the lie, at least, make the lie plausible. ment around the freeways and their groundwater reserve under the Cape David Arundel Flats had become an attractive possi- completion (being the mayor’s legacy); Cape Town bility. Reaction from the authorities an unwanted development near or at the border of the Bo Kaap; and more was that they were talking about it. n THE “SECRET” INVESTIGATION IS ENOUGH A few years ago they both promised to come. to let us know something official went approached the province and the I have no doubt that many devel- very wrong. Was it gross carelessness city with their worries about the opers will be salivating when they in the end? water security in the Western Cape look at or think about Franschhoek, Arlette Franks but were cold-shouldered by them. Paarl, Stellenbosch and the Somerset West

4 Douw’s raiding of Sassa grants by the very liquidators named in harassment, I do believe 100% that THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO LOOK INTO nose219. They are lucky to still be my parents would have enjoyed all these so-called billionaires to see operating. Their day is coming. a much longer and happier life where their wealth is coming from. Mortis together. How can anyone with a heart take Hilton I was robbed of my only family and from the poor? Douw Steyn is not the my children, of their grandparents only one; there are sadly many others Iqbal’s unicorn and any legacy or memory. like him. THE PROMOTION OF IQBAL SURVÉ’S In cruel irony, on the same Edith Steyn personal interests in Business Report morning, not long after receiving the Zurich, Switzerland (nose219) is shameful, but to be phone call about my dad’s passing, Not quite like him! – Ed. expected. The last straw was when I walked passed Rob Lowe and his Auntie Adri [Adri Senekal de Wet, partner enjoying R1,000 crayfish n THIS IS AS CRIMINAL AND IMMORAL Business Report’s Executive Editor] on the Camps Bay strip. It took all as Zupta’s criminal actions; sheer lectured her readers on how to be my restraint not to help that mid- callousness towards others in the proper patriotic South Africans. morning brunch in, down, and out name of insatiable greed. ‘Ex-subscriber’ the other side in one filthy swoop. Lee Ward Able Umdloti However, from what I read about Port Elizabeth his sick pornographic past, a crispy Agony of elusive redemption crustacean violation might have n LIKE WITH ANY OTHER POLICY/ IT’S BEEN OVER A DECADE SINCE I LET YOU gone down nicely with a glass of insurance company, it is not the know about the passing of Dr Frank Chardonnay and a sea view. company itself but the corrupt agent Carlisle, my father. A concerned It was uplifting and heartwarming that is doing this. The more contracts fellow citizen wanting more details to read the words “well-respected she/he sells, the more commission about Rob Lowe brought your article, educationalist”, and I thank you for earned. She does not want to cancel “How Lowe can you go” (nose218), to that. My dad worked 14-hour days these policies as it will influence her my attention. It brought back a flood all his life, lectured on Saturdays, monthly income. of very sad memories. I tried to bury his brunch was a sandwich behind You should report the agent to the whole saga along with my dad. his typewriter, and during his 20 the necessary authorities for taking I had no fight left, after seeing what years at the helm of the Production advantage of people who don’t know the pursuit for the truth did to my Management Institute (PMI), a better. entire family. My parents never got Johannesburg training and education Lorita de Bruin the chance to live out the retirement centre, he helped tens of thousands of Bloemfontein that they had planned, travelling people achieve emancipation through around South Africa in a camper-van. education. He pioneered progression Nuclear plan needs aerotropolis When Mercantile Bank tried to and portability two decades before ZUMA PROMISED PUTIN MUCH AND THEY have my dad arrested for breaking a SAQA adopted the principals. Adult need a private port of entry to facili- gagging order by virtue of an email, students with no secondary educa- tate the nuclear build so I don’t think it was time to give up. The pen is not tion could progress through the levels we’ve seen the end of this story. always mightier than the sword, and and eventually get a B.Sc Hons. Rob Mortis it’s useless without ink. Lowe eroded it all. Hilton My mom had to give up medical This is the end I guess. I don’t aid along the line, and she died after hold out much hope for justice and n NOSEWEEK IS TAKING A BEGGING BOWL receiving inferior cancer care at a accountability. around to fund malicious gossip and municipal hospital, and before she In much appreciation, and keep up rumours. reached 65. She was buried in Mossel the good work. Molebatsi Masedi Bay, where the two had met and later Phillip Carlisle Polokwane married in 1963. My dad chose to Durban North And you are clearly a loyal ANC voter stay in Mossel Bay and in touch with Also see noses49,54 & 85. – Ed. who will hear, see and speak no evil of the good memories, but sadly died the party. – Ed. from a stroke in another municipal Editor’s Note hospital, only nine months later. He Dear Reader, Liquidators milk pig farm feud was only 66 years old, but withered While I respect your right to choose a AND NOW I SEE THAT THE SELF-SAME and battered and unfairly abused. pseudonym, please don’t do so unless liquidators have been appointed to Without Rob Lowe’s theft and it is imperative for your protection. manage the Honeydew/Dairy Day the bank’s resulting position, and We live in a country where we are fiasco. Now the cows are really going without the years of endless litiga- entitled to express our personal opin- to get milked! Yip, a few more stories tion in pursuit of the truth, and ions. Exercise that right proudly in could be written in these pages without the real fear of arrest and your own name. – Martin Welz.

NOSEWEEK February 2018 5 C

Editor Editorial Martin Welz [email protected] Assistant Editor Jonathan Erasmus Special Correspondent Most wanted list Jack Lundin Designer Tony Pinchuck Sub-editor Fiona Harrison Contributors LEAKED LIST OF LIKELY CABINET handicapped patients, and the collapse Len Ashton, Sibusiso Biyela, Desiree appointments in a now-it’s-on, now- of KZN’s oncology departments, leading Erasmus, Michiel Heyns, Bheki Mashile, to the untimely death of hundreds of Sue Segar, Harold Strachan it’s-off presidency reveals only one thing for certain: cancer patients unable to afford treatment Cartoonists there are slim pickings for clean elsewhere. Both were the result of gross Stacey Stent, Dr Jack cadresA left in the ANC. mismanagement and corruption. Accounts The list was published online by Donwald may look the part, but Nicci van Doesburgh Pressly, long-time parliamentary corre- his last foray at Home Affairs crippled the [email protected] spondent, now editor of the online news South African tourism industry by intro- Subscriptions publication The Cape Messenger, who ducing bizarre and restrictive visa regula- Maud August claims to have compiled it from informa- tions for foreign visitors. [email protected] tion leaked to him by senior sources within cannot manage her staff Advertising the ANC. A cursory check reveals that on her own farm, let alone the Department 021 686 0570 many of the 36 people named are weighed of Labour. Ebrahim Rasool – accused of [email protected] down by a load of smelly baggage. It is only paying journalists to write favourably thanks to the intervention of other crooked about him when he was Western Cape

All material in this issue is copyright, and belongs cadres that they have not been banished Premier – is touted for Mineral Resources, to Chaucer Publications (Pty) Ltd, unless otherwise from Parliament or prosecuted. a seat currently being kept warm by indicated. No part of the material may be quoted, While Ramaphosa is no ANC darling (known for his mystery photocopied, reproduced or be stored by any (see page 11), his proposed deputy, David trips to Dubai). electronic system without prior written permission. Disclaimer: While every reasonable effort is taken to Mabuza, has led one of the most corrupt For the Police ministry, Pressly names ensure the accuracy and soundness of the contents of provinces in South Africa – – – the man who cannot control this publication, neither the authors nor the publisher which remains rife with politically moti- his own member when texting young will bear any responsibility for the consequences of women, let alone an entire police service. any actions based on information contained. Printed vated killings. and Published by Chaucer Publications (Pty) Ltd. Enoch Godongwana should be allowed Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is maybe a nowhere near Economic Development, shoo-in for Social Development. This is not where he has already served as deputy surprising as social grants provider Cash minister. He resigned from the same Paymaster was rumoured to be paying for department in 2012 during an inquiry Dlamini-Zuma’s presidential-bid campaign. into the disappearance of R130m from the Keeping them in business would be a top SA Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union priority for the Zuma faction. (Sactwu) – in which he was embroiled. He might be moved back to offered a measly R1.3m in compensation. Sport and Recreation where he will need Appointing , who is being to properly understand what it means to SUBSCRIPTION RATES touted as Minister of Environmental “crush a man’s balls”. One need only recall Print Affairs, is akin to putting a lion in charge his penchant for divisiveness, name-calling of a zebra enclosure. While State Security and racial slurs and the fact that he was a SA only R410 minister he was directly mentioned as a direct beneficiary of Brett Kebble’s stolen Neighbouring states (airmail) R600 “friend” by Chinese rhino-horn smuggler largesse, to know that he should be kept as Europe, Americas and Australasia R740 Guan Jiang Guang during an Al Jazeera far away from government as possible. Internet edition The last time got near secu- 1 year R298 news investigation. Mahlobo claimed he only went for “pedicures” at Guang’s rity services was when he was the National Combined brothel in Mbombela. And then, somehow Commissioner of Police. But he was fired Print+Internet (SA only) R510 the country’s security services never got after he signed an illegal R500m prop- To subscribe around to questioning the Chinese busi- erty rental deal with ANC backer Roux By phone (021) 686 0570 nessman, allowing him plenty of time to Shabangu. Giving him access to the State Online (pay by credit card): slip out of the country. Security Agency’s slush funds is simply not www.noseweek.co.za The Health Department under Dr prudent thinking. Email [email protected] has witnessed two But when you’re the newly elected head of the most shocking medical disas- of a criminal syndicate, those are all you (Note: cheques no longer accepted) ters in South African history – the Life have to choose from. Esidimeni crisis that killed 143 mentally The Assistant Editor Further information Call (021) 686 0570; fax 021 686 0573 or email [email protected] Notes & Updates Survé keeps it in the family

F IT STILL ISN’T ABUNDANTLY clear that which, despite relative obscurity, has the press baron with a thin skin enjoyed an unusually large amount Dr Iqbal Survé (who incidentally of publicity on the front pages of blocked Noseweek on Twitter from Independent Media’s Business Report viewing his account) has turned since October 2017. theI Independent Media empire into his The company is effectively an personal diary and scrapbook, then the extension of Survé’s business empire, launch edition of the African Independ- sharing office space and staff. ent magazine should clear things up. The good doctor was a listed director reported in the process of This was picked up by Cape Town of the company almost from its registra- news gathering, free of bias, and hold reader Dave Fair who informed tion in October 2013 until he resigned serious news value. Noseweek via Facebook: “Further to 9 October 2017 just days before the The African Independent magazine your article on Survé’s self-promotion company received bucket-loads of free article is no different. However it is (nose219: “Survé rides his unicorn up publicity from Independent Media. slightly more obvious, as the piece the newsroom Everest”) check out the But throughout the exorbitant is co-written by Survé’s 24-year-old front cover of the African Independent amount of positive coverage daughter Saarah Survé, who also – Paul Lamontagne on the cover! And that Sagarmatha has en- happens to be the magazine’s editor. Survé’s daughter on the editorial staff! joyed there is no mention of this. Saarah’s editorial stated: “Lamon- Coincidence?” Instead the articles are written in such tagne is embarking on an exciting As revealed in nose219, Lamontagne a form, including editorial pieces, that venture to make his company the is the CEO of a little-known company tries to falsely convince the reader leading digital technology platform in called Sagarmatha Technologies that the articles have been naturally Africa”. n Stent

NOSEWEEK February 2018 7 Notes & Updates Fishy response Law Society moves slowly from MTN over to get Gihwala struck of iPhone theft HE FINAL UNRAVELLING OF ONE OF South Africa’s more famous N CHRISTMAS DAY NOSEWEEK gentleman crooks, celebrated reader Karen Varejes had attorney Dines Gihwala, will her iPhone stolen from her reach its climactic conclusion handbag on the Camps Bay withinT months, when he stands to be beachfront. She discovered stripped of both his professional status itO was missing within minutes and and his ill-gotten fortune. called MTN to deactivate it. Next Already in August last year attorneys day she dialled her number, only Abrahams and Kiewitz, representing to discover that it had been reac- the Cape Law Society, filed an applica- tivated. tion to the high court to have Gihwala A man answered, claiming he struck from the roll of attorneys – the had picked up the phone and was ultimate disgrace for a member of the Dines Gihwala happy to return it. However he profession. had already had two other people The curiously protracted process has But, in the end, one man – UK-based claiming it was theirs, so could she been conducted in great secrecy, but businessman Karim Mavji – must prove it was hers by giving him Noseweek is reliably told that the public take the credit for bringing down the PIN number? She was not as record of Gihwala’s misdemeanours in this worthy, professional crook who gullible as that. various court cases was found to be so brazenly used his position as an officer Karen’s husband, Clive, then extensive that the society’s disciplinary of the court as a cover for his criminal went into an MTN store where committee decided to proceed with the activities. they again agreed to deactivate the application without having conducted Reassured by Gihwala’s then profes- sim card. Somehow, from some- their own more-usual internal discipli- sional status, Mavji had made the where, it was reactivated within nary hearing. mistake of trusting him with the minutes. This happened at least Gihwala has filed an answering affi- management of some major invest- 10 times over the next four days. davit opposing the application. The ments made by two of his offshore “Each time we called the number, case is expected to be scheduled for companies: Grancy Property Ltd, the cheeky thief answered,” said hearing within the next two months. registered in the British Virgin Clive. “Is MTN simply grossly Later this year Gihwala faces further Islands, and Montague Goldsmith AG, incompetent or is someone in MTN court proceedings: the debatement registered in Switzerland. It is their friendly with the thief?” he asked. hearing, expected to last weeks, will claims totalling R100m that are sched- You decide. begin in the same high court where, uled for debatement in court later this At some stage the thief managed as ordered by the Supreme Court of year. to have R50-worth of airtime on Appeal, he will have to answer ques- These companies have succeeded Karen’s phone transferred to tions relating to claims totalling nearly with various smaller claims in another number. Call that number R100 million, arising from his devious previous court proceedings that have – and he answers. misconduct and failure to account for seen Gihwala having to pay more than Only when Clive called Cape various business transactions. R12m in damages. Arising from them, Talk and Radio 702 with their Gihwala – once favoured by in June 2014, the high court found that story, did the couple get effective Mandela’s Minister of Justice Dullah Gihwala had misappropriated funds, action from MTN. Someone from Omar with an appointment as acting making payments totalling millions head office called and arranged judge of the high court – went on to to himself – to which he was not enti- for the phone itself to be remotely become chairman of one of South tled, was recklessly in breach of his locked, making it useless in the Africa’s big five law firms, Cliffe fiduciary duties, and failed to disclose hands of the thief. Dekker Hofmeyr, and was entrusted by serious conflicts-of-interest. A formal charge of theft was laid the Financial Services Board with the The court found it had no option at the Camps Bay Police Station. co-curatorship of Fidentia, a billion- but to declare Gihwala a delinquent “They informed us that they rand financial services group. director, not fit to be a director of suspected the racket was oper- Noseweek was never taken in by any company or be entrusted with ated by a gang from Côte d’Ivoire his claims to fame and respectability, managing any corporate entity. or Nigeria – but three weeks later, publishing its first disclosure of his Bringing Gihwala to account has so still no action from the police,” unprofessional conduct in January far taken Mavji eight years and cost Clive Varejes told Noseweek. n 2000 (nose28). him in excess of R20m in legal fees. n

8 Eighty-year-old widow takes on Nedbank in Jersey After years of battling for justice, furious pensioner takes on legal and banking establishment. By Martin Welz

IDOW DOROTHY BRAKSPEAR, 83, who lives in North- ampton, England, is a beneficiary of two offshore trusts set up and adminis- teredW by various offshore subsidiaries of the Nedbank Group. They are the Brakspear Trust, registered in the Isle of Man, and the Westley Trust, registered in Jersey. On Wednesday, December 6, 2017 at 4:18pm Brakspear copied Noseweek in on an angry email she sent to advo- cate Paul Matthews, Judicial Greffier (clerk) of the Royal Court of Jersey. His main job is to guide foreign liti- gants in the archaic court procedures that are followed on that once-French Island. It was also copied to Ms Debbie le Mottee, the court’s judicial secretary (a post that closely approximates our registrar of the high court). It reads:

Dear Ms Le Mottee and Advocate Matthews, 1. Advocate [Mark] Taylor [for Nedbank] tells an untruth when he says we have not responded to him – we did so yesterday, 5 Royal Court States building, Saint Helier, Jersey December 2017, in an email addressed to both him and Advocate Matthews. This is another in a long line of untruths told by Advocate Taylor noses128,177,179,&182).] co-applicants in the Order of Justice (OJ) they filed in writing to us, to the Court and now the Court That “Christmas application” suited in the Royal Court of Jersey in December; the other offices, and I have evidence of it all, but the Nedbank way back then, but now that the shoe to allow Nedbank to bring an application to have falsehoods continue and yet no one raises any is on the other foot they claim it is totally unac- Brakspear’s entire OJ (summons and particulars concerns. This is not what ethical lawyers do. ceptable. of claim) struck out on grounds that they are 2. Advocate Taylor’s reason for [wanting] an 3. We have not even been before the Court frivolous, scandalous and vexatious, before it can extension was due to the Christmas holidays for the Judge to confirm and sign the Order be heard. – Ed.] How is that legally correct, – notwithstanding that his client liquidated of Justice [a form of summons with extensive given that a Jersey Advocate sets out our OJ in the Westley Trust’s only asset on 23 December particulars of claim issued against Nedbank by the proper legal format and the Deputy Bailiff 2008, 2 days before Christmas. [She is referring Mrs Brakspear and the beneficiaries] and yet subsequently signed the OJ? to the by-now-notorious application brought in the Nedbank are [already] issuing summons [what 4. Since this started in 2015 our allegations Durban high court by attorneys Edward Nathan in SA would be called interlocutory applications: have not changed one bit, yet Nedbank’s story Sonnenbergs (ENS) on behalf of a Nedbank two of them – one to allow Nedbank to delay changes every time they put anything on paper. subsidiary for the liquidation of a South African indefinitely the filing of its answers to the extensive, This summons [application by Nedbank] is property-owning company called Westdunes. (See shocking charges raised by Mrs Brakspear and her not about the truth and justice – this is about

NOSEWEEK February 2018 9 Nedbank refusing to answer allegations on claimed – under oath – to have taken paper of dishonesty and deceitful conduct, place. it is about Nedbank companies colluding in The South African court chose to the suppression of their own contradicting ‘This is another in a believe the Nedbank evidence, despite trust accounts and documents, versus what the contradicting documentary they stated under oath in various courts and evidence submitted by Ian Brakspear, the silencing of me, an 83-year-old widow, by long line of untruths the trust beneficiary resident in South Nedbank defending the indefensible, using a Africa. draconian strike out application to attempt to ... and I have This is but one of the money trans- drive me from the seat of justice. actions Nedbank will be called upon to I have not been copying-in certain members evidence and trace through its books of the SA and UK press (including the UK paper evidence of it all and bank records. that kindly provided us with original copies This application is set down for from the Panama Papers), despite numerous hearing in the Jersey court on 19 requests by them to chronicle my journey but the falsehoods February. through the Courts of a tax haven. For the past ten years the Nedbank However, due to this unrelenting war of trustees have steadfastly refused any attrition by Nedbank on me, and the continuing continue ... this is access to their books and records. The untruths being told by Nedbank and their few documents that have emerged in Advocate, I will now start to blind copy them other court proceedings or from the all in my correspondence, including my local not what ethical Panama Papers have revealed fraud, [UK] Member of Parliament, as I believe what is dishonesty, incompetence and negli- happening with these continuing falsehoods is gence – in that order – on the part of totally unacceptable and unjust. lawyers do’ Nedbank and its employees. We want to oppose this summons [applica- In his most recent submissions to the tion] by Nedbank (if it is legally correct) for “an Jersey court, Advocate Taylor is asking extension” and that we “pay the costs”, so may I (lapsed by passage of time) or have for extra time and an extended court ask how do we do this? already been adjudicated upon by a date for Nedbank to bring a so-called Yours sincerely South African court. If he succeeds “strike out” application to have the Dorothy Brakspear with either argument, it will obviate Brakspear’s Order of Justice thrown Nedbank’s having to produce its own out of court without the banking group In a “skeleton” argument drawn records and evidence in its defence – and its trust employees having to up and submitted to the Jersey court likely to be extremely embarrassing, answer to the charges raised in it or by Advocate Taylor on 11 December judging by the bits and pieces that produce evidence in their defence. 2015 to oppose an earlier attempt by have already emerged But for two months the much- Brakspear to bring her complaints A foretaste of what might be to vaunted strike out application has not before the court, he claimed there were come for Nedbank were this strategy been forthcoming. “signed letters” by Brakspear and her to fail: Brakspear and her fellow The Brakspears lost patience and daughter Alison resulting in a “settle- trust beneficiaries have brought a have had him summoned to court to ment agreement” between them and separate court application in terms set a date by which it must be deliv- Nedbank. Both denied ever having of Jersey’s Bankers’ Book Evidence ered – or fall away. This issue was to written such letters or having made law, summoning Nedbank to court to be decided a day after Noseweek went such an agreement. explain why it should not be ordered to press. Taylor, despite repeated requests to produce its own books and records Brakspear, accompanied by a carer, since then, has never been able to relating to their trusts for the benefi- will be flying to Jersey for the hearing. produce such letters. It was most likely ciaries’ inspection. And for them to Based on bitter experience, she told just wishful thinking on his part: had make copies of those documents and Noseweek, she does not trust what the they signed such a settlement agree- records they need for their case. lawyers will get up to in her absence. ment it would have put an end to their In terms of Jersey’s financial services She will argue her case in person. The case – without Nedbank’s having to trusts law, trust companies such as court has appointed an Amicus – an answer any of the serious charges Nedgroup Trust (Jersey) Ltd, must also independent lawyer who will assist the brought against them. be able to identify and trace in their court in determining the legal merits of In his most recent submissions to books and records all money transac- her argument. the court he makes no reference to any tions relating to these trusts. If they Noseweek will publish a full summary such agreement, as he had so emphati- are unable to do so, it is deemed to of the 30-page Order of Justice, with cally alleged earlier. be proof of dishonesty and a criminal the 40-page affidavit by Brakspear and He has yet to offer any apology or offence. 180 pages of annexures that accom- explanation. His main defence strategy In the 2008 liquidation applica- pany it, that was served on Nedbank in has shifted to alleging that the recast tion brought by Nedbank’s trustees in December, in our next issue, (nose221). charges set out in Brakspear’s Order South Africa, they based their appli- The defendant is, formally, Nedgroup of Justice have either prescribed cation on money transactions they Trust (Jersey) Ltd. n

10 Cyril for hire

EWLY ELECTED ANC PRESIDENT charm and sophistication, the profile and likely next president of laid bare Ramaphosa’s blind ambition, the republic, Cyril Ramapho- his desire to accumulate wealth, and sa, is no stranger to the pages the little-spoken-about whispered truth of Noseweek. Since 2005 we that (quoting UCT Professor Anthony haveN tracked his rise – which is largely Butler) “Nobody [in the ANC] likes backed by corporate South Africa. They Cyril particularly, either in KZN or would hand him cash and he would pro- the Eastern Cape, but for that reason vide political cover. Many have argued alone, a lot of people think it will be that he has been essentially a political good to have him as leader, as he’s ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa negotiator-for-hire to the highest corpo- not associated with a particular rate bidder. regional or ethnic bloc. In April 2005 (nose66), Noseweek “His key strength is that he Optimum Coal mine. introduced its readers to the new black draws disparate groups together who Optimum was established to supply oligarchs: Ramaphosa, , don’t want ethnic Zulu dominance of the Eskom’s key Hendrina Power Station. Saki Macozoma and Patrice Motsepe. party.” The 30-year contract, signed in 1993, We called them the “jaga” – a Malay Ramaphosa’s talent for drawing determined that the price of coal word that translates into “gatekeeper” – disparate groups together made him supplied to Eskom was to escalate in as this is what they were doing, control- indispensable to the trade union move- line with the general inflation rate. Over ling access to the banks and insurance ment in the days when he presided the years, however, mining costs rose at companies while being supported and there. For the same reason he is widely a far higher rate than the general infla- sustained by older capital. acknowledged to have played maybe the tion rate. The mine’s losses became so Noseweek noted that Ramaphosa was key role in getting all parties to collabo- great that by 2010 owners BHP Billiton supported by Anglo-American/De Beers, rate in drafting South Africa’s much were happy to sell – some say give away Alexander Forbes, Standard Bank and admired constitution. – Optimum to a BEE consortium, in a Investec. His central financial vehicle, In nose191 of September 2015, Barry deal that is interesting for many reasons Shanduka, was funded by Old Mutual Sergeant argued that Ramaphosa was not relevant here. and he was also connected to FNB. nothing more than a hustler who knew Shortly afterwards Swiss-based inter- Through Johnnic Holdings – from which how to cash in on his political status: he national commodities giant Glencore he subsequently resigned – Ramaphosa was handed investments on a platter, bought control of this coal mining enter- had media interests, primarily in the often with little-to-no risk, from which prise from its supposed BEE share- Sunday Times, Business Day and the he amassed his fortune – presumably in holders for all of $800m (R8.2 billion at Sowetan. Noseweek noted that he is exchange for political cover. the time), making them all unspeakably the brother-in-law of Patrice Motsepe, The first example that Sergeant rich. and that he shared numerous business highlighted was Ramaphosa’s minority Which brought Sergeant to the crunch interests with Macozoma through New stake in Lonmin, a deal solidified in question: “Why would a huge and vastly Africa Investment Limited (NAIL) and 2010. His company Shanduka held 50% experienced international commodi- Standard Bank. His security net, nose66 in Incwala Resources, which held an ties company, not known for gestures of noted, was buried within the Anglo- 18% share in Lonmin’s two main opera- charity to third-world countries, have American/De Beers sphere of influence. tions. To acquire its stake, Shanduka bought such a pup – and continued to Ramaphosa’s network – as that of the only needed to put up £27 million; feed it? […] Were they perhaps assured first oligarch – was already beginning to Lonmin paid the remaining £206m on that, with the right BEE partner, the look like “old money”. Shanduka’s behalf (about R2.3 billion problem could be made to disappear?” In Noseweek’s profile of September at the time). The deal was virtually Their 10% BEE partner, via his 2014, “The man who would be king”, risk-free as the loan was secured with company Lexshell 849 Investments, (nose179) Ramaphosa was rated “a Lonmin shares. If the company were was Ramaphosa. They likely antici- shoo-in as the next president of the to fail, Ramaphosa needed only to pated he would be able to renegotiate ANC and the country – but largely as return the shares. Lonmin’s share price a higher-price coal deal with Eskom. If the ANC’s default candidate”. This piece has since tanked and the ghost of the so, they were to be disappointed: by then made some astonishing predictions, Marikana massacre has scarred the the Guptas clearly had more political including the emergence of Nkosazana company indefinitely. muscle in the ANC than Ramaphosa. Dlamini-Zuma as a serious contender in Next, Sergeant revealed how Sergeant’s conclusion: Ramaphosa’s her failed bid to become the next ANC Ramaphosa had featured in the toxic business record is better forgotten. “Let’s president. Eskom/Gupta drama which was face it: he may have more luck back in While acknowledging his undoubted then still developing around the politics.” n

NOSEWEEK February 2018 11 A Modern Galileo?

The backlash against Prof Tim Noakes’s ideas about nutrition is just the voice of vested self-interest, argues Dr David Klatzow

N 2013 EMERITUS PROFESSOR TIM on to say: “If you’ve got Lore of Running, to read them and found there was Noakes, then still head of the tear out the section on nutrition.” a substantial medical constituency University of Cape Town’s Sports So, how come Noakes is now scandal- that did not hold the standard view Science Centre, contributed just ising his colleagues by arguing that the dispensed at UCT. My own further one chapter to a bombshell of a entire dietary edifice should be turned research confirmed their findings.” Ibook, The Real Meal Revolution, which on its head; that all the “eminent” It is surely a mark of integrity if a quickly soared into the book-sales cardiologists and dieticians had got it scientist is prepared to change his view stratosphere. Its dietary recommenda- wrong and were in fact promoting a on being presented with new data – tions rapidly found traction with the diet that actively harmed many of their but to contradict the so-called received South African public and anecdotal re- patients? medical wisdom of the day is a perilous ports of success flooded in. The book’s Noakes explains: “Originally I was exercise, as many before Tim Noakes message was that most people would taught, as part of my medical training, have discovered. be well-advised to abandon the widely that a high-fat diet was dangerous for An early example is that of Hungarian recommended high-carbohydrate/low- your arteries and heart – the standard physician Ignaz Semmelweis, who fat diet and switch to the exact oppo- paradigm subscribed to at the time discovered that he could reduce the high site: a low-carbohydrate/high-fat diet. by UCT’s cardiology department. But death rate from childbed fever by the From the early Seventies the received then, on 12 December 2010 I was given simple expedient of washing his hands wisdom dispensed to patients by dieti- a book by Eric Westman called The in chloride of lime before examining cians and cardiologists was that high New Atkins for a New You. I had just the patient. His colleagues, outraged fat was a recipe for heart attacks and a done some blood tests on myself and by the suggestion that they themselves high cholesterol-level in the blood was discovered I had Type 2 diabetes. So I were infecting their patients by their the harbinger of a heart attack. Noakes decided to try Westman’s low-carb diet. lack of hygiene, launched a concerted himself subscribed to that view. In fact Within days I started losing weight, felt campaign against him, mostly by way he kick-started his career as a popular better – and my blood glucose dropped of attacks on the man, rather than his author in 1985 with a book titled The remarkably to normal. argument – a common response when Lore of Running (It went into its fourth “Westman’s book was filled with outsiders, and more especially insiders, edition in 2003), soon followed by The scientific research references which challenge the gurus of medicine. Lore of Cycling. The books advocated a had never been mentioned in our In the less-distant past we have high-carb diet. Noakes has since gone curriculum at medical school. I started seen a number of standard medical

12 teachings overturned in quite spec- tacular fashion. Hormone replace- ment therapy (HRT) for post-meno- pausal women has been shown to have severe cardio-vascular consequences. Mutilating – even life-threatening – gastric surgery for stomach ulcers has been replaced with a short course of antibiotics. The brutal, radical mastec- tomy once routinely prescribed with absolute conviction by UCT’s profes- sors of surgery to treat breast cancer – leaving the unfortunate patient in a permanent state of distress – has been replaced by a far less radical lumpec- tomy, with better long-term outcomes. Over all of this the professors of medi- cine preside in a god-like way. These are the leaders of medical research and their word in a given department is law. God help you if you express a dissenting opinion. Barely 20 years ago, those women who dared question the prescribed radical mastectomy were told by the presiding professors at Groote Schuur Hospital to “go else- Opposing voices: Sports scientist Tim Noakes and dietician Claire Strydom where for treatment and never return”. Medical research has in my view of self-important professors of medicine healthy high-fat breast milk. Key is to entered an era where, to accept its may inadvertently have been harming wean baby on to LCHF”. findings blindly, is dangerous; all its their patients for the past 40 years. This simple exchange saw Noakes findings must be seriously questioned The trigger point came in February dragged before the Health Professions and if accepted, then only with caution. 2014 when a Twitter user asked Noakes Council of South Africa (HPCSA). You do not have to take my word for the following question: “Is LCHF [low- Within 24 hours of the tweet, a dieti- it. The distinguished Dr Marcia Angell, carb, high-fat] eating OK for breast- cian, and president of the Association former editor of the pre-eminent New feeding mums? Worried about all the for Dietetics in SA (Adsa), Claire England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), dairy + cauliflower = wind for babies?” Julsing Strydom, had lodged a has had reason to warn: “It is simply Noakes tweeted back: “Baby doesn’t complaint with the Health Professions no longer possible to believe in much of eat the dairy and cauliflower, just very Council of South Africa (HPCSA) the clinical research that is published, accusing Noakes of giving “incorrect, or to rely on the judgement of trusted dangerous and potentially life-threat- physicians or authoritative medical ening advice”. guidance. I take no pleasure in this The various bodies To everyone’s surprise and to the conclusion which I reached slowly and lasting shame of the HPCSA, they took reluctantly over my five decades as it seriously. These proceedings lasted editor of the NEJM.” (New York Review who have conspired more than three years – and, indeed, of Books, January 15, 2009.) have still not ended (there is an appeal Her view was echoed by Richard pending). Horton, editor of The Lancet in the 11 to discredit Noakes Noakes is not alone in promoting the April 2015 issue of that pre-eminent low-carbohydrate high-fat (LCHF) diet. medical journal: “The case against Swedish diet blogger and best-selling science is straightforward: Much of have, it would appear, author Dr Andreas Eenfeldt promotes scientific literature, perhaps half, may the same notions. So, too, do American simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies cardiologist Professor William Davis in with small sample size, tiny effects, significant vested his book Wheat Belly, and many other invalid exploratory analyses, flagrant well-informed and eminent physicians. conflicts-of-interest, together with an (Many more references are to be found obsession for pursuing fashionable interests in the whole in Nina Teicholz’s book, The Big Fat trends of dubious importance, science Surprise, published in 2014.) has taken a turn towards darkness.” debacle Of great relevance to the current Into this snake pit Noakes has case, and further demonstrating ventured, suggesting that any number just how far behind the times South

NOSEWEEK February 2018 13 Africa’s health establishment has round good thing. It follows that if you professional reputation. become: Sweden’s Dr Eenfeldt has had believe that cholesterol in the blood The authors have good reason to the way cleared for him by a prede- should be kept low then these are the believe that the battle is being fought cessor, Swedish family physician Dr drugs of choice. But what if cholesterol by proxy combatants: the medicine Annika Dahlqvist. In 2006, two dieti- and blood fat are not the real cause departments that get large grants from cians reported Dahlqvist to Sweden’s of heart disease? And what if statins the front organisations are themselves National Board of Health and Welfare make no difference to the effort of part of the shady war. The parties who (NBHW). The dieticians felt that curbing or preventing heart disease; have been ranged against Noakes have advising people with diabetes to eat fat what if they are actually harmful to failed to declare their serious conflicts- was unacceptable and would result in the patient? of-interest in this respect. the patients getting sick. Suggestions like these would not go That is the elephant in the room. In The NBHW deliberated for two down well with the establishment. The the debate by the high panjandrums years, reviewing the science. They had drug companies who make literally of medicine it gets not the slightest it in their power to censor Dr Dahlqvist billions from the sale of these noxious mention. The pompous, self-important or even revoke her medical licence. But drugs and who have a vested interest high-ranking members of academic in January 2008 the NBHW exoner- in maintaining the belief that fat in medicine pontificate to their staff and ated Dhalqvist completely, even stating the diet and blood cholesterol are the the pontifications then filter down that low-carb diets can today be seen villains of the story, are unlikely to as gospel truth to the students and as compatible with scientific evidence take this heresy lying down. medical graduates. and best practice. In their recently published book, Lore Totally ignored is the very obvious It should be obvious that the of Nutrition, Noakes and his co-author fact that the avalanche of metabolic purveyors of junk food such as Kellogs reputed medical writer Marika Sboros, disorder, obesity, heart disease, arterial and Coca-Cola have a vested interest conclude that it is these interests disease and Type 2 diabetes seems to in pushing their carbohydrate-loaded that lie behind the campaign against originate from the 1960s, just when the products. They are also in the forefront Noakes. In a concluding chapter, food triangle was turned on its head of demonising fats to distract attention Sboros sets out to name and shame all and carbohydrates were promoted as from carbohydrates, especially sugar. the doctors, dieticians, and academics the most important component of our As significant, although perhaps who used their power and positions diet, to the virtual exclusion of meat, less obvious: many of the bodies that to embark on sustained campaigns dairy and fat. Five decades of popula- have conspired to discredit Noakes attacking both Noakes’s character and tion studies are surely enough to show share these vested interests. It that this is where the problem lies. simply requires taking a closer look The high personages in medicine at the sponsorships they receive from have come to share some of the features the likes of Kellogs and Coca-Cola of long-term financial gurus who often (through innocuous-sounding front get it wrong quite spectacularly, but organisations such as the Association The avalanche of carry on as though nothing much has for Dietetics in South Africa, and the happened. International Life Sciences Institute), As mentioned, HRT was widely and the large research grants from metabolic disorder, prescribed to post-menopausal women. drug companies that the medical facul- While short-term benefits were undeni- ties at all our universities have come to obesity, heart disease, able, the long-term damage to women’s rely upon. health has now become obvious. These research grants have plenty During my stay in the surgery depart- of strings attached. It has been long arterial disease and ment at Witwatersrand University, known that the best indicator of the gastric ulcers were treated according to outcome of a research trial is the inter- the dictums of Prof D J du Plessis: “Cut ests of the sponsors and funding organ- Type 2 diabetes seems them out!” The treatment consisted of isations. One only has to look back to savage surgical mutilation of the upper the ’50s to find “learned” physicians to originate from the gastrointestinal tract, producing three denying the link between smoking generations of gastric cripples. This is cigarettes and lung cancer. No prizes not an understatement. The profession for guessing that the funders were the 1960s when the food fought tooth and nail to discredit two big tobacco companies. young Australian upstarts who dared For at least four decades cholesterol to suggest at a medical conference that has been vilified as the cause of heart triangle was turned on a bacterium was the cause of gastric attacks. One of the biggest money-spin- ulceration. At Du Plessis’s instigation, ners for the drug industry happens to its head they were laughed out of the confer- be a class of drug called statins. These ence. cause a lowering of blood cholesterol Undaunted, the pair went on to show and are considered by the anointed that Helicobacter Pylorum was the professors of medicine to be an all- culprit and, happily, today the treat-

14 ment for gastric ulceration consists of a Noakes failed on every point. The pros- alleged by Noakes to actually show the course of antibiotics and some stomach ecuting legal representatives of the reverse of what it purports to prove. Its acid inhibitors. No longer do you have HPCSA failed to appreciate the subtle author, despite being able to attend, your stomach and digestive tract all difference between cross-examination mysteriously did not do so, thereby but surgically removed and vital nerves and examining crossly. avoiding being pitted against Noakes severed, with all the resulting digestive It would also appear that they and and his counsel. Probably a wise move. chaos. their witnesses were poorly prepared. In the last chapter of Lore of Nutrition The two Australians, Barry Marshall They were driven to make major conces- titled “Closure”, Sboros speculates that and Robin Warren, gained the Nobel sions under the probing cross-examina- the HPCSA hearing – which has run Prize in Medicine. (At Wits Du Plessis’s tion of Noakes’s senior counsel, advo- up legal bills in excess of R10 million ulcer regime is forgotten and he is, cates Mike van der Nest and Rocky against him – might not have happened quite rightly, acknowledged to have Ramdass. In contrast to the evidence at all were it not for the inflammatory been an extremely talented surgeon presented by the HPCSA – if it could open letter to the Cape Times attacking responsible for schooling three genera- be called scientific evidence at all – Noakes in 2014, which was signed by tions of surgeons of high repute.) Noakes was able to bring an avalanche the four UCT professors. In an astoundingly uncollegial way, of data-based evidence supporting the How and why did parties with Noakes’s colleagues at the University of LCHF diet. little or no knowledge of the details of Cape Town medical school wrote a joint It seems that the prosecution team Noakes’s work, such as Professor John letter to the Cape Times on 22 August was confused between ketoacidosis, Terblanche, a former head of surgery 2014. The letter was signed by: Prof which is a dangerous medical condi- at UCT, and Professor Denise White, Wim de Villiers, then Dean of Medicine tion, and ketosis, where the body a psychiatrist (now deceased), choose at UCT who is now Rector and Vice- uses ketones derived from burning to become involved, unless it was part Chancellor of Stellenbosch University; fat to supply energy. This is quite of the general umbrage taken at a Prof Bongani Mayosi, head of the harmless, as demonstrated recently cheeky puppy suggesting that anointed Department of Medicine at Groote by Dr Otto Thanning when he swam members of the club could just possibly Schuur Hospital and UCT; Prof Lionel the English Channel on the “Noakes be wrong? Opie (now emeritus); and Associate diet”, using ketones as his source of Equally mysterious: why did some Prof Marjanne Senekal, head of the energy – incidentally making it into the of the prosecution witnesses fail to UCT’s Division of Human Nutrition in Guinness Book of Records. That’s how declare their vested interests upfront? the Health Sciences faculty. dangerous ketones are for you. Why were the front companies and In the letter, they accuse Noakes of Noakes pointed out material errors sponsors not declared to the tribunal? maligning the integrity and credibility in a paper by Dr Celeste Naudé of the Many would consider this to have been of his peers. This is a bit rich; I was Centre for Evidence-based Health Care sharp practice. not aware that entering into scien- at Stellenbosch University’s Faculty This trial may yet turn out to be a tific debate and voicing dissenting of Medicine and Health Sciences. But, repeat of the trial of Galileo all those opinion was tantamount to maligning says Noakes, these have yet to be centuries ago when he dared argue colleagues who hold a different view. adequately addressed. that the earth revolved around the sun Turning to Noakes’s HPCSA hearing, This was the slender evidence that and not the other way around as then it has had all the appearances of a witch- launched the prosecution. What if it is believed. hunt, poorly thought out and likely to wrong? Let’s hope the popes and cardinals of discredit the organisation. Before the The other major prosecution docu- medicine don’t take as long to find out appointed tribunal, the charges against ment – prepared by one “Rossouw” – is that Noakes was right all along. n

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NOSEWEEK February 2018 15 Investigation into KZN killings on trial Is the Moerane Commission an important cathartic exercise, as some witnesses believe, or is it just another fruitless enterprise likely to be buried by a compromised ANC? By Desiree Erasmus

SELESS, FRUITLESS AND EXPENSIVE. few common threads that are hardly the hiring of venues across the prov- That’s what the more cyni- secret: the ANC is dysfunctional, ince,” said Mchunu. cal witnesses who have tes- divided, prone to violence, and some Thabiso Zulu, self-styled corrup- tified think of the Moerane party members are implicated in the tion-buster and friend of slain former Commission, the three-per- killings for reasons that include greed ANC Youth League secretary general sonU panel tasked with investigating – particularly a desire to climb the Sindiso Magaqa, used his two-day politically linked violence and killings tenderpreneur ladder – and maintain testimony in October to thoroughly in KwaZulu-Natal. or elevate patronage networks or one’s vent his spleen. He alleged that But there are also those who have status within the organisation. Magaqa, who had been a PR councillor described the commission as cathartic. But one can also not rule out garden- at Umzimkhulu Local Municipality They are hoping it will reveal the variety criminality and turf wars over at the time of his death, was gunned perpetrators of political violence and taxi routes, particularly where ANC down because he had discovered the network of people who are paid to members and officials own taxis. multi-million-rand corruption within kill, as well as expose whoever leads It has been estimated by the prov- Umzimkhulu, which falls under Harry and influences the network. ince’s transport department that 61 Gwala District Municipality. Established in October 2016 by people have been killed in taxi-related In his December testimony, Umzim- KZN premier Willies Mchunu, and led violence since 2014, in a turf war khulu Mayor Mphuthumi Mpabanga by advocate Marumo Moerane SC, it between the Klip River and Sizwe taxi denied any form of corruption. is not the practical workings of the associations in the Ladysmith area Zulu told the commission: “I don't commission that lends itself to cyni- alone. have money, PR firms to spin things cism, but rather the possibility [proba- In his October testimony, the ANC’s on my behalf and I don’t have secu- bility? – Ed] that, if detrimental to the KZN chairman Sihle Zikalala said rity. The only thing I have is the truth, ANC, any significant revelations will that, by the party’s own assessment documents and courage”. be swept aside, played down or simply “which is based on law-enforcement “I hope you can take the pressure kept from the public. reports we have analysed, the prov- from politicians who might ask the Although Moerane has said the ince has recorded more than 80 polit- commission not to release the report commissioners want the final report ical killings since 2011”. because they say it could disrupt the released, this is mostly an ANC Zikalala said that victims included 2019 elections. They are under siege problem – and a highly contentious party members and leaders, council- and under pressure and [will think national election is looming. lors and candidate councillors. He also that] releasing the report will affect The commission held its first public said that 19 party members had been votes,” he said. hearing on 20 March 2017, but the killed since January 2016 up until In January, Zulu told Noseweek the groundwork for investigations started the time of his testimony. Two more establishment of the commission was in January. Up until December 2017, members were killed a month after “not a wrong thing”, adding that it over 50 people had testified before Zikalala testified. was led by “respectable people”. Moerane and fellow commissioners Premier Mchunu’s office is financing “The commission may be remem- Vasu Gounden and Professor Cheryl the commission, with R10-R15 million bered like many other commissions Potgieter. budgeted for the task. “This includes before it: a circus, where a lot of Several witnesses sought protection the remuneration of the chairperson, money was spent on lawyers, where before and after testifying. other members of the commission, those who sought justice for their The commission has been extended the secretariat and other personnel loved ones went and cried, pleading into 2018 as more witnesses come involved in the commission and with commissioners to help them forward wanting to testify. related expenses, disbursements, and find closure and thereafter nothing Almost all testimonies follow a costs, including costs associated with happened,” said Zulu.

16 Vasu Gounden, chairman Marumo Moerane and Professor Cheryl Potgieter of the Moerane Commission

It would be a tragedy, he said, if degree than any of the other commis- lies can receive justice, closure and the commission’s final report ended sions of inquiry, that, to date, have compensation,” Burger said. up “gaining dust in some office some- proved to be of little purpose other Her testimony before the commission where” or if “politicians and securo- than costing South Africans vast in July last year could be compared to crats” used the report to determine amounts of money while allowing a right hook to a hornet’s nest as she how much the public knows. offenders to act with impunity,” said declared that Glebelands was a haven But, said Zulu, the commission Burger. Those flaccid efforts would for hitmen operating throughout KZN could also serve as a “monument of include the Matthews, Seriti, Hefer, and in other provinces, sometimes at truth” where brave witnesses told Khampepe and Farlam commissions the behest of politicians or police. the world about the deaths of their of inquiry. Glebelands is a sprawling, squalid, friends, parents, husbands, brothers “The commission’s terms of refer- overcrowded complex that consists of and sisters. ence allow for full enforcement of the 71 blocks and about 22,000 residents. “They did so knowing that they may law. This must happen without polit- Burger said that while the newer have signed their own death warrants. ical interference so that victims’ fami- blocks consisted of family units, the They did so knowing that they would medium and older blocks housed up to be targets of a band of securocrats, 10 people per room “at least” – rooms rogue elements, hitmen and corrupt designed to accommodate four people. politicians. But they did it anyway. Besides hitmen, the hostel is known “If the commission were to fail those to be a haven for criminals who extort brave men and women who appeared money from residents and taxi owners. before it, who by appearing there were It would be a Burger said that money obtained ready to sacrifice their own sweat, during the “collections” was used to tears and blood for the truth, then tragedy, he said, if buy weapons, including police rifles, the commission, to quote Roman poet which were used in politically linked Horace, would be ‘equal to a mountain the commission’s violence and other criminal acts. that went into labour for a thousand Her testimony was corroborated years only to give birth to a ridiculous when evidence leader, senior state mouse’.” final report ended advocate Bheki Manyathi, revealed Community activist Vanessa Burger during questioning that four witnesses – best known for her work with up ‘gaining dust who testified earlier in the year had victims of violence and alleged police made similar assertions. torture at Umlazi’s bloody Glebelands in some office Manyathi said that those witnesses Hostel (nose201) – told Noseweek that testified that the killings in the prov- the commission had performed well ince and Glebelands were a result of “in exposing the systemic rot at the somewhere’ “politics, power, financial enrichment, root of KZN's violence”. criminality and failure on the part “[But] it remains to be seen whether of the eThekwini municipality, SAPS justice will be served to any greater and Durban Metro Police”.

NOSEWEEK February 2018 17 Police stand guard outside Block 52 of Umlazi’s Glebelands Hostel as commissioners inspected the squalid complex last year

Burger said that more than 90 assault and torture at Glebelands. constraints which could have resulted deaths in the province could be linked In December, testifying for the in non-compliance with standard to hitmen based at the hostel. Ipid, national head of investigations operating procedures. “Appropriate Burger also told commissioners Matthews Sesoko told the commission action will be taken against members that the KZN office of the Independent that its KZN office was under investi- found to have acted contradictory to Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) gation but denied that it was dysfunc- the said policy.” was “dysfunctional” as it had failed to tional. He said his national office had Testifying in July, S’bu Zikode, collect technical reports from patholo- noted concerns [and] conceded that founder and leader of the shack- gists, had done nothing about the there were challenges within the KZN dwellers’ movement Abahlali baseM- alleged supply of firearms to warring office. It had “instituted an investi- jondolo, outlined the brutality factions by a policeman living at the gation into such allegations by [its] perpetrated against shack-dwellers hostel, and had failed to hold iden- Integrity Strengthening Unit”. that had resulted in several deaths tity parades of police officers alleged Sesoko said the “ongoing inves- (nose215). He placed the blame for to be involved in some of the cases of tigation” had identified capacity the violence at the feet of eThekwini

18 mayor Zandile Gumede and the ANC. “I do think [the commission] will be a success, and will do what it’s supposed to do as per its mandate. It will probably exceed government expectations. However I do not believe government will take seriously or implement its recommendations,” Zikode told Noseweek. “Government has, up until today, never attempted to take reasonable steps to end [the killings in the province]. Instead, they just want to be seen to be doing some- thing about it when they simply do not care. “We are living evidence in our move- ment: no arrests or serious inves- tigations were undertaken on the murdering of housing activists. The step taken to initiate the commission is a real a worry for the ruling party and those killing politicians within it,” he said. But Zikode also told Noseweek that he found the commission to be “useful” and “a healing moment”. Corruption fghter Thabiso Zulu, “For the first time in our history friend of slain former ANCYL secretary of losing comrades we were given a general Sindiso Magaqa chance to publicly give testimony on our side of the story and how we feel about it. At least the public is now going to reclaim the confidence of poor aware of how our loved ones were communities and how we are going killed with impunity,” he said. to trust that they can protect us and “In many of these instances the that hitmen may no longer be paid state (police) and the ruling party with taxpayers’ money,” he said. were implicated. The biggest chal- The are leading the inves- lenge though will be how the state is tigations into the KZN killings through a political task team formed over the course of 2016 and 2017, but “Glebelands matters do not form National head of part of the task team investigations”, according to Hawks spokesperson, investigations Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi. He said that since its inception the task team had received 44 cases, 25 of Matthews Sesoko which were still under investigation, with 19 in court. “At least 69 arrests told the commission have been made thus far and 28 fire- IF YOU RENT PROPERTY arms seized.” KEEP THIS NUMBER that its KZN “It is unfortunate that most of the cases we are dealing with are purported to be politically motivated. I CAN HELP YOU WITH office was under The task team is charged with inves- PROBLEM TENANTS tigating these matters. It must be I CAN ASSIST YOU WITH THE investigation but understood from this background that all cases are referred to the task team RENTAL HOUSING TRIBUNAL denied that it was based on the severity of the incident. IF YOU DON’T NEED ME NOW, All cases are treated as murder cases dysfunctional thus meaning the motives will only YOU WILL LATER be determined during and after the JOHN: 082 901 0824 trial,” he told Noseweek. n

NOSEWEEK February 2018 19 The aerotropolis in Zuma’s back yard Madcap collaboration with Russians included 100MW nuclear power station outside Maritzburg. By Jonathan Erasmus

BIZARRE PLAN TO BUILD A MEGA enough emerged however that Odef at a BRICS summit held in Ufa, “aerotropolis” outside Pieter- was merely a proxy for unidenti- Russia.) The Odef delegation started maritzburg, to be called the fied Russian interests – of which the their South African tour with a visit to JG Zuma Aviation Centre – as Russian government was one. President Zuma, where their project first revealed in nose219 – in- Odef’s top management, together received his official blessing. cludedA a proposal to build a 100MW with their various Russian collabora- KwaZulu-Natal – despite having nuclear power plant next door to the tors, arrived in South Africa to canvass no sites designated for South Africa’s KZN capital. for the project just 10 days after presi- official nuclear programme – had The entire “aerotropolis” project was dents Vladimir Putin and played host, just eight months earlier, officially to have been financed and had signed a “collaboration” agreement to a secret conference between the built by a mysterious Czech Republic relating to South Africa’s planned Department of Energy and Russia’s non-profit organisation called Open R1-trillion nuclear programme. (That nuclear agency Rosatom at Champagne Doors of Europe Fund (Odef). It soon agreement was signed on 8 July 2015 Sports Resort in the Drakensberg.

20 The aerotropolis also known as government); and set up a South “Project Jacob” reeked of pure fantasy. African company (a “special purpose It was to include a Russian plane ‘Project Jacob’ vehicle”) called Avrora SA (Pty) Ltd manufacturing plant, a rail-based coal to undertake the development. Even terminal, university campus, and an air the Russian Ambassador to South terminal with a 4km runway capable of reeked of pure Africa Mikhail Petrakov was kept in landing international flights. the loop. In 2015 the project was costed at One insider with direct knowledge US$21,3 billion (about R300bn at the fantasy. It was to of the airport deal told Noseweek that time) which Odef proposed lending the Russians had made it clear there to South Africa at “1%-2% interest”. were “two prices they were willing to All they wanted was for the bill to include a Russian pay: the official one and the unofficial be underwritten by the government, one” and they appeared to be flush effectively guaranteeing their return with cash. on investment. Odef saw the South plane-building plant, In documents seen by Noseweek African government as its client. the airport power plant was initially But the entire project failed because a rail-based coal expected to be a 500MW coal plant, Odef’s local partners failed to convince however, according to Mario Grothe, a the National and KZN Treasuries Germany-based consultant who acted to provide the guarantees required terminal, university for Odef, they intended to build a by their Russian funders. There 100MW thorium-based nuclear reactor was also an inordinate amount of instead. Grothe’s company, Global infighting, driven by greed, for control campus, and an air Union was also the lead consultancy of the proposed mega-billions that was for the airport. expected to pour into the country. The mooted Maritzburg nuclear The project’s failure was not through terminal with a 4km power plant was not the only energy a lack of trying. They had got Zuma’s project that interested Odef. They pledge of support; had schmoozed his claimed to have a “general agree- son Edward Zuma; met the then-KZN runway for landing ment” with the Public Investment premier and various Corporation and claimed to have made government officials; involved a black available “€5 billion” as debt financing empowerment partner (that had no international flights for the Ilanga Concentrating Solar capital but was fronting for the KZN Power (CSP) project in the Northern

Left to right: South African businessman and fxer Dr Austin Bene, Russian businessman Alexander Tokmurzin, Thorium nuclear specialist Trevor Blench, Stanislava Rousova from Open Doors of Europe Fund, Russian engineer Oleg Vasiliev and German consultant Michael Will

NOSEWEEK February 2018 21 Cape in which the PIC holds a 20% reactors respectively. that there was no real money available stake. In South Africa, STL has been and he wasn’t convinced that the aero- However, Noseweek was told by the designing a gas-cooled, small-modular tropolis made economic sense. solar project developer, Pancho Ndebele pebble-bed reactor, the HTMR-100 “They were after crumbs,” he said in from Emvelo Holdings (Pty) Ltd, that that according to Blench will not “melt reference to South Africa’s proposed they did not take up the option. The down like the water-cooled reactors at trillion-rand nuclear programme. PIC ignored numerous requests to Fukushima”. He has also advocated Grothe, whose consultancy special- outline their relationship with Odef. that Thorium is a safer nuclear fuel. ises in energy deals, said it made sense Grothe said the nuclear option was But one of the problems Thorium to talk to Blench as he was based in even mooted to the Department of lobbyists have faced is that there aren’t South Africa. He said the country was Energy as a possible project to be many operational examples of Thorium well positioned in its understanding of included in the Independent Power being used and the nuclear industry is alternative nuclear fuels after mooting Producer programme most commonly sceptical of design and fuel changes for the now-mothballed pebble bed associated with renewable energy. obvious reasons. modular reactor. Many involved in the Grothe said the regulations forbidding Blench told Noseweek he’d need at PBMR also worked for Blench. private companies to own a nuclear least US$1bn to build his plant, so Grothe said he had even approached power plant were “irrelevant” as ulti- when he was called by Will, he hopped the Department of Energy to consider mately their client was always going to on to a plane from Cape Town in the the HTMR-100 being included at the be the South African government. hope that he had a real investor. airport and that they considered the “Everything that was designed “Michael Will invited me to meet option. “We are also working with was created for the ownership of the them. I flew to Durban, we met, they Chinese with regards to [Thorium] government,” said Grothe. showed me their airport site and they technology.” He said he was not However he said the investors said they wanted to build my reactor currently involved in any nuclear willing to provide the debt capital for in Kazakhstan and China. They also projects in South Africa. the nuclear plant were “another group floated the idea of building a 100MW In Odef’s only listed annual report of Russians” and not the same lot modular reactor in Pietermaritzburg. available online (for 2014/15 and wanting to build the airport. They mentioned they had met various released in January 2016) they said Shortly after meeting Zuma in July people in the nuclear industry too. that, having met with Blench they 2015, Global Union consultant Michael Rousova said they would get the moved to the “marketing stage” to build Will, along with Odef president funding and claimed to have sway with his Thorium-fuelled power plants. Stanislava Rousova and two Russian the government in South Africa. The annual report said companies in businessmen with ties to the Russian “They claimed they were getting Kazakhstan, Georgia and China had government, Alexander Tokmurzin involved in South Africa’s nuclear already shown an interest and that the and Oleg Vasiliev, met with Trevor programme but no documents were project was being driven by Grothe. Blench who is an active proponent ever made available. After several The report went on to state that on 13 of the mineral Thorium as a stable months and telephonic conversations November 2015 they signed confiden- nuclear fuel substitute for uranium the deal went quiet.” tiality agreements with three partners and plutonium. Blench said he had the impression to build the electricity plants. Blench Blench owns a sizeable stake in last heard from Odef and Global Union Steenkampskraal Thorium Limited in mid-2016. (STL). The company operates a The opaqueness in how Odef oper- monazite mine about 350km north Blench said he’d ates – from a small office above a school of Cape Town. Monazite is a primary supply store in Brno, Czech Republic ore made up of several rare-earth – makes it hard to believe they are a metals such as cerium, lanthanum need at least US$1bn legitimate enterprise. Judging by their and thorium. Steenkampskraal is also annual report it appears their sole supported by the likes of Norway’s purpose is to convince developmental Thorium Foundation, a South Korean to build his plant, so states such as Sudan and Kazakhstan nuclear agency, the US nuclear giant to provide state guarantees to large Westinghouse, and has shares in when he was called projects in which Odef would provide a Norwegian company called Thor the debt financing, consultants, devel- Energy. Thor Energy, in turn, uses a opers and builders. Norwegian government nuclear reactor by Will he hoped They appeared to be more like in Halden, Norway, to run nuclear tests economic hitmen attempting to lumber using Thorium. countries with unnecessary debt, Blench has gone on record several that he had a rather than – as it claims in its arti- times to advocate for Thorium. Blench cles of association – to work “closely plans to use the thorium mined by his with foreign entities” and “exchange, company to manufacture pellet and real investor cultural, spiritual, economic and social pebble thorium fuels to be used in relations” between the Czech Republic water-cooled reactors and gas-cooled and the world. n

22 Why you should never accept a drink, a cigarette and sandwich Veteran journalist and arts afcionado Len Ashton celebrates 15 years as Noseweek’s books editor. Sue Segar chats to him about his long career in newspapers and lessons he’s learnt on the job

RYING TO SUM UP HIS CAREER, LEN Ashton muses: “I’ve met ex- traordinary people and done some extraordinary things – a long way from Klerksdorp”. That’sT where Ashton grew up, having been born en route to the dusty min- ing town while his parents were in the throes of moving their family there. He and his seven siblings were born to an English mother and Irish father. His maternal great-grandfather had come to South Africa with the Coldstream Guards during the Anglo- Boer War. Ashton’s father ran shops and then worked in the mines “Ours was a very Irish family, of painters and writers – a lot of us – and part of our energy came from a determination to get the hell out of Klerksdorp!” Len’s oldest brother Bill became a renowned portrait painter in Johannesburg and was commissioned Len Ashton in in 1975 flanked by Maud Adams and OJ Simpson who to paint, among others, the Chancellor were in South Africa during the filming of Killer Force of Wits University and the mining- house bosses. His brother Ronald visits to places like Universal Pictures proclaimed Klipdrift a republic, with was a choreographer and another to interview film stars. Stafford Parker as first (and only) brother, Terence, became a teacher at Ashton began his career straight president. The British decided other- Pretoria Boys High School. Years later, out of school, at The Star newspaper, wise and imposed their rule on the Lord Peter Hain would pay a moving and went on to become arts editor pioneers. Those who lived there called tribute to Terence in an interview with for several of the country’s top news- it the Diamond Fields Republic but in The Guardian, saying that Terence papers. fact, it was part of the colony.” Ashton had played a vital role in his “That impulse to be creative and There’s a photo of a dashing young life, especially when the young Hain outgoing in the world is hereditary,” Len reclining on a lawn, “somewhere in arrived home with his younger brother says Ashton. He shows me a photo- Pretoria” along with a woman, “Bond one day, to find that both his parents graph of his great-grandpa, Stafford girl” Maud Adams, and a younger O J had been arrested. Parker, “a bit of a lovable rogue”. “He Simpson – both visiting South Africa We’ve spent a lovely afternoon in was president of the Diamond Fields for the movie Killer Force. In another Ashton’s pad in Vredehoek, Cape Town, Republic for a whole year before the photograph, there is Len, looking going through some of his memorabilia British said, ‘you can’t go on like this!’” every bit as glamorous as the young – copies of magazines he’s edited, clip- He explains: “A bunch of prospectors Canadian actress he’s posing with – pings from his vast body of journalistic found diamonds in the area between Geneviève Bujold (who played Anne work, photographs, and souvenirs of the Vaal and the Harts rivers and Boleyn in the 1969 movie Anne of the

NOSEWEEK February 2018 23 Thousand Days). Names of famous people Ashton’s met during his career slip off his tongue: Gregory Peck; Jack Lemmon; Olivia de Havilland… “What you really remember is the individ- uals,” he says. “Sometimes the person is a reverse of the public impression.” Ashton has reviewed innumerable plays and movies and interviewed a vast range of people, from politicians to business leaders, to authors and film stars. He recalls once arriving at Parliament, smartly dressed in a suit for the occasion, to interview Baleka Mbete (whose was then serving her first term as Speaker). When she came to meet him in the lobby, she looked right past him then said: “I hadn’t expected anyone this organised.” Ashton has “always been interested in words”. In standard five, at primary school in Klerksdorp, he won the prize With Canadian actor Geneviève Bujold at United Artists studio in Hollywood for the best serial story – earning a copy of Tom Sawyer. Rumour was that she’d been his lover. Bureau in Fleet Street for three years He went off to Boys We were all agog.” and on his return became arts editor High as a boarder. “The judges sent Then followed a few years of court of the Pretoria News. “I remember a their boys there from Pretoria. I would reporting, first in the magistrate’s young guy coming into my office one tell my mother the food was the best. courts and then the supreme court. He day and saying, ‘I can write. Give me It enraged her.” covered a bit of water polo and other some stuff to do.’ His name was Martin While at high school, he wrote to the sports in between. He also interviewed Welz.” editor of The Star and applied for a job. people, but it was the arts that had the Next, Ashton become arts editor of “They wrote back to me courteously most appeal and really drew him. The Sunday Times, where his career and said, ‘we will see you once you Ashton spent a few years in London, took off. “I had a lot of fun doing lots of have done your exams’.” He got the job. on one occasion, working for Reuters. writing and reviewing, writing profiles “I went up, and then what happened He was also posted to The Argus and humour columns for the Leader is that newspapers educated me. page. They were all judgemental It was not just plain sailing. I was exercises. It takes a long time going disciplined. New recruits to The Star through the disciplines of journalism. started out in what was known as the ‘Ours was a very Irish One has to be slapped into shape to reader’s box. That’s where you read some degree and eventually you earn every word in the paper, including the right to comment and have your the smalls, for about six months. They family, of painters say. I have been fortunate in that way.” are testing your concentration and He had a large staff at that time, making sure you get the broad picture. including Gwen Gill and Jani Allen You read everything from the politics and writers – a lot of – “a highly intelligent young woman to the death notices. You had to prove who delivered a lot of useful fluff and you could concentrate on everything. entertainment. Her weakness was a It was a test of alertness. I enjoyed us – and part of our need for publicity. She was a fragile surviving it. I am pernickety about person who dressed dramatically and language. energy came from worked very hard.” “After that there was training. Ashton was promoted to assistant The Argus company had a very good editor of The Sunday Times and wrote training school. About 20 of us were a determination to leaders at a crucial time in South shipped to Cape Town and the old African history. mahogany boardroom at the top of the For many years he was a fixture on Argus building, Newspaper House, get the hell out of the panel of judges for the Fleur du Cap was our lecture room. Among the theatre awards. As an arts reviewer subjects we were taught was news- he was “out four or five nights of the papers and the law. Our Afrikaans Klerksdorp!’ week”. teacher, a fierce redhead, was execu- Ashton’s role at Noseweek, has trix of poet C J Langenhoven’s estate. included liaising with cartoonists for

24 the magazine’s covers. “Compared changing. It’s the electronic age. It’s with the hullaballo of my life before, no good if you’re in the news business, my time at Noseweek has been rela- trying to sell news, as it’s out before tively quiet, but interesting to see how you can run to a phone. It’s a more Martin Welz created his dream”. superficial world because it means Ashton has been married and there is not much time for thinking divorced twice, with children from about things and weighing them up. both unions. His second wife was an “I remember one of the early news American diplomat who was sent to events I watched covered on televi- India and then became Ambassador sion was the Six Day War. I was in to Tunisia. “We were together for only London. It was very dramatic but I three months of the year; it sounds kept thinking, there were so many glamorous but was not always easy.” flashes and bangs but was there any Among the most memorable books real analysis of what was going on? he has read, Ashton remembers a You soon realise you actually need to forbidden one from childhood, Great sit down and say 'wait, what does this Murders. “It was a whole set of books mean?’ which belonged to my father and I “I am sad to see the slow death of wasn’t supposed to see them as they newspapers. It relates to the superfi- were illustrated too. I was caught out ciality of things. We are all in such a eventually. They were gripping stories hurry. I was very lucky that my timing about horrible crimes, with illustra- was good in the print industry. I was tions of terrified people running away With friend in Tunisia in 1997 trained and went into the business from ghastly villains.” when it was big, strong, confident and Vanity Fair left a lasting impression sophisticated.” on him. “It was a setwork for one of the include the Indian director Mira Nair, Ashton, who describes himself as senior classes and I got hold of it. It’s who directed “one of the finest films a reticent man, not accustomed to an enormously accurate and exciting I have ever seen”, Farewell Bombay, being interviewed, says of his style observation of humanity. The author, about a child who lands up in that city of writing: “I was trained to be the William Makepeace Thackeray, was by mistake. In South Africa, a firm observer, it was strict training. You do a contemporary of Charles Dickens favourite is “extraordinary” actress not obtrude yourself. You get it right… and he had that realistic approach to Sandra Prinsloo. you get the meaning of whatever you writing. I remember guys at school A movie that stands out among the are observing. It is not a vanity trip. saying, ‘why are you reading that? You hundreds he has reviewed was the So there was no room for that kind of don’t have to’. 2003 epic war film Cold Mountain. thing. You got the facts and got the “It has to do with memorable, not “What a romance! It didn’t hurt that opposite side of the story.” black-and-white characters like Becky Nicole Kidman was at her radiant Can he name a lesson he has learnt Sharpe, who was not as good as she best. She is magnificently beautiful. from life? should or could have been but had to The movie had a restraint about it.” “As a young reporter I learnt not to survive, so she did the best she could. A highlight of Ashton’s career was take a drink, a sandwich and a ciga- “When I read that book, it was the meeting Nelson Mandela when he rette simultaneously. I was at a British first time I’d come across that kind visited the Weekend Argus. “His hand Embassy reception. A beautiful, of character: sophisticated and true. was like a boxer’s hand. I found it very wicked woman wearing a hat came That’s how human beings are.” moving.” and offered them to me and I found I He also rates John le Carré as an And one of the most impressive couldn’t handle all three. Eventually all-time favourite. “I enjoy and envy people he’s met was Bram Fischer, the butler rescued me. his brilliant observation. He is like a whom he encountered as a cub reporter. “I’m also still learning how to make very good host. He entertains and he “Fischer was conducting a very compli- a proper contribution to friendships. surprises you. He’s one of the people I cated case to do with land rights in the A woman friend once asserted that would really like to meet. A friend of Pretoria Supreme Court. I couldn’t men are hopeless at sustaining society. mine was reading a Le Carré novel on really understand what was going on, ‘Women organise every social event the plane a few years ago and the guy so I approached him. He invited me to and men think these are things you next to him wanted to talk. All the way a café and, over a toasted cheese and attend.’ She had a point. So every two from London to New York my friend tomato sandwich he explained every- or three years I throw a party of some buried himself in his book. Guess thing with such clarity that, click, I kind, just to get friends around.” who the guy next to him was? It was understood! I thought, that is a mind! Fellow journalist and friend Jen Le Carré himself. Poor old Ian. The He was an extraordinary human being Crocker has a tale about Ashton: once author asked him if he’d enjoyed the with great charisma.” when he came to visit her in hospital book. Le Carré was the one person he’d What does Ashton think of the he brought her a bottle of Aromat as have loved to engage in conversation.” decline of the print industry? a gift – “because hospital food is so Characters who have fascinated him “It’s depressing but the world is bland”. n

NOSEWEEK February 2018 25 Books Leading Europe out of darkness

MICHIEL HEYNS REVIEWS the Cold War the deaths of inno- of Brexit: “So was it all for England A Legacy of Spies by John le Carré cent people could be discounted as then? […] But whose England? Which (Viking) the necessary price for the defence England? England all alone, a citizen of democratic values, nowadays the of nowhere? I’m a European, Peter. If THIS IS, BY MY COUNT, LE CARRÉ’S 26TH innocent people or their progeny I had a mission – if I was ever aware novel, in a writing life extending from demand compensation from the face- of one beyond our business with the 1961 to the present. Possibly his best- less bureaucracy that caused or sanc- enemy, it was to Europe. […] If I had known novel is his third, The Spy tioned the deaths. But the agents of an unattainable ideal, it was of leading Who Came in from the Cold, of 1963. justice need to put a face on the face- Europe out of her darkness towards a It is not the least of the virtues of lessness, and Guillam’s is the one new age of reason. I have it still.” this latest work to send one back to that comes up: he is being sued for Is it fanciful to see in Smiley’s testa- that early masterpiece. For, though A €1 million by the surviving son of Alec ment the 86-year-old Le Carré’s own Legacy of Spies can stand on its own Leamas. To save his skin, he must tell credo? perfectly well, it leans heavily on the the story of Operation Windfall. earlier novel for its backstory, and I So Guillam, who hardly features in found myself rereading The Spy the the earlier novel, takes centre stage, LEN ASHTON REVIEWS moment I’d finished the and we are given the Churchill & Smuts: The Friendship by recent novel, this time same events, or many Richard Steyn with the added pleasure of the same events, (Jonathan Ball Publishing) of knowing where it was from a very different all going to lead in the angle. Leamas is now OH, THE BLUSHFUL IRONY OF IT; RICHARD 44 intervening years. a legendary character, Steyn’s fine study of the mutually Where it leads to is a and even the villains respectful relationship between two little farm in Brittany, of that piece – the vile historic free speech champions carries where Peter Guillam, Hans-Dieter Mundt, the a foreword calculated to appease ex-member of George enigmatic Fiedler, the authoritarian word police. Smiley’s stable of spies treasonous Bill Haydon – This verbal curtsey reminds us that at the Circus, head- have gone to their deserts. South Africa is a terminological mine- quarters of the Secret The Circus has moved to field and that, in Smuts’s time, law Intelligence Service, is a concrete monstrosity and custom distinguished between trying to live a quiet on the Thames, and race groups. “In the book I have used life. Guillam, in his day the functionaries inter- the racial descriptions applicable at one of the lustiest and rogating Guillam are the time, so that the words ‘native’, randiest of spies, is now young, breezy, cocksure. ‘black’ and ‘African’, for instance, are a septuagenarian of retired though Some of the best scenes in the novel used interchangeably”. not celibate habits, and is not pleased are those between the senior Secret Steyn’s two lifelong protagonists of to receive a summons to London, to Service Lawyer – named Bunny! – and free speech must be spinning in their his old employers, in accordance with a taciturn, wily Guillam, the one all graves at the current vogue for limp his “lifelong duty to attend, should perky insincere charm, the other all and confusing euphemism. But clearly Circus needs dictate”. surly evasiveness. But slowly the story the publishers are wary of trouble Arriving in London, Guillam of Operation Windfall emerges, as from deeply sensitive readers. One discovers that Circus needs dictate grippingly as the first time, this time would hate to provoke a recurrence of that he divulge all he can remember of with additional material in the person book-burning. Operation Windfall, a “British decep- of “Tulip”, an East German defector Principles derived from hard tion operation… mounted against the Guillam was in love with. lessons learned in two brutal world East German Intelligence Service The theme both novels have in wars could usefully be applied in (Stasi) in the late nineteen fifties and common is explicated at the end of contemporary South Africa. Both early sixties [that] resulted in the this one by Peter Guillam, in a conver- Churchill and Smuts did valiant death of the best British secret agent I sation with a reclusive Smiley: “[H] battle internationally after the ever worked with and of the innocent ow much of our human feeling can we end of hostilities, to persuade the woman for whom he gave his life.” The dispense with in the name of freedom, conquerors against concentrating on agent in question is Alec Leamas, The would you say, before we cease to feel vengeance, instead of taking the long- Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and either human or free?” term view and planning creatively. the woman is his lover, Liz Gold. If that question resonates in the Churchill argued that the Germans It transpires that the moral climate age of Trump, Smiley’s own question must be “clothed, sheltered and fed”, in London has changed: where during does so no less eloquently, in the age and warned that the Allies “ought not

26

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Winston Churchill and Jan Smuts in 1942 • Once Fellowship status has been acquired – upon to be drawn into extravagances by the demonstrated the warmth of their successful completion of the fullness of their victory”. growing relationship. An extract: “All two-year Fellowship In 1918, Smuts, with customary the many kindnesses and services you Admission Course – foresight, spent the final months of rendered to me in the stormy ups and Members are eligible for war agonising about the difficulties downs of the great struggle have made admission to the panel of of the coming peace. A speech drafted a lasting impression on my mind. I by Smuts for British Prime Minister can never forget your sympathy and arbitrators from which Lloyd George proclaimed “in the comradeship. I shall always look back on appointments are made. language of moral and those fierce, crowded days political principle” that and in them I shall always Britain’s war aims were see your friendship and The following courses are now based upon achieving courage and wise counsel.’’ open for registration in 2018: justice for those who And they cemented their had suffered, rather mutual respect in, and • Accelerated Course for than a desire for venge- after, the Second World ance”. The British econ- War. They understood Advocates and Attorneys; omist John Maynard each other intellectually • Certificate in Arbitration; Keynes, with Smuts’s and physically. Their active encouragement, differences supplemented • Fellowship Admission penned a devastating each other. Both were Course; critique of the eventual highly intelligent, both • Specialisation in vengeful war settle- were soldiers, both were ment terms, titled The idealists with broad inter- Construction Law. Economic Consequences national perspectives. of the Peace. They were free spirits Churchill, in his inimi- with profound faith in the table style, wrote that the economic life benefits of democracy. Both would have Closing Date of Germany was “essential to our own been puzzled by the current South 28 February 2018 peace and prosperity. We do not want African tendency to “think small”. a land of broken, scheming disbanded They were zestful, admired and ideal- armies, putting their hand to the sword istic participants in world affairs. To enroll, kindly send an email to: because they cannot find the spade or Perhaps the new political leadership of the hammer”. this country will begin to demonstrate [email protected] After the First World War, Churchill a broader appreciation of our place in wrote a personal letter to Smuts which the world beyond our own back yard. n Visit our website: www.arbitrators.co.za NOSEWEEK February 2018 27

Letter from Umjindi BHEKI MASHILE

Farm murder. Burying New Year cheer

UST WHEN I THOUGHT OUR MZANSI I happen to have personal experience have been a frustrating development was going into the New Year with of something similar: early last year a for the women, not to mention the a rosier outlook – after the ANC group of women walked on to my farm emotional pain of being denied access elected a president who seems to and told me they were there on the to a loved-one’s grave. know what the term “moral fibre” advice of the police. Naturally, I am The moral of the story is that the meansJ – our optimism is slapped down baffled. Police? Why? police should have accompanied these by some idiotic incident that drains They explained that their rela- women to my farm – even if only to one’s patriotism and invites despond- tives are buried on my farm and they pave the way for a cooperative inter- ence. I am talking about the killing of would like to tend their graves. They action between myself and the women a mourner during a funeral on a farm said they had first gone to the police – but more, to stress that they have in Cramond near Pietermaritzburg. because they feared the farmer would the legal right to access the graves. This tragic incident might have been deny them access or worse. Unfounded The women also said the police avoided if only the police had heeded fears? Ask the police at Cramond. had told them that if I refused their the community’s reported request for Well, at first I was taken aback by request, there was nothing more they their presence at the funeral. the women’s fears. “Why would you be could do and they would have to apply News reports and broadcasts said afraid of me, I am one of you, black?” for a court order. Legal advice is not the farmer had objected to the burial They said they hadn’t known who what these women had sought from being conducted on his farm. The lived here, only that they would be the police; they had asked for police community, anticipating and fearing facing a farmer. protection from possible hostility and/ the farmer’s reaction, had asked the “The police then explained who you or harm – one of the police’s main police to be present but the police were and stressed that they doubted functions: to serve and protect. did not oblige. Now a man is dead we would face a problem – since you The Cramond tragedy has high- and another has ruined his life with wrote stories about things like this lighted one of the big problems en- almost certain prosecution for murder. in support of the negatively affected countered at our police stations: Why oh why did the police ignore community.” a laissez-faire attitude to many a the community’s request? Are they OK, Barberton is a small town and I request or complaint. For example: oblivious to the tense and volatile am certainly no stranger to the police. “Argh man he is your husband, can’t situation that surrounds our farm And yes, in my case they were spot you talk to him instead of putting him issues? If so, then Police minister on. However, they were also wrong to in jail?”. Fikile Mbalula needs to put the same reassure the women that they would Yes, without a doubt the farmer kind of energy into educating these find an accommodating Bheki beyond needs to face the full might of the cops about community policing as he the farm gate. law. After all, if the media reports are exerted in his previous position as What if Bheki had insisted to the anything to go by, he was carrying Sports minister when, a few years then Mpumalanga Department of three weapons and pumped three back, he was hellbent on trying to Land Affairs, that there was no land bullets into the deceased. However, he bring Beyoncé to South Africa for the claim on this farm? And what if he did is not the only one whose case should South African Sports Awards – at not want to have a bunch of people be examined in court. Heads need to enormous cost to the taxpayer. telling him about some grave of their roll at the Cramond Police Station. Thankfully Mbalula is Minister grandfather, mother etc on the farm? Someone there needs to explain why of Sport and Recreation no longer, Which is precisely what happened they failed to heed the community’s otherwise we could have had Beyoncé with these women and their graves. request for their presence. shaking her bootylicious at the ANC. And, while this Bheki might not pull And Cramond should send a thun- Yes, the man seemed obsessed with out a gun – as the Cramond farmer is derous message to Mbalula about the American singer. May he please alleged to have done – he could have community policing. I suggest the redirect that preoccupation into easily denied the women access and minister move his bootylicious and training his police service in commu- insisted they get proof of the validity address this weak spot. He definitely nity relations. of their claims to the graves. A process has a better chance of succeeding But let not the Mbalula-Beyoncé this writer knows well from covering with that than having dinner with humour dilute the serious message. land-claim cases. This would surely Beyoncé. n

28 Not rocket science SIBUSISO BIYELA

Religious groups. Cults by any other name

N A LAND OF CRIPPLING INEQUALITY AND many in its grip. crime, people look to charismatic So, is it fair to call such churches leaders to sell them the promise cults? Is it just a negative connota- of prosperity and paradise. South tion I and others have because we Africa is ripe for the taking. It is find some of their practices harmful? noI surprise that these leaders can be Are they really harmful, or do I just found housed in inner cities where the disagree with these practices because new-age church is the only source of I’m an atheist who hates personality joy on a dirty, dingy street. praise? I started thinking of these kinds of These are just some of the questions churches when I saw some footage of that Dr Stephan Pretorius, of the Tim Omotoso, a Nigerian charismatic University of South Africa, also raises pastor who operates in South Africa, in an article published in the Dutch where, at the end of a sermon, the self- Reformed Theological Journal. He proclaimed prophet and his entourage warns against over-generalising what make their way to a German car as we call a “cult”, and that the label does the large crowd of congregants literally not always have to be a negative one. throw themselves at him. Even as he The term cult can actually just refer to closes the car door, others kneel at the religious defectors who start their own wheels to get a chance to touch him, and Pastor Tim Omotoso church in protest of the teachings of many cling to the vehicle as it speeds another, or it can be a term incorrectly away on a crowded Durban street. I worked, accompanied by an entou- thrown around to describe groups “This is a cult,” I thought, amid all rage of bodyguards and servants who most of us consider weird. the chaos and extreme show of blind carried his heavy iPad for him. He conducted a study in the Journal devotion. How far does this supposed I saw the charm attributed to many of HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological devotion go? When news broke in early a cult leader swallow my colleagues Studies, where he interviewed former 2017 that Omotoso had been accused at the TV station: friends scrambled members of rural and urban cults of kidnapping and the sexual assault to catch a glimpse of this new-age across the country. Preferring to call of young female congregants, Hawks messiah clad in a shiny suit of his them “alternative religious groups”, and Home Affairs employees who are own unique style. The whole time I Dr Pretorius writes that people are members of his church allegedly tried had thought they adored the man drawn to these movements because of to assist him avoid arrest. ironically, but I later found out I was the love they get from other members, One congregant said she was pained wrong; even people outside his church among other benefits. Attractive is by the arrest and accusations. Another (kingdom?) believe in his powers and also the authoritative charismatic accused the alleged victims of lying divinity. leader who easily convinces them to about “Daddy”, a term of endearment That includes the Umzimkhulu join. for the leader. Municipal Council, it seems. Nala’s In the same study, Pretorius notes Then there is “Dr.” HQ Nala. I was church posted a video of him receiving that members of some alternative told I live under a rock for not knowing a royal welcome during a council religious groups felt their churches about him, but he is evidently a self- sitting, complete with a standing did not have a positive impact on their proclaimed king who has openly ovation and praise-singing by coun- lives, and that in fact, they struggled denounced Christianity in favour of cillors as he made his way to a white to “adapt to society and other religious his own Jesus-flavoured religion that throne situated opposite the corridor, groups after leaving the group”. embraces polygamy. all king-like. Servants brought him Cults or not, such churches have He registered on my bullshit detector his water and iPad, kneeling next to captured the hearts and minds of when I learned of his HIV-curing holy him, for Christ’s sake! many poor and vulnerable people all water sold at a premium price per I have no idea what business he has over South Africa. They are convinced bottle. I actually met the man when with the Umzimkhulu Municipality they’ve found their saviour, but I’m he came to a television station where but clearly his cult-leader charm has not so sure. n

NOSEWEEK February 2018 29 Last Word HAROLD STRACHAN

Tiger. Training for wings

DON’T SUPPOSE THERE’S air. This air in the air seems any reason why Witbank different from the air on the should have got less ugly ground, sort of brittle as it than it was 73 years ago: hisses and tears at my head. shabby feral gum trees I look at the empty instruc- sprungI at random about the tor’s cockpit and get a sudden flat untidy veld, dirty and dry shock at realising what dry dry, cracks in the brick- I’m doing. What if I should hard earth seeping wisps of suddenly go faint? What if sulphur dioxide gas, deadly, my arms should suddenly choking, from the perpetu- go numb, hey? What then, ally smouldering coal seams when I’m all alone? But in underground. But of course two twos I’m around the being so flat it was dead right circuit and on final approach for an airfield, that’s where and there still sits Bertie SAAF No 8 Air School was, with his fat arse on his para- and right over in a far corner chute and he hasn’t even I shared a room with Pupil done smoking his fag, things Pilots Vic and Biebie, fresh have happened so fast. out of school and training for I come close over his head our wings. throttled back. I hold her off Only a barbed-wire at a couple of feet and she boundary fence separates us from the At the fence I stop and he dumps his sinks so daintily to the ground that repellent landscape, and there one parachute pack on the grass, plants I feel the grass brushing her tyres Sunday morning as we come back his plump bum upon it and lights a before the wheels touch it. We do a from breakfast stands incongruously fag. I sit there in the Tiger and look at perfect three-point landing, no bounce a dainty blue-eyed schoolgirl with a him. He waves me away soundlessly, because she’s totally stalled, and halo of golden hair like the sun rising, telling me voetsak. Which I do. we roll just a few paces before stop- her dress is crisp delicate white It seems this Tiger hates waddling ping and turning back to fetch Bertie. against the grim background, her around on the ground, but we’re soon I pull up next to him, he heaves his voice delicate too, with an accompani- at the downwind end of the field, I parachute and bulbous buttocks into ment of soft gurgles from turtle doves. turn her into the wind and open the the cockpit and speaks to me over the Indeed her name is Dawn. throttle wide. In a few seconds her tail Tiger’s primitive hosepipe intercom: She is from that farmhouse over is up and she’s nipping tiptoe over the I’ll have biltong, he says, I don’t eat there and she wishes she were 18 tufts of grass and my ears are filled cake. like us and grown up so she too could with the loud hollow drumming of it, On Sunday I nip over to the canteen learn to fly. We expect to go solo soon, she’s resonant as a guitar with her and buy a big slice of chocolate cake we answer, and she gasps Oh I wish I wood-and-fabric construction. Then on a paper plate for Dawn, so do Vic wish I wish I could do that! It is tradi- abruptly the drumming stops and and BB with vanilla and lemon, and tion, say I, that when you go solo you it’s really happening: I’m flying solo! sure enough, there she is at the fence, should buy a cake for your instructor. I nudge the stick back at forty-five beaming at our success. So you did it! I’ll bring you one too. knots and without Bertie’s freight of she cries, Oh I wish, I wish, I WISH I Up among the clouds in the Tiger flesh aboard she springs so wildly into could! Moth the saturnine Bertie Wold in the the air that I have to push her down That awesome sense of reality, the front cockpit suddenly says “Take me again and hold her just off the grass, seizing of the sensory moment, these home,” and I head for Witbank. There then pull back slowly, and elegantly are the things of childhood that get I deftly side-slip off excess altitude she sails up to a thousand feet as if slowly lost to us grown-ups. But this and alight graceful as a seagull; now she has just risen from the hand of image remains sharp, sharp, clear: what will he think of that, hey? Noah. the dainty white dress against the “You drive this aeroplane like a shit- I wobble the wings and for the first shabby veld, the gurgling doves and cart,” says Bertie. “I’m getting out. time get that strange feeling that the cakes. And especially the sunrise Taxi back to the fence here.” they are my fingers stuck out in the golden hair. n

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NOSEWEEK February 2018 31