Part ii: (to be continued)
Perhaps I should recommend a copy each of Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco’s book, “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt,” to our new political Mandarins as a prescient manual of what the world they’re so eagerly creating in the “image and likeness” of white corporate capital looks like? That’s if they have the time to read, given their new hobby of counting money? So how did all of this happen, or put differently, how did such good intentions rot on the vine? Is it possible that the then imprisoned Nelson Mandela could have willingly decided to ‘betray’ the revolution by selling the poor short? Did the ANC deliberately short change itself during the negotiated settlement or was it something else? Lastly, surely the ANC can do more like allow the increase of the money supply; spend a bigger portion of the annual budget on building homes and increasing opportunities for entrepreneurship and new business ventures, now that it has been in power for 25-years?
Let’s go back to mid-ninety two just over a year after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, the ANC is establishing itself in South Africa and consolidating its funding and membership support base. We know now that Nelson Mandela was contacted by Harry Oppenheimer, the then head of the largest corporation in South Africa, Anglo-America for meeting. The initial meeting became a series of meetings between Mandela and white captains of industry, often held at the offices of the Development Bank of Southern Africa in Midrand, Johannesburg. In those meetings Nelson Mandela was reportedly told the following (through a combination of careful negotiation, bribery and even outright threats):
Nationalisation of the banks, mineral resources and the so-called, ‘monopoly industry’ will not be discussed in public, nor considered as a viable economic option again.
Industry and trade as per the provisions of “The Freedom Charter” as seminal foundational document of the ANC shall not be discussed in public, nor implemented as an economic strategy.
The land shall not be ‘re-divided’ amongst the people, nor shall there be any claim against any existing land owner/s, now or in the future.
The National Party debt (read Apartheid debt) shall be fully repaid once the ANC wins the election (as was anticipated), without any defaulting.
All the white MP’s members of parliament shall have their salaries and pensions due to them and paid monthly until their passing, in that event, their spouses shall be eligible to receive three-quarters of their monthly pensions until their passing, in which case no further claim can be made against the state.
All the white civil servants shall have their salaries and pensions due to them dutifully paid by the state.
There will be no imposition of a ‘wealth tax’ or any such similar tax on wealth and incomes of white business owners, wealthy white people or businesses both private and listed on the JSE or any other bourse.
The future ANC government shall not increase the tax rate as a percentage of GDP above the ceiling of 26%; else this will automatically disqualify it from any loans from the IMF, the World Bank or funding institutions aligned with these banks. (This provision was later introduced by the IMF)
There shall be a smooth handover of the state machinery to the ANC with zero mass retrenchments and the Minister of Finance shall be of the National Party’s choosing. Chris Liebenberg (a white man) served from 1994, till 1996, when Trevor Manual (a black ANC appointee) was allowed to take over the reins, after lengthy negotiations with the IMF……..
To be continued….
