Mandela’s legacy: the Shell House massacre

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by Dan Roodt

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Twenty years ago, on 28 March 1994, the ANC’s militia massacred a crowd of protesting Zulus in downtown Johannesburg, using automatic weapons against men armed only with symbolic “cultural weapons”, such as spears and cowhide shields. Mandela himself gave the order “to kill, if necessary”.

The official death toll ranges from 9 to 53, but anecdotal evidence suggests it may have been much larger. Pamela Wallace, a commenter on the Daily Maverick article on the massacre, claims that there was so much blood on the floors of the Johannesburg General Hospital on 28 March that staff had to wear gumboots:

My late husband was working at the Johannesburg General at the time. They wore gum boots as they waded in blood and that hospital alone declared more than a hundred and fifty dead when the official figure at the time was about ten. I wonder what that figure is today?

And here lies the rub: no-one has ever been charged with any wrongdoing! Mandela, who gave the order to mow down the Inkatha men, afterwards delivered a speech in parliament exonerating himself and placing the blame squarely on the Zulu nationalist movement. Even more curiously, the De Klerk government – who were still in charge at the time – did nothing to ensure justice for the many people who were killed on 28 March.

FW de Klerk was just a puppet leader at the time; his response to the Shell House massacre constitutes one more proof of his spineless expediency.

If ever I find the time, I want to write a proper history of South Africa from after World War II to the present, showing the rapid rise and decline of the Afrikaner nation. Thanks to the patriotic fervour of our people, our previously fine education system with its emphasis on literature, mathematics and science, we were able to build an industrial society on the African continent within a few decades. The whole of the subcontinent benefited from this feat and even today South Africa is considered an exception, surrounded by countries such as Zimbabwe and Mozambique that have held or are still holding the dubious position of “poorest country in the world”. The growing squalor, corruption and decay of present-day South Africa stands in stark contrast to the order, progress and optimism of the immediate postwar period. Ultimately Afrikaners were not conquered militarily, but they were utterly defeated through propaganda, terrorism and calumny.

In the grand scheme of the relentless propaganda war against Afrikaners, the armed police response to the black rioters at Sharpeville on 21 March 1960 became a cause célèbre and to this day is constantly referred to in the media worldwide, while Shell House and the ANC’s war crimes in the form of terrorist attacks on unarmed civilians go almost unmentioned. It is therefore curious that a liberal website such The Daily Maverick should even recall the events of Shell House as they did today, including some gruesome photographs of the bloodshed.

Incidents such as Shell House, together with the ANC and Communist Party’s terror campaign during the 1980s demonstrate the doctrine of “people’s war”, an apparently North-Vietnamese strategy whereby one gains “democratic support through terror and violence”. The seasoned political and historical researcher, Dr. Anthea Jeffery, wrote a lengthy book on the ANC’s strategy of People’s War: New Light on the Struggle for South Africa (Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2009), which explains why we were destined to become a one-party state.

Video warning the public against ANC terrorist bombings in the 1980s:

Communist Party leader Joe Slovo had a master plan to conquer South Africa through a combination of propaganda, people’s war and urban terror, in which he largely succeeded.

And still the carnage continues; just look at the murder of Afrikaner farmers today which have as object the destruction of the rural economy and agriculture. When there is famine, he who controls the food supply, controls the population, as Mengistu and his British “humanitarian” collaborators so amply demonstrated in Ethiopia.

South Africa remains in the grip of the ruthlessly radical people who summarily shot practically unarmed Zulu nationalist demonstrators in the streets of Johannesburg twenty years ago. That the whole of the so-called West, in the form of the USA and EU, still bend over backwards in rolling out the red carpet to them at every occasion, speaks volumes about the moral confusion that exists out there.

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Inkatha Freedom Party protests against compulsory labelling of Israeli products in South Africa

by Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi

The Inkatha Freedom Party joins this march with a clear and unambiguous message. We oppose our Government taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly in an atmosphere of escalating tension that threatens to boil over into violence.

The IFP supports the two-state solution. We believe that both Israel and Palestine have a right to exist as sovereign states. We advocate a negotiated settlement and are vehemently opposed to violence, regardless of its origin.

We therefore view as gravely serious the public statement by the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces on 20 May 2012, that the cause of his nation is, and I quote, “the full annihilation of Israel”. We also reject the inciting statement of the Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution, that, and I quote, “The Zionist regime is a real cancerous tumour that should be cut and will be cut.”

The IFP is cognisant of the heated nature of the debate even within our own country, where opposition to Israel is gathering pace and exposure.

We note that the University of KwaZulu Natal bowed to pressure to retract an invitation to the Ambassador of Israel to address students. We note Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s public call for a boycott against Israel. We note that when Members of Parliament were invited to the second Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism, not one responded. We also note that Government was barely represented at the Israeli Embassy’s celebration of the 64th anniversary of Israeli independence.

South Africa has official diplomatic ties with Israel and recognizes its sovereignty. Yet our Government has maintained an unstated position with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and has made no effort to conceal the fact that it supports the Palestinian cause. One seldom hears an unbiased statement in Parliament. Our Government has taken sides.

Against this background, the IFP opposes the move by the Department of Trade and Industry to require traders in South Africa to label products from the West Bank or Gaza as products from “Occupied Palestinian Territory”. There are no legal bases in our law or in international law to support this requirement.

The IFP believes this is a provocation aimed at promoting a consumer boycott.

This action on the part of the Department of Trade and Industry is not in the interests of South Africans. It reflects the political interest of the ANC which continues to utilise the State to pay off its political debts, confusing the national interests of South Africa with the private interests of the ANC.

Imposing this labelling requirement is detrimental to our national interests, to our trade relations, our economic growth and employment generation.

We remind our Government that consumer boycotts were the precursor to the persecution of Jews in Germany, which ended in the holocaust. Indeed, soon after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor in 1933, Nazi storm-troopers began posting signs on storefronts warning, “Kauft nicht bei Juden!”, “Don’t buy from Jews!”

Let us therefore remain vigilant against the escalation of tensions. The South African Government has a moral responsibility to support peace, non-discrimination and nonviolent negotiation wherever these are threatened.

The IFP recognizes that there is pain on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is tragedy on both sides and a story to be told from many different perspectives. Suffering is never something we can turn a blind eye to. We must support a peaceful outcome to this historic conflict to ensure that neither side sustains a loss of dignity or basic humanity.

We seek to stem the flow of blood and promote a different path forward that embraces compromise as well as the importance of accommodating different views. We seek to create peace.

By virtue of our long struggle for freedom, South Africa should relate to the heart’s cry of Israel. We sought peace and freedom for our own country.

How can we seek anything different for Israel?

We cannot accept the portrayal of the Israeli situation as an apartheid situation. I have been a victim of that kind of propaganda and know the damage it can cause. Indeed, in 1985, Prime Minister Shimon Peres told me, “We are brothers in suffering”.

Let me make the IFP’s message clear: We believe in the two state solution.

By engaging this march, we are not taking sides, but are telling South Africa’s Government in no uncertain terms that taking a stand against Israel is irresponsible, damaging and contrary to our country’s stated principles.

We call on the Minister of Trade and Industry to desist from imposing the new labelling requirements, as this is neither in South Africa’s national interests nor in the interests of Israel.