In the first week of May, provincial government officials barred South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) television journalists and a camera crew from entering the Limpopo provincial legislature to report on the Lebowakgomo government's budget vote. They were allegedly thrown out after refusing to leave their cameras at the door. Two weeks earlier, Premier Sello Moloto's political adviser Jack Mokobi reportedly stormed into the SABC offices in Polokwane to complain about the "harsh" manner in which politicians were interviewed and to demand that Thobela FM's Willie Mosoma be removed from his post as current affairs presenter. Mokobi allegedly accused Mosoma of being biased against politicians from the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

A new socially responsible tourism has recently emerged out of a widening and acute concern for the environment. Known variously as "ecotourism," "new tourism," "socially responsible tourism," etc., huge claims are made for this new model of tourism development. Garth Allen and Frank Brennan discuss these claims and explore the experience of three tourist areas in South Africa. Under the new political dispensation in South Africa, conservation authorities are now obliged to utilize their natural resources and expertise in local sustainable development, and socially responsible tourism has been identified as an important option by the national government. The South African experience thus provides an important and rare view of how the "new tourism" works in practice.

A new row in South Africa is pitting an influential AIDS lobby group who are pushing President Thabo Mbeki's government to provide more free anti-retroviral (ARVs), against a vitamins salesman who says ARVs are poison. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), which resorted to legal action to force the government to roll out ARVs nearly two years ago, has returned to court to try to win an order against German-born Matthias Rath, who claims that vitamins can reverse the course of HIV/AIDS.

Jubilee South Africa has come out strongly against a deal that would see local South African bank ABSA taken over by Barclays. "All of these and similar actions show that Barclays gave substantial support to the Apartheid regime. This support kept the doors open to international capital and kept mechanised infantry on the move in the townships and neighbouring countries. Pure and simple, this support increased the lifespan of Apartheid." Read the full text of Jubilee's press conference by clicking on the link below.

Idasa, the extra-parliamentary Institute for Democracy in South Africa, has opted not to appeal a recent ruling of the High Court on private funding of political parties - at least for now. It will instead focus on encouraging the passage of legislation through Parliament to police the matter.

Lack of financial resources, staff, and commitment from key countries, including South Africa, may hamper the World Health Organisation's goal to provide life-long antiretroviral therapy to 3 million people with HIV/AIDS in developing countries by the end of 2005. An Editorial in this week's issue of the The Lancet states that though progress has been made with 720 000 people in developing countries receiving antiretroviral treatment and three times the target number of outlets providing anti-retrovirals, the financial resources allocated to 3 by 5 are below what are needed (US$ 163 million vs 174 million), and the number of WHO staff deployed to the initiative is well below what it should be (112 vs 400).

This paper from ActionAid International states that while UK supermarket giant Tesco has commitments to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and an Ethical Trading Initiative baseline code, workers on South African farms supplying the company are paid below the minimum wage, are exposed to pesticides, suffer from food insecurity and are trapped in dismal housing. Action Aid calls for the adoption of new standards at the UN (the UN Human Rights Norms for Business) to establish legal obligations for companies to respect and secure the human rights of all workers within a company's sphere of influence.

According to research conducted by the African Centre for Biosafety, South Africa's commercial growing of genetically modified (GM) maize, soya and cotton has been grossly exaggerated by the biotechnology industry for propaganda purposes. The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), an industry supported organisation, consistently tries to inflate the figures of GM plantings around the world to support the argument that GM crops are here to stay.

Jubilee South Africa has described a Barclays bid for South Africa's ABSA Bank as "an insult to the people of South Africa, especially to those who suffered under the illegitimate Apartheid regime." Jubilee said Barclays was the lead defendant in a lawsuit brought in the United States of America by 87 South Africans (represented by the Khulumani Support Group and other civil society organizations) who had been subjected to gross human rights violations during Apartheid.

The day before the anniversary of the worst nuclear accident in history, (the 26th April was the 19th commemoration of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown) Earthlife Africa Tshwane Metro uncovered high nuclear radiation levels in the vicinity of Pelindaba. A mere twenty meters away from a newly established low-cost housing scheme a site has been discovered where it appears radio active materials have been buried. The discovery and subsequent media frenzy has resulted in heated debate about nuclear energy.

The Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) is a growing alliance of international organisations, networks and national campaigns committed to eradicating extreme poverty. In this context, CIVICUS is putting together a small team of dedicated people to act as the global secretariat of the Global Campaign. CIVICUS is now seeking applications to fill four internship positions to be based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

I read your article in Pambazuka with interest because I think the issues you raise are not solely South Africa (obviously). Maybe my question is too big to answer right now, maybe you can point me in the right direction? In any case, here in Zimbabwe in some high density areas (used to be called townships under Smith) working class Zimbabweans are going several weeks without water whilst those more privileged people in low density areas experience intermittent water cuts. We now see people within these high density areas selling water to those without.

What can we do to change this? How do we apply pressure on a government that has just bought Chinese jet fighters and passenger aircraft yet can't see fit to fix the old water pipes/pumping equipment whose absence leaves people without the fundamental right to clean accessible water? How do we encourage and support working class people to collectively engage in work stoppages to highlight their plight?

And these questions are all framed in a country that is highly repressive.

As you might be able to tell I'm feeling very frustrated today!

I would probably agree with most of Wanda's observations on what is wrong with the "New" South Africa and clearly the answer to his question is that NO the struggle for emancipation is not over yet. However, most people would probably agree with that for one reason or another. Even the most comfortable members of the black elite argue for more transformation rather than less. Even the leader of the ANC, president Mbeki publicly and very consistently calls for "a better life FOR ALL".

There may be some members of the ANC who think they have arrived and we cannot condemn them for that. The fact is that we did not all board this train at the same station nor are we going to the same destination. The maximum programme of the black bourgeoisie (a free and fair democratic system where a national bourgeoisie enjoys the right to exploit its proletariat and its natural resources) may well be the minimum programme of the working class whose station is further down the line. As the South African Communist Party says: Socialism is the future. There are even those who say that in a globalized economy a national bourgeoisie's patriotic spirit is of no value because it is now glorious to be rich, and comprador. That is for the capitalists to sort out among themselves.

The mistake that RE Wanda makes is that he soaks the ANC in red wine, as it were, and tries to render it socialist. Just examine the historical inaccuracy of his assessment that:

"It is clear that the ANC has abandoned its core roots and energy - the poor people. The ANC party was born socialist but later adopted capitalism and endorsed the neo-liberal agenda, whose fruit we know is exploitation of the people. The ANC's economic policy emphasis on market liberalization and tight government control on spending has meant that the working class and poor who are mostly black South Africans have to bear the cost of its conservative economic policy."

I am afraid it is not clear at all. In 1912 when the South African National Native Congress (SANNC), forerunner of the African National Congress (ANC), was founded it was a Pan-African movement representing the rights of all colonial subjects. It was led by chiefs, mission educated elites, village shop-keepers, maize and wool farmers and yes, petitioned the British Empire for the rights of the colonial working class as well.

But was the ANC born socialist? No way! If Cecil Rhodes and his cohorts had not been racist, if the 1913 Land Act had not destroyed the black farming elites in the rural areas, if the colonial society were based on class oppression and not mainly racial oppression there would have been NO NEED for an ANC. If Mahatma Gandhi and Sol Plaitjie had not been forced off the first class carriages because of their dark skins, the colonial working classes would have had to struggle for their rights on their own because the black elites would have been too comfortable from the start. Let us forget about the socialist ANC - it is a figment of our revolutionary imaginations, it has never existed.

It is up to COSATU to continue championing the rights of the South African working class. It is up to the Communist Party to complete its political programme and go beyond the bourgeois democracy that was achieved in 1994 and attain that socialist future. And it is up to the anti-privatization and anti-globalization movements to continue reconnecting poor people to the water and electricity mains by any means necessary, but it is not up to the ANC to build a socialist South Africa, that has never been the ANC programme.

So all those who call themselves socialist should focus their energies on strengthening the Communist Party and not undermining the ANC which has ALWAYS been led by the black elites whose maximum programme has ALWAYS been a capitalist democracy in which their agricultural and commercial interests are not undermined by a racist state. Let us know our history or we shall remain trapped in this old waiting room on this disused railway line complaining about the inefficiency of the national airline.

Thank you for articulating so clearly what many of us have been saying for years. That there were serious compromises made at the time of South Africa's independence; that the urban and rural poor in SA have nothing to celebrate after 11 years of so called freedom. The freedom in SA has been a freedom for the elite non-white population, for the business sector who have continued to make money off the lives of the poor and of course the white elite have continued in their prosperity and probably have gained most out of independence as they are now able to conduct their business operations freely with the rest of the world.

You ask the question "why are (Africa's) incessantly in poverty?" Because as you say the primary essence of democracy is absent from the continent and the World Bank/IMF and the NEPAD agenda have choked the continent into submission and poverty. The West and particularly the United States are not interested in a true democratic Africa but one that serves it's need in resources and security. (http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks,

Governments have attempted to mitigate the effects of high unemployment in various ways, particularly through targeted interventions such as public works programmes. The Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) of the South African government aims to address unemployment by creating labour intensive jobs through government expenditure. This paper pays specific attention to a project of the Working for Water (WfW) programme - the Tsitsikama project. Both the EPWP and the WfW focus strongly on the employment of women, and given the reality of women's position within South Africa, this paper conducts a gender analysis of this WfW project.

April 27 was Freedom Day in South Africa, a national public holiday to remember the first democratic elections held in the country eleven years ago. Celebrations took place country wide under the theme ‘Building a South Africa that Truly Belongs to All’. Ronald Elly Wanda visited South Africa last year. Here he reflects on his experiences and concludes that the country has a long way to go before it belongs to all of its people.

Earlier last year I was ill-fated for I missed an opportunity to meet up with some of Africa’s contemporary divas at Hammersmith’s world famous Shepherds Bush Empire (formerly Apollo theatre) in West London. Amongst the divas assiduously imported from rhythmic South Africa were two of my favourites; culturally electrifying Yvonne Chaka Chaka and politically inspirational and poetically soothing Miriam Makeba, the woman whom perhaps every right-thinking African school boy at some point tunefully fell for. Noticeably absent was Brenda Fassie owing to her poor health, she died three months after the event. She will be sadly missed by all who enjoyed her ecstatic and care-free style of music. The festivities were hosted by Republic of South Africa’s London consulate to honour the country’s 10th anniversary under Black rule and as a democratic state.

January of 2004 saw my first visit to South Africa or Azania, a place chock-full of political history and also social ills resultant from the devilish apartheid system. I had other prior rendezvous in Durban and later in Johannesburg, but as a political spectator I couldn’t resist the temptations of comparative politicking to try and weigh whether what the English professors have painted in their thrilling lectures and engaging books was actually anything closer to reality. I am not implying that what the armchair professors have reported are entirely wrong, but that it is sometimes qualitatively functional to hear the story from those who actually went through it. After all, Simeon Strunsky the essayist perhaps had me in mind when he remarked that “people who want to understand democracy should spend less time in the library reading Aristotle and more time on the buses and in the subways”.

My journey from London Heathrow to Johannesburg had been a fat circus right from the start. Day one, I missed my flight, due to Expedia’s (the internet travel agents) late communication to Virgin Atlantic who subsequently mishandled my E-ticket, not to mention the usual airport pressures.

Having spent a soporific night under the inept hands of Virgin Atlantic, I arrived at Johannesburg as scheduled. I was swiftly welcomed by the wonderful southern comfort (the weather not the drink!) that made me forget all about the horrible wintry English weather that I had left behind for the pitiable London inhabitants. Johannesburg airport’s layout, capacity and organisation are impressive and capable of giving one a counterfeit impression of having arrived in Amsterdam, Berlin or Venice and not geographically south of mother Africa.

Johannesburg, commonly referred to as the ‘city of gold’ is Azania’s biggest commercial centre; it is largely white and quite well to do. My stay at Sandton district was necessitated after a lengthy exploration that left me exhausted and disappointed in failing to find a place to stay in Johannesburg amongst “abantu” (people).

The neighbourhood of Sandton city (formerly Down-town) where I briefly resided boasts about everything that Soweto does not. Large and spacious houses, public parks which are not accessible to the general public, shopping malls, corporate headquarters, hotels and a large tax base to support ample amenities and services. Sandton city’s residents are predominantly white but one can find a few and occasional blacks who are considered better - off aka “Rand-lords”.

I didn’t have to walk very far from my transient residence to notice the huge electrified wall fencings that were supervised by Sandton’s very own police force. They reminded me of London’s city police, who keep watch over London’s fiscal constituency and are known for their brutality against ethnic minority communities. For a minute or so onward, I permitted my mind to wonder what it would have been like for me as a young black person or for that matter a black South African or just a black African caught by these largely white “heavy weaponry carrying” police force. Word has it that during the Apartheid regime the white dominated police force here when dealing with black people, were known to have employed a policy of “shoot first then ask questions later”. How times have changed, I thought to myself.

As elsewhere in Africa, the changes in South Africa came after a long and bruising fight by the people. Through liberation struggles, the working class, black women and the student movements amongst other groups of people fought a bitter war to liberate black people from the slaving system of apartheid. The outcome in South Africa was that Nelson Mandela in 1990 was released having spent 27 long years in prison, South Africa had its first ever democratic election that saw black people voting for the first time in 1994. Expectedly and unsurprisingly, Mandela and the ANC (African National Congress) won the elections overwhelmingly and Mandela became the country’s first democratically elected president. Having served his full term he was succeeded by the country’s vice president Thabo Mbeki in 1999, whose mandate got renewed in the middle of last year by the South African electorate.

Eleven years on, it is often common to come across books and discussion papers written by European and American armchair professors of African politics on how well South Africa is doing. I mean you walk into a library or a political or social forum and all you will see is; “The End of Apartheid”, “The fall of Apartheid”, “The politics of Apartheid”, “Mandela”, “Waiting: the White South Africans”, “The concise History of South Africa.”

I might upset some readers, but I am of the view that there were many concessions made in the run up to the political transition of 1994. Mandela and other leaders who led the liberation struggle abandoned the “real” fight for the people, that of social justice and equality of opportunity. For instance, the laws in South Africa today are formally ‘colour-blind’ and in some cases even promote affirmative action in favour of black people; however from what I saw in Soweto, and in Durban, the country remains an inequitable society. United Nations research has also categorised it as still amongst one of the most unequal in the world. Indeed, not so long ago a government minister was quoted as saying: “South Africa is sitting on a social time bomb”, clearly reflecting the concerns of the majority of poor black South Africans.

It is clear that the ANC has abandoned its core roots and energy - the poor people. The ANC party was born socialist but later adopted capitalism and endorsed the neo-liberal agenda, whose fruit we know is exploitation of the people. The ANC’s economic policy emphasis on market liberalization and tight government control on spending has meant that the working class and poor who are mostly black South Africans have to bear the cost of its conservative economic policy.

I recall one prominent South African panellist during a seminar in London that I chaired, noting that: “Post Apartheid policy makers drew all the wrong lessons from ‘international experience’, and hence have prepared to amplify rather than correct apartheid capitalism’s main economic distortions”.

The compromises made by the ANC government since 1994 has not delivered higher living standards and its systematic ideological conversion has pronounced many people who are already poor into further poverty. My former tutor Professor Heather Deegan in her book “The Politics of the New South Africa” agreeably notes that: “When it comes to education, the legacy of apartheid is still evident in many places. Many children continue to study under the tree, in dilapidated buildings and without appropriately trained teachers. Some schools are hollow shells without even the most basic equipment and few textbooks.”

For if we are to truly judge whether present day South Africa is democratic or not we need to look at the primary essence of democracy. The essential aspirations of democratic ideals are that decision ought to be taken by the people. Secondly, this means that the mass of the people should have some say in what they are going to be, and not just told what they are. Thirdly, this decision should be genuinely the peoples; it should not be manipulated by propaganda, misinformation and irrational fears. And fourthly it should to some extent reflect the peoples considered opinions and aspirations. In my view none of the above tenets are apparent in present day South Africa. This is because the only way we are going to fully realise democracy in Africa is when collectivism prevails, in other words a government by the people for the people.

In this light, it is easy to comprehend the argument of two amongst many of Mbeki’s critics, Professors Dani Nabudere and Patrick Bond – who have articulated that the persuasive powers of the World Bank and IMF - are partly to blame for the fact that a decades old liberation movement disappointed its constituents entirely reasonable aspirations within months of coming to state power.

The exchanges I received whilst in Soweto were enough to make me defend the view that the poor men and women in the townships have got no reason to be cheerful - in spite of ten years of Mandela and Mbeki neo-liberal regimes. For the poor are still poor and the Rand-lords as in Sandton are still getting richer. The liberation struggle ought to continue, free enterprise ought to be dejected whilst collectivism encouraged in order for Africa to fully realise egalitarianism. After all in terms of natural resources Africa is the richest continent in the world. Why are its inhabitants incessantly in poverty?

* Ronald Elly Wanda is a Political Scientist based in London, UK.
[email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected]

"Senior delegations of the ANC, SACP, COSATU and SANCO met in our second Ekurhuleni Alliance Summit from 22-23 April 2005. We have convened in a period that is characterised by important advances and major challenges. On the one hand, as an ANC-led alliance, we have consolidated and expanded our overwhelming electoral majority, we have advanced and deepened democratic governance, we have entrenched extensive social and economic rights and we have rolled out significant social resource transfers. In the recent period, government has shifted to a more expansionary fiscal stance and has begun to implement a programme of significant public investments. As an Alliance we collectively salute and claim these achievements. On the other hand, deeply entrenched poverty and inequality continue to characterise our society and, above all, we have an economy that is not generating nearly sufficient jobs. As we meet, another devastating wave of mass retrenchments is striking the mining and manufacturing sectors."

South Africans are eagerly awaiting the outcome of the fraud and corruption trial of Shabir Shaik, the financial adviser to Deputy President Jacob Zuma, which has lasted more than six months. Allegations aired in court have been closely followed, since they involve not only Mr Shaik, but, by implication, the deputy president himself.

The antics of the discredited Dr Rath, and our health minister's support for him, are dragging us back into the dark days of AIDS denialism, says this Health-E News article. After months of relative stability in government over HIV/AIDS treatment, we seem to be back on the rollercoaster of contradictions. The problem this time hinges around the curious fondness our Health Minister, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has for Dr Matthias Rath, a discredited vitamin seller. Rath has peddled his vitamin product, Vitacor, around the world. First he claimed it was a cure for heart disease, then cancer and now AIDS.

EISA has a vacancy for a position in Johannesburg. SADC (including South African) nationals are encouraged to apply. Responsibilities will include:
* Overall coordination and supervision of the Local Government programme
* Identify and prioritise needs areas for capacity building for all stakeholders in the SADC region
* Oversee development and implementation of all local government projects.