Patrick Bond and Xolani Dube debate 20 years of liberation, 20 March Writing the Historical Moment Thursday night’s activities open with the panel discussion Writing the Historical Moment looks at key historical moments shaping the current South African political landscape. This panel will take the form of an in-depth interview that will feature activist, researcher and political economist Professor Patrick Bond. Bond is an academic with extensive research whose work draws from NGO work in urban communities and with global justice movements in several countries. He is currently the Director of the Centre for Civil Society at UKZN and is involved in research on economic justice, geopolitics, climate, energy and water. This panel discussion will be facilitated by Xolani Benedict Dube. - See more at: http://durbanisyours.co.za/2014/03/17th-time-of-the-writer/#sthash.BKhbnTF8.dpufWriting the Historical Moment General Zuma and troops face defeat (EXCERPT READ FROM Zuma's Own Goal:Losing South Africa's War on Poverty) What is the status of the South African state’s War on Poverty (WoP)? We don’t really know, because it is one of the most clandestine operations in SA history, with status reports kept confidential by a floundering army in rapid retreat from the front. Initially, the WoP appeared as a major national project. Early hubris characterised the war, as happens in most, with victory claimed even before then-president Thabo Mbeki officially launched it in his February 2008 State of the Nation speech. Five months earlier, Trevor Manuel bragged to Parliament that South Africans in poverty “dropped steadily from 52.1 percent in 1999 to 47 percent in 2004 and to 43.2 percent by March this year”. In August 2008, a national “war room on poverty” was established in the office of Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Something akin to a “total strategy”, to borrow a 1970s phrase, was meant to include low-intensity warfare techniques such as: welfare grants (old-age pensions, child and disability grants) and short-term Extended Public Works Projects jobs (usually no more than six months in duration) as well as high-profile shock-and-awe tactics, such as delivery of water to schools. In late 2009, President Kgalema Motlanthe unveiled a special weapon: self-help. Instead of soldier-bureaucrats doing the fighting, winning the WoP would be outsourced to the masses. The government’s BuaNews reported that Motlanthe “is of the opinion that such an approach will force people to help themselves out of poverty”. But would the people “help themselves” (and the state) in the WoP, or instead continue to harbour the enemy in their houses? Would the masses fight dependency, or instead continue nurturing a psychological thug deep within their hearts, minds and homesteads? Frankly, not enough is known about WoP to answer these questions. Those leading South Africa’s WoP established a secret society, as can be discerned by checking the WoP’s empty website or requesting research information directly from the webmaster. British management consultant, Ian Houvet, a WoP mercenary who runs the site when not working for Barclays and Vodafone UK, replied to me, “I am afraid the WoP website is for government officials associated with the WoP only and therefore access cannot be granted.” The problem goes deeper than a secrecy fetish. Unlike the apartheid era “Wham” (winning hearts and minds) strategy, when Pretoria maintained a lasting commitment to “oil spots” and other pacification strategies during the War on Black People, there really isn’t enough action on the current WoP front to merit journalistic interest. WoP reporting ceased nearly entirely this year, aside from unreliable SABC and BuaNews journalists hopelessly embedded among bureaucrats and politicians. With WoP off the media radar screen, the only information we have about the state’s infiltration of enemy ranks with the new self-help artillery are filtered dispatches by civil servants. Yet, although genuine battles by the poor against the state were raging across the country, the next official sitting of the WoP was only in April, when General Motlanthe returned to rally troops and inspect weaponry at Ground Zero, the Eastern Cape’s Lubala village, where the first shots in the WoP were fired in 2008. There, confessed Eastern Cape Premier Noxolo Kiviet, “lack of co-ordination and integration of government services” meant that “only 30 percent of the households surveyed received all the services needed”. Those services were bravely aimed to hit the enemy hard, but were obviously too few to defeat poverty on home turf: seedlings and fencing “in more than 19 households”, water and sanitation for Lubala Primary School and water tanks for 15 households; and “about 15 young people have been trained in areas such as first aid, chainsaw operator, health and safety, personal finance and accounting”. Useful as these incursions were in the tiny Protected Village of Lubala, the rest of the country was in flames. Poverty was clearly winning the WoP. Of course, in any such war, troops will be lost to friendly fire, such as seemingly ubiquitous “service delivery protests” – many initiated by members of the ruling party – that turn the state’s attention from attacking poverty to attacking the poor themselves. The poor, in turn, reacted by blocking roads, burning down state buildings and attacking councillors in townships ranging from small Mpumalanga dorpies in the mountainous east, to the big-city ghettos and highways on the plains of the Western Cape. Poverty was by now bunkered in and heavily fortified. From time to time the enemy would emerge in the form of toyi-toying youth, who could manoeuvre with seeming ease around desperately outnumbered local police. Amid thousands of battles, one this year was especially illustrative. A police Casspir entered the township of Ogies, Mpumalanga, on the auspicious date of March 21, and found itself surrounded by poverty. According to police spokesman Leonard Hlathi, the Casspir was “irreparably damaged” after being “outrageously attacked” when ambushed. A SAPA reporter explained the tank trap: “an improvised spike strip to puncture its tyres. Three of the heavy vehicle’s puncture-proof tyres were blown out when it drove over the spikes, that were camouflaged with branches.” Petrol bombs followed. “Nothing working remained in the vehicle,” said Hlathi. “Only the steel hull remained.” Thankfully, police personnel escaped, but did wound the enemy (with live ammunition) as they shot their way out of the trenches. The proximate cause was familiar enough, desertion: “The Ogies protest started on Thursday, when a march was held to hand over a memorandum to representatives of the provincial government. It is alleged the authorities did not turn up as requested. The people went on rampage, barricading the roads with burning tyres and burning down property.” Back in the War Room that weekend, the WoP must have appeared as a fully-fledged class war, unwinnable under the country’s prevailing economic conditions, given the motley coalition of power brokers in the alliance and the continuing vice-like grip of uncompromising, neoliberal Treasury and Reserve Bank officials. A million jobs had been lost over the prior year, and the macro-economic “recovery” was accompanied by further job-shedding. The poor were advancing relentlessly, and the WoP looked as bogged down as US troops in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Pretoria’s forces were obviously confused and confounded, their anti-poverty strategies, like Maginot lines, easily broken through by a clever enemy. On this shaky new terrain, trickle-down grants were simply not good enough to stem the broken dikes. Poverty – and especially the poor themselves – fought back tirelessly, with sticks, stones and petrol bombs, retreating into the shack settlements and township alleyways before sallying forth for yet more outrageous attacks. Finally, state strategy took a new turn. Three days after Ogies, Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti dropped a bombshell: the WoP would be relocated to his department. Apparently the generals had decided that one of their fronts, towns and cities, had become too dangerous. After all, a January report of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development prepared by Cape Town academics declared that in recent years, “poverty incidence barely changed in rural areas, while it increased in urban areas”. Thus a crucial component of the new plan is, apparently, retreat. But a tough question must be asked: is the War on Rural Poverty’s new leader fighting fit for a counterinsurgency against peasant guerrillas? Nkwinti’s most recent audit reveals resource abuse comparable to the US Pentagon and Halliburton in Iraq: “A total of 5.9 million hectares had been redistributed since the end of apartheid, but 90% of that land was not productive.” According to Nkwinti, there is a clear reason his money is going to waste: the beneficiaries’ own inability to “continue producing effectively and optimally on the land”. The poor obviously wanted to remain poor. As a result, the counteroffensive would require a new tactic: financial starvation of the desperate landless. According to a recent WoP dispatch, Nkwinti’s department “failed to pay R3.4bn in post-settlement grants to beneficiaries of land reform, with potentially damning consequences”. Then, suddenly, in June, in the wake of the silent surrender on the urban front and the rural fiscal squeeze, another disaster emerged in the countryside: the colonel directing the troops apparently walked off the job. Nkwinti’s director-general, Thozi Gwanya, resigned. But in secret, like the WoP itself. Aside from WoP saboteurs in the DA who issued a press release about a mysterious, allegedly damning auditor-general’s report, no one else breathed a word about this traitorous act. Days later, the alleged departure was denied, described as a “malicious” report by Nkwinti’s department. Yet, within four days, Gwanya was finally acknowledged as a genuine casualty. The battlefield carnage was now too close to home. Just as Pretoria lost its previous war, against Cubans on the outskirts of the Angolan city of Cuito Cuanavale in 1988, it was impossible to disguise the bodybags of high-profile WoP warriors (then it was younger white men, now older ANC politicians). Two of South Africa’s supreme WoP leaders, respectively, were fired and went Absent With Out Leave: Mbeki and Mlambo-Ngcuka. Motlanthe may yet get more SABC coverage, but where a fighting spirit is required – among generals like Nkwinti, colonels like Gwanya and especially ordinary bureaucrat-grunts – it has obviously fizzled. Pretoria’s last-gasp strategy, even if dangerously short-term and lacking the bread that comes with the old Roman circus (and we know what happened to that empire), was to place 32 squads of mostly imported football players across the country and simultaneously introduce millions of Chinese-made vuvuzelas, as a quaint but at least briefly effective distraction. However, actually winning the WoP does seem utterly impossible, given the balance of forces, the leadership, the chosen weaponry and the economic terrain upon which the battle rages. So it’s probably best for Pretoria to not even talk about this struggle any more. The War Room is best isolated within the state’s least effective ministry, and the secret dispatches can continue being left off the web. If Pretoria is lucky, no one will notice. Then, if one scenario plays out – a quiet state surrender in the WoP – history can finally begin. Initiatives that might genuinely move South Africa to a post-class-apartheid society can get under way. Service protests can move from chaotic, self-destructive and sometimes xenophobic ruptures, to a national movement of poor and working-class residents. Trade unionists, community activists, immigrants, environmentalists, feminists, gays/lesbians and all the other oppressed can finally unite. That would mean, however, that the Poor would be victorious in the WoP, a scenario too ghastly for Pretoria to contemplate, but surely a better outcome than the present quagmire. Bond, director of the UKZN Centre for Civil Society, is co-editor of a forthcoming book, Zuma’s Own Goal: Losing South Africa’s War on Poverty Ujenene uZuma kanye nabakhuzi bakhe babhekene nokunqotshwa NguPatrick Bond Yahunyushwa nguFaith ka-Manzi Ngabe luhamba kanjani uhlelo lukahulumeni waseNingizimu Afrika Lokulwa Nobubha? Ngeke ngempela sazi, ngoba bekuwuhlelo oluyimfihlo kakhulu kumlando waseNingizimu Afrika, futhi kunemibiko yokuthi loluhlelo lalenziwe imfihlo ngendlela eyinhlakanhlaka. Ekuqaleni loluhlelo lwabonakala kungelibalulekile kakhulu esizweni sonke.Ukuzibhekeleal okwakudalwa impi, njengoba kwenzeka kokuningi, ngenkanthi kubonakala ukunqoba okwakhulunywa ngakho ngisho ngaphambi kokuba kwakungumongameli walesosikhathi uThabo Mbeki engakalethuli ngokomthetho ngenkulumo yakhe ayayethulela isizwe ngenyanga kaFebruwari ngonyaka ka2008. Ezinyangeni ezinhlanu ngaphambi kwalokho, uTrevor Manuel watsaka ePhalamende ukuthi ububha kwizakhamizi zaseNingizimu Afrika “kwase kwehle kancane kancane ngamaphesenti angu52.1 ngonyaka ka1999 kuya kumaphesenti angu47 ngonyaka ka2004 futhi bese lifike kumaphesenti angu43.2 ngenyanga kaMashi kulonyaka”. Ngenyanga kaAgasti ngonyaka ka2008, “ikamelo elibhekene nempi kububha” ezweni lonke lavulwa ehovisini lePhini likaMongameli uPhumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Into eyayithi ayifane “nohlelo oluphelele’’, ukuboleka-nje isisho sangeminyaka yama1970’s, okwakuchaza ukumbandakanya izindlela zokulwa nobubha ezifana: niokuxhaswa ngabezenhlalakahle (ezempesheni yabadala, imali yeqolo kanye nayabakhubazekile) kanye nemisebenzi yesikhashana kwimiphakathi (ejwayele ukungedluli ezinyangezi eziyisithupha lapho iqashe abantu) kanye nezindlela ezibanedule zokumangalisa abantu, njengokuyisa amanzi ezikoleni. Sekuphela unyaka ka2009, uMongameli uKgalema Motlanthe wembula isikahli esibalulekile:ukuthi umuntu azisize yena. Esikhundleni sokuthi abaphathi abangamasosha balwele abantu, Ukulwa Nobubha kuyoqashwa izimboni ekungezona ezikahulumeni ukuthi zisize abantu. Izindaba ezilawulwa nguhulumeni iBuaNews yabika ukuthi uMotlanthe “ucabanga ukuthi lendlela afuna ukwenza ngayo kuyophoqa abantu ukuthi bazitakule ebuphofini”. Kodwa ngabe abantu “bangazisiza bona” (kanye nohulumeni) Empini Ebhekene Nokulwa Ngobubha, noma esikhundleni baqhubeke nokugcina isitha emizini yabo? Ngabe abantu bangalwa nokuzimelela, noma baqhubeke nokufukamela isigcwelegcwele somnqondo esijule ngaphakathi ezinhlizweni zabo, ezingqondwni zabo kanye nasemizini yabo? Iqiniso-nje ukuthi, akukho okwanele Ngempi Emelene Nobubha engaphendula lemibuzo. Laba ababehola Impi Ebhekene Nobubha yaseNingizimu Afrika baqala inhlangano eyimfihlo, njengoba kwakungacatshangwa ngokubheka iwebsite Yempi Ebhekene Nobubha noma befuna ulwazi olucwaningiwe ngwayehlanganise lewebsite. Onguchwepheshe mayelana nokulawula owasezweni laseBritain, uIan Houvet, owayeyisosha elingalawulwa futhi okunguyena owayephethe lewebsite uma engasebenzeli ibhange laseBarclays kanye neVodafone yaseNgilandi, wangiphendula wathi, “Ngeshwa iwebsite Yempi Ebhekene Nobubha ingeyezikhulu zikahulumeni ezincikene Nempi Ebhekene Nokulwa Nobubha ngakho-ke akekho ongakwazi ukuthola imvume ukuthi athole imininingwane ngayo.” Inkinga ijule kakhulu kunalemfihlakalo enganamqondo. Kungafani nesikhathi sobandlululo somqondo wokuzuza izinhliziyo kanye nemiqondo yabantu, lapho iPitoli lalikugcina ukuzimisela ngezindlela ezazilenza Kwi Yalo Nabantu Abamnyama, njengamanje akukho ngempela okwenzekayo mayelana Nempi Ebhekene Nokulwa Nobubha yamanje engenza ukuthi izintatheli zilangazelele ukubhala ngayo. Ukubika mayela Nempi Ebhekene Nobubha kwagcina cishe ngalo nyaka, ngaphandle kwezintatheli ongeke uzethembe zendlu yokusakaza iSABC kanye neBuaNews nazo ezizimbandakanye kanye nezikhulu kanye nabezombusazwe. Njengoba Impi Ebhekene Nobubha ingasanakiwe ngabezindaba, ulwazi kuphela esinalo ngelokungenelela kwezitha zikahulumeni ngezikhali zokuthi banatu abazisize bona okulokhu kugqugquzelwa ngabasebenzi bakahulumeni. Kodwa-futhi, ngesikhathi izimpi zangempela ezilwiwa ngabampofu bemelene nohulumeni beziningi ezweni lonke, omunye wezikhulu olandelayo ohleli ethimbeni Lempi Ebhekene Nobubha kwakungenyanga kaEpreli, ngeikhathi uJenene uMotlanthe ebuya ukuzogqugquzela amasosha akhe ukuthi azohlola izikhali endaweni ephansi kakhulu, esifundazweni saseMpumalanga neKapa endaweni yasemaphandleni eLubala, lapho izinhlamvu zokuqala Zempi Ebhekene Nobubha zadutshulwa ngonyaka ka2008. Lapho, kuphumela obala uNdunankulu Wesifundazwe saseMpumalanga uNoxolo Kiviet wathi, “ukungabikhona kokuhleleka kanye nokuhlanganyela kokulethwa kwezidingongqangi nguhulumeni” kuchaza ukuthi kwaba amaphesenti angu30 kuphela ezindlu ezacwaningwa ukuthola izidingongqangi”. Lezozidingo zazibhekene nokulwa ngesikhulu isibindi nalesisitha sobubha, kodwa kuyabonakala ukuthi babebambalwa kakhulu ukunqoba ubuphofu emakhaya abo. Izinto-nje ezimbalwa ezanikelelwa imizi njengembewu kanye nokubiyelelwa “ezindlini ezingaphezulu kweshumi nesishagalolunye”, amanzi kanye nezokuhlanzwa eLubala Primary School kanye namathangi amanzi ezindlini eziyishumi nanhlanu; kanye “cishe nabasha abayishumi nanhlanu abaqeqeshelwa usizo lwezempilo lokuqala, ukusebenzisa amasaha, ezempilo kanye nokuqapha, ukusebenzisa imali kanye nokubala”. Noma-ke lezizinto zesikhashana zazibalulekile ‘’ Esabelweni Esivikelwe’’ njengaseLubala, izwelonke lalidla lubi ulaka. Ubuphofu kwakusobala ukuthi babuphumelela Empini Elwa Nobubha. Empeleni phela, kunanoma iyiphi impi, kukhona amasosha afa ngesikhathi kungaqondiwe ukuthi abaulawe, “njengezibhelu zezidingongqangi ezisabalele” – eziningi zazo ezisuke ziqalwe ngamalunga eqembu elibusayo – abenza ukuthi uhulumeni angabhekani nomsebenzi wokuhlasela ubuphofu kodwa esikhundleni salokho ahlasele abantu abampofu. Abampofu nabo, bavele babhekane nelezizimo ngokuvimba imigwaqo, bashise izakhiwo zikahulumeni futhi babuye bahlasele amakhansela emalokishini kusukela kwawasemadolobheni amancane njengaseMpumalanga ngasezintabeni zasempulanga yezwe, kuya kwamakhulu eNtshonalanga neKapa. Ububha manje base buvimbelekile kakhulu. Isikhathi ngesikhathi isitha siye siqhamuka njengabasha abaxgoba itoyitoyi, futhi abakwazi ukucashelakaklula amaphoyisa asuke eyisibalo esinane nawo futhi engaphansi kwengcindezi. Kulezizimpi eziyizinkulungwane, eyodwa kulonyaka yayigqame kakhulu. Isithuthi samaphoyisa iCasspir sangena elokishini laseOgies, eMpumalanga, ngosuku lwenhlanhla mhlazingu2 enyangeni kaMashi, futhi sazithola sizungezwe ubuphofu. Ngokusho kokhulumela amaphoyisa Ileonard Hlathi, iCasspir “yalinyazwa ngendlela engasoze yakhandeka’’ emva koku “hlaselwa okumangalisayo” ngesikhathi izunywa. Intatheli yenhlangano bezindaba iSAPA yachaza indlela abavalelwa ngayo ngethangi: “bazenzela izinto ezicijile zokubhobosa amathayi. Amathayi amathathu alesisithuthi esisindayo ayakhelwe ukuthi angabhoboki aqhuma ngesikhathi ehamba phezu kwalokho okucijile okwakwakhiwe futhi kubekwe ngabantu, ababekufihle ngamagatsha ezihlahla.” Emva kwalokho kwalandela amabhomu kapetrol. “Akukho nokukodwa kulesisithuthi okwasala kusebenza,” kusho uHlathi. “Ngaphandle-nje komzimba waso oyinsimbi.” Ngenhlanhla amalunga alombutho akwazi ukubaleka, kodwa akwazi ukulimaza isitha (ngezinhlamvu ezibulalayo) ngesikhathi edubula lapho ayebhabheke khona kwisithuthi. Isizathu esingaqagelwa sasijwayelekile ngokwanele, ukulahlwa: “Isibhelu saseOgies saqala ngoLwesine, ngesikhathi kunemashi yokunikezela ngezikhalo kwababemele uhulumenu wesifundazwe. Kusolakala ukuthi izikhulu azizange zifike njengoba zaziceliwe. Abantu base bayahlanya, bevimba imigwaqo ngemathayi avutha umlilo futhi becela phansi impahla ngokuyishisa.” Masebebuyele Egumbini Lempi ngalempelasonto, Impi Ebhekene Nobubha babonakala sebebheke nempi ngokuphelele, engeke bayinqobe uma kubhekwene nesimo sezomnotho esigcwele yonke indawo, njengoba kunomhlangayela womfelandawonye wabalamuli kanye okuqhubekayo ngokungabekezelelani, Isikhwama sesizwe esilawulwa ngogxiwankulu kanye nezikhulu zeReserve Bank. Sekulahleke isigidi semisebenzi onyakeni odlule, futhi indlela “yokubuyisela” yezomnotho kazwelonke ibuye yahambisana nokunye ukulahleka kwemisebenzi. Abampofu balokhu bephokophele phambili bengalahlekelwa umdlandla, futhi Impi Ebhekene Nobubha ibonakala iphelelwa ngumfutho njengamasosha aseMelika eVietnam, eIraq kanye naseAfghanistan. Imibutho yasePitoli ibonakala imangele futhi ididekile, izidlela zabo zokumelana nobubha, njengemigqa yeMaginot, iphuka kalula isitha esihlakaniphileyo. Kulendlela ebukeka ididizela, imixhaso eqhamuka phezulu ayisanele ukuvuselela lokukuhlukana. Ububha – ikakhulukazi abampofu impela, balwilwe ngokungakhathali, ngezinduku, amatshe kanye namabhomu kapetrol, bebalekela emijondolo kanye nasemalokishini ngaphambi kokuthi babuye babuyele ngokuhlasela okumangalisayo. Ekugcineni, indlela kahulumeni yathatha igxathu Elisha. Emva kwezinsuku ezintathu kube nesibhelu eOgies, Ungqongqsohe Wezokuthuthukiswa Kwasemaphandleni kanye Nokubuyekezwa Komhlaba uGugile Nkwinti waqhamuka nokwethusayo: iMpi Ebheken Nobubha izofakwa ngaphansi komnyango wakhe. Empeleni ojenene banquma ukuthi indawo yabo ephambili, namadolobha, zaseziyingozi. Empeleni phela, umbiko wangoJanuwari weNhlangano Yokusebenzisana Kwezomnotho kanye Nokuthuthukisa owawenziwe yizifundiswa zaseKapa kuleminyakana edlule wathola ukuthi, “izinga lobubha alishintshi nhlobo emaphandleni, ngesikhathi linyuka ezindaweni zasemadolobheni”. Leliphuzu elibaluleke kanje lecebo Elisha, empeleni, ukubaleka. Kodwa umbuzo okunzima okufanele ubuzwe ukuthi: ngabe umholi omusha ukulwa Impi Kububha Emaphandleni angakwazi ukumelana nabazomelana naye ngenkathi ebhekene namasosha aphila kaphansi kobubha? Uma sekubhekwa ukuthi uNkwint amabhuku ezimali uwagcina kanjani kubonakala ukuthi unenkohlakalo uma eqhthaniswa nePentagon yaseMelika kanye neHalliburton e Iraq: “Umhlaba ongangesigidi esingu5.9 million sisabalisiwe kusukela kuphela umbuso wobandlulo, kodwa amaphesenti angu90 alowomhlaba awukhiqizi.” Ngokusho kukaNkwinti, kunesizathu eigqamile sokuthi imali yakhe iyamosheka: ukuhluleka kwabazuzile umhlaba “wukwehluleka ukuqhubeka nokukhiqiza emhlabeni”. Okusho ukuthi kucacile ukuthi abampofu bafuna ukuhlala bempofu. Umphumela wokumelana nalokhu kuyodinga uhlelo olusha: ukuncisha imali labo abangenawo umhlaba. Ngokombiko weMpi eBhekene Nobubha, umnyango kaNkwinti “wahluleka ukukhokha izigidigidi ezinguR3.4bn kwimixhaso kubatu okwakufanele bazuze sekubuyekezwa umhlaba, okunemiphumela emibi kakhulu”. Kwase kuthi, ngokushesha ngenyanga kaJuni, ngesikhathi kukhona ukuziyekelela kwabasemadolobheni kanye nabasemaphandleni, esinye isibhicongo saqhamuka emaphandleni: Omunye wabakhuzi balempi wavele washiya emsebenzini. Umqondisi-jikelele kaNkwinti, uThozi Gwanya, wasula. Kodwa ngokucasha, njengayo Impi Ebhekene Nobubha. Ngaphandle kwalabo abacekele phansi Impi Ebhekene Nobubha kwiqembu lezombusazwe iDA eyadlulisa umyalezo kwabezindaba ngombiko oyingozi womgcinimafa-jikelele, akekho noyedwa owakhuluma ngalesisenzo esinobuxoki. Emva kwezinsuku, ukusolwa kowahamba kwaphikwa, kwachazwa njengombiko “oyingozi” ngumnyango kaNkwinti. Kodwa futhi, emva kwezinsuku ezine, u Gwanya kwagcinwa kuvunyiwe ukuthi uyingozi. Umonakalo walapho kulwelwa khona manje wawuseduzane nasekhaya. Njengoba nePitoli lahlulwa empini engaphambili, ngesikhathi emelene nabezombutho wempi baseCuba nasedolobheni laseCuito Cuanavale eAngola ngonyaka ka1988, kwakulukhuni ukufihla izidumbu zamasosha asezikhundleni eziphezulu Zempi Ebhekene Nobubha (ngalesosikhathi kwakungamasosha ezinsizwa zabamhlophe, manje sekungamalunga ezombusazwe kaKhongolose). Ababili babaholi baseNigizimu Afrika abaphambili Empini Ebhekene Nobubha, baxoshwa futhi bahamba ngaphandle kokubika: UMbeki kanye noMlambo-Ngcuka. Mhlawumbe kungenzeka ukuthi uMotlanthe avele komabonakude kuSABC, kodwa uphelelephi umfutho wokulwa odingekayo – kojenene abafana noNkwinti, abakhuzi abafana noGwanya ikakhulukazi abasebenzi bakahulumeni – sekuvele kwanyamalala. Ukuzama kokugcina kwePitoli, noma kuyingozi ngesikhathi esifushane, kwakunguletha amaqembu angu32 abadlali iningi labo abavela emazweni aphesheya nokuletha amavuvuzela ayizigidi aqhamuka ezweni laseChina, njengendlela encane yokuziba abantu. Kodwa-ke, empeleni Impi Ebhekene Nobubha ibonakala engathi ngeke yenzeke, uma sibona ukumelana kwamandla, ubuholi, izikhali ezisetshenziswayo kanye nendawo yezomnotho lapho lezizimpi zilwelwa khona. Mhlawumbe sekungaba ngcono umangase iPitoli lingabe lisakhuluma ngomzabalazo. Igumbi Lempi alisebenzi kahle emnyangweni ongasebenzi ngokunemiphumela. Uma iPitoli inenhlanhla, akekho oyobona. Kodwake, umangabe kukhona enye indlela – kungabonakala uhulumeni evumela ukwehlulwa Kwimpi Ehekene Nobubha – kulapho-ke umlando ungaqala khona. Izinhlelo ezingasebenza ngempela ukuthi iNingizimu Afrika ibhekane nokungabandlululani ngamazinga empilo. Izibhelu zezidingqangi zingasuka lapho zinhlakanhlaka, zicekela phansi futhi ngesinye isikhathi zicwasa abokufika abamnyama, kufike kumbutho wezwe lonke wabantu abampofu kanye nabasebenzi. Izinhlangano zabasebenzi, zizshoshovu zemiphkathi, abokufika kuleli, izishoshsovu zezemvelo, abesifazane, abathandana ngobulili obubodwa abesilisa nabesifazane kanye nabanye abacindezelwe ngezindlela ezahlukahlukene ukuthi bahlangane. Lokho kuyochaza ukuthi, Abampofu bayonqoba Impi Ebhekene Nobubha, okuyoba isithombe esimbi kakhulu ePitoli ukuthi sickucabange, kodwa okungaba nomphumela kunalesisimo samanje. http://www.africaworldpressbooks.com/servlet/Detail?no=527 http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/  Back