DA lays complaint of inflammatory reporting about SA with German newspaper

Ian Davidson, Chief Whip of the Democratic Alliance
15 March 2009

The DA has laid a complaint with Der Spiegel, a German newspaper, over the paper’s inflammatory reporting on South Africa’s upcoming election. Der Spiegel is a prominent and well-regarded newspaper, and the articles that it has published could well scare of tourists, frighten investors, and damage South Africa’s efforts to show that it is a stable democracy.
 
One article, published in February (a copy of an English translation is attached below), is entitled “The army stands by”, and it builds a picture of a country that is on the verge of civil war. For example, the lead-in paragraph asserts that “the country is getting out of control: the youth organizations of the rival parties are at war with each other.” Using the imagery of the recent Western Cape fires to reinforce his point, the journalist goes on to describe South Africa as being in the midst of a “vicious circle of violence” in which “appeals to moderation and restraint remain unheard”.
 
He concludes by implying that South Africa is headed back to the bloody ANC/IFP conflict of the 1980s by saying that “politicians and commentators are almost hysterically, constantly recalling the bloody and violent conflicts between the ANC and the IFP during the election campaigns at the end of the eighties, which led to more than 7000 dead”.
 
This is not the only such article carried in this paper; the translated titles of several other articles indicate similar themes. For example:
 

•  Chaos at the Cape – “This is how civil wars begin “ [07.08.2008]
• “Every world cup fan should think twice” [26.05.2008]
•  World Cup host South Africa – “We gave you weapons, so use them!” [12.04.2008]

 
The DA does not believe we should minimize the problems of electoral violence and intimidation. This is without doubt a severe problem in certain areas, and the DA is itself sometimes a target. This trend must be watched and the perpetrators vigorously hunted down and acted against. We also take very seriously the charges of corruption against presidential candidate Jacob Zuma that are referred to. 
 
But anyone living in South Africa will know that the country is not on the brink of civil war and that the electoral process has for the most part been smooth. Yet Germans who have not been to South Africa do not have any context within which to place these articles, and are going to be left with the impression that South Africa is just another African country on the point of implosion.
 
South Africa is a magnificent great country with enormous potential. The DA will not let this potential be compromised by opportunistic reporting apparently aimed at selling newspapers rather than reporting objectively.
 
 
Der Spiegel Online, 10.02.2009 10:30

 “The army stands by”
 
South Africa in the midst of presidential elections – the country is getting out of control: the youth organizations of the rival parties are at war with each other. The candidate of the governing party ANC is due to face charges of corruption, money-laundering and fraud – and the minister of defence threatens the possibility of a military operation in the country.
 
Cape Town – It smells like fire.  For several days Cape Town’s air has been filled with the biting smell of fire. Every now and then bushfires are breaking out on the slopes and hills around the blazingly hot city, constantly driven by the “Cape Doctor”, the formidably strong South Easter wind. The fire brigades are in constant action while helicopters are dropping water bombs. Whenever one fire is being extinguished, another one is coming up somewhere else in the dry, arid bush.
 
With the fires burning across the Western Cape countryside, the political landscape has similarly been burning for several days now – and is being constantly re-ignited by hardliners and powerful figures within these political parties.
 
The controversial head of the governing ANC, who wants to become the country’s next president in the upcoming elections in April, however, is at the centre of a heated debate around charges of corruption, money-laundering and fraud against him. His candidacy is splitting the country and rousing emotions on both sides.
 
Since it has been made clear that Zuma will have to face a trial on August 25th, inter-party conflicts are constantly increasing, with the Cape Times already warning its readers: “The political temperature in our country is heightening up and is going to increase even more”.
 
“I will not resign, I will be the next president”, Zuma announced defiantly to his supporters just outside the Court building. However, times are getting tougher and tougher for him at the moment; his court trial concerns bribe money payments of millions or rands over the purchase of four German frigates back in the nineties.
 
Although he is suspected of having assisted a French company which was given the contract to deliver equipment for the vessels, in return for money, allegations have never been taken to court. The suspects of the case however are still polarizing the country today.
 
The South African authorities are now looking for help from the German judiciary. Ironically, though, the German prosecution authority of  Dusseldorf has already failed once with in its investigations as a RECHTSSUCHERHILFEN enquiry has once been successfully blocked by the South African Ministry of Justice.
 
New enquiries could not only lead to unpleasant revelations concerning Zuma, but also for former president Thabo Mbeki and members of his government, including Terror Lekota, Mbeki’s former minister of defence - now a leading figure in the ANC’s break-away party COPE – if allegations of corruption are proven true.
 
Although the date for the election has not even been released yet, conflicts around Zuma, the war between the ANC and the new party COPE – a re-establishment of old ANC renegades – are increasingly stirring up emotions. The party’s youth organizations are constantly adding fuel to the fire. ANCYL members are disrupting rallies of COPE-leader Lekota continuously by shouting:  “Kill Lekota” and COPE members are being named as cockroaches who need to be destroyed.
 
The vicious circle of violence continues: last weekend radical members of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in one of their strongholds, Nongoma, attacked an ANC election bus by throwing stones, injuring at least six people. After the rally the first shots were fired. Prince Zeblon Zulu, a member of the royal family, his daughter-in-law Doris and one ANC functionary were hit during this incident. The three of them only barely escaped with their lives. Shortly after the event the police arrested an IFP-politician as alleged suspect.
 
“We will attack you.”
 
Julias Malema, leader of the ANC youth league and very well-known for his verbal attacks and polemic excesses, immediately announced that his party would never let anyone intimidate it. “We will come back to Nongoma […]We will attack you in your own strongholds and backyards”. he threatened the IFP. His IFP counterpart Thulasizwe Buthelezi struck back promptly: “If the ANC is provoking us, it will get the response it deserves. What the ANC has seen so far will merely be a sunday school picnic compared to what will be lying ahead.”
 
What started as a small and merely local fire might turn out to become a huge, large-scale fire in the heated political climate of the Cape. The Independent Electoral Comission (IEC), with a mandate to guarantee a proper election process, which already caused a stir last year in Autumn when it warned about possible politically motivated acts of violence, has now suggested to the ANC to avoid IFP strongholds. As Pansy Tlaka, a leading member of the IEC, said: “We are extraordinary concerned. It will be very hard for us to hold free and fair elections in an atmosphere of violence and political intolerance”.
 
IEC member Courney Sampson is also concerned: “We must not underestimate the extreme, political emotions existing in our country.”  Political analysts such as Professor Adam Habib are already asking the IEC to stop the wave of violence before it gets “out of control”.
 
The Ministry of Home affairs quickly announced that a special task force would be set up, whose main task will be to guarantee a peaceful and fair campaign. In consultation with the IEC such forces would be positioned across the whole country in areas which are estimated to be of a high risk of political violence.
 
Any appeals to moderation and restraint remain unheard, as Frans Cronje, deputy CEO of the South African Institute for Race Relations (SAIRR), warned vainly about useless panicking: “We are able to assert with fully consideration that the current incidents will not lead to any kind of crisis, wave of violence or whatsoever. We are merely dealing with particular cases here.” However minister of defence, Charles Nqakula, proclaimed to journalists as follows: “The army is ready, to prevent any kind of violence during the election campaign.”
 
That apparently must have been a spur, because since then commentators and politicians are almost hysterically, repeatedly recalling the bloody and violent conflicts between the ANC and the IFP during the election campaigns at the end of the eighties, which left more than 7000 dead.
 
Back then South Africa mainly owed the end of blood-shedding and violence to one man: Jacob Zuma, who was awarded the Nelson Mandela Award in Washington in 1998 for his courageous efforts to work for peace peace between the two parties.