South Africa (catch all)

[KenWats]

Carl asked:
Will the relatively new Portuguese community in RSA look to Brazil and the former, nearby colonies? I expect the shallow foundations of the German business community have not stood up to the new pressures.

Interestingly, there's a fairly significant Portuguese community here in New Jersey. In most of the family owned businesses around here, you can walk in and speak Portuguese and be understood. A good chunk of the folks at the plant I work at are Portuguese immigrants too (many coming from the colonies in Africa). I wonder if that would continue?

[davidbfpo]

Did anyone note the rather blunt military presence, with numerous Casspir APCs in the procession and otehrs parked up, as the funeral cortege reached the Eastern Cape, the third photo in the headline story 'Nelson Mandela's body arrives home':http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/africa/

[davidbfpo]

Something is wrong here, even more so that this involved the main SANDF infantry training base:

A South African military general has been accused of facilitating an illegal prison break from a local police station using two armoured personnel carriers and at least 120 soldiers. The general is alleged have flown into a drunken rage when he learnt that a group of his men had been arrested outside their base in the South African town of Oudtshoorn. The arrested soldiers - alleged to include at least one senior officer - had been found by police at an illegal drinking den, where they were celebrating a change of command at the training base.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...of-prison.html

The police negoitated a solution, yes releasing all their prisoners.

[JMA]

Well South Africa is an African country.

Brig Gen Xolani Mankayi (the drunk who ordered the action) has refused to comment as have the authorities. Don't hold your breath for any serious action to be taken.

Here is the precedent: The general who deserted his troops when attacked in the CAR has since been decorated and promoted.

Something is wrong here, even more so that this involved the main SANDF infantry training base:

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...of-prison.html

The police negoitated a solution, yes releasing all their prisoners.

[davidbfpo]

An Open Democracy piece, which should be read alongside the SWJ Blog link to 'Underplayed Conflicts' and I cited the link excerpt:

South Africa, a country that has been heralded for creating one of the world’s most democratic constitutions. Conditions for many blacks there have not improved much since apartheid ended, a generation ago. Unemployment is now twenty-five per cent, and has not been below twenty per cent in almost two decades. Unofficially, the number could be much higher…

Link:http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/und...flicts-of-2014

For those who watch the region the continuities in state power after apartheid's end in South Africa and independence in Zimbabwe, these developments are not a surprise. The sub-title:

The police were a symbol of the old, apartheid South Africa. Unfortunately they are becoming a symbol of the ‘new South Africa’ too.

Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/open-s...tion-of-police

[davidbfpo]

No great surprise that the SANDF faces such a crossroads when you consider the budget allocated, manpower, external and internal demands:

South Africa wants to re-establish itself militarily as an important player in Africa's peacekeeping initiatives. But it has to overcome a small budget, and its own needs to police its borders, to move it from a 'critical state of decline.'

Link:http://news.yahoo.com/once-major-con...63100590.html?

Going back awhile now:

At its peak, the apartheid military had more than 100,000 active conscripts, and consumed 4.4 percent of national GDP, making it one of Africa’s largest and best trained fighting forces.

(Today) South African military spending today stands at just 1.2 percent of its GDP, an Army of more than 40,000 troops.

There is a link to an earlier report, some of the comments are interesting:http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.ph...nce&Itemid=242

[davidbfpo]

A bestseller in South Africa, even without any reviews and no loud criticism. Perhaps the new edition has "hit home"?

A review by Rian Malan:http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/961...-south-africa/

A taster:

...Mandla Gcaba, a nephew of Jacob Zuma and according to Johnson, one of the state president’s key backers. Gcaba is a boss in the taxi business, a man whose foot soldiers defend their turf with heavy weapons. He is also linked to a police constable named S’bu Mpisane who vanished just before testifying in a murder trial that threatened to put the president’s nephew in jail. When the heat died down, S’bu came back to life, married into Zuma’s ‘Tammany machine’ and began to move up in the world. Today, still a policeman, he owns a mansion worth 94 times his annual salary and, according to Johnson, bought his wife a Rolls Royce for Christmas.