South Africa (catch all)

[JMA]

Carl,

You have a good understanding of how Africa works...

I'll bet the interpreter is related to somebody.

God save the RSA. Nothing else will.

[davidbfpo]

ITN has found some previous footage:

The footage, apparently filmed in January 2012 at the ANC party's 100th anniversary, shows the man making gestures as Zuma sings to the crowd.

ANC communications manager Keith Khoza told NBC News that the interpreter had translated for party events in the past, but said that the man only “volunteered” and was not paid.

Link:http://www.itv.com/news/story/2013-1...ealed-as-fake/

[carl]

David:

Further down in that string of ITV reports, various RSA gov authorities 'claim' they don't know who that guy was. I guess he just shows up.

The US Secret Service is going to love hearing that.

[davidbfpo]

Carl,

For the moment this story is not going away!

Within the linked report is:

....defenders of the ANC-linked interpreter claimed that he was signing in South Africa's Zulu language.

Citing a UK academic expert on sign language:

Professor Woll dismissed such claims, allegedly made by the ANC: "The very fact that this was explained as a person signing in Zulu suggests that actually whoever employed him knew nothing about this person's abilities."

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...terpreter.html

[carl]

Anything to avoid admitting that some esteemed minister of something got scammed by his idiot nephew or his sister forced him to use the idiot nephew.

Geesh, when that guy was 'signing' he looked like a penguin at the zoo.

[Firn]

The interpreter's reaction was certainly more spirited compared to your typical Western one:

He told the BBC that during the event, he had had a breakdown, and started hallucinating that angels were coming down into the crowd.

"I started knowing that I am not real, because it's not something possible. But believe me I saw them coming on stage.

"From that moment, it was not myself," he said, saying he had becoming concerned for the safety of people in the stadium and was "absolutely" aware that he was not signing correctly.

His employer, SA interpreters vanished. It is interesting to note that he was employed before in some occasions by the ANC, in which 'nobody complained' about his capabilities, which is rather telling about the quality of internal processes. How he could get his security (and professional) clearing for the funeral is matter of SA state affairs so the ANC can't comment on it. Which is of course fully understandable since the two are obviously clearly distinct entities.

[slapout9]

I just saw a report on NBC where they actually interviewed this person and he admitted he was being treated for schizophrenia and he has a history of violence.......so they let this person stand next to our President???? Like they say you just cant make this stuff up.

(Added by Moderator) Try BBC interview:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25346253

[JMA]

Carl, I waited to see who would cut through the crap...

Simon Jenkins of the Guardian finally did:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...ty-of-goodness

[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]

Now BBC report SA police were at the fake's house yesterday to arrest him under mental health provisions, except the media got there first. Surely the government wouldn't silence him that way, that's so old style Soviet repression.

Just spotted on Twitter, so perhaps we should be wary? The faker has a record, note accused, not convicted and read the link for more:

accused of: theft (1995), house-breaking (1997), malicious damage to property (1998), rape (1998), murder, kidnapping(2003)

Link:http://www.enca.com/south-africa/interpreter

[Firn]

One thing is certain, every way you look at the issue the SA government doesn't come out looking competent. It really goes from the hilarious to the ridicolous and further to the insane and just doesn't stop giving.

Being accused of grave crimes on several uncorrelated occasions is certainly a bad sign, even if he never was convicted. Getting a men with such a trackrecord in accusations and no track record in sign interpretation competence on the stage of the biggest SA political event of the decade right next to some of the most important men in the world is quite the sign that many screwed up their job very badly indeed.

Possibly there was a divine intervention even before the angles came flying down into the stadium...

[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/

[AdamG]

Anyone else see the Saturday Night Live skit?

[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.

[davidbfpo]

From a "lurker" familiar with Southern Africa, after reading Johnson's book wrote:

Devastating. Johnson is a good analyst – remember his 1977 original. If he’s only half right there are problems looming for the Beloved Country.

[davidbfpo]

Perhaps such crimes happen regularly, this one got external press coverage; maybe with white farmers as defendants, not the victims it caught the editor's eye:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...attackers.html