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20090521

Black economic empowerment laws are racist: ex-pres De Klerk


DeKlerk FW and Nelson Mandela High Hopes in 1994 May 21 2009 -- Ex-South African president Frederick W de Klerk criticised the ANC regime ‘s affirmative action laws as ‘racist and unconstitutional’ in an Afrikaans-language interview with the internet- Radio Solidarity in Pretoria this week.

The country’s last Afrikaner president warned that the black-economic-empowerment laws -- which have turned most  Afrikaner whites into destitute, homeless paupers within just 15 years -- were 'not what had been envisioned' when the country’s Constitution was rewritten when he was handing over hegemony to Nelson Mandela in 1994. (picture left).

Doesn’t say so in English…

However De Klerk made no mention of this concern about the abuse of the South African Constitution in his recent English-language speech to the Royal Commonwealth Society in London, on May 12 2009, nor did he speak up about the serious erosion of the rights of his own people when speaking at the National Press Club at Washington, DC on May 7 2009.

Mr De Klerk clearly practices self-censorship, limiting his criticism of the ANC’s slanted Constitutional practices only when speaking publicly in Afrikaans. He clearly sings an entirely different tune on the international speakers’ circuit, where he addresses his adoring audiences in English. The question must really be asked: why does the last Afrikaner president of South Africa only dare to stand up for the  rights of his own people in Afrikaans -- but not when on a foreign platform when he speaks in English?

Racist and discriminatory:

De Klerk said in the Solidarity trade union’s Afrikaans-language radio interview that the ANC’s ‘current affirmative action programme is racist and discriminatory.” He was the country’s last Afrikaner president, and won the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela for his actions, worth about $1million in cash which he shared with Mr Mandela. He has since then earned from public speaking engagement internationally. It would be interesting if he were to repeat this particularly critical speech anywhere else in public. He can be booked here 

De Klerk said the ANC's current Black-Economic-Empowerment laws --  which bars the vast majority of whites from the entire labour market, but also from higher education, from the judiciary and is also used to deliberately destroy the Afrikaners’ cultural rights and forcing them to educate their children in a foreign language -- are totally against the South African Constitution's Article 9(2).

AfrikanerEthnicCleansing_Protest_MapPretoria_20081114VoortrekkerMonument Picture left: Afrikaners recently protested in their thousands at the Voortrekker Monument against the ongoing ethnic-cleansing results of the ANC’s affirmative action laws.

Said De Klerk: "Negotiators at that time had never envisioned that demands for 'demographic representation' would be expanded to all levels of society, as it is now being done,' he said. The article states that the way the Constitution was written, affirmative action was only ever meant to be applied to the judiciary and to government service – but nothing more. 

“Affirmative action is not in step with the Constitution which only ever was meant  to be applied to government service and the judiciary.  Now it is being slanted and applied all across the country and across the entire spectrum including the civilian, business- and cultural world. That however is not contained in the Constitution's article 9(2)at all” De Klerk said in an interview with Solidarity Radio.

‘On the positive side: 13-million children on state-allowances’:

De Klerk was however full of praise in his speech to the Royal Commonwealth Society in London on May 12 2009, noting that ‘South Africa had much to celebrate: ‘despite a few minor administrative hitches’ … our elections on 22 April were as free and fair as those of any other constitutional democracy’. … ‘The transfer of power from one president to the next took place peacefully and constitutionally and was covered by our free and sometimes very critical media.’ Also seen as a plus point by South Africa’s last Afrikaner president was the fact that ‘since 1994 the government has built more that 3 million houses for disadvantaged communities, extended water and electricity services to more than 70% of all households – and thirteen million children and old-age pensioners now receive state allowances.”

Afrikaners used to employ millions of black South Africans:

This also fully explains why South African taxpayers now find themselves forking over more than 58% in various taxes, from council to national taxes.  Yet this taxpayer-base is still shrinking rapidly, mainly because of the ANC’s black-economic-empowerment laws, which causes the empoverishment of a great many once very viable taxpayers and employers of millions of black South Africans --  namely Afrikaner whites…

About the future of the South African Constitution, De Klerk only had the following to say to the Royal Commonwealth Society in London, where he of course spoke in English:

  • “Mr Zuma has also made a number of statements that have raised doubts regarding his commitment to the independence of our courts – and particularly of our Constitutional Court.  Referring to the Chief Justice he is reported to have said ‘I don’t think we should have people who are almost like God in a democracy…Why? - Are they not human beings?’ 
  • “He (Zuma) also criticized the Deputy Chief Justice, Mr Dikgang Moseneke, and said that the Judicial Service Commission should review the status of the Constitutional Court,’’ . De Klerk noted that ‘Mr Zuma’s remarks must be seen in the context of previous ANC moves to dilute the independence of the courts and an ANC resolution at the Polokwane conference in December 2007 to introduce new legislation to transform the judiciary’….

Government can now interfere at will in municipal affairs:

De Klerk then warns:

“Zuma and other prominent ANC leaders have since then repeatedly emphasized that they will respect the Constitution and will do nothing to undermine the courts. 

  • “However, just before the election the cabinet approved a constitutional amendment that will empower the national government to interfere at will in the affairs of municipalities.  Supporters claim that the legislation will enable the government to ensure effective service delivery in South Africa’s many dysfunctional municipalities.

“Critics fear that the real purpose may be to give government effective power to overrule duly elected local authorities in municipalities run by the opposition – and in the municipalities that opposition parties may win in the 2011 elections.  The proposed Constitutional amendment could be the first major test of the Zuma presidency.”

Why does De Klerk criticise the ANC’s Constitutional abuses only in Afrikaans?

De Klerk was equally negative about the country ‘having the highest number of HIV infected people in the world …”primarily because of the AIDS denialism of former President Thabo Mbeki; almost 50% of South Africans live in poverty; and our GINI coefficient - which measures inequality in societies - has remained virtually constant at .66 since 1994.’”

  • Speaking in London, he noted that ‘one of the main causes of poverty and inequality is our very high and persistent unemployment rate.  At least 30% of black South Africans are unemployed or have given up looking for work.  Unemployment, in turn, has its roots in the dismal failure of our education system to prepare entrants for the labour market;  in the effects of global competition;  and in our rigid labour laws. All this has been aggravated by the influx across our porous borders of uncounted millions of economic refugees from other African countries. Unemployment and poverty are, in turn, among the main causes of the unacceptable levels of violent crime that we experience...” Clearly, he doesn’t fear to criticise the ANC-government’s performance on any other subject, yet while he’s had two perfect international venues to also air his discontent about the way the ANC was applying the Constitution to ethnically-cleanse Afrikaners from jobs, the judiciary, the educational and health systems and even barring them from teaching their children in their own language, Mr de Klerk kept silent about this subject when speaking in English. He has thus far, saved those particular concerns only for broadcasting on an Afrikaans-language internet-radio run by the Afrikaner trade union Solidarity.

Why does Frederick Willem de Klerk, scion of one of South Africa’s foremost Afrikaner Reformed Church families,  still keep so silent about the ethnic cleansing laws which are targetting his own people -- whenever he speaks in English?   http://www.fwdklerk.org.za/speeches.php

20000 Afrikaner pupils protested against removal of Afrikaans language rights from education NewsCuttingBeeldPicture: Afrikaner pupils recently protested against the fact that they are being denied mother-tonguie education in their home language Afrikaans under the ANC-regime’s so-called black-economic-empowerment laws.

This slanted application of the Constitution by the ANC-regime in turn has also directly led to the current empoverishment of the majority of Afrikaners. They are steadily pushed out of traditional Afrikaner towns such as Pietersburg, Pretoria, Vereeniging, Vanderbijlpark, the northern suburbs of Cape Town,  the ANC is destroying their cultural heritage by renaming all these traditional Afrikaner towns enmasse, their poorest people are denied public housing and social welfare benefits, and most of these Afrikaners now are forced to survive only on marginal land sites where they live as paupers.  There are numerous reports of how Afrikaners are maltreated in public hospitals because of their ethnic origin. And the majority of Afrikaner high school graduates also are denied any access to public educational facilities inside South Africa. Hundreds of thosuands of their best educated people have already been forced to leave the country of their birth in search of paying jobs abroad, which are being denied them in their own country, only because of their ethnic origin. http://www.solidaritysa.co.za/Tuis/wmview.php?ArtID=2449

Welfare budget above 31% of Gross Domestic Product…

Pretoria. And several months earlier, the top South African economist Mike Schussler also warned that the country now has far too few taxpayers to support its many millions of people on welfare.Yet there’s even less tax-revenue coming in this year than ever before; what with the mines closing down and the automotive  sales still dropping …

Only 5,3-million taxpayers in 2008 … and still shrinking:

In 2008, there only were 5.3m taxpayers left in South Africa – including corporate taxpayers -- and this number is still shrinking rapidly because the country is bleeding thousands of mining and engineering jobs this year: in fact, the State is expected to receive R12 billion less in taxes in 2009 than it did last year; yet at least 13-million of South Africa's 47-million official residents now are on welfare- and food-aid handouts. For the first time in its history, South Africa's social-welfare budget now actually exceeds 31% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product, and the country also shifted from a major food-exporter to a major importer of staple foods for the first time in its history…

Schussler warned that all this was 'a worrying burden on the tax-payer.'

  • No kidding: the Nedbank Group economic unit expects a shortfall in tax revenue of R9.6bn for the 2008/09 fiscal year from the reduced Value-Added-Tax payments too because there's a dramatic collapse in consumer-spending on durable goods; and the automotive industry and South African Airways still need billions more to prop them up for yet another year. Question: What’s the difference between direct social welfare benefit payouts and ‘bridging finance’ to SAA and car-assembly plants? Answer: social welfare recipients don’t get fat-cat director salaries to sit on their duffs while destroying their companies.

Mines are still closing…

Afrikaner Mineworkers Pamodzi Mine Strike Because Lack of Pay March2009Picture: Solidarity trade union warns that tens of thousands of mostly Afrikaner mineworkers are facing serious job losses and permanent destitution with their families in the Eastvaal region alone this month from the pending closure of the black-owned Padmodzi gold mines. The workers haven’t been paid properly for months and trade union Solidarity’s Helping Hand Charity has had to jump in to help feed their families.  Yet this was one of the best gold-bearing mines in South Africa…

Thus the country’s tax-payer base is still shrinking rapidly --  not only due to the mine-closures - but also because of the dramatic emigration of South Africa’s best-qualified people, coupled to the huge number of job losses in the steel and engineering industries.

The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers has again asked the ANC-regime, as it has done for several years now, to again help prop up their collapsing industry with 'bridging finance' : whining that their car sales had dropped by 24% in 2008 --  on top of the 9% drop in sales they’d already suffered in 2007…

  • Vehicle exports dropped to 195,000 units in 2008, and are predicted to fall below 140,000 units in 2009. And the government has also decided to pump yet another R1.6billion into its rapidly collapsing airline South African Airways, a whopping R160,000 for each employee… Schussler says the government should sell SAA instead.

And there was even less state-revenue coming in by the previous finance minister's decision to delay the mining royalty payouts because of 'falling commodity prices' and with many mines under threat of closure.

Without a working electricity grid, South Africa will collapse

Yet, Schussler also believed that the government should continue propping up state-owned electricity utility Eskom with its debt guarantee of R176bn. Indeed: without a working electricity grid, South Africa will rapidly come to a grinding halt, as last year’s ‘rolling blackouts’ showed: in fact these prompted many mines to actually close, because the government could not guarantee them a safe, steady electricity supply any more.

Meanwhile, with the national election on April 22, the voters need sweetening up and fast, so huge amounts of  taxpayer money are being doled out on social-welfare projects which will not ever earn any income or revenues in return: i.e.:

  • R12bn more for social grants this year;
  • R45bn more for provinces to ‘improve education, health, roads and rural development’;
  • R10.9bn more for free housing, water, sanitation and municipal services;
  • R5.4bn more for improving the criminal justice sector (overhaul of fingerprint/DNA databases);
  • R6.4bn more for public transport, national roads and rail infrastructure.
  • R780bn for public infrastructure spending for next five years;

13-million South Africans are food-deficient:

And don’t forget the growing health budget because of the runaway epidemics of AIDS and XDR-TB; and the fact that at least 13-million South Africans can’t afford a square meal a week any more. Somebody is going to have to keep propping up this collapsing society, and South Africa’s 5,3-million taxpayers can’t possibly do this on their own.

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