From: shaze@cs.ubc.ca (Scott Hazelhurst)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: Re: ANC Leadership Wanes
Date: 5 Oct 1992 09:03:19 -0700
Organization: Computer Science, University of B.C., Vancouver, B.C., Canada
NNTP-Posting-Host: pacific.cs.ubc.ca

gavan@elc.mth.uct.ac.za (Gavan Tredoux) writes:
>shaze@cs.ubc.ca (Scott Hazelhurst) writes:
>[in response to Hardy Hulley]

>: 1. "campaign": is this part of your conspiracy theory? Who is part
>:    of this conspiracy? What are their motives?
>: 2. Possible explanations
>:    -- Inkatha does have the overwhelming burden of blame
>:    -- no journalist who has gone to interview Mandela has been beaten
>:       up
>There is overwhelming evidence of biased and unfair treatment of violence,
>and responsibility for violence by "monitoring" organizations. In particular
>the reports by Amnesty International (I was surprised too, having held the
>highest regard for Amnesty in the past), by the self-dubbed "Human Rights
>Commission" (HRC), by the "International Commission of Jurists" (actually
>hand-picked by the HRC), and by the self-styled "Community Agency for social
>inquiry" (CASE). This is easily and convincingly demonstrated.

Based on comments by the "self-styled" South African Institute of
Race Relations.


[All sorts of promises from Gavan deleted]
Let's see


>As for journalists being beaten up, I seem to recall journalists attending
>the Boipatong funeral being beaten up. ANC intimidation of the media

Those incidents were not at all the same. First it seems likely
(from what the journalists who were beaten up said) that the 
attckers were not ANC supporters, as they were wearing T-shirts
of other political organisations (no doubt, this is all part
of a conspiracy of the ANC).

Second, the two cases I know of were people who were attacked
as a direct result of having written uncomplimentary things
about a certain person, when said person
was in the vicinity and the best that could be said for his
behaviour at the time was that he was a passive bystander.
(reference for at least one of these: evidence given in the
case Buthelezi had against Frontline and Denis Beckett).

case 1. journalist writes uncomplimentary article. Gets invited
to go to person's capital to interview person. Gets there
is roughed up and thrown in to person's cabinet room and
harangued at length in front of cabinet. Then gets
thrown out of cabinet room into angry crowd and told
to apologise (all sorts of unsavoury detail deleted).

case 2. journalist writes uncomplimentary article. Covering
a meeting a few weeks later, the crowd having been nicely worked
up, the person himself points at journalist and says "THERE'S
the dog who wrote the things". Journalist gets nicely beaten up.

>has been widely reported and well covered. And what was
>that I heard about "DOCTOR" Mandela attempting to quash reports in the Sowetan
>about Winnie a while ago? 

Certainly doesn't reflect well on Mandela, but he was using moral
persuasion. Not the same as at a large, angry public meeting
and pointing to a journalist you don't like and saying "There's
the dog who said those things". Is it?

>Hmm, and of course SASCO's smashing of a meeting
>involving an IFP speaker here just recently? 

Can't  see the relevance here Gavan. Was Mandela there? Did he
ask SASCO to beat up someone from the Monday Paper?

> Er, burning vans carrying Inanda
> and forcing people who bought the paper to eat their copies?

"Inanda"? That all ANC members don't believe in freedom of 
speech and the press is well-know, and the fact that the ANC
NEC often does nothing about it is deplorable and reflects
poorly on the ANC. But, journalists being human, are more
likely to find the incidents I related  threatening than the
ones you did.