From: gavan@elc.mth.uct.ac.za (Gavan Tredoux)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: Re: "Selective Quotations damage Jeffery's Credibility"
Date: 8 Oct 92 21:05:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: ucthpx.1992Oct8.210515.551
Organization: University of Cape Town
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

shaze@cs.ubc.ca (Scott Hazelhog) writes:
: 
: "Selectibe quotations damage Jeffery's credibility"
: 
: By Dennis Davis and Gilbert Marcus. The Star 22 September 1992.
 

UCT thankfully managed to export the excitable Denis Davis to
Wits some time ago. The report that follows is uninformed nonsense
rivalled only by the said associate professor of COMMERCIAL law's
(when he was here - at Wits the good Denis is into "applied legal
studies" whatever that is) publications on political theory. 

Not that I'm replying ad hominem, everything
Denis says can be refuted at will below, factually, which I will. 
Love to get a dig in at him though.
 
: We suggest that Dr Jeffery is guilty of the same sins for
: which she ciriticises others. But, more importantly, her
: venture is largely irrelevant and unhelpful in addressing the 
: current problems of violence.

She makes no attempt to "address the current problems of violence"
no more than Denis himself in this very article - as if writing
articles and producing research on violence would ADDRESS the problem.
As for the alleged sins of the good doctor we show below that Davis
has not only misread the HRC reports but even misread Jeffery's report
on the reports. A calamity of misreadings.
 
: Her main gripe is that all three organisations allegedly ignore
: certian strategies of the ANC such as fostering "ungovernability"
: through mass action, refusing to disband its armed wing
: and refusing to cease establishing self-defence units.

That ISN'T her main "gripe" at all. Her main "gripe" is with the 
innacuracy of reporting, the omission of critical facts established
by judicial commissions of inquiry, and nonsensical classification
of violence, not to mention inferential observation with no basis
in hard fact. In fact the "ungovernability" stuff is only mentioned
in passing. A sleight of hand by the Denis, attempting to diminish
the FORCE of the research by IGNORING its chief conclusions. 

: She also argues that the methodology adopted by the organisations
: evinces a disregard for the "rules of evidence and the safe-
: guarding of due legal process".

"also argues" ?! Read it again Denis. Try the introduction where Jeffery
states quite clearly that the key theme of the research is the shoddy
methodology and contempt for natural principles of fairness. 
That's why it's interesting and made so much of an impact, but that's
obviously passed Denis by. Talk about misleading and innacurate commentary.
 
: It is important that reports of unfluential organisations be
: subjected to scrutiny. Had Dr Jeffery's efforts been limited
: to this, they would have had some value.

Denis does this quite a lot, shares his valuation of things with
us.

: But other criticisms are trivial and speculative. 

These go unmentioned. No doubt we must accept Denis' word on this.

: In addition,
: she proceeds from the erroneous premise that the legal rules
: of evidence must govern reports of this nature. The suggestion
: is ludicrous. International monitoring bodies do not purport
: to be legal commissions of enqury. To expect them to operate
: as such would render their work ineffective.

So much CRAP, she says nothing of the kind. Let me quote Jeffery 
verbatim:

"The organizations responsible for these reports are not courts
of law and may contend that they are not bound by rules of evidence
and procedure. *This of course is true* [my emphasis]. Nevertheless,
these organizations purport to make findings of liability for violence
in a volatile climate .... It follows that these organizations have an 
overarching responsibility to be circumspect, to hear and report both sides
of the conflict .... " (page 9)
 
: Dr Jeffery herself pays scant regard to the rules of evidence
: that she suggests are so important. 

As she is not attempting to assess liability for violence that's 
not surprising. Nowhere does she do so in the report, just point out
that there is CONTROVERSY, which she does NOT attempt to resolve.
She shows how this CONTROVERSY is buried in sleight of hand by the
organizations involved. 

: Her criticisms are often
: unverified, based upon hearsay, and sometimes erroneous 
: speculation. 

No examples, no argument, again we're supposed to simply
accept Denis' word on this..

: In courts of law, only relevant evidence is 
: admissible and strict tests are laid down for the drawing of
: inferences. Here Dr Jeffery fails miserably.
: 
: First, the question of relevance. In her report, the question of 
: what is causing the violence is subservient to proving a 
: conspiracy among three independent bodies.

Liars, damn liars and Denis Davis. There is NO MENTION of conspiracy
in the report, nor even a hint. No argument is adduced to show any
conspiracy either. Hence *Denis* is confused here about relevance. 

: Accordingly, 
: methodological precision gives way to infrential inexactitude.
: Space constraints permit only two examples.
:  
: In dealing withe HRC's report on the Crossroads massacre, Dr Jeffery
: writes: "The HRC ... attributes the Crossroads massacre -- in
: which 23 sleeping members of the IFP (including a woman and
: two children) were killed by Xhosa-speaking men, allegedly from
: an ANC squatter camp -- to 'vigilante related action'. It defines
: such action as attacks by (or in defence against) surrogate
: forces of the State, in the form of 'vigilante' provate armies
: formed by homeland administrations or black local authorities.
: Deaths thus laid at the door of the State are said by the HRC
: to include the deaths of these 23 supporters."
: 
: The least Dr Jeffery could have done is was to quote the exact
: passage from the relevant HRC report. It reads: "The victims
: were caught unawares by the attackers who were armed with guns,
: petrol bombs, pangas and spears and some of the victims died
: in their burning homes. The area waas forcefully taken over by
: Inkatha supporters in August 1990 and has remained an Inkatha
: stronghold since then. Among those killed were a woman and two
: children. Witnesses reported that the attackers came from the
: direction of the Holomisa camp. The ANC disputed this, reporting
: that the attackers  had got off a train near Crossroads at 10pm
: and had launched the attack at 10.45pm".
: 
: This is a far more factual account than Dr Jeffery would have 
: the reader believe by her selective quotes from different sections
: of an HRC report.

In the first place Jeffery NEVER QUOTES the HRC here. If Davis had
bothered to READ the report he would find the following

"... the words of the HRC will be described in sentence form, using
the actual wording ... where possible" [page 39]

Er, that's called a *precis* or *summary* Denis. 

Now the ground on which Jeffery criticises the HRC is NOT their version
of the attack, which is reproduced in toto by Jeffery on page 43 ALMOST
identically to the quote Davis reproduces. But you see, I very much
doubt whether Denis read that far. Let me prove this quickly, I quote
Jeffery summarizing HRC:

"On 3 April 1992, in the Crossroads informal settlement near Kathlehong
on the east rand, some 23 people were killed, at least 17 were injured
and more than 30 attacks were razed in a surprise attack. Th eattack was
allegedly perpetrated by a group of about 30 Xhosa-speaking men. The attack
came at about 11PM and th evictims - mostly sleeping- were caught unawares
The attackers came armed with guns. petrol bombs, pangas spears and some 
of the victims died in theit burning homes."

"The area has been an IFP stronghold for some time and the victims were IFP
supporters. Among those killed were a woman and two children."

"Witnesses alleged that the attackers came from the direction of the Holomisa
camp. Th eANC disputed this, reporting that the attackers had got off
a train near Crossroads at 10 pm and launched the attack at 10:45 PM."
[page 43]

Yes, the least Denis could do is actually READ the report in question rather
than fabricate nonsense about what it does and does not quote or summarize.
Moreover, where is the supposed "inferential inexactitude"? This was
supposed to be an example. "far more factual account"? What Jeffery disputes
is the *classification* of this as a VRA and spends three full pages examining
this. All of which slips Denis by. As does the fact that this is nowhere
reported (since the relevant categories don't even exist) as ANC/IFP
or ?/IFP violence, just as "VRA". THIS is what Jeffery is questioning.

: In dealing with intimidation, Dr Jeffery writes: "Opinion surveys
: confirm the high percentage of black people in metropolitan
: areas who have been coerced into participating in consumer
: boycotts, stayaways and rent boycotts. These surveys also show
: a strong correlation between coercion and political affiliation.
: Thus, those who support the IFP or the Azanian People's Organisation
: have been subject to intimidation far more often that supporteres of
: the ANC and its allies."
: 
: When Dr Jeffery's references are examined,the surveys which she 
: repeatedly refers turn out to be one study conducted by the 
: Institute of Race Relations! On the basis of these "surveys",
: she makes the following "scientific" claim: "If these survey
: findings from the representative sample canvassed can be
: extrapolated to the entire metropolitan populationm it can be
: assumed that some 1,75 million metropolitan blacks experienced
: coercion or intimidation in the context of mass action during
: 1990/1."

This evidence is adduced to show that there is REASONABLE doubt that
blame for violence cannot simply be assigned to vigilantes and the IFP,
and this is how is presented by Jeffery - NOT as an indisputable indicator
of levels of intimidation. It is contrary evidence that is simply IGNORED 
by the organizations in question. Nowhere does Jeffery attempt to present
an account of responsibility for violence, in fact she repeatedly
stresses the difficulty in asessing blame here.  

: In the context of this tendentious reasoning the question remains:
: What is the purpose of the exercise? is it merely to counter
: what John Kane-Berman has claimed is a world-wide smear
: campaign against IFP leader Mongosuthu Buthelezi.

Now on to questioning the MOTIVES behind the report. Suggests that
Jeffery is an IFP plant etc. Yeah, rave on. Kane-Berman rises
as a decoy - he shouldn't feature here at all since the report never
mentions him and he did none of the research. But Denis is
an old hand at this sort of crap.
 
: The perception is fortified by a second aspect of Dr jeffery's
: enterprise: her scarcely concealed attempts to fit her 
: criticism into a conspiracy of disinformation. Here she would
: do well to study the rules of inferential reasoning.

eh. Once again the mention of conspiracy, alleged nowhere and plainly
made up the by ever fertile Davis imagination. I challenge
the good practitioner of applied legal chicanery
to find any mention of this. Maybe Scott Hazelwurst could try, but then
he hasn't read the report either.
 
: Some of her arguments are reminiscent of the evidence given
: by "total onslaught" theorists in the heyday of the security
: trials. For example, she claims "reports which are seen to
: be one-sided can easily fan the flames of violence".
: This was the kind of justification used by the PW Botha regime
: to ban a range of publications and organisations in the 1980s.

Actually, she was quoting the Goldstone commission, widely respected
and backed by the ANC publically. I quote Jeffery quoting Goldstone

"innacurate reports of violence frequently result in an escalation of
violence". [page 51, way past Denis' bedtime]

This must have passed Denis by too - busy fabricating nonsense about
PW and total onslaughts.
 
: Is Dr Jeffery suggesting township residents are so influenced
: by the Amnesty report that, armed with a copy in their back pockets,
: they proceed to engage in acts of violence which characterise
: contemporary South Africa.

Er, address the question to Goldstone, Denis. The sobering
thought is that the ANC might place Davis in charge of some commission 
some day, he's been their maltese poodle for so long.
 
: It seems extra-ordinary that so much energy can be used to legitimate
: a particular political position rather than helping throw light on
: the causes of violence. 

Yeah, like the energy used to produce your crappy little newspaper article
in a field that you bear no knowledge of. Every point made easily refuted,
revealing your failure to even READ the report in question let alone take
stock of its major findings. Findings I will continue to report given
their significance.

Gavan Tredoux

"Do the Davis" club
UCT