Chinese profits in Africa

THE boom in China's investments in Africa over the past 17 years was driven more by simple profit motives than complex political and strategic considerations, an academic and government spokesman said .

Zhong Jianhua, China's ambassador to SA, said during a debate at the Gordon Institute of Business Science in Johannesburg to mark the launch of the China Africa Network, that if business investments were made for political reasons, they would hardly be sustainable."I wish I could give political instructions to business people. There may be some cases where people come here for political considerations but most business people come to SA, as in any part of the world, without political motivation..."

Last month the Centre for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University circulated an article warning that China's expanding interests in Africa threatened the environmental, economic and political stability of African society. Last year China became SA's biggest trading partner.

We readThe conventional wisdom among Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and (South African Communist Party) SACP strategists, and many other commentators, in business, civil society and opposition parties, is that exploding poverty should naturally strengthen the power of the Left within the African National Congress (ANC) tripartite alliance. Yet the reverse may actually hold true.Rising poverty may actually strengthen populist, and tribalist and narrow nationalist politics in South Africa, rather than Left or progressive politics.

One of the costs of severe mass poverty is mass alienation, mass family breakdown, mass breakdown in individual self-esteem, especially in our country, where self-worth is now increasingly measured in how much money one has. Mass poverty may also cause mass rejection of democracy as solution to problems. In the South African context, in moments of crisis, people often seek solace in tradition, tribe, identity and patriarchy, to affirm, gain dignity or self-respect. These frequently are translated into over-assertions of African or blackness, or ethnicity expressed in over-emphasis on Zulu-ness or Xhosa-ness as the main source of identity.

In fact, rapid changes in society, associated with increased poverty, and alienation – and the Sanco leadership’s inability to respond to this – are partially to blame for the organisation being on the verge of extinction. Some populist leaders in the ANC with a more developed political antenna have already exploited these changes in society, caused by mass poverty. They have made their platform adopting supposedly left positions such as ‘nationalisation’, when it comes to economics; but combining it with social conservatism, approving of polygamy and virginity testing; and adopting muscular policies to deal with social problems, such as the ‘shoot-to-kill’ and ask questions later policy to bring down crime.


Increasing poverty and job losses will reduce the membership base, coherence and strength of Cosatu. Most of those who lose jobs are typical trade union members. The poor – jobless, homeless, rural peasants and young, are now in electoral terms the overwhelming majority. With a smaller base, the trade union federation will face the danger of becoming a ‘labour aristocracy’, of organising only a small working class base who has jobs.The SACP is organised as an elite movement, with a relatively small membership, typically trade unionists, students and those working in civil society. As more and more South Africans become poorer, the membership of the SACP, many also become unrepresentative of the majority mass poor.

A new wave of xenophobic violence in South Africa is gathering intensity, after six Zimbabwean nationals were severely injured in a vicious attack by a mob of local residents in Polokwane, South Africa.The six sustained serious facial and bodily injuries in the attack at the Westernburg settlement, while more than a 100 other Zimbabweans have since fled the area and are camped in an old stadium under heavy police guard.

The attack comes as more than 2000 Zimbabweans are still taking shelter at a temporary refugee camp near Cape Town, after they were driven from their homes in the farming town of De Doorns. Local residents stormed at least two informal settlements in the area, tearing and burning down shacks belonging to Zimbabweans, accusing them of "stealing our jobs." Local wine farmers in the area have reportedly been hiring mainly Zimbabwean casual labourers, because they are more willing to accept less pay for the hours they work compared to local South African workers. In retaliation, the local workers have been threatening the foreigners with violence for several weeks, threats that turned into action last month.

Braam Hanekom from the refugee rights group PASSOP explained that the situation at the refugee camp is a 'nightmare', saying the local government is deliberately refusing to aid the refugees there. He said food rations for the group have been cut, while only enough shelter for less than half the people there has been made available.

"People are hungry and exposed to the elements and are being treated worse than animals," Hanekom said "It is completely inhumane and there is no effort to help these people who have been traumatised," .

The World Cup - the homeless cry "FOUL"

It's all warming up for the World Cup now . We have had the tournament's draw for the sections and we have the homeless being forced from the streets.
Isaac Lewis said that police have arrested him for loitering six times in the past month. Before that, Lewis said police mostly left him alone.
Police harassment he said "is increasing, everyday it's increasing," he said. "It's because they want to make a good impression for the foreigners coming. We are like insects to them, or flies."

Lesley de Rueck, Cape Town's director of 2010 operations, denied the city was pressuring the homeless for the World Cup's sake. Felicity Purchase, a city councilwoman and member of a mayoral committee on economic development and tourism, said that the city wanted to get people off the streets for their own good as well as to keep the city "tidy."

Jason Brickhill of the Legal Resources Center, an independent human rights group based in Johannesburg, stated homeless South Africans in Pretoria and Johannesburg, two of the other cities where the tournament will be staged, are also being arrested by police for loitering, and illegal evictions are on the increase.
"In my mind it's linked to the World Cup . There has been talk of the need to clean up the streets, where the dirt is the people."

South Africa - Inequality grows

South Africa remains the world's most unequal society, a report said

Development Indicators report showed that the income of South Africa's poorest 10 percent rose by a third from 783 rand (105 US dollars, 71 euros) in 1993 to 1,041 rand a month in 2008.The richest 10 percent got richer by nearly 38 percent over the same period.

Figures also show that while black South Africans' salaries increased by 38 percent, the incomes of white South Africans jumped by 83.5 percent between 1995 and 2008.

While other countries may occasionally come in below South Africa in inequality indices, as a nation with regular and reliable data it was "now singularly the most consistently unequal society in the world."

The report noted concerns about increasing mortality due to HIV/AIDS. Health expert David Saunders of the University of the Western Cape said South Africa was one of only five countries where under-five mortality was increasing.

In 1995, 31 percent of the population lived under the poverty line of 283 rand a month, which dropped to 22 percent in 2008.

Socialist Banner is reminded of what Marx said " A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut."

Riches thru the labour of others

Socialist Banner has said it , now COSATU says it .


"the black bourgeoisie benefits on the sweat of workers through BEE companies."

who pays the piper , calls the tune

South Africa has denied the Dalai Lama a visa to attend a peace conference . The Johannesburg conference is intended to discuss football's role in fighting racism and xenophobia. The Tibetan spiritual leader was due to attend the meeting, along with fellow Nobel laureates, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu and FW de Klerk later this week.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has pulled out of the meeting in protest and branded the decision "disgraceful".
"We are shamelessly succumbing to Chinese pressure," Archbishop Tutu was quoted as telling the Sunday Independent. "I feel deeply distressed and ashamed."

Mr de Klerk has also withdrawn from the event, while Mr Mandela's position is not clear.

A government spokesman has denied suggestions that the ban was a result of Chinese pressure. Dai Bing, an official at the Chinese embassy in Pretoria confirmed to Sapa that Beijing had warned the South African government that allowing the Dalai Lama into the country would harm bilateral relations.
Local newspaper, Business Day, quoted an unnamed government official as saying: "The Chinese government would not have been happy had we let him come... We would not do anything to upset the relationship we have with China."
South Africa is China's largest trading partner in Africa, with 2008 trade standing at 100bn rand ($10bn; £7bn).

South Africa - New policy on HIV/AIDS

South Africa's health minister promised a dramatic increase in treatment for AIDS victims to overcome the legacy of a decade of governmental denial of the epidemic.
Barbara Hogan said the government wanted to provide AIDS drugs to 1.5 million people over the next three years—up from 700,000 at present, conceding that thousands were without the treatment they desperately need.
South Africa has an estimated 5.7 million people infected with HIV—the most of any country in the world—and nearly 1,000 people die every day of AIDS-related diseases. But former President Thabo Mbeki and his health minister downplayed the crisis. Since 1996 life, expectancy in South Africa has fallen by 12 years, maternal mortality is higher than in Iraq, and three times more children under five die than in Brazil.

"We cannot let the economic crisis paralyze us," said Sidibe,head of UNAIDS . "Stimulus packages and economic adjustments should be made with a human face in mind. A mother should not have to choose between continuing AIDS treatment and feeding her children. We cannot let down the 4 million people on treatment and millions more in need today."

From our companion blog , Socialism Or Your Money Back

South Africa has a new political party called Congress of the People. But given that "..it is expected to adopt many of the policies pursued by the ANC government under Mbeki", COPE, as it is otherwise known, is perhaps best not described as 'new' but rather an ANC re-tread.

Whether therefore voters in the next election choose one congress or the other is moot. One can hope that the garlic & vinegar days of HIV/AIDS treatment are over and the new government will not be tempted to follow Zuma's example of HIV prevention (taking a shower after unprotected sex with an infected woman) as an excuse for abandoning effective but costly treatment with antiretrovirals. A recent study by Harvard researchers estimated that the ANC are responsible for the premature deaths of 365,000 people earlier this decade.

But is there any reason to think that that there will be no more billion $ arms deals ('dodgy' or otherwise), a reduction in the hundreds of thousands of homeless people, less xenophobia, better sanitation, etc? No. The horrors of apartheid have passed, but economically South Africa is still one of the most unequal countries in the world. Almost all the land, mines and industry remain in the same (mostly white) hands. Almost half the population lives below subsistence level. Unemployment is widespread; children scavenge on dumps and landfill sites from sunrise to sunset seven days a week. Life expectancy is falling (a drop of 13 years since 1990) as AIDS, drug-resistant TB and other diseases spread.

Little wonder then anti-aparthied activist Rassool Snyman felt compelled to state:

"They never freed us. They only took the chain from around our neck and put it on our ankles."

Zuma said recently that the ANC would be in power until Christ's second coming. In reality, this is probably a desire for a electoral system such as that in Turkmenistan where the turnout reached 93.87% in the election for 288 candidates, all of whom support the policies of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. Whatever, if Mosiuoa Lekota of COPE is to be believed "Public servants now talk in whispers when they discuss COPE. They report that they risk their jobs if they are seen to befriend us. Tales of spying on each other, as under apartheid, on who attends COPE meetings, abound" and "Songs threatening or encouraging the hatred of and the killing of COPE leaders have been composed and are sung at meetings,".

True liberation for the workers of South Africa and across the world will not take place before they act consciously and democratically (i.e. without leaders) to shed the chains of wage slavery.

the cost of anti-science

A recent Harvard School of Public Health study said 330,000 deaths were caused by former South Africa's former President Thabo Mbeki South Africa's his 1999 decision to declare available drugs toxic and dangerous. Also as a result of Mr Mbeki's policies, nearly 35,000 babies were also born HIV-positive between 2000 and 2005. The study, led by Dr Pride Chigwedere, accused the South African government of "acting as a major obstacle in the provision of medication to patients with Aids".
The authors said that under the leadership of Mr Mbeki, the government had restricted use of donated anti-retroviral drugs and blocked funds for more than a year from the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

A former Anglican archbishop , Njongonkulu Ndungane , of Cape Town has described poverty in South Africa as being worse than ever.

"Never before in the history of South Africa have such large gatherings of people consistently said 'we have no food,'" said the archbishop. "In a country where huge amounts can be spent on the 2010 soccer world cup or increasing salaries, it is unthinkable that so many can go without food."

Rich White Justice

A white farmer who threw the body of his fired black worker into a lions' pen has been freed on parole after less than three years in prison. Mark Scott-Crossley was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2005 for assaulting Nelson Chisale, a former employee, and throwing his body to lions at his game farm who devoured him. The Supreme Court of Appeal reduced the sentence to five years, saying there was no proof Chisale had been alive when he was fed to the animals.

Chisale had been fired from Scott-Crossley's construction business at the game farm and returned two months later to collect his belongings. When he did, he was attacked with machetes and tied to a stake, where he was left bleeding for six or seven hours before being thrown into a lion enclosure. Only Chisale's skull and some gnawed bones and bloody clothing were found.
Another farm worker was sentenced to 15 years for carrying out the assault, but the trial judge said Scott-Crossley was the mastermind.

The Confederation of South African Trade Unions slammed his release. "It is clear that those who are rich and white will continue to be treated differently to those who are poor," it said.

Mandela pleads for charity

Seems rather than seeking political and social solutions to poverty , Nelson Mandela is now making moral appeals to the benevolence of the capitalist class .

“There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so fortunate who have not been able to conquer poverty,” Mandela said.

But he is certainly 100% correct when he stated "If you are poor, you are not likely to live long,"

One Class , One Struggle

Companion bloggers The World Socialist carries an article that has been often commented upon here on the Socialist Banner - the rise of xenophobia in South Africa - the search for scapegoats for the failure of the ending of the apartheid era and the ANC government to satisfy the material needs of those who put their faith in the promise of change .

UnFreedom Day

A belated post on South Africa Freedom Day

"...On Sunday it will be Freedom Day again. Once again we will be asked to go into stadiums to be told that we are free. Once again we will not be going to the stadiums. We will, for the third time, be mourning UnFreedom Day. Since the last UnFreedom Day we have been beaten, shot at and arrested on false charges by the police; evicted by the land invasions unit; disconnected from electricity by Municipal Security; forcibly removed to rural human dumping grounds by the Municipalities; banned from marching by the eThekwini City Manager; slandered by all those who want followers not comrades; intimidated by all kinds of people who demand the silence of the poor; threatened by new anti-poor laws; burnt in the fires; sick in the dirt and raped in the dark nights looking for a safe place to go the toilet...

...In our movement we have often said that we are not free because we are forced to live without toilets, electricity, lighting, refuse removal, enough water or proper policing and, therefore, with fires, sickness, violence and rape. We have often said that we are not free because our children are chased out of good schools and because we are being chased out of good areas and therefore away from education, work, clinics, sports fields and libraries. We have often said that we are not free because the politics of the poor is treated like a criminal offence by the Municipalities while real criminals are treated like business partners. We have often said that we are not free because the councillors are treated like the people's masters instead of their servants. We have often said that we are not free because even many of the people who say that they are for the struggles of the poor refuse to accept that we can think for ourselves...

...But freedom is more than all of this. Freedom is a way of living not a list of demands to be met. Delivering houses will do away with the lack of houses but it won't make us free on its own. Freedom is a way of living where everyone is important and where everyone's experience and intelligence counts..."

From PAMBAZUKA NEWS - Full article at link

One People ,One World

Socialist Banner has previously directed attention to the anti-migrant tendencies in South Africa and once again we receive yet more reports of the same.

Socialist Banner can only agree with these statements made by a libertarian group in South Africa .

"No, Zimbabweans are not the reason why we have high crime rates and live in poverty! It is the capitalist system that needs starvation and unemployment to keep prices low, and it is the inequality generated by the capitalist system that drives people to crime! It is the ruling class and the government which protect capitalism. We should not attack people suffering from the same system we suffer from but the people who are behind it!...It is time to get rid of some of the myths that are around in South Africa: most criminals in this country actually are South Africans and not Zimbabweans or Congolese or whatever scapegoat you want to find! It is a myth in order to build a South African national identity but it is built on a lie...Other Africans for the first time in their life experience racism in South Africa, and this comes from both white and black South Africans...Xenophobia, meaning the fear of the foreign, is a sign of a society that has forgotten what its real enemy is: capitalism and everyone who supports this system (i.e. the state). It is as disgusting as racism to which it is closely related...The poor and working class people of this whole planet have more in common with each other than any working class does with its ruling class in any one country. To attack immigrants is to fight our own people instead of working together to build a better world.

We should be fighting for a world without artificial national borders between brothers and sisters in which no one is illegal!"

What Price Platinum 2

As a follow up of this earlier Socialist Banner report , we now read , Alleged human rights abuses by Anglo Platinum , the worlds leading producer of platinum, could spark investigations through-out South Africa’s mining industry. The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said it would probe accusations by international rights watchdog, ActionAid, of forced resettlement and contamination of water supplies in communities surrounding AP’s Limpopo province mines in the north of the country.

"Some of the poorest people on earth are paying a heavy price for the global platinum boom," according to Zanele Twala, ActionAid’s country director in South Africa. "Communities, especially women, have lost their main means of survival – access to land and water. We believe this constitutes a violation of their basic human rights."

Short of money = Short of food

At the risk of being seen as the boy who cried wolf once too often , another article about the pending effects of rising food prices has come to our attention and one distinctive feature of the article is its mention of the influence on the middle classes , another example of the proletarianisation of them .

“Everything is very expensive - we are now living on borrowed money,” Towela Ngwira, a shopper at a market in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, told IRIN. “For us it is no longer hand-to-mouth but hand-to-hand because all the money we get has to be given to someone else [from whom we borrowed]...We are now surviving on dry foods such as Kapenta [sardines], dry fish, and dry beans, because fresh foods are very expensive. We have even stopped buying bread for breakfast - it’s too expensive for us.”

This week South Africa, the regional economic giant, released figures showing the annual consumer price index for food, a measure of food price inflation, had increased to 14.1 percent. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation , the global picture is even bleaker: FAO’s global food price index rose 40 percent in 2007 compared to 9 percent in 2006. The causes are global. Worldwide food stocks have hit historic lows, while demand has never been higher. The combination has resulted in prices of basic staples such as wheat, corn and rice hitting record highs, up 50 percent or more in the past six months.

According to André Jooste, senior manager of market and economic research at South Africa’s National Agricultural Marketing Council, although the poor are inevitably the hardest hit, even professional urbanites are beginning to feel the squeeze. “The middle-class will start changing their buying patterns, moving away from special products to cheaper alternatives. They will have to” he said.

In Malawi’s southern town of Zomba, Harrison Kumwenda has seen the produce from his one and a half acre plot fall by more than half. He blames a combination of expensive fertiliser, and the weather.
“We were buying a bag of 50kg of maize at the price of K800 (US$ 5.8) in December but the vendors are selling a bag of 50kg at K3,000 (US$ 22) which is very high”.

In Zambia, the authorities “have decided to restrict the export of maize only to countries that have active contracts with us until we ascertain the quantity of maize stocks in the country,” Sara Sayifwanda, Zambia’s minister of agriculture, told IRIN. “It is important for us to take precautions because we don’t know as yet how exactly this harvest season will be; we may have maize shortages in certain places.”

Peter Cottan, vice president of the Millers Association of Zambia, said some millers had started hoarding their maize stocks in anticipation of a shortage. “We expect the prices to even go higher,” he said.

The Basic Needs Basket, an index of market prices compiled monthly by a local faith-based think-tank, the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflections (JCTR) in Zambia, has shown an unprecedented increase in the cost of basic food items: the average monthly cost rose by 10 percent from January to February.
“The obvious and common underlying factor... has to do with how much is available on the market,” JCTR spokesperson, Miniva Chibuye, explained. “The current upward trends in food prices pose serious challenges to human development and require that strategic planning and responses begin now.”

Of course , the position of Socialist Banner is that the capitalist system is inadequate to plan or respond to its own inherent failings of supply and distribution , an explanation which can be summed up as "Those who can't pay , can't have "

divide and rule

Socialist Banner has pointed out the threat of discrimination in South Africa against in-comers from other parts of the continent and now another news report high-lights the problem .

Human rights organisations in South Africa have condemned a spate of xenophobic attacks that have reportedly left four people dead and hundreds homeless.
"At least a 1,000 people have also been left homeless in the latest attack - we are really concerned," said Vincent Moaga, spokesman for the South African Human Rights Commission .

The United Nations Refugee Agency said it had recorded at least half a dozen attacks against foreign nationals in the past few weeks, including the fatal shooting of two migrants in another township outside Pretoria on 18 March. Following the killing, thousands of people went on a rampage, assaulting foreigners in four other informal settlements, reported local newspapers.

"Most of the attacks seem to stem from social tensions within the communities," said Jack Redden, UNHCR spokesman in South Africa. "Many foreign nationals unable to afford rentals in city centres have begun to relocate to townships - and have become the focus of simmering tensions within townships over lack of service delivery." Nearly 17 million strong labour force remain officially unemployed in South Africa. A further 3.5 million are classified as "discouraged work-seekers" or "unemployed." South Africa as the regional economic superpower has attracted migrants - both legal and illegal - from across the continent and beyond

"It is a new kind of racism," commented Annah Moyo, a human rights lawyer with the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF). "It is understandable, I think, because South Africans feel threatened as many employers prefer to hire foreign nationals because they can exploit them - but violence can never be justified."

Divide and rule to maintain whites in political power has been the history of Africa in the past but now industry and commerce , much of it black owned , now use the same tactic to weaken the working class to continue their control .

Shared exploitaion deserves the response of united resistance.

what price platinum?

From the BBC

Mining giant Anglo American courts prime ministers and presidents, keen to be seen as leading the way in corporate responsibility. But there are concerns that people are being forced off their land as the world's third largest mining operation seeks huge profits from the increasing world demand for platinum.

The global drive for clean air is driving the market in platinum which is used to produce catalytic converters. Nearly 90% of the world's platinum reserves are in southern Africa with Anglo American's mines proving to be highly productive and profitable. It makes the company a major player in the South African economy paying nearly £1bn in tax to the government. Nearly 20,000 South Africans have been displaced by mining giant Anglo American in its search for platinum, a BBC File on 4 investigation has found.

This platinum rush has seen a new wave of mines with deep pit mining abandoned and massive open casts mines coming on stream. But thousands of villagers have had to move from their ancestral lands - relocated to purpose built townships financed by Anglo American's subsidiary Anglo Platinum which offers compensation and new land. Not everyone was happy to leave. Villagers who have resisted claim they have been shot with rubber bullets by the police.

Villager Rose Thlarera told File On 4: "I worked my arse off working for these people - for white people - and cleaning their houses. I'm not going to move just because they come and tell me - force me to go - I can't do that. I believe I have also got rights" Rose said . "What the mine is doing to us is worse than the apartheid era - during apartheid we had our water and electricity but we didn't have the mine amongst us." She added: "They are forcing us out - they don't care how they are getting their platinum."

With no water the remaining villagers rely on a seep dug next to a stream, "We don't think it is clean - it is not healthy any more," said Rose.

They fear the water is polluted with chemicals from the nearby mine and Abel said he was hospitalised for three weeks with a stomach ailment and breathlessness. Last October an independent analysis, commissioned by the charity Action Aid , of water at 10 sites near Anglo Platinum mines in the Limpopo Province found water unfit for human consumption. The analysis by environmental chemist Carin Bosman found it contained high concentrations of salts, particularly nitrates, which could cause stomach cancer and sometimes a fatal blood disorder - one of its symptoms is breathlessness. Her analysis at one village Ga-Molekane, found the village water supply has extremely high levels of nitrates and bacteriological contamination. Ms Bosman said she is certain a waste reservoir next to the mine is responsible for the contamination.

An Action Aid report also accuses the company of exploiting those forced to leave their land.
"People need to be given fair amounts of compensation, they need to be asked whether they want to be moved or not in these mining processes of mining and they should be compensated adequately for that," said its author Mark Curtis.

Anglo Platinum has also been criticised over safety standards - on average, around 20 people a year are killed whilst working in its mines.

The question is what price platinum and who ultimately has to pay that price ?