By Udo W. Froese
The five-month long strike led by Joseph Matunjwa and his cohorts of the ‘Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU)’, which includes the Economic Freedom Fighters, its Julius Malema and Dali Mpofu, shows a crossover to insurrection and high treason.
The men in the shadows behind AMCU and EFF turn on the heat of full destabilisation, where the winner takes all.
AMCU’s Matunjwa and EFF’s Malema and Mpofu know what they are doing. They act as economic hit men, targeting South Africa’s mining industry.
This will have a ripple effect on the rest of the economy, if not bring it to an immediate stop. An ‘Arab Spring’ seems unavoidable as particularly the poor majority will feel the spiralling price escalations.
This current political development in the country’s mining sector could lead to another Ukraine, where a democratically elected government was unseated by a foreign funded, reckless anarchical mob.
The almost five-month long strike in the North West Province’s platinum belt with repeated threats from AMCU’s Matunjwa and EFF leaders Malema and Mpofu, that those strikes would be escalated and spread to the gold mining sector, has left a bloody trail of about one hundred murdered mineworkers.
Thousands of labourers have been left destitute, queuing for their daily bread at soup kitchens. Meanwhile, the once wealthy platinum mining town of Rustenburg is on the brink of shutting down because of these strikes.
Marikana cost about sixty mineworkers’ lives. Police were shot at with live ammunition that left the South African Police Services (SAPS) no alternative, but to defend their lives. Matunjwa and his cohorts thought it right to hide assassins armed with hard-nose bullets to kill the police present.
The revered, murdered MK commander and SACP general secretary, Chris Hani, declared, “One death is one too many.”
A situation has been created of lengthy violent strikes in the country’s platinum mine sector with numerous threats that the strike will not end there – while other industry workers realise that it is possible to achieve at least promises for salary increases, by recklessly undermining the economy.
South Africa’s economy would eventually end in a dustbowl. Mineworkers as well as their colleagues from other industrial sectors would be mere canon fodder to achieve the ultimate goal of the collapse of the rand in the near future. Foreign and local interests would then be able to buy the jewels of the economic crown for less than a song to the detriment of the entire workforce.
Undermining the economy and the currency value of one’s country through destabilising actions, such as questionable political activities masquerading as legitimate strikes, with the assistance of foreign and local interests, would be tantamount to high treason. South Africa’s legal system has stringent laws against high treason.
According to the acknowledged Oxford Dictionary, the definition of high treason is “the crime betraying one’s country” and (in order …) “to overthrow one’s government”. Destabilisation is defined as “cause unrest in”, and/or “upset stability”.
The background and the role of the Cape Town based foreign and locally funded, “Alternative Information and Development Center (AIDC)” under its director, Brian Ashley, and its senior economist, Dick Forslund, need to answer many questions. Those include – who are their sponsors; who are their trustees and/or who serves on their board; what are their overt and covert founding policies; what are the real roles of Brian Ashley and Dick Forslund; would they be prepared to publish their full, unedited CV? This writer was shown reports, recording, “Forslund admitted, he has been a long-time undercover agent based in South Africa, planning an insurrection.”
Interestingly, the media only reported on the AIDC on 9 June 2014.
It seems fashionable to deploy NGOs to foment uprisings. They no longer do community work, but come in bad faith with hidden agendas, advertising that they help the destitute mineworkers. The NGOs’ reputation of being non-aligned is in tatters. They are used to further destabilise pockets of unrest. In other words, they work as political activists, pretending to do good for the poor, when the lives of the mineworkers are already destroyed.
When AMCU’s Matunjwa was asked about the role of foreign interests, he merely rebuked such observation, making it out to be “xenophobic”. But, he did not answer. He seems to rather listen to the advice of Moses Mayekiso, who was a leading member of the Metal Workers’ Union in the 1980s.
The attack on the stability of the state is not just a journalist’s story. It is a fact that continues to unfold. The ANC would need to take it seriously. Does South Africa’s uber-liberal constitution provide for anarchy and a so-called ‘Arab Spring’ and a subsequent ‘regime change’? Does this democracy need tighter management to avoid destabilisation followed by the devaluation of the rand?
As the situation develops, influential foreign rating agencies such as Standard & Poor (S&P) and Moody’s, which base their country judgements on perceptions only, currently evaluate the value of South Africa’s rand currency (ZAR) to establish whether they should knock the ZAR. This is mainly based on the political strikes in the mining sector.
Would mine companies such as Xstrata-Glencor and Sibanye Gold benefit from such unsettling developments?
It is a political programme spearheaded by AMCU and the EFF. The EFF’s Julius Malema and Dali Mpofu were seen at a number of AMCU rallies standing next to Joseph Matunjwa. Mpofu was also present during the negotiations between Matunjwa and the mining senior management. He however, claimed to attend “in his personal capacity as attorney representing the interests of AMCU”.
A senior member of the NUM’s CEC and of COSATU, who commented on this situation, but did not want his name to be revealed said, “South Africa is in trouble. The North West Province is identified as a ‘hot spot’.
“The mineworkers come from Lesotho, the province of KwaZulu/Natal, the Eastern Cape and the North West Province. All of these provinces are strong ANC and Alliance supporters. At times, the strikes come across as fanned from both sides –AMCU and the EFF on the one side and the mine owners on the other.”
“That strike has a devastating affect on the coalface. Abject poverty has set in. Something terrible has come up. It is the first in decades that rural people, who depend on the wages of the mineworkers, sell their livestock. Traditionally, the cattle kraal is their wealth and their last resort,” it was highlighted.
“Together, local royalty, the chiefs could play a critical role in resolving the never-ending mineworkers’ strike by sending their labourers back to the mines to work. Local royalty needs to get together and act with urgency,” a senior COSATU/NUM member explained.
The ANC Alliance-led government has to resolve this strike and at the same time address the high youth unemployment. If the strike is allowed to escalate and the youth remain idle, it would become the fertile ground for anarchy and a subsequent North African-style Arab Spring. Egypt and Libya are two frightening examples of scorched earth, resulting from foreign funded, induced anarchy, described by the media as ‘Arab Spring’, ringing in a ‘regime change’.
A well-known senior ANC NEC and NWC member, who spoke to this writer on condition of anonymity, said: “This is not a storm that will blow away. It is reckless anarchy, an abuse of South Africa’s fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution. The decline into anarchy and a so-called Arab Spring has to be avoided at all costs. Civil society too needs to speak out against treasonous developments, which use politics to play outside the normal process of politics. Assassins and covert operators cannot be part of any democratically elected structures. The only way to deal with it is to go out and meet them!”
• Udo Froese is a non-institutionalised, independent political and socio-economic analyst and columnist, based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
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