David CAN defeat Goliath: all it takes is courage – Geert Wilders

Marked for Death: Islam’s War Against the West and Me “David can defeat Goliath … all it takes is courage “ – Geert Wilders

Book review of Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ boek: “Marked for Death, Islam’s War Against the West and Me’, – reviewed by retired Dutch/South African journalist Adriana Stuijt a.j.stuijt@knid.nl

April 28 2012 – Dutch MP Geert Wilders represents the more than 1,5-million Dutch voters who at the previous election — and despite a massive demonisation media-campaign against him — voted to support the third-largest political party in The Netherlands, a small northern European trading-nation of 16,5-million citizens. The same trading-nation which founded the city of New York, the city of Cape Town, the city of Jakarta, and many other cities worldwide…

You won’t easily find this latest book in Dutch bookshops however – even though it’s in my opinion, a `must-read’ for every Christian who is serious about wanting to oppose the islamisation of their suburbs, their cities and their countries – and the resultant destruction of their own religious and cultural heritage.

Because of the massive demonisation campaign waged against him in the mainstream news media, it’s probably not widely known that Wilders is an erudite, well-informed scholar of Islam who travelled widely throughout the Middle East before he embarked on his political career. In other words, he knows what he’s talking about.

In the foreword to his book, `Marked for Death, Islam’s War Against the West and Me’ – formally introduced in the USA on May 1, 2012 – the Dutch statesman is describes by the Canadian Free Speech advocate Mark Steyn as follows:

Steyn: “Geert Wilders, unlike most of his critics, has traveled widely in the Muslim world. Unlike them, he has READ the koran – and re-read it on all those interminable nights holed up in some dreary safe house, denied the consolations of family and friends. One way to think about what is happening is to imagine it the other way round. Rotterdam has a Muslim mayor, a Moroccan passport holder born the son of a Berber imam. How would the Saudis feel about an Italian Catholic mayor in Riyadh?”

“Islamo-fascism is a political doctrine, not a religion:”

Wilders exquisite knowledge of islamic culture and history becomes crystal-clear as he describes what he terms the march of `Islamofascism’ in the first chapters of his book – and returning to it often in later chapters. The rise of Islam is described by Wilders in such riveting detail that the reader switches from astonishment to abhorrence — and even incredulity at the gullibity of Westerners — in quick succession. He describes, for instance, the way in which the contemporaries of Muhammed in Mecca in 610AD viewed this former caravan-driver, the son of a respected member of the Banu Hashim (Hashimite/Quraish) tribe – the dominant tribe in Mecca.

Muhammed’s `revelations’ were initially greeted by his bemused contemporaries as being `a medley of dreams,’ `inventions’, that he was `possessed’, a `madman’. Wilders: In Muhammad’s day, Arabia was inhabited by Jewish, Christian and pagan tribes. Mecca was a trading hub, with contacts to Ethopia, India, Persia, Egypt and the Levant. It was also an important religious locale where worship centered on the Kaaba – a stone possibly the remnant of a meteorite. The pre-Islamic Kaaba was a shrine housing a pantheon of gods – containing up to 360 idols, with three female deities – Al-Lat, Al-Uzzah and Manat as the most prominent – but also statues of Hindu gods and icons of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. “The Meccans”, writes Wilders, were `multiculturalists avant la lettre. They were pluralistic and tolerant, willing to accommodate new religious groups.’

Muhammad did not obey the rules of warfare: helpless prisoners were ordered tortured, slaughtered, massacred…

Wilders believes that only by understanding Islam’s aggressive military doctrine of world-domination, will Christians be motivated enough to want to defeat it actively. He emphasises the personality of the faith’s founding father, Muhammed, in lurid detail the way in which Muhammed’s growing intolerance grew as his power grew – which he gained primarily through incredibly vicious violence: by attacking the all-important caravan trade between Mecca and slaughtering anyone who opposed him.

“From Medina,’ wrote Wilders, `Muhammad began raiding the camel caravans of Arab traders… these plundering raids are called ghazi in Arabic, from which the (nazi) word razzia is derived. Muhammad organised 82 razzias – twenty-six he personally led. He frequently violated the pre-Islamic Arabs’ chivalrous warcode: “allowing him to defeat his opponents who obeyed the rules and who simply could not imagine that their enemy would not do the same.’

“Because these regimes have made `the universal truth’ into a political ideology, they do not obey rules of warfare…” For example: In Badr in March 624, about 300 Muslims led by Muhammad defeated a Meccan escort three times their number and captured several important Quraishi leaders (i.e. members of Muhammad’s own tribe). The spoils of battle went to Muhammad in accordance with a Koranic revelation that came to Muhammad immediately after the battle. It ordered: “The spoils belong to Allah and the Apostle’. Not content with mere robbery, Muhammad had the captured Quraishi leaders massacred, because, according to the Koran, `a prophet may not take captives until he has fought and triumphed in his land.’ When people objected to this massacre, Muhammed had them slaughtered too. Wilders describes the way in which Muhammad ordered people to be tortured: for instance, by making fires on their chests and then cutting off their heads; cutting off their hands and feet and dumping them to die in the desert, even with crucification…

He emphasizes over and over again that only because they were willing to fight back, did the Christian Byzantines manage to hold off the onslaught of Islam against that magnificent city of Constantinople for 800 years – as did Frankish king Charles Martel at the French city of Tours, and the Viennese fought back against the Muslim sieges.

`Christianity was saved in Europe solely because they have been able to resist the Mohammedans by the sword…’ US president Teddy Roosevelt

Wilders quotes an American president he greatly admires, Teddy Roosevelt, as noting the importance of this willingness to fight back against the Mohammedan invasion with the sword: “Roosevelt,’ he wrote, `understood the importance of the victories at Tours and Vienna for the survival of Western civilization. Christianity was saved in Europe solely because they have been able to resist the Mohammedans by the sword.’

Roosevelt wrote in his 1916 book ` Fear God and Take Your Own Part ‘: “Wherever the mohammedans have complete sway, wherever the Christians have been unable to resist them by the sword, Christianity has ultimately disappeared. From the hammer of (Frankish King) Charles Martel to the sword of (Polish King Jan Sobieski in Vienna), Christianity owed its safety in Europe to the fact that it was able to show that it could and would fight as well as the Mohammedan aggressor’… Roosevelt also warned:

“To make a statement that all religions are the same is as naive as saying that all political parties are the same. Some religions and belief systems give a higher value to each human life and some religions and belief systems give a lower value. As generations of Americans past, our time has come to defend the beliefs and values that made this nation great, such as equality before the law… there are such `social values’ today in Europe, America and Australia only because during those thousand years, the Christians of Europe possessed the warlike power to do what the Christians of Asia and Africa had failed to do – that is to beat back the Moslem invader.’
Close link between the Nazis and the Muslims: “Eichmann gave a tour of Auschwitz to the grand mufti of Jerusalem, and showed him the gas chambers…”

Wilders also dwells in detail on the close link between the Nazis and the M uslims. “The Nazis recognized in Islam a kindred evil soul,’ he writes, noting:

`Adolf Hitler deplored the fact that the Germanic Franks had won in Tours in 732: `Had Charles Martel not been victorious, then we should in all probability have been converted to Mohammedanism, that cult which glories the heroism and opens up the seventh heaven to the bold warrior alone. Then the Germanic races would have conquered the world. Christianity alone prevented them from doing so,’ he quotes Hitler…’
And this admiration between Nazis and Muslims is mutual: `In 1941, Mohammad Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who led several anti-Jewish pogroms in the Middle East in the 1920s and 1930s, visited Hitler and Himmler in Berlin. Auchmann – overseer of the Holocaust – gave him a private tour of Auschwitz and showed him the gas chambers. At the post-war Nuremberg trials, Dieter Wisliceny, Eichmann’s deputy, revealed: ‘the mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and advisor of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan. He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures’.

“Ironic that his critics accuse Wilders and other patriots of fascism and nazism”…

Wilders writes: “It is ironic that some of my critics accuse me and other patriots – who defend our national identity against Islamization and who honour Charles Marte and John III Sobieski as heroes of Western civilization – of fascism and nazism. It is Islam that lays claim to that charge.’

In Chapter 13, `To Turn the Tide’, Wilders writes that Islamisation can be stopped – but it takes courage and a steely will to succeed. He warned: `As Franklin Roosevelt declared: “Let not the defeatist tell us that it is too late. It will never be earlier. Tomorrow will be later than today’.

“David can defeat Goliath … all it takes is courage” – Geert Wilders

He exhorts his countrymen and his fellow-Europeans to fight back – by pressuring their governments to close the borders to the tide of non-Western immigrants. “In 2010 alone, 52,000 non-Western immigrants entered the Netherlands, of whom more than 19,000 hailed from Islamic countries. I agreed with (two other major parties in the Netherlands, the liberal VVD and the Christian-Democrat Alliance CDA) that the cabinet would aim to reduce the number of non-Western immigrants by a very substantial number by 2014. This could lead to a decrease of 50 percent – and to also restrict the `family formation and family reunification’ policies through which many non-Western immigrants are brought to the Netherlands by family members. “Furthermore, labour immigration from outside Europe is no longer allowed unless the employer can prove that it was impossible to fill a specific vacancy with Dutch or European employees’. Further requirements are that all newcomers must be obliged to integrate. to become Dutch in its political spirit, in its language and in its culture: “Those who fail their civil integration examination will… have their temporary rsidence permits revoked.’

From his hiding place, Geert Wilders not only exhorts us to fight back, but he also sends Christians worldwide a message of hope when he writes:

“We must cherish our national identity. We must ban the burka – people’s faces should not be hidden in society, for it is our faces that give us our identity and our fundamental means of communication with others. And (…) all it takes is courage. The Dutch example shows that when people overcome their fear, David can defeat Goliath. For decades, the multicultural elite suppressed dissent by denouncing as racist anyone who questioned their pro-Islam, pro-mas immigration dogma. But finally, after silently watching for years the immense damage to our nation by the elite’s policies, the Dutch people had enough. In the face of all the threats and intimidation levelled against my supporters, enough people had the courage to vote for the PVV that we dundamentally altered our country’s policies’.

The high price paid by Geert Wilders and others — such as the murdered political-science professor Pim Fortuyn; the murdered Dutch self-described `court-jester’ Theo van Gogh; the exiled Dutch-Somalian MP Ayaan Hirshi Ali — all fighting for their hard-won freedom in this small northern-European country, has already been immense.

Geert Wilders was also marked for death for criticizing Islam, writing: “For asserting our rights to say what we really think about the political ideology that disguises itself as a religion, we have been hounded by Muslims seeking to make an example of us. `Offend us,’ they are saying to the world, andyou will end up in hiding like Wilders, attacked like (Danish cartoonist) Westergaard, or dead like Van Gogh”…

Wilders describes his current life as follows: “I live in a government safe house, heavily protected and bulletproof. Since Nobember 2004, when a Muslim murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh for the crime of offending Islam, I have been surrounded by police guards and stripped of nearly all personal privacy. I am driven every day from the safe house to my office in the Dutch Parliament building in armoured police cars with sirens and flashing blue lights. I wear a bulletproof jacket when I speak in public. Always surrounded by plaincvlothes police officers, I have not walked the streets on my own in more than seven years… Why do I need this protection? I am not a president or a king; I am a mere member of the Dutch Parliament, one of 150 elected parliamentarians in the Tweede Kamer, the House of Representatives of the Netherlands, a small country of 16.5-million in Western Europe.’…

Yet Wilders is asking Christians to show similarly great courage: “We will not be picking up axes and breaking into people’s homes. But we will not remain silent either. Moderation in the face of evil is not what our age needs. We must uncap our pens; we must speak words of truth. We are facing a determined enemy who is striving through all means to destroy the West and snuff out our traditions of free thought, free speech, and freedom of religion. Make no mistake: if we fail, we will be enslaved.’

“You can help fight the fight just by reading this book – which explains the many ways in which Islam has marked for death not just me, but all of Western Civilisation’. We must, in the worlds of Revolutionary War veteran General John Stark: “Live free or die’.

A book review by Adriana Stuijt

Source – Amazon – David CAN defeat Goliath: all it takes is courage – Geert Wilders

America under Obama in four years

A very shocking video showing the state of the USA under the Obama Administration after four years – A man man jaywalking in front of car.

America under Obama in four years

Video Source – AMERICA UNDER OBAMA IN FOUR YEARS

Hungry chickens start eating each other

Mbombela – Around 3 000 broiler chickens that formed part of a government upliftment project near Piet Retief in Mpumalanga had to be euthanased by the SPCA after they were left to starve to death, according to a report on Monday.

Nazareth Appalsamy, the SPCA’s farm unit inspector, said the desperate chickens had started cannibalising each other, and it was the “worst example of cannibalism and cruelty” he had seen in his career.

Appalsamy and three colleagues worked from Wednesday last week until Saturday to put the creatures out of their misery, Beeld newspaper reported.

The police had to be called in, because the project beneficiaries became violent when the SPCA started putting down the animals.

Lungisiswe Mkwanazi, ANC councillor of the Mkhondo local authority, said on Sunday that the Siyaphambili upliftment project had been initiated by the Mpumalanga department of agriculture.

Nhlanha Mavuso, the chairperson of the Siyaphambili project, said on Sunday that the project had been initiated for himself and eight other people.

Initially, Mavuso said, the government supplied the chickens and the food, and government and beneficiaries entered into an agreement with a local hospital to purchase the poultry.

The hospital bought chickens once, but did not place another order.

The owners of the chickens ran out of money, and they could not buy chicken feed, Mavuso said.

Source – News24 – Hungry chickens start eating each other

Wes-Kaap voel asof dit ’n ander land is

Met ons onlangse vakansie in die Wes-Kaap het ons oor 14 dae meer as 2 000 km afgelê: van Hermanus aan die suidkus tot op Laaiplek aan die weskus en meer binneland toe tot by Tulbach en Robertson, uitgesluit die 1 500 km van Pretoria na Kaapstad.

Daar is eenvoudig geen vergelyking in die toestand van die nasionale en streekpaaie tussen die Wes-Kaap en meeste van die ander provinsies nie.

Ons het net een padteken gesien wat waarsku teen slaggate, maar ons soek nog steeds die slaggate!

Die verdwaalde slaggat wat wel voorkom, is binne ’n dag of twee herstel en sodanig dat ’n mens dit glad nie voel as jy daaroor ry nie.

Bestuurders van die meeste ander provinsies moet ook gewoond raak om nie uit gewoonte onmiddellik te rem of uit te swaai wanneer daar ’n verskil in die teer se kleur gesien word nie.

In Gauteng is dit ’n outomatiese reaksie met die verwagting dat daar weer ’n gat of knop is waar aan die pad gewerk is.

Met net twee tolpaaie, naamlik Chapman’s Peak en die Hugenote-tonnel, teenoor die hordes in Gauteng en die groeiende getal in die ander provinsies en die toestand van die alternatiewe roetes, is dit moeilik om te dink wat van die tolgeld word wat gehef word in die ander provinsies.

Betaalparkering by winkelsentrums, ontspanningsplekke of toeriste-attraksies is haas onbekend in die Wes-Kaap, terwyl dit ewe haas ondenkbaar is om aan enige plek in Gauteng te dink wat gratis parkering aan kliënte en besoekers bied.

’n Mens sien ook byna geen motorfiets sonder nommerplate op die Wes-Kaap se paaie nie, teenoor Gauteng, waar dit byna die reël deesdae geword het – moontlik omdat die Wes-Kaap se verkeerspolisie die paaie patrolleer eerder as om agter struike en ander strukture weg te kruip soos oorwegend die geval in Gauteng is.

Ons is twee keer in die Wes-Kaap afgetrek by padversperrings wat beman is deur die polisie en verkeerspolisie.

Ons is elke keer vriendelik in verstaanbare Afrikaans of Engels aangespreek. In Gauteng kan die meeste polisie- en verkeerspolisielede skaars Engels verstaan of praat, om nie eens van Afrikaans te praat nie!

Dus is my vraag weer: Is die Wes-Kaap deel van Suid-Afrika of op ’n ander vasteland?

Hoe kry hulle dit reg om die provinsie so goed te onderhou met net die toegelate begroting, sonder tolpaaie, ekstra heffings op brandstof vir dié of daai projek, inkomste uit alewige voertuignommerplaatveranderings, ensovoorts?

Is dit net omdat dit die enigste provinsie is waar die DA in beheer is en korrupsie en bedrog behoorlik beveg word?

deur KC van den Berg van Centurion skryf

Bron – Beeld – Wes-Kaap voel asof dit ’n ander land is

Absa vir R1,1 mjd. gedagvaar

Johannesburg. – ’n Dagvaarding vir die betaling van R1,1 miljard is eergister aan Absa Bank en Absa Bank Nominees beteken deur die kurators van Corporate Money Managers (CMM) en die Altron Pensioenfonds.

Die kurators beweer in die dagvaarding dat Absa versuim het om sy verpligtinge as bewaarhebber en trustee van die Cash Managed Fund (CMF) na te kom. Dié verpligtinge word aan die trustee van ’n fonds opgelê ingevolge die trustakte en in hierdie geval die Wet op Kollektiewe Beleggingskemas.

Absa was die trustee van die CMF, wat bemark is as ’n geldmarktrust, en CMM die portefeuljebestuurder. Die administrasie is gedoen deur ­Ayanda, ’n filiaal van Fidentia (wat in 2007 onder kuratele geplaas is).

CMM is in April 2009 onder kuratele gestel nadat die CMF gesluit is omdat hy nie sy verpligtinge teenoor beleggers kon nakom nie. Die CMF is gesluit deur mnr. George Papadakis, medekurator van Fidentia.

In die dagvaarding wat aan Absa beteken is, voer die kurators aan dat beleggers in die CMF skade van R849,16 miljoen gely het en die Altron Pensioenfonds R48,39 miljoen. Die partye eis ook rentebetalings van R251,05 miljoen namens die beleggers en R8,5 miljoen namens Altron.

Die kurators voer aan dat Absa in sy rol as trustee moes agterkom dat die geld wat in CMF belê is, nie volgens die mandaat vir beleggings in ’n geldmarktrust belê is nie.

Die CMF het nie, soos aan kliënte voorgehou is, belê in likiede rentedraende instrumente nie. Pleks van beleggings in likiede rentedraende instrumente, het die CMF beleggers se geld uitgeleen vir oorbruggingsfinansiering vir eiendomstransaksies. CMM het herhaaldelik promesse tussen verskillende verwante maatskappye uitgereik toe hy agterkom dat hy nie beleggers se geld kon terugbetaal nie. Dié promesse was strydig met die bepalings van die Bankwet en is herhaaldelik omgerol.
Die kurators sê die waarde van die promesse was ook baie meer as die netto batewaarde van die beleggings in die fonds.

Dit dui ook op versuim aan die kant van Absa om die bates reg te waardeer, wat ’n oortreding is van die Wet op Kollektiewe Beleggings.

Absa het eergister bevestig dat die dagvaarding ontvang is. Mnr. Marthinus van Rensburg, hoofregsadviseur van Absa, sê die eis word nog bestudeer en dit is aan die regspan oorhandig vir verdere hantering.

Die kurators het ook ’n dagvaarding uitgereik aan verskeie individue om eise van miljoene rande te bewys met betrekking tot voordele, geld en bates wat die individue ontvang het uit die bestuur van nagenoeg 26 maatskappye wat op die een of ander manier verwant is aan CMM.

– Absa is ook gewikkel in ’n hofstryd met die kurators van Ovation, wat ’n bedrag van R129 miljoen van Absa eis. Absa het die eis betwis, maar ingevolge ’n hofbeslissing verlede jaar mag Ovation voortgaan met die eis. Die partye wag egter nog op ’n verhoordatum.

Bron – Sake24 – Absa vir R1,1 mjd. gedagvaar

Afrikanerhart – Bok van Blerk

A compilation of Anglo-Boer War shots for this beautiful song by Bok van Blerk. A song that gives me goose bumps and makes me feel like I want to solute to it.

Video Source – Afrikanerhart – Bok van Blerk

More ANC ire heaped on Nedbank’s chief

Government spokesman Jimmy Manyi has criticised Nedbank chairman Reuel Khoza, labelling his attack on the ANC as disingenuous and saying it showed that “his books” weren’t “exactly balanced”.

Manyi’s open letter is the latest in a series of attacks on Khoza by ANC members who took umbrage at statements he made on March 30 attacking the ruling party.

At a presentation called to release the Nedbank Group’s annual report, Khoza referred to a “strange breed of leaders” determined to undermine the rule of law.

Manyi on Tuesday asked the chairman to clarify some of his harsher statements and criticisms.

Khoza had also commented on the degenerating checks and balances in the ANC leadership. In his letter, Manyi asks where these fears stem from.

“It would help if Dr Khoza were to expand on his allegations and tell us all exactly which checks and balances are being lost so ‘fast’,” said Manyi.

The government spokesman also criticised Nedbank’s broad-based black economic empowerment score.

By Yusuf Omar

Related stories:

• Manyi responds to Khoza’s criticism
• Mantashe criticises Nedbank chairman
• Khoza’s ‘twisted logic’: Mthethwa

Source – IOL – More ANC ire heaped on Nedbank’s chief

Get ready to cough up R700, says communications minister

Communications Minister Dina Pule launched an aggressive advertising campaign to educate South Africans on government’s digital TV broadcasting migration plans.

Digital TV advertorial from the DoC

In the advertisement called “Go Digital South Africa”, Pule punts digital TV as a technology which will make high definition television available to everyone.

“This process is called Go Digital South Africa, and we urge all South Africans to equip themselves with information on how this process is going to affect them,” the advertisement states.

The DoC advertorial states that households will need a digital decoder to receive the new digital TV signal. The retail cost for this decoder will be “in the region of R700″. Government will subsidize the cost of these decoders to “needy households.”

“The exact details of the subsidy will be made public once government is ready,” the advert states.

According to the communications department, an externally mounted antenna will be required. This means that some households may have to invest in a new antenna for digital TV.

The DoC expects the digital decoders to become available to the public in the second half of 2012.

Source – Get ready to cough up R700, says communications minister

Your The Voice – Shout SA

A powerful remake of “Your The Voice” sung by a group of South African artists.

Source – YouTube

Inconvenient law?

‘Universal jurisdiction” is generally not a popular concept among African governments, including our own. It refers to the power which a state claims, to prosecute persons for crimes committed outside the state’s own territory, even where such crimes have no connection to that state.

When Western powers do it – as Belgium tried to in 2000 by attempting to arrest the Democratic Republic of Congo’s foreign minister – it is mostly taken as extremely arrogant and “neo-colonial”.

But as it happens South Africa also claims some universal jurisdiction. In 2002 Parliament passed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Act the “ICC Act”.

It absorbed into South Africa’s domestic law the very serious crimes which the ICC had recently been established to prosecute – war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

It is an extraordinary law because it gives South African courts extra-territorial jurisdiction, the power to prosecute a person who has committed one of these particularly nasty crimes outside the country.

The crime need not have anything to do with South Africa, except that after committing it, the perpetrator sets foot on South African soil where he or she can be arrested.

Copy of ND Antananarivo 2
An injured protester is carried away in the Madagascan capital Antananarivo. Picture: AP Photo/Masinantenaina Andriantsoa

AP
In 2008 the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) in Johannesburg launched the first attempt to implement the ICC Act.

It asked the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to investigate several senior Zimbabwean Zanu-PF officials for committing crimes against humanity by allegedly torturing members of the then opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 2007.

SALC said these Zanu-PF officials frequently travelled to South Africa and so could be arrested and tried under the ICC Act.

The NPA declined to take up the case, saying the SA Police Service (SAPS) felt they would be unable to investigate the crimes from South Africa, that the courts would be unable to adjudicate them, that the investigation would harm relations with Zimbabwe, etc.

So last week SALC asked the Pretoria High Court to order the NPA to launch an investigation.

Sharp differences emerged among NPA officials. The court heard that Anton Ackermann, the head of the NPA’s Priority Crimes Litigation Unit, which is specifically tasked to deal with ICC Act cases, had recommended that the SAPS should investigate the case and was not satisfied with its reasons for refusing to do so.

Judge Hans Fabricius is now pondering his decision. His interventions last week suggest he might well order the NPA to investigate the alleged Zanu-PF crimes.

Coincidentally, the second case under the ICC Act is to be launched this week, also involving a country in which South Africa is deeply involved as a mediator.

A group of Malagasy citizens is to ask the NPA to investigate charging the deposed Malagasy president Marc Ravalomanana – now living in South Africa – for crimes against humanity because they allege he ordered his guards to fire at political demonstrators, killing about 70 of them, in the capital Antananarivo on February 7, 2009.

These two cases could test the real commitment of the South African government to the rule of law.

On past performance don’t count on the rule of law prevailing.

Recall that last year President Jacob Zuma joined his peers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in effectively killing the SADC Tribunal because it had ruled that the Zanu-PF government in Zimbabwe had violated the rights of white farmers in the way it seized their farms.

And Zuma has made it very clear since then that he believes the powers of South Africa’s own courts, even the Constitutional Court, must be reviewed because they are trespassing beyond their own proper territory into the jurisdiction of the executive arm of government.

How much more must he believe that to be true of a law that authorises – in fact obliges – South Africa’s courts to venture into foreign territory?

Like the SADC Tribunal, the ICC Act was created in a moment of what the hard-nosed Zuma administration probably now regards as foolish judicial idealism.

Will this inconvenient law go the way of the Tribunal?

By Peter Fabricius

Source – IOL – Inconvenient law?