As rioters target supermarkets, activists call on the government to help those who cannot survive amid rising prices and mass unemployment.
By: Anna Majavu
The government must immediately institute a basic income grant as an emergency measure if it wants to stop food riots from taking hold permanently, say activists.
With the expanded unemployment rate at 43.2%, its highest level ever, it would be foolish to label everyone who participated in the “Free Zuma” protests and took food from major supermarkets as “irrational and criminal”, says Mervyn Abrahams, programme director of the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity group.
“These protests are driven by economic issues, not so much the political issue of freeing Jacob Zuma. What was required was a flame and the Free Zuma campaign was that. These protests are not even isolated to food but have provided a cover for people who feel excluded economically to just come and take over,” Abrahams says.
“People cannot wait any longer. They are in the midst of absolute poverty. People are hungry and we have to meet the hunger needs now. It calls for an immediate emergency intervention and then long-term systemic change.”
The government discussed a basic income grant in 2002 but put it on hold. It is seen by the unions, social movements and public-interest law centres in the #PayTheGrants coalition as one of the best available tools to reduce poverty quickly.
The Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity group said it could be fixed at the food poverty line of R585 an adult a month or at the upper-bound poverty line, which is currently R1 268 an adult a month.
Devastating levels of hunger
The group also predicted last month that high food prices and low levels of jobs could lead to social disorder with protesters losing restraint and potentially curbing the movement of goods and public services on highways.
Ten days later, protesters set fire to dozens of trucks in KwaZulu-Natal and closed both the N2 and N3 highway in places.
“In this situation, the right of a hungry child and her hungrier mother to exist, to survive and to eat will become far more important than any right to private property,” Abrahams says.
Protests surged and took on the radically new dimension of riots, however, on July 11 and 12. The government announced on July 12 that it would deploy the army to stop the riots.
With 11.4 million people of working age currently unemployed, the minimum wage rising by only 4.5% in April 2021, and food, transport and electricity prices increasing by between seven and 15%, millions of people can no longer survive, says Abrahams.
He says containing dissent is not a long-term solution.
To negotiate an end to the food riots, the government could also immediately reinstate and increase the Covid-19 social relief of distress (SRD) grant of R350 a month, which it terminated in April 2021, and top up the child support and old age grants as it did during the first wave, says Abrahams.
“We must not do what we always do and that is go ‘back to normal’, because it is the abnormality of our situation that gave rise to this. After an emergency intervention, we need to set up an economy that will allow everyone to feel they are included, and a basic income guarantee would be one of the instruments of this.”
Speaking at a “Pay the Grants” mass assembly held to call for a basic income grant on 11 July, Wanga Zembe-Mkabile, specialist scientist at the Medical Research Council, said the grant was urgently needed to minimise the high levels of poverty and inequality now causing devastating levels of “hunger, hopelessness, depression and despondency”.
“Child hunger has remained high despite the child support grant and we know this is partly explained by the fact that the child support grant itself is not pegged to any objective measure of need, so the amount … is still small,” she said, adding that the child support grant is also diluted because it is often the only source of income in a home.
“The SRD grant represented hope. It made people feel seen and recognised by the state, and addressed some of the psychological impacts that crop up when there is no provision for an entire segment of the population, such as the unemployed,” Zembe-Mkabile said. “The discontinuation of the grant, small and inadequate as it was, means a return to that hopelessness and invisibility. There’s a full expectation that if this continues, the levels of food insecurity and hunger we are seeing will only get much worse than they already are.”
Pushed past their limits
Socialist activist Alfred Moyo, the Gauteng coordinator for the Fight Inequality Alliance and a resident of Makause shack settlement in Primrose, says the latest lockdown pushed impoverished people past their limits.
“Millions of poor communities cannot afford to be pushed back into further lockdowns, which are imposed by [those] above, without consideration of realities on the ground. We cannot eat any further lockdowns. People are hungry now. People are angry now,” Moyo says.
Unemployed Peoples’ Movement spokesperson Ayanda Kota says his organisation also backs the basic income grant. But he points out that it is not feasible for social movements “who are struggling for emancipatory politics to support struggles that are organised on tribalist, male chauvinist and ethnic bases, everything that we are opposed to as people that are struggling for emancipatory politics”.
“The reality of the matter is that people are hungry and are using this opportunity [the Free Zuma protests] to demonstrate the level of hunger in this country.
Our call should be to intensify the demand for the government to implement the basic income grant because the Radical Economic Transformations, the Edward Zumas, don’t stand with the people on a principled basis. Their aim is only to dethrone the current regime so they can take over to do the same – loot,” Kota says.
In the wake of the riots, affected provinces such as KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng could face a week-long bottleneck in which food will not be as readily available in supermarkets. But street traders have mainly not been harmed by protesters, who focused on major supermarkets, so they will likely see an increase in the number of customers coming to them to buy food, Abrahams says.
Government planning new basic income grant for South Africans aged 19 to 59
Social Development minister Lindiwe Zulu says that her department will move forward on plans to introduce a new basic income grant in South Africa.
Presenting her departmental budget speech on Tuesday (25 May), Zulu said that the need to introduce a basic income grant has become an urgent consideration for the African National Congress-led government.
“To this end, the Department has developed a Basic Income Grant (BIG) discussion document that we have started to consultations on,” she said. “These consultations are targeted at developing the BIG financing mechanism for the unemployed population group that is aged 19 — 59 years.”
Zulu said that a secondary process around a new BIG is being discussed by the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac). The pandemic prompted president Cyril Ramaphosa to announce a temporary top-up of existing grants by up to R300, including a R350 unemployment grant in late March 2020.
The ANC has previously said that it will also look at the feasibility of introducing a basic income grant as part of a series of outcomes decided upon by its National Executive Committee (NEC).
According to a June 2020 document seen by Bloomberg, the ANC has proposed paying a R500 monthly grant to those aged 19 to 59 who aren’t normally eligible for other aid. This would cost the state R197.8 billion a year.
Between 50% and 60% of the money could be recouped by levying extra taxes on those with jobs, it said.
Dockworkers in the South African port city of Durban have refused to offload cargo from an Israeli ship in a show of solidarity with Palestinians, and in protest at Tel Aviv’s military aggression against the besieged Gaza Strip.
Tiger Tateishi (Japan), Samurai, the Watcher (Koya no Yojinbo), 1965.
Ugliness defines the mood of state violence from Cali (Colombia) to Durban (South Africa), each context different and the depth of the violence particular to the location. Images of security forces cracking down on people trying to express their political rights have become commonplace. It is impossible to keep track of the events, which move swiftly from public manifestations to courtroom scenes, from the dissipation of tear gas to the invisible frustration of the prison cell. Yet, underlying these events and amidst the range of feelings that shape them lies a sense of refusal, the Great Refusal, the refusal to accept the terms dictated from those in power and the refusal to express this dissent in polite terms.
Orchestra director Susana Boreal (Medellín, Colombia), El pueblo unido jamás será vencido, 5 May 2021.
Colombia’s government decided to push through a peculiarly named Sustainable Solidarity Law (Ley de Solidaridad Sostenible) that transferred the financial cost of the pandemic onto the population, which reacted – as expected – with anger. Faced with a national strike on 28-29 April, the Colombian state responded, as it often does, with wildly harsh violence, including by mobilising the dangerously named Mobile Anti-Disturbance Squadron (ESMAD). Those on the streets came with rage and with music, the range of responses united by antipathy to the government of President Iván Duque.
The unflinching Colombian oligarchy, which has dispensed violence to maintain its power, must have trembled when it saw protestors in Cali take down the statue of Sebastián de Belalcázar, a conquistador. This act suggested that the protestors would not be satisfied only with the reversal of the proposed law, but that they wanted to overturn the rigid hierarchies that govern their society. Duque does not see the protestors as citizens; to him, they are ‘vandals’. No wonder that Duque let loose the ugliest of violence, with the cities of Bogotá, Cali, and Medellin facing the brunt of the attack. Despite calls from the mayors of Bogotá (Claudia López) and Medellin (Daniel Quintero), this state violence nonetheless went ahead, the battlefield in the streets coming to resemble Iraq, in the words of a Colombian friend who had covered the wars in West Asia.
David Koloane (South Africa), Bull in the City, 2016.
Like Iraq. Or like Israel, recently named an apartheid state by Human Rights Watch (HRW). Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning ‘apartness’, to keep the whites apart from others or, in the case of Israel, to keep the Jewish citizens apart from the Palestinian subjects. The HRW report follows numerous others by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission on West Asia (ESCWA), which used the word ‘apartheid’ to describe Israel’s racist policies towards the Palestinian people. HRW, which has taken its time to come to these elementary conclusions, says that Israel harshly deprives Palestinians of the right to affirm life; ‘these deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution’.
The linkage between the terms ‘apartheid’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ refers to a United Nations General Assembly resolution from December 1966 that condemned ‘the policies of apartheid of the Government of South Africa as a crime against humanity’. In 1984, the UN Security Council described apartheid as ‘a system characterised as a crime against humanity’. The term ‘crime against humanity’ has subsequently been enshrined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998). It is no coincidence that on 3 March 2021, the lead prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, said that the ICC would open an investigation into crimes committed in Israel since 2014. Israel has refused to cooperate with the ICC.
Israeli courts decided to move ahead with the eviction of six families from the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, an area with three thousand residents – despite the fact that the Israeli courts have no jurisdiction in the occupied territories. In 1967, Israel seized East Jerusalem, which forms part of the occupied Palestinian territories. UN resolution 242 (1967) states that the occupying power, namely Israel, must respect the sovereignty, political independence and ‘territorial inviolability’ of every State in the area. In 1972, Israeli settlers moved the Israeli courts to evict the thousands of Palestinians who lived in the area, a process that has been resisted by the Palestinians in the fifty years since. The brazen violence of the Israeli Border Police, or Magav, was further escalated with the entry of heavily armed Israeli soldiers into Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque on 7 May, mimicking the violence of the Colombian ESMAD.
Terrible repression comes alongside the continued attempt to delegitimise any political project of the Palestinian people. If the Palestinian people stand up, Israel calls them terrorists. This mirrors the way the South African apartheid government and their Western allies described the African National Congress during the heyday of the anti-apartheid struggle. In 1994, the African National Congress alliance took power over the South African state, beginning a long-term process to dismantle the entrenched structures of inequality and apartheid; it will take generations of resistance to undo what has been so powerfully set in place over the past decades.
Dang Xuan Hoa (Vietnam), The Red Family, 2008
In August 2020, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research published a dossier entitled ‘The Politic of Blood’: Political Repression in South Africa. Early into the text, we quote from Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth (1961), which several times uses the word ‘incapacity’ to refer to the ruling classes of the new states that emerge out of colonialism. When the people form their own organisations and develop their demands for participatory forms of democracy, the ruling class, Fanon writes, has an incapacity to understand this popular action as rational; it sees this popular action as a threat to its rule. Such an attitude governs the Colombian oligarchy and the Israeli apartheid class. It also defines the ruling class in South Africa, whose political instruments cannot find the room to allow for the growth of the independent political organisation of the working class in that country.
On 4 May 2021, the authorities arrested Mqapheli George Bonono, the deputy president of Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), the shack dwellers’ movement in South Africa. The authorities charged Bonono with ‘conspiring to commit murder’. Led by shack dwellers, AbM – which organises land occupation and housing struggles with a membership of 82,000 people – has faced repression since its foundation in 2005.
In 2018, we interviewed AbM leader S’bu Zikode for a dossier, in which he said:
Politics has become a way to get rich and people are willing to kill or to do anything to become rich and to stay rich. We move from funeral to funeral. We bury our comrades with the dignity that they were denied in life. Many of our comrades cannot sleep in their own homes or cannot leave their home after dark in the so-called democratic post-apartheid South Africa. Repression comes in waves.
Bonono is only the latest of the AbM members to face political repression. Brave activists from one end of the planet to the other face intimidation and murder for building organisations against the present. This repression resulted in the recent police killing of the artist Nicolas Guerrero in Cali (Colombia) and the political murder of Kakali Khetrapal of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) from Nabagram, East Burdwan (West Bengal, India). Guerrero was killed on the streets during the first hours of this protest wave, while Ketrapal was murdered by members of the party that won the West Bengal legislative election. This is political cleansing or politicide, the murder of activists whose deaths deflate the confidence of the masses to take on the great granite block of power. Sharpening their swords in the shadows, the killers take their orders from cell phones that can dial the homes of the powerful.
Fernando Bryce (Peru), Untitled (Cadaveres Atomicos), 2018
Ugly, this use of power, this killing with impunity. On 6 May, squadrons of the state entered the favela of Jacarezinho in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and opened fire, killing at least twenty-five people who appeared to surrender before the guns blazed. The United Nations has called for an investigation, but this will not go far. Brazil’s 1988 Constitution abolished the death penalty, yet the evidence suggests that the police believe that if you live in the favelas, then the death sentence – without judicial review – is permitted.
What kind of times are these when political repression operates without sufficient outrage? Muin Bseiso sang songs to rouse his fellow Palestinians in Gaza, suffocated by apartheid Israel. In his epic poem, Al-Ma’raka (‘The Battle’), Muin Bseiso found this solace:
If I fall in the struggle, comrade, take my place.
Gaze at my lips as they stop the wind’s madness.
I have not died. I still call you from beyond my wounds.
Bang your drum so that the people might hear your call to battle.
The South African government made a momentous move on 2 May. It released and endorsed a report that, as Don Pinnock explained in the Daily Maverick, calls for “the protection of iconic wild animals” to take priority “over the cruelty of commercial exploitation”.
The report’s recommendations include bringing an end to lion farming in the country. It also calls for a halt to many of the trades associated with such farming. This includes cub petting, ‘canned’ lion hunting, and the sale of lion bones. In short, implementation of the report’s recommendations would close South Africa’s controversial captive lion industry.
The good news doesn’t end there either. The report’s recommendations relating to elephants and their ivory are also cause for celebration. The minister of environment, forestry and fisheries Barbara Creecy asserted that overall the report offers:
a reconceptualised wildlife sector that will provide a new deal for people and wildlife in the country
Captive lions
As The Canary has previously reported, South Africa has a large captive lion farming industry. A 2020 book claimed there are around 300 lion farms in the country, which breed the big cats. Every stage in the life cycle of these lions offers the opportunity for profit. As cubs, tourists and volunteers pay to pet and care for them. When they’re a little older, people pay to walk with them. Then hunters pay to kill them in so-called ‘canned’ hunts. Finally, the farms butcher their carcasses and sell their bones for traditional Chinese medicine, which people pay to consume.
It’s an industry that comes with substantial disease risks and has been dogged by scandals over the welfare of lions in captivity. As Pinnock has previously documented, South Africa has suffered serious reputational damage as a result of it. So the government’s embracing of the 580-page High-Level Panel (HLP) report essentially signals that the industry comes at a cost that’s too high to bear – both in terms of reputation and wildlife conservation. As the report states, the captive lion industry:
posed risks to the sustainability of wild lion conservation resulting from the negative impact on ecotourism which funds lion conservation and conservation more broadly
However, the report does endorse “responsible and authentic hunting” (whatever that means), so trophy hunting in general appears set to continue. It also leaves the door open for hunting of “ranched lions”. Pinnock says ‘ranched lions’ is a “uniquely SA definition not accepted by the rest of the world” and notes that:
there is concern that the cessation of hunting of captive bred lions may simply be replaced by the hunting of “ranched lions”
Elephant ivory
The report also recommends that “as long as current specified circumstances prevail” South Africa should desist from submitting a proposal to the global wildlife trading body CITES on trading ivory. This recommendation is significant, too.
In 1999 and 2008, CITES allowed so-called ‘one-off’ international sales of stockpiled ivory from Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. CITES added South Africa to the list of approved sellers for the 2008 sale. As the Revelatornoted, the results were “disastrous” for elephants. Charan Saunders wrote that:
the sales led to an increase in demand and, consequently, an increase in elephant poaching. The 2008 ivory sale was accompanied by a 66% increase in illegally traded ivory and a 71% increase in ivory smuggling.
In his book It’s Not About the Bats, journalist and author Adam Cruise also noted that, according to the results of the 2016 Great Elephant Census, the continent’s elephant population “had declined by a third in the seven years since the second one-time sale”.
“A seismic shift”
South Africa is one of a number of southern African countries that have advocated for increased international trade in ivory. As the East Africanreported, for example, South Africa and five other countries “resolved to lobby” CITES to “lift the embargo” on international trade in ivory in 2019. So the HLP report’s recommendation relating to ivory is important. As Cruise told The Canary:
This is a seismic shift in policy since SA was one of the leading proponents of trading in ivory internationally. With South Africa stepping back, it will undoubtedly take the wind out of the other proponents – Botswana, Namibia, eSwatini, Zambia and Zimbabwe
Cruise also highlighted efforts by the African Elephant Coalition (AEC) to secure all African elephant populations the highest protections within CITES, which would rule out the international trading of new ivory almost entirely. The AEC is a formal coalition that “includes 28 of the 36 African elephant range states”. Cruise said South Africa’s ‘stepping back’ on ivory:
may finally open the door for CITES to adopt the counter-proposals of the AEC calling for the full protection of all African elephants under Appendix I. Of course, it remains to be seen what ramifications this does have with the other proponents but it is indeed a very welcome development for African elephants.
As with all political pronouncements and policies, the devil will be in the detail – and the implementation. But the South African government’s endorsement of the report’s recommendations on the captive lion industry and international trade in elephants’ ivory is a most welcome start.
Most recently, Professor Heyns was the was the Director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa at the University of Pretoria, and had also served as United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions from 2010 to 2016. See: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/dfa7df54-3cb2-465c-9655-d139b5486591.
His friends and colleagues pay tribute to a giant of global human rights:
The Centre for Human RightsCHR, in its tribute, called him their “founding father, a trail-blazer, and a constant source of inspiration and encouragement. He was our dynamic initiator-in-chief. He played a pioneering role in positioning the Centre as a pan-African centre of excellence. Constantly brimming with new ideas and grand schemes, plans and projects, he propelled the Centre into new directions and challenged it to explore different dimensions. “To Christof, if something could be conceived, it could be achieved.”
On Monday, the CHR created a memorial page on Facebook in his memory which, within hours, contained hundreds of entries from all over the world. The reactions registered on Facebook, on WhatsApp groups and emails speak volumes about how highly Heyns the man, the mentor, the “rock star” and the lawyer was regarded.
Arnold Tsunga, chairperson of the Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network
“The sudden demise of Professor Christof Heyns is a real tragedy to us as a community of human rights activists in southern Africa. As a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee his contribution to production of General Comment Number 37 on the right to peaceful assembly is invaluable at a time when we are experiencing democratic regression and authoritarian consolidation globally. He is irreplaceable and shall be sorely missed. May his soul rest in eternal peace.”
Raenette Taljaard, former politician and independent analyst
“Prof Christof Heyns was one of South Africa and the world’s great thought leaders and moral authorities on human rights. Beyond his contribution to academia, his work as a UN Special Rapporteur stands as a towering tribute to the right to life in a world where algorithms and lethal autonomous weapons can make life and death decisions that are core to who we are as humanity. His work will live on in the many principled human rights fighters and public intellectuals that have had the privilege to encounter him and to be mentored by him. He will be greatly missed.”
Jason Brickhill, human rights lawyer and former director of the Constitutional Litigation Unit at the Legal Resources Centre
“So very shocked and sad to hear that Christof Heyns has passed on. Such a gentle, wise and self-deprecating soul. I was lucky to be taught by him (about the African regional human rights system) and he supervised my master’s dissertation just over a decade ago. “He did so much to advance human rights in very real, meaningful ways, especially with his work on the African regional system (he was a true pan-Africanist!) and on the right to life at the UN. “He shared with me and other classmates his ‘struggle approach’ to human rights, which is still the foundation for how I think about the law’s role in the world. We will remember you, Christof, and carry with us the ideas that you shared.”
Faranaaz Veriava, head of the Basic Education Rights programme at SECTION27
“Around 1995 I was young and green in my first job, working in the Idasa Pretoria office. Ivor Jenkins, our director, talked me into meeting with a Moroccan delegation visiting the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria to discuss human rights law. Prof Christof Heyns hosted the delegation. I was probably terrible in that meeting but Prof Heyns was warm and encouraging and I became very interested in the work of the Centre. The next year I registered in the LLM programme at the centre which was a pioneering programme at the time for students all over Africa interested in human rights law. Later I would teach annually in that same programme. Much later, complete my doctorate through the UP law school and then teach at the law school myself. If Ivor Jenkins had not thrown me in at the deep end that day, I wonder if I would have any history with UP – a historically Afrikaans university – and that is now such a positive part of my life. RIP Prof Heyns, a warm and inspiring man and pioneer in human rights law.”
Alice Brown, former resident coordinator, Ford Foundation
“What sad news. I met Christof in the late 1980s through my work with the Ford Foundation. Christof was an innovative human rights academic who was a trailblazer for a number of important rights-focused training programs. In addition, in all my interactions with him over the years, I found him to be a very decent human being.”
Thuli Madonsela, former Public Protector, current law trust chair in social justice, University of Stellenbosch
“What a sad occasion. He was such a mensch, resolutely devoted to developing leaders to advance democracy and human rights in this continent. “The news of the passing of Christof Heyns hit me like a ton of bricks. I have known Christof for all my grown-up life. “A quintessential professional, Christoff invested a lot in developing leaders that are anchored in a sound knowledge and values system regarding human rights and democracy. He was passionate about the African continent and building scholarship in the continent on human rights, democracy and the rule of law. “The country, the continent and the entire world is poorer because of Christof Heyns’ untimely passing, yet richer because of the legacy he leaves behind. It is said leaders do not die, they multiply. Christof leaves pieces of himself among the many scholars he nurtured and policymakers he touched. May his great soul Rest In Peace.” Christof Heyns and the Outlaws — the rock and roll band of the Faculty of Law at the University of Pretoria. Formed in 2007, they always played at the annual Faculty Festival. (Photo: Yolanda Booyzen)
Bongani Majola, Chairperson of the SA Human Rights Commission
“We deeply mourn the untimely passing of Prof Christof Heyns, a giant in the promotion of human rights. Empowering young people has always been his passion. I first met him in the late 1980s/early 1990s when he and I ran a project that sought to open opportunities for final-year law students from the then historically black universities to find placements in commercial law firms. At the time, it was hard for many black law graduates to be admitted to articles of clerkship and even harder – almost impossible to get placed in commercial law firms.
“Another empowerment project that Christof Heyns employed significantly to empower the youth was the moot court competitions that he and his colleagues took beyond the borders of South Africa, the borders of SADC and beyond the boundaries of the African continent. Recently, he had taken the promotion of human rights to schools in the basic education environment, a project that he passed on to the South African Human Rights Commission once it had taken a firm hold among basic education schools.
“He was a visionary who believed in investing in the youth in order to build a strong human rights culture. The country has lost a true human rights activist. He will be sorely missed.”
Edwin Cameron, former Constitutional Court judge
Really terribly shocked and saddened by Christof’s sudden death yesterday. He was a meticulous, conscientious, persistent, courageous fighter for justice and human rights.
Rose Hanzi, director of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights
“Very very sad. Prof Heyns raised the African continent high with his contributions at the ACHPR [African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights] and UN.”
Muleya Mwananyanda, Amnesty International
“So saddened to learn of the death of Prof Christof Heyns. Many of you may know him. He was my teacher and I suspect a few others on this group. What a dedicated Human Rights Activist he was. Beyond teaching, he will be remembered for drafting the General Comment on Freedom of Assembly … he was until his death after a heart attack while hiking a member of the HRC. MHSRIP”
Steven LB Jensen, Danish Institute for Human Rights
“Oh no, this is so sad and shocking news. I met him twice – first in Lund for a two-hour conversation just the two of us and again at the Danish Institute for a meeting on collaborations between our institutions. He was a wonderful person and so easy to engage with. He will be sorely missed by many all around the world.” DM/MC
From Amnesty International staff:
Dr. Agnès Callamard, the new Secretary General of Amnesty International, said: “Christof Heyns was a brilliant human rights lawyer and thinker, gentle person…He leaves behind such an extraordinary legacy.”
Shenilla Mohamed, Executive Director of Amnesty International South Africa, said: “A mighty baobab has fallen! The untimely death of renowned human rights law expert, Professor Christof Heyns, is a devastating loss. In Africa the Baobab Tree is considered a symbol of power, longevity, presence, strength and grace. Professor Heyns was a baobab in the human rights world. A giant in his field, he fought hard for a just world. As Director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa, he was involved in a number of critical initiatives. His contributions included: Chair of the UN independent investigation on Burundi, leading on the drafting of UN human rights guidelines on peaceful assembly and the use of less lethal weapons. He also served as the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions. Hamba Kahle Professor Heyns, Ke a Leboga, Enkosi, Ngiyabonga, Thank you for your service to humanity. You have left indelible footprints and we salute you!”
Sam Dubberley, Amnesty International’s Head of Crisis Evidence Lab, said: “Christof’s support for establishing a hub of Amnesty’s Digital Verification Corps at the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria was unequivocal. He gave time, advice and space for this project to emerge, and welcomed the Amnesty team on every visit to Pretoria despite his always frantic schedule. Christof made everyone feel valued, and was a source of energy and sage advice. How he will be missed.”
Netsanet Belay, Research and Advocacy Director of Amnesty International, said: “Words fail me to express the profound sense of loss with the sudden passing of Professor Heyns. Like many, I had the privilege of working with him and benefited much from his wisdom, mentorship and guidance. He was a rare breed, one of Africa’s great legal minds, a passionate human rights defender and a kind, passionate, humble person. He nurtured and cultivated a cadre of human rights experts and activists in Africa, including by transforming the human rights centre at the University of Pretoria into a world class institution that produced Africa’s leading human rights scholars and practitioners. His publications on various human rights issues in leading academic journals are testament to his brilliance, wisdom and dedication. He was a true pan-Africanist, as exemplified in his work to champion and strengthen the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. His passing is also a great loss to Amnesty International. As [recently] as last week we were working with Professor Heyns on the draft report by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the use of force by law enforcement officials in Africa. We shall strive to ensure his last vision [is seen] to fruition. Rest in peace dear brother!”
Rasha Abdul-Rahim, Director of Amnesty Tech, said: “It was devastating to hear of the passing of Professor Heyns. All my thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends. Not only was Christof a renowned human rights expert, he was fiercely justice-focused and an absolute joy and pleasure to work with. Christof wrote the seminal Human Rights Council report that put the human rights risks of autonomous weapons systems on the agenda. He was always extremely generous with his expertise and time. This is a huge loss for the human rights movement, and we will miss him deeply.”
Avner Gidron, Senior Policy Adviser on Amnesty International’s Law and Policy Programme, said: “I worked most closely with Professor Heyns on The Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death in 2016. It’s a practical tool for human rights defenders and advocates around the world seeking accountability for unlawful killings; and it is now a small, but important, part of Christof’s vast legacy. As well as his importance as a brilliant legal mind, scholar and activist, I will remember Christof for actually embodying human rights values: being an incredibly warm, generous and considerate human being. His death is a tremendous loss for the human rights movement, and an unimaginable tragedy for his family and friends.”
Simon Crowther, legal advisor at Amnesty International, said: “Christof was a legal giant who approached his work with kindness, humility, humour and immense intelligence. He will be greatly missed.”
Anja Bienert, Senior Programme Officer at Amnesty International Netherlands, said: “I first met Christof in 2013 and immediately felt connected to him: his sharp mind, the careful and perfectly articulated thoughts on the many pressing human rights issues, but more importantly, his warm and welcoming personality, with whom it was a pleasure to discuss. Since then, he was an ongoing source of inspiration to me and a great ally in the fight for greater protection of human rights. He constantly strove not just to write excellent publications, but to have a real impact for the respect of human rights across the world. We will miss him incredibly. It will be our mission to uphold his great legacy in the field of human rights.”
Century Property Developments and Riversands Developments are suing Kristin Kallesen and her nonprofit, Greater Equestrian Kyalami Conservancy (Gecko), for the income they have allegedly lost because of objections raised by her and Gecko against development approvals in and adjoining the conservancy.
A Johannesburg environmentalist and the conservancy she runs have been slapped with a R197-million lawsuit by two property developers after raising what they allege are “obstructive, delaying and frustrating” objections to their projects in Riversands and Helderfontein.
“This threat against Kirstin and Gekco should be opposed vehemently,” said Duigan. “Gekco has been a bulwark against unremitting pressure from development, pushing the urban boundary further and further into natural areas that include essential wetlands and threatened species such as grass owls.”
Developers too often use, “for their own profit”, ecosystem services that residents have conserved for many years at their own cost, she said. “In their advertising, developers glorify the open space, the lovely views, the fresh air — which the development tends to destroy.”
In legal papers, the developers say that Kallesen and Gekco have “abused” the statutory objection and public participation procedures because “frivolous and baseless” objections were filed against all the township applications by both defendants, none of which were upheld by the City of Johannesburg.
This, the developers allege, was to “procure delays”, prevent the developers from developing the properties and cause financial harm.
“The defendants, similarly, for the same reason, abused the statutory appeal procedures provided for in the prevailing town planning legislation and have lodged several entirely unsubstantiated and mala fide appeals against the decisions of the municipality, by virtue of which such townships have been approved.
“Not a single one of such appeals lodged by or on behalf of the defendants have been upheld by the municipal appeal tribunal.”
The financial harm, the developers allege, includes the extension of the holding cost period in respect of such properties before these could be developed in terms of the approved township applications; the continuous escalation of construction costs to be incurred for the development of such properties; the extended period to which the developers were obliged to pay assessment rates charged by the municipality and interest on such amounts as well as the loss of rental income from the delayed occupation of developed structures.”
For Duigan, the lawsuit is a stark reminder of the Strategic Litigation against Public Participation (SLAPP) suit brought in 2005 against five members of the Rhenosterspruit Conservancy, now proclaimed as the Crocodile River Reserve, by Robbie Wray, the developer of Blair Atholl Estate.
“We were sued for R210-million — my share was R45-million. The case was concluded in December 2010 with the developer given short shrift, with costs at the maximum level against him.”
This was the first major SLAPP suit in South Africa, garnering astounding publicity, particularly after the verdict, she said. “It clearly struck a nerve nationally and we were bombarded by calls and letters from people who had been threatened by developers, warning them that they would be dealt with in the same way as the Rhenosterspruit Five. This made people realise that they could oppose intimidation tactics from developers.”
In early February, the high court in Cape Town held that a series of defamation lawsuits totalling R14.25-million brought by the Australian mining company, Mineral Commodities Ltd, and its local subsidiary, Mineral Sands Resources, against three environmental lawyers, two activists and a social worker who criticised its operations is an abuse of legal process.
.On 15 March 2021 Katharina Rall, Senior Researcher, Environment and Human Rights at Human Rights Watch, wrote about Mama Fikile’s murder, It is almost five months since an environmental activist, Mama Fikile Ntshangase, was gunned down in her home in Somkhele in KwaZulu-Natal province, after raising concerns about a coal mine in the area. No arrests have been made. Mama Fikile had received threats to her life but carried on with what she perceived to be the only way to protect her community’s health and livelihood.
On March 3, the UN expert on human rights defenders used Mama Fikele’s story to begin a new report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva that highlights the risks many environmental defenders operate under, and the widespread attempts to silence their voices.
South African environmental justice groups have urged the government to carry out a prompt, thorough, and impartial investigation into Mama Fikile Ntshangase’s killing and ensure that those found responsible are held to account. But her family is still waiting for justice.
Beyond the individual tragedy and injustice, there is another reason the UN expert, Mary Lawlor, highlights the South African case in her global report. Killings of activists create an environment of fear and can have a chilling effect on the people around them. Or, as the UN expert frames it, “[t]here is no more direct attack on civil society space than the killing of human rights defenders.”
As a community rights defender opposing coal mining in Fuleni, a small rural village not far from the place where Mama Fikile was killed, Billy Mnqondo once heard gunshots at the gate of his house and was warned by community members that he and his family will be in trouble if he continues to oppose mining. When, in 2018, Human Rights Watch visited Somkhele, Fuleni, and other communities affected by mining, some activists confirmed they were afraid to speak out about the impact of mining in their community, especially after Sikhosiphi “Bazooka” Rhadebe, another prominent environmental rights defender, was killed in Xolobeni in 2016.
Violence and intimidation against those who raise their voices to defend their right to a healthy environment is endemic in South Africa. Human Rights Watch, in its 2019 report, published jointly with groundWork, the Centre for Environmental Rights, and Earthjustice, documented how activists in mining-affected communities across the country have experienced threats, physical attacks, or property damage that they believe is retaliation for their activism. Most of these cases are not widely known and have not made headlines like the killings of Sikhosiphi “Bazooka” Rhadebe and Mama Fikile. Yet, investigations into these killings or other attacks are moving very slowly, if at all.
Other, less brutal ways to silence the voices of environmental rights defenders are nuisance lawsuits, known as “strategic lawsuits against public participation” (SLAPPs) – baseless cases brought forward by companies to intimidate and burden activists with the onerous costs of mounting a legal defense.
South African courts are beginning to take a stance against these tactics. In February, the High Court in Cape Town issued a ruling that strengthens the constitutional right to freedom of expression. The court held that a defamation suit brought by an Australian mining company, Mineral Commodities Ltd (MRC), and its local subsidiary against three attorneys, two activists, and a social worker in relation to their statements about its operations is an abuse of legal process. The defamation trial may still proceed, but activists can now defend themselves by arguing that the Court should assess the SLAPP nature of the case.
Following this ruling it will be harder for corporations to use South Africa’s legal system against citizens and activists to silence and intimidate them when they raise human rights concerns or seek accountability for past abuses. The government should now do its part to follow the recommendations of the UN expert by bringing those responsible for killings of environmental defenders to justice. Unless there are prompt, effective, and impartial investigations into the killings—and those responsible are brought to justice— human rights defenders will continue to live in an environment of fear.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is one of the most important international bodies in the world right now. Its actions and choices have immense bearing on what the future holds. CITES determines what trade in at-risk wildlife species is permissible or not. As such, whether the world properly tackles the biodiversity crisis, aka the disappearance of essential diverse life on earth, and limits the risk of future zoonotic pandemics, like coronavirus (Covid-19), partly lies in its hands.
Currently, CITES is subject to two legal challenges. They both relate to China and its trading in Asian elephants and chimpanzees with Laos and South Africa respectively. The challenges are complex and allege numerousviolations of CITES wildlife trading rules. They paint a picture of a highly profitable and thriving market in some of the world’s most endangered species, where corruption, rule-bending and fraud is rife. In essence, the legal complaints expose the CITES system as one where the rules are used to accommodate the trade, rather than the other way around.
With CITES’ increasing importance in our wildlife-depleted and pandemic-riddled world, these legal challenges offer an insight into how the UN body currently functions. Unfortunately, they starkly highlight how unfit CITES is for the existential problems we face.
The Convention
As The Canary has previously reported, CITES is a global agreement between most states – known as parties – on international wildlife trading. Its primary purpose is meant to be ensuring that trade doesn’t drive species to extinction. It currently regulates the trade in around 38,700 species that it’s designated as in need of protection – approximately 32,800 species of plants and 5,950 species of non-human animals.
It lists these species in three appendices, essentially depending on how much at risk of extinction they are. It then sets out rules for trade of species in those different appendices. This rules-based trade is authorised through a permitting system. Permits are issued by national CITES management authorities in member countries “upon advice” from their national CITES scientific authorities. A central CITES authority, called the CITES Secretariat, oversees the working of the Convention, assisted by a number of committees.
In theory, the system is simple enough. For international trade in CITES-listed species to occur, the national CITES authorities in the involved countries have to issue import and export permits, which are in line with the applicable rules for that species, to confirm the trade is permissible.
The legal complaints show, however, that in practice, the system is anything but simple or, indeed, functional.
Responsibility for source codes
CITES has created source codes for species subject to trade. As the name implies, these codes indicate where the trader sourced the individuals in question from. The legal complaint about Asian elephant trades between Laos and China, which UK law firm Advocates for Animals has raised with CITES on behalf of filmmaker and author Karl Ammann, has issues relating to source codes at its core.
CITES lists Asian elephants in Appendix I, reserved for species that are “the most endangered”. However, one of the special provisions for trade that CITES has is that if individuals from an Appendix I species are bred in captivity for commercial purposes, they are downgraded to Appendix II. There are more restrictions on trade for Appendix I species than Appendix II.
In the CITES list of Asian elephant trades from Laos to China since 2014, all of them are listed as captive-bred, or source code C. The legal complaint disputes this, arguing that the source code has been ‘misused’. It claims that Laos “does not have any CITES registered commercial breeding facilities”. It also highlights a study that states “80% of calves born in captivity in Laos during the past decade are from wild genitors [fathers] from the Nam Pouy Protected Area”. Ammann says his sources have confirmed this.
Whether the source code has been misused here is a case that Laos has to answer. But a further burning question is, why didn’t China question Laos’s repeated use of source code C, if it’s a country that has no CITES registered breeding facilities? Indeed, in its guidance on the application of source codes, CITES says that:
If no licensed operation for the species exists, the legality of the export should be questioned.
Internal inconsistencies
The complaint also points out that CITES’ data says that Laos has exported 87 elephants to China since 2014. But a media report from Laos claimed that the country has exported 142 Asian elephants to China through one port – Mohan Port – since 2015. A further report by the Rescue Animals Project, which is quoted in the complaint, says that in 2014 there were 195 Asian elephants in 57 venues in China. The report said the number had increased by 140 to 335 Asian elephants, in 67 venues, by 2020.
Clearly, the numbers don’t stack up. The Advocates for Animals complaint alleges that elephants are regularly smuggled, via a “hidden forest trail”, across the Laos/China border. This could account for the discrepancy. A failure by involved countries to fully record their permit documentation in the CITES database could cause such disparities too. Nonetheless, the fact that the discrepancy has only come to the fore because of the legal challenge begs another question: where are the checks and balances in CITES whereby the declared trades are checked against actual trades and what’s happening on the ground?
Definition issues
The second legal complaint, which Advocates for Animals has also raised on behalf of Ammann, focuses on the sale of 18 chimpanzees from South Africa to a Chinese zoo. As is the case for the Asian elephant complaint, it claims that the trade potentially violated numerous CITES rules. One of the violations the complaint alleges is that the traded chimpanzees will be “used for primarily commercial purposes”. As an Appendix I species, people cannot trade chimpanzees for primarily commercial purposes.
CITES has a definition of what ‘commercial purposes’ means. It states that:
An activity can generally be described as ‘commercial’ if its purpose is to obtain economic benefit (whether in cash or otherwise), and is directed toward resale, exchange, provision of a service or any other form of economic use or benefit.
It also says that the term should be defined “as broadly as possible so that any transaction which is not wholly ‘non-commercial’ will be regarded as ‘commercial’”.
The legal complaint partly asserts [pdf p6] that the trade was ‘primarily commercial’ because the zoo – Beijing Wild Animal Park – is a “profit based facility”, with a net profit of around $7m in 2017. As various tourism websites haveboasted, the park also puts on ‘animal shows’, meaning the venue forces certain species to perform for the paying spectators.
China issued a government directive in 2011 banning such performances. It reiterated the ban in further guidance in 2013. Nonetheless, the performances continue in many venues, with some notable exceptions.
Lack of clarity
CITES has responded to the chimpanzee complaint. Based on its response, Advocates for Animals understands that CITES is satisfied the trade in chimpanzees was for zoo purposes due to China claiming that the park’s focus is on science, education and research, among other related things. However, it appears all parties have acknowledged the venue isn’t registered as a scientific, educational or research institution.
Essentially, CITES concluded that the purpose of the chimpanzee sale was for ‘zoo’ purposes not for ‘commercial purposes’ because that’s what China claims. It did concede that more clarification is needed for purpose code Z, i.e., zoos, and pledged to take action accordingly. But the fact CITES doesn’t appear to already have a clear definition of what constitutes a zoo and under what circumstances it considers a zoo to be a commercial entity – in light of its own definition of ‘commercial purposes’ – is deeply troubling.
As Advocates for Animals’ Alice Collinson commented:
It is vital that CITES put measures in place to prevent protected animals from being traded to zoos for primarily commercial purposes, which is happening increasingly according to Karl Ammann’s growing evidence base, particularly with China, and could undermine the purpose of a regime aimed at protecting the most vulnerable species. CITES has not ruled out that zoos can fall into the category of primary commercial, but have failed to clarify when that could occur.
A system ripe for corruption
The Asian elephant complaint also raises concerns over corruption being an issue in the current CITES system. Ammann has been investigating the wildlife trade, including the trade in elephants, for years. The complaint asserts that his investigations have shown that trafficking of elephants between Laos and China, in some cases, “involved bribes with officials”. The complaint alleges that bribes, which were not exclusive to one or other side of the border, were sometimes connected with preparing the ‘paperwork’ for CITES permits.
Adding to concerns over corruption, Ammann’s investigations show that although Chinese dealers may purchase a Laotian elephant for around $25,000, the price Chinese zoos pay for them can be up to $500,000. This raises further issues with the ‘non-commercial’ classification of such trading. It also begs the question of where these vast sums of money are going.
Ammann previously co-authored a 2013 report on illegal sales of chimpanzees from Guinea, mainly to China. Guinea issued numerous fraudulent permits for the chimpanzees between 2009 and 2011. In their investigation, the 2013 report’s authors said animal dealers told them that getting the fraudulent permits was “just a question of the relevant financial initiative (bribe)”.
In short, allegations of corruption are neither new nor uncommon in CITES. One of the reasons why that’s the case is because CITES still relies on an archaic paper permitting system. As The Canary previously reported, an e-permit system does exist, called eCITES. But it appears to be barely functional, partly because of a lack of funding. It’s also not compulsory.
The Canary contacted China’s CITES authorities for comment on the Asian elephant complaint. They did not respond to the request.
Iceberg ahead
Like the Laotian elephants, the issue with the Guinea-China chimpanzee trades centred on the classification of the great apes as ‘captive-bred’, despite Guinea having no breeding centres for them. Meanwhile, as with the South African chimpanzees, these apes were destined for Chinese zoos that the 2013 report’s authors argued were for ‘primarily commercial purposes’. One of the grounds for the Asian elephant complaint is also that they are used for ‘primarily commercial purposes’.
Considered together, these three situations highlight recurring issues with the CITES system. Clearly, the body needs to address the inconsistencies around its ‘captive-bred’ source code. Arguably, given this source code appears ripe for abuse, the body needs to consider affording all individuals of a species the same stronger trade restrictions, regardless of their ‘source’ being the wild or captivity. CITES also needs to firm up who bears responsibility for ensuring source codes are adhered to. Notably, in the Guinea-China chimpanzee controversy, China faced no repercussions for its role in the years-long fraudulent use of the code. Moreover, CITES didn’t enforce a crucial obligation the involved parties had in the situation. Namely, under the Convention, parties are “obliged… to provide for the confiscation or return to the State of export” of any individuals who are “traded in violation of the Convention”.
The apparent lack of checks and balances regarding declared trades and the reality on the ground also needs to be addressed. Systematic checks of submitted CITES paperwork, and wholesale adoption of a transparent, electronic permitting system, should happen too. Furthermore, the body must provide clarity on the critical purpose codes it has created and address the inconsistencies in its guidance and definitions. In particular, it needs to urgently resolve the ambiguity over when zoos should be viewed as commercial enterprises, so that the Z purpose code matches up with its definition of ‘primarily commercial purposes’.
Like all international bodies, CITES is a behemoth. Coordination of the global wildlife trade involving most of the world’s governments is understandably no easy task. But for the sake of everyone in the living world – human and non-human – it is an essential one, with its importance only growing amid the biodiversity crisis and the threat of zoonotic diseases.
Given its critical role, CITES needs to operate like a tight ship. But right now, it more resembles the Titanic. If it doesn’t buck up and get its act together, there’s nothing but icebergs ahead.
Claims made by Democratic New York City mayoral candidate, Andrew Yang, in a recent op-ed in the Jewish weekly, ‘The Forward’, point to the prevailing ignorance that continues to dominate the US discourse on Palestine and Israel.
Yang, a former Democratic Presidential candidate, is vying for the Jewish vote in New York City. According to the reductionist assumption that all Jews must naturally support Israel and Zionism, Yang constructed an argument that is entirely based on a tired and false mantra equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
Yang’s pro-Israel logic is not only unfounded, but confused as well. “A Yang administration will push back against the BDS movement which singles out Israel for unfair economic punishment,” he wrote, referring to the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Yang compared the BDS movement to the “fascist boycotts of Jewish businesses”, most likely a reference to the infamous Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany, starting in April 1933.
Not only does Yang fail to construct his argument in any historically defensible fashion, he claims that BDS is “rooted in anti-Semitic thought and history.”
BDS is, in fact, rooted in history, not that of Nazi Germany, but of the Palestinian General Strike of 1936, when the Palestinian Arab population took collective action to hold colonial Britain accountable for its unfair and violent treatment of Palestinian Muslims and Christians. Instead of helping Palestine achieve full sovereignty, colonial Britain backed the political aspirations of White European Zionists who aimed to establish a ‘Jewish homeland’ in Palestine.
Sadly, the efforts of the Palestinian natives failed, and the new State of Israel became a reality in 1948, after nearly one million Palestinian refugees were uprooted and ethnically cleansed as a result of a decidedly violent campaign, the aftershocks of which continue to this day. Indeed, today’s ongoing military occupation and apartheid are all rooted in that tragic history.
This is the reality that the boycott movement is fighting to change. No anti-Semitic, Nazi – or, according to Yang’s ahistorical account, ‘fascist’ – love affair is at work here; just a beleaguered and oppressed nation fighting for its most basic human rights.
Yang’s ignorant and self-serving comments were duly answered most appropriately, including by many anti-Zionist Jewish intellectuals and activists throughout the US and the world. Alex Kane, a writer in ‘Jewish Currents’ tweeted that Yang made “a messed up, wrong comparison”, and that the politician “comes across as deeply ignorant about Palestine, Palestinians and BDS”. US Muslim Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, and the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) added their voices to numerous others, all pointing to Yang’s opportunism, lack of understanding of history and distorted logic.
But this goes beyond Yang, as the debate over BDS in the US is almost entirely rooted in fallacious comparisons and ignorance of history.
Those who had hoped that the unceremonious end of the Donald Trump Administration would bring about a measure of justice for the Palestinian people will surely be disappointed, as the American discourse on Palestine and Israel rarely changes, regardless which President resides in the White House and what political party dominates the Congress.
So, reducing the boycott debate to Yang’s confused account of history and reality is, itself, a reductionist understanding of US politics. Indeed, similar language is regularly infused, like that used by President Joe Biden’s nominee for United Nations envoy, Linda Thomas-Greenfield while addressing her confirmation hearing at the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee on January 27. Like Yang, Thomas-Greenfield also found boycotting Israel an “unacceptable” act that “verges on anti-Semitism.”
While the presumptive envoy supported the return of the US to the Human Rights Council, UNESCO and other UN-affiliated organizations, her reasoning for such a move is merely to ensure the US has a place “at the table” so that Washington may monitor and discourage any criticism of Israel.
Yang, Thomas-Greenfield and others perpetuate such inaccurate comparisons with full confidence that they have strong support among the country’s ruling elites from the two dominant political parties. Indeed, according to the latest count produced by the pro-Israel Jewish Virtual Library website, “32 states have adopted laws, executive orders or resolutions that are designed to discourage boycotts against Israel.”
In fact, the criminalization of the boycott movement has taken center stage of the federal government in Washington DC. Anti-boycott legislation was passed with overwhelming majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives in recent years and more are expected to follow.
The popularity of such measures prompted former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to declare the Israel boycott movement to be anti-Semitic, describing it at as ‘a cancer’ at a press conference in November, alongside Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, while in the illegal settlement of Psagot.
While Pompeo’s position is unsurprising, it behooves Yang and Thomas-Greenfield, both members of minority groups that suffered immense historical racism and discrimination, to brush up on the history of popular boycott movements in their own country. The weapon of boycott was, indeed, a most effective platform to translate political dissent into tangible achievements for oppressed Black people in the US during the civil rights movement in the mid-20th century. Most memorable, and consequential of these boycotts was the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955.
Moreover, outside the US, numerous volumes have been written about how the boycott of the White supremacist apartheid government in South Africa ignited a global movement which, combined with the sacrifices of Black South Africans, brought apartheid to an end in the early 1990s.
The Palestinian people do not learn history from Yang and others, but from the collective experiences of oppressed peoples and nations throughout the world. They are guided by the wisdom of Martin Luther King Jr., who once said that “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
The boycott movement aims at holding the oppressor accountable as it places a price tag on military occupation and apartheid. Not only is the Palestinian boycott movement not racist, it is essentially a rallying cry against racism and oppression.
“Given the current crisis and the need for the urgent decisions to address the devastating humanitarian crisis facing the country, it would be opportune for the NEC to exercise its leadership and authority to provide/amend policy guidance within the current administration.“
By Ray Mahlaka
ANC head honchos have proposed two key income-relief measures for poor people hit the hardest by the Covid-19 lockdown: the extension of the R350-a-month social grant beyond January, and the introduction of a basic income grant (BIG).
The R350 social grant was introduced by the government in May 2020 to provide relief to individuals above the age of 18 who are unemployed, do not receive any income or any other social grant or support from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme or the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
By December 2020, payouts of more than R15-billion had been distributed by the SA Social Security Agency to up to 8-million beneficiaries.
But the social grant scheme ends in January and there is no indication of whether the government will extend the scheme for as long as lockdown rules remain in place.
Economists, academics, and civil society groups have long argued that the introduction of a basic income grant will go a long way to provide income to people who have lost their jobs due to lockdown restrictions, have no income, or cannot find an entry point into the job market.
Unlike other social grants that are targeted to specific beneficiaries, a basic income grant is universal as it is offered to every person – from birth to death – regardless of whether that person has an income.
The ANC National Executive Committee’s (NEC’s) three-day lekgotla – a meeting to discuss the governing party’s priorities for the year – resolved to extend the R350 social grant beyond January and for the state to develop a policy framework to introduce a basic income grant.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has come under fire from labour and business representatives for tightening lockdown regulations to Level 3 since 29 December 2020 without announcing additional income-support measures to the public, including the extension of the R350 social grant.
In a 132-page presentation to the lekgotla, the ANC social transformation subcommittee said extending the R350 social grant would be easier than introducing a basic income grant.
This is because a policy mandate regarding the basic income grant has to be drawn up by the governing party and the government before the grant can be introduced to the wider public.
The committee said: “A policy mandate is required by the government from the current governing party since the BIG was not part of its 2019 manifesto for its current term. Normally resolutions are taken at a policy conference [of the ANC] in the year preceding an election.
“However, given the current crisis and the need for the urgent decisions to address the devastating humanitarian crisis facing the country, it would be opportune for the NEC to exercise its leadership and authority to provide/amend policy guidance within the current administration.”
The subcommittee said getting a decision from the government on a basic income grant, drawing up financing mechanisms for it, and getting Parliament to approve it could take from one to two years.
Thus, the subcommittee said, the R350 grant should be extended beyond January and be “used as the interim measure to serve as the foundation for the BIG”.
“Proceeding with the termination of the [R350 social] grant will be a huge setback for advancing the BIG agenda.”
The subcommittee said between R55-billion and R200-billion would be required from the state to fund the R350 social grant and basic income grant for an unspecified period, depending on how they are implemented.
The ANC’s economic and social transformation subcommittees plan to draft a report on the mechanics of how the basic income grant can be introduced.
A first draft of the report will be presented to the NEC in February and the final report will be completed in May.
Civil society group the Black Sash, has proposed a targeted approach in introducing the basic income grant, saying the state cannot afford to provide a universal, cradle-to-grave basic income grant to every person during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Black Sash has proposed that the grant initially target those aged 18 to 59 and caregivers who already receive the child support grant.
With no roadmap for peace, Israel risks being compared to the old South Africa
It was a deliberate provocation by B’Tselem, Israel’s largest human rights group, to describe the Palestinians in the Holy Land as living under an apartheid regime. Many Israelis detest the idea that their country, one they see as a democracy that rose from a genocidal pyre, could be compared to the old racist Afrikaner regime. Yet figures such as Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter have done so.
There is a serious argument about injustices to be had. Palestinians – unlike Israeli Jews – live under a fragmented mosaic of laws, often discriminatory, and public authorities which seem indifferent to their plight. Apartheid is a crime against humanity. It is a charge that should not be lightly made, for else it can be shrugged off. Some might agree with the use of such incendiary language, but many will recoil. The crime of apartheid has been defined as “inhumane acts committed in the context of a regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups with the intention of maintaining that regime”.
NGO CSW/NY/YouTube Sizani Ngubane, founder of the Rural Women’s Movement land rights group in South Africa. 23 December 2020 allAfrica.com
South African women’s land rights activist Sizani Ngubane (also known as uGogo) has died, according to the Rural Women’s Movement (RWM) – an organisation of which she was the director and founder. This sad news was brought by AllAfrica.com on 23 December.
Their work so far includes finding housing for evicted women and children, helping grow food on communal land for the hungry and sick, and campaigning for better legal protection of women’s land rights. Ngubane said the movement, which was launched in 1998, has now grown to 50,000 women.
The RWM statement, released via their Twitter account, read:
” We are saddened to share that our Founder and Director, uGogo Sizani Ngubane has passed on. She transformed countless lives. A lifelong freedom fighter, first against the brutal apartheid regime, uGogo, alongside other rural women, would later charge forward towards the promises of democracy.
“Tirelessly working for women’s land rights and equality, uGogo also laboured against gender-based violence and other challenges facing rural women. Originating in a non-partisan, women-led peace building movement, we have become a leader-full movement inspiring countless across KZN, South Africa, and the globe. “She was really beyond a special person. Fearless. Creative. Kind. Determined like no other. An unwavering belief in others and an endless reservoir of empathy and ubuntu.
“She will be missed deeply by all. Hamba kahle, Gogo.”
This tribute was followed by one from Nomboniso Gasa, in which she wrote: ” Mam’ Sizani Ngubane has died. She was a gentle giant. My heart’s breaking. Last time I spoke to her, she was fatigued from a govt hell-bent on destructive Bills, TCB & TKLB. Can’t imagine Rural Women’s movement – which she found in 1990 – without her energy, courage and vision.”
The Ennals Award ceremony was to be streamed live from Geneva on February 19, 2020, and the Martin Ennals Foundation said about Ngubane after it decided to recognise her work with a nomination: ” In South Africa, women face discrimination, the worst expression of which is widespread gender violence. In rural communities, they frequently have their land expropriated and are deprived of access to education and justice. Sizani Ngubane founded an organisation of more than 50,000 women from rural areas in her country and has fought successfully for over 40 years for the recognition of their rights.”
On hearing of her death, the MEA tweeted: ” A lifetime #HumanRights giant is gone. #SouthAfrica#WomenRights champion and #MartinEnnals finalist #SizaniNgubane has passed away. Generous, determined, loving, resilient, she was the very essence of a #HRD . She will be dearly missed.
