JOHANNESBURG - The attack on e.tv for screening an interview with two supposed criminals, apparently intent on making a small fortune from tourists around for the football world cup later this year, is an event of bizarre beauty. The South African police have subpoenaed two staffers from e.tv; the apparent link man between e.tv and the supposed criminals has been found dead in Soweto, after an overdose, so the story goes, of heavy duty rat poison. Swallow that; grubby story to follow soon.
Ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, ANC politicians and their sidekicks have descended into a freebooting hysteria, and gushed out hot gobbledegook in industrial quantities. Police minister Nathi Mthethwa accused e.tv of sensationalism and "harbouring" criminals. ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu has been quoted saying that should e.tv not adhere to the ANC's requests, "they [e.tv] cannot be different from these criminals themselves" and would be "hid[ing] behind journalistic ethics and media freedoms".
This is desperate stuff, all right. But the significant degree of public "free speech" debate around this e.tv issue has been half-cocked, and dripping sick with surly and confused emotion. There has been some sense; about the most useful comment has come from Professor Anton Harber, who put it so: "Journalists should examine, expose and explain criminality and highlight threats, such as those made by these criminals. Sometimes this is awkward and embarrassing for the police".
According to Lindiwe Mazibuko, an MP and a member of the official opposition, "there have been the suggestions from some politicians that journalists in the run-up to the World Cup should engage in ‘patriotic' reporting". The really big issue for e.tv is whether or not the supposed criminals are in fact criminals, a subject that has apparently not arisen for public debate.
The bigger picture is huge; let's focus on just one criminal area, illicit drugs. Not being in the mood for some grubby subpoena, let's refer to information in the public domain. According to the most recent United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report, South Africa is one of the world's major growers - and, more to the point, exporters - of cannabis ("dagga", "boom", "grass", etc). Cannabis is the world's biggest drug, by weight, and is characterized by a high degree of local and intra regional production and distribution.
Countries producing for export remain limited, and are largely excluded to South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kazakhstan. Cool countries, these. While the availability of cheap and freely-available cannabis will no doubt delight certain attendees of world cup matches, the average South African appears to know as much about the country's leading status as a cannabis exporter as he or she does about what planet mars is made of.
Then there is the status of organised crime. Leaving aside those who review the latest motor vehicle, and newest tourist hotspot, perhaps the most wretched part of working in and around what is loosely known as journalism in South Africa is the near-daily ordeal of dealing with certain people that are all of, or a mixture of, cheap, tasteless, gaudy, gimcrack, bent and twisted. Some of these people are crooks, or, technically, criminals.
Take a smoking gun on one or more of these individuals to the police, or any number of regulatory authorities, and take a bet that the chance of anything materialising runs at about 0.01%. Again, to avoid the goons, just one sample that's in the public domain. Late in 1996, your humble reporter called the Johannesburg bourse, known as the JSE, and complained about securities fraud connected to Randgold & Exploration (R&E), a listed entity, in respect of its acquisition of gold assets in Mali. The JSE laughed it off.
The main character involved was Brett Kebble, later murdered in September 2005. According to summarised forensic reports since published by R&E in the public domain, R&E alone was looted by Kebble and his cronies of R1.9bn in cash, by way of shares stolen from R&E, laundered mainly through JCI (another listed entity), and then sold on the open markets for cash. According to R&E, it was effectively looted of a further R1bn in other ways. To date, not a single direct prosecution has been made. So put that cheap cannabis in your pipe, smoke it, and watch the law enforcement jackboots through the haze, as they rave on with their World Cup spin.
- MoneyWeb
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