How Globalization Destroyed South Africa

“Nationalist politics have made it impossible to make use of Black labour.” — Harry Oppenheimer, 1978.

One would be naïve, ignorant, wilfully blind, or mischievous to claim that there cannot be a nexus between capitalism and the Left of the type referred to around a century ago by Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West, Prussianism and Socialism, and The Hour of Decision. Also a century ago, The New York Times routinely reported on the funding by Jacob Schiff of the Russian revolutionary movement, and on the mining magnate and financier William Boyce Thompson when he toured the USA lecturing on the merits of a Bolshevik government. Now such once well-known events are dismissed as “far-right conspiracy theories” by the chattering classes, albeit renegade historian Dr. Richard B. Spence of Idaho University, a rare bird in being an actual scholar, differentiates between “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy fact,” in his definitive book Wall Street & the Russian Revolution 1905-1925. [1]

However, the present alliance between the Left and plutocracy should still be readily apparent and widely known. The funds that are lavished on Leftist causes by Soros, Rockefeller, Ford et al, in the name of an “inclusive economy,” can be easily perused in the annual reports of tax-exempt foundations, sufficient to discern the nexus. Many conservative analysts have long raised this alliance, and occasionally it has been scrutinised by Senate and Congressional inquiries such as those of Congressmen Reece and Wright Patman.

Today we see the phenomenon before our eyes of the “colour revolutions” that are organized and funded by such plutocratic interests, in tandem with U.S. geopolitical interests, including what has been called the “foreign policy Establishment” by one of its own primary constituents, the Council on Foreign Relations. [2]

One of the most tragic victims of this nexus between global capital and the Left has been the Afrikaner. Unlike the numerous easily discernible convergences between globalisation and the Left, such as the ongoing “colour revolutions,” the machinations that pushed the fall of the Afrikaners is still little realised. The Afrikaners had to be dispossessed because as a folk their attachment to remnants of a living tradition make them an inconvenient anachronism in the modern, globalised world.

Background to Apartheid

It has long been consigned to the “memory hole” that apartheid (literally “separate development”), which was not only a socio-political system but a world-view, developed from the Afrikaner miners’ fight against foreign mine owners.

The 1922 revolt on the Rand, when a “White workers’ republic” was declared by the mine workers’ union, after the mine owners attempted to use Black labour, was bloodily suppressed by the Smuts Government. This caused such popular outrage that a Nationalist Government with Labour Party backing assumed office and over decades implemented pro-labour policies that included the gradual implementation of apartheid in an effort to minimize exploitation by monopoly capitalism. Apartheid was not a capitalist policy; it was an anti-capitalist policy; the best that could be implemented in such a disharmonic medley of races. [3]

Within South Africa, the greatest opposition to apartheid and to the Nationalist Government came from oligarchs headed by the Oppenheimer dynasty, the historic enemy of the Afrikaners. Harry Oppenheimer opposed the Nationalists in Parliament as an M. P. for the United Party. When anti-apartheid militants founded the Torch Commando in 1950, it was funded by Oppenheimer. [4]

When the Progressive Party formed from a faction within the United Party in 1959, Oppenheimer was and remained the financial patron. In 1966, he funded the Progressives’ general election campaign. [5]

The Nationalists were fully aware of the forces arraigned against them. Prime Minster D. F. Malan stated: “What we have against us is money power, principally under the leadership of Oppenheimer.” [6] In 1962, Prime Minister Dr. Heinrich Verwoerd, regarded as the “architect of apartheid,” stated in a speech before Parliament:

The directors, when they meet, hold private discussions. In the case of such a powerful body there is also a central body which lays down basic policy. The influence of that central body, to say the least, must be great in our economic life. Nobody knows, however, what they discuss there. In the course of his speeches, Mr. Oppenheimer, the leader, makes political statements; he discusses political policy, he tries to exercise political influence. He even supports a political party. […] In other words he has political aims; he wants to steer things in a certain direction. He can secretly cause a great many things to happen. In other words, he can pull strings. With all that money power and with his powerful machine, which is spread over the whole country, he can, if he so chooses, exercise enormous interference against the Government and against the state. [7]

Nelson Mandela eulogized Harry Oppenheimer on his death in 2000, stating: “His contribution to building a partnership between Big Business and the new democratic government in the first period of democratic rule can never be appreciated too much.” [8]

What did the oligarchy want for South Africa? The Boer territories had been coveted for their mineral wealth since the 19^th century. The oligarchs had British forces invade Boer lands on the pretext of defending the political rights of the uitlanders (“Outlanders”; “Outsiders”); non-Boers who had migrated to the gold and diamond fields, whose influx of numbers equalled if not outnumbered the Afrikaners. The agitation against South Africa on the pretext of “Black rights” was analogous to agitation over the fraudulent issue of “Uitlander rights”. In both cases, the hidden interests were those of the oligarchy. Elements of the Left at the time of the Anglo-Boer War knew the issues involved. E. Belfort Bax, chief theoretician of the Social Democratic Federation, a pioneer of British socialism, wrote:

[…] But to be a pro-Boer, in itself, simply means to wish the Boers to regain in its integrity that freedom and independence which a powerful State, at the behest of its money-bags, has, in a treacherous and cowardly manner, sought to rob them of. […] [9]

Harry Oppenheimer was unequivocal about the aims of the oligarchy in his statement on the formation of the oligarchic think tank, the South Africa Foundation, in 1960, when he said that it “[…] reflects the return of big business to active politics.” [10]

Torch Commando

While the South Africa Foundation was portrayed by the Left as apologists for apartheid and the Nationalist Government, its role was subversive. The S.A. Foundation trod carefully, being under the scrutiny of the Afrikaner Nationalists. Oppenheimer had assisted the street militants of the Torch Commando, a quarter million war veterans formed in 1950 under the leadership of Group Captain Adolph “Sailor” Malan, Oppenheimer’s private secretary at the Anglo-American Corporation, to oppose the Nationalist Government. The Torch Commando worked in alliance with the United Party and the Springbok Legion, a veterans’ organization under the leadership of Joe Slovo and other Communists. [11]

When the Torch Commando threatened to get out of hand, and attention was being directed at Oppenheimer as the organisation’s financial patron, “we thought it wise […] to bury the Commando; and fortunately some of my young men at Anglo-American were effectively placed there, so that the once useful – but now rather too dangerously flamboyant – body of ex-servicemen backed away from the political scene.” […] [12]

In Oppenheimer’s personal account, speaking before the S.A. Foundation, he stated that the Foundation’s predecessor, the United South Africa Trust Fund (USATF), had “channelled funds to the United Party,” while repudiating the Nationalist claim that the aim was to destroy the “industrial colour bar.” The Fund presented itself as the epitome of moderation. [13]

When the Nationalists assumed Government in 1948, Oppenheimer stated that “the Church, the Press and Big Business, which usually form the retaining wall of the established order, found themselves swept along in what some exuberantly chose to call the ‘liberatory movement.’” [14]

Referring to his mining conglomerate, Oppenheimer stated that the Anglo-American Corporation “became an ally of the African National Congress!” (Ibid.). He then described the dialectical character of his tactics:

I am not noting this with regret, the circumstances demanded it; and if there is one facet of my character which stands out above all others, it is my capacity to adapt myself to the circumstances. When it was necessary to be “liberal,” I was liberal; when it was necessary to be “conservative,” I was conservative, and when it was necessary to be both “liberal” and “conservative,” I was both. [15]

Oppenheimer was unequivocal before an audience of his fellow oligarchs as to the motives behind his “idealism”:

Nor should I be accused of lack of principle. I think I can fairly claim that, throughout my career, I have been faithful to a basic principle which is that our family business should flourish. And if the situation is conducive to the progress of Anglo-American, it is also conducive to the country’s progress. Perhaps, on second thoughts I can make bold to say that what is good for Anglo-American is good for South Africa. [16]

What Oppenheimer and his colleagues feared was that South Africa would descend into violence and chaos. They aimed through the S.A. Foundation to “take the edge off the revolution.” South Africa’s economy, stated Oppenheimer, “cannot be allowed to jump out of our grasp.” [17]

The S.A. Foundation made use of its editors in the Press to ensure that opposition did not get too vociferous, lest it strengthened the hands of Verwoerd. The aim was to enable a “merger” (sic) of liberal English and Afrikaner Whites “as the only safe way to get rid of Dr. Verwoerd,” the stalwart defender of the Afrikaners, whose forthrightness commanded the respect of all Black ethnicities. Oppenheimer explained:

All other methods will merely consolidate his [Verwoerd’s] position; we must undermine him from within. To sum up: the immediate tasks of the South Africa Foundation is to create an atmosphere in which it will be possible to arrange a coalition of the moderate elements in the Government and the Opposition. [19]

Externally, foreign investment would be attracted, and an inflow of money would buy off the Blacks, (Ibid.), as it did throughout “decolonized” Africa.

However, the radicals still had a role. While the United Party had, Oppenheimer stated, failed him, he had “the highest hopes” (sic) for the newly formed Progressive Party. While “for a decade, big business has been without a coherent political voice in the country,” the United Party being “quite hopeless,” the Progressive Party, having “already established good relations” with the ANC, would be the means by which terms would be negotiated with the “non-white leaders.” Oppenheimer was “relying considerably on the Progressives.” [20]

Oppenheimer’s Grand Vision

What was the grand vision? Oppenheimer was frank:

Picture the industrial revolution that will take place in Africa if the black man’s economic fetters are struck form him! Think of the millions of skilled men who will enter the labour market. Think of the vast new consuming public! [21]

That was the reality behind the prolonged, worldwide avalanche of puerile rhetoric and sanctimonious speechifying about “majority rule,” “human rights”, “democracy,” ad nauseum, while thousands of half-witted youths across the Western world shouted Amandla, with fists clenched, with Oppenheimer & Co. lurking in the shadows.

This Grand Vision could be achieved while the real power remained in the hands of the oligarchy, ensuring that it did not pass to “uneducated people still in a semi-barbarous state,” as Oppenheimer had put it. And for this he could “claim the main credit for this exciting vision of the new Africa, yet all that I have done really, is to allow myself to be guided by the interests of Anglo-American.” [22]

Nearly twenty years after his address to the S.A. Foundation, Oppenheimer was still lamenting, “Nationalist politics have made it impossible to make use of Black labour.” [23]

Role of the ANC

Despite policy and doctrinal differences, the alliance between the Progressives and the ANC was maintained. In 1961, an “All-In” congress was held between representatives of the ANC, the breakaway Pan-Africanist Congress, the Liberal Party and the Progressive Party.

Before the 1961 general election, Albert Lutuli, President of the banned ANC, issued a statement supporting the Progressive candidates. After the election, Lutuli announced that, while he deeply regretted the increased support for the National Party, the support received by the Progressive Party was an encouraging sign. The year ended with relations between the Progressive Party and many black leaders and groups on a cordial footing, despite continuing condemnation by the party of “non-White nationalism.” [24]

It is notable that a primary doctrinal rift between the White and Jewish liberals of the Progressive Party, and the Black organisations was over “non-white nationalism.” Ethnic or racial nationalism can be problematic for the oligarchy if it threatens blow-back. Oppenheimer’s concern that Black nationalism could get out of hand was evident in his address to the S.A. Foundation. That situation arose in the USA in 1967, when Black militants led by future Black Panther leader Stockley Carmichael purged the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (which had been subsidised by the Ford Foundation) of Whites, and Black militants often scorned White male Leftists as effete. Tame Blacks such as Nelson Rockefeller’s friend Martin Luther King were required, and Nelson Mandela filled that role in South Africa.

By the 1970s, the Progressive Party was thoroughly identified with the “capitalist class” and was the oligarchs’ means of keeping Black nationalism within manageable limits.

At about the same time as its electoral breakthrough in 1974, the Progressive Party achieved a similar breakthrough in attracting vastly increased support from its “natural” constituency in the capitalist class. From 1973 to 1977, the party national treasurer and chief fund raiser was Gordon Waddell, an executive director of the Anglo American Corporation and ex-son-in-law of Harry Oppenheimer. As Irene Mennell expressed it in an interview in 1978, “There are few big Johannesburg companies who have not been approached and given.” With Gordon Waddell going around soliciting donations, it was very hard for fellow capitalists to say no. So successful was Waddell’s fund-raising that in January 1974 the party’s newspaper, Progress, reported a 100 percent increase in funds and a 200 percent increase in large donations. [25]

In 1976, one of the Progressive Party’s few Members of Parliament, Harry Schwartz, explained in a speech the need to dismantle apartheid for the sake of a market economy: […] “the problem in South Africa is not only colour; it is a potential conflict between capital and labour. This is why one has to convince the people who represent labour, who are the Black consumers, that there is a place for them in the free enterprise system.” [26] Under the ANC/Communist coalition, the oligarchy got their “free market,” but also the permanent shambles that was intrinsic to the dismantling of apartheid; that is to say, “blow back.”

United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

While at street level the Left imagined that the “struggle against apartheid” was part of a wider struggle against capitalism and “American imperialism,” the U.S. “foreign policy Establishment” was working for the destruction of apartheid from above.

USAID uses the U.S. foreign aid programme to pursue the strategic interests of the USA and associated oligarchs. USAID was active in subverting the Afrikaner state and boasts of its role. USAID does not attempt to conceal the manner by which it not merely “interferes” in states throughout the world but attempts to change the entire structure of society. The stated goals of USAID are unequivocal:

U.S. foreign assistance has always had the twofold purpose of furthering America’s interests while improving lives in the developing world. USAID carries out U.S. foreign policy by promoting broad-scale human progress at the same time it expands stable, free societies, creates markets and trade partners for the United States, and fosters good will abroad. [27]

Prior to the passing by U.S. Congress of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, USAID had already been subverting South Africa with a programme designed by Timothy Bork, U.S. Assistant General Counsel for Africa. A blurb for Bork provides an interesting background, showing the nexus between the U.S. Government and the tax-exempt foundations:

Timothy Bork served as assistant general counsel for Africa, regional legal adviser for East and Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands, mission director in South Africa, and retired as the acting deputy assistant administrator for Africa. After working at the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, he formed an investment firm in Washington, D.C., where he currently resides. He is a founder and vice chair of the Africa Society. [28]

Bork stated that “USAID created projects and activities to respond to the priorities of the black community and its leaders, maximized black participation and leadership, and ensured activities had a linkage to the general objectives of U.S. policy.” [29]

Over the first two years of the U.S. programme, $75,000,000 funded the agenda. Bork stated that this had “a political rather than an economic development objective,” (Ibid.) yet it is claimed that USAID is simply a humanitarian effort to achieve “food security.” Because of the suspicions of the South African Government, Bork implies that operations had to be clandestine. Bork stated that “a deep and meaningful relationship, as yet non-existent, with the anti-apartheid community” (Ibid.) was required by the USAID staff that was deliberately kept small:

We made it clear that the American people [sic] had, in effect, created a trust fund for the anti-apartheid forces and that funds would only be disbursed when we received clear guidance from their leadership. Only through dogged persistence and building one-on-one relationships were we able to win the confidence of community leaders. […]

There was a great deal of concern that the South African Government would directly curtail the work of USAID, which it ultimately did by investigating organizations that we were funding, including detaining leaders without charges. We created a legal framework for assisting organizations under attack. [30]

When the banned ANC and the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) formed a United Democratic Front (UDF), the question was how USAID could covertly fund a political party formed by a prohibited organization:

[…] Most of our resources were directed to projects created by individuals associated with the BCM, however, we worked carefully to recruit prominent, capable UDF leaders for advisory boards and for our major educational program initiatives. This attention to an underlying political fact helped the mission create a strong foundation for later growth.

The early work of USAID/South Africa successfully laid the groundwork for the much larger programs that followed. Key accomplishments were reversing the deeply held belief of the South African anti-apartheid leadership that the United States was opposed to regime change; quickly identifying and cultivating the current and future political, economic, and social leadership of a nonracial South Africa; putting in place a program framework that was perceived by anti-apartheid leadership and the Congress as responsive to the needs of the struggle; and, most importantly, effectively implementing the will of the American people as expressed by the Act. [31]

Carnegie Corporation

It should not be assumed from what Bork said about the Congressional anti-apartheid resolution of 1986, and the beginning of USAID’s subversion of South Africa, that funds were not being channelled from the USA prior to that. The Carnegie Corporation of New York established a programme with the aim being “to study and test both the limits of what is possible now and the ways that certain sectors of society can be organized in a majority-ruled South Africa of the future.” [32]

Carnegie funded the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of Witwatersrand and the national network of Legal Resources Centres, whose grantees became crucial in shepherding South African society into its new future in a globalized market economy. Carnegie worked with USAID, Ford, and Rockefeller, and in 1979 participated in a Rockefeller Foundation study on U.S. policy towards Southern Africa, entitled South Africa: Time Running Out. This “reinforced the on-the-ground efforts of the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the [Carnegie] Corporation and significantly influenced the policy debate in the United States.” [33]

The Centre for Applied Legal Studies and the Legal Resources Centres, which became important in the opposition to apartheid, emerged from a conference on Legal Aid held in 1973 at the University of Natal, funded by the Ford Foundation. [34] This brought together legal experts from the USA and South Africa. That the conference was hosted by the law faculty of the university indicates the subversion of South African institutions at an early period. The Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) was funded by Ford, the Carnegie Corporation, and Rockefeller Brothers Fund. CALS said of this:

CALS is one of South Africa’s oldest public interest law organisations. It was founded by Prof. John Dugard and based at Wits University during the apartheid era when human rights groups simply did not exist. With three original staff members and funding from the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the organisation made a significant impact first as an applied research centre and later as a law clinic. [35]

Mandela, ANC, and the Globalists

While the mainstream conservatives across the Western world worried that the ANC would communize the economy and South Africa’s mineral resources would come under Soviet Russian control, they were, as was usually the case during the Cold War, looking in the wrong direction. It was a red herring. As with the rest of Africa after European colonial scuttle, South Africa’s economy was marked for globalization. Mandela and the ANC were just as susceptible to the blandishments of international capitalism as any of the others of Africa’s “new elite,” many trained by the London School of Economics and the African-American Institute, and were recipients of Ford and Rockefeller grants. While the ANC was widely regarded as Marxist and subverted by the Communist Party, Mandela contended in his autobiographical Long Walk to Freedom, stating of the “Freedom Charter” adopted by the ANC in 1955, “In June 1956, in the monthly journal Liberation, I pointed out that the charter endorsed private enterprise and would allow capitalism to flourish among Africans for the first time.” Africans would have the opportunity to “prosper as capitalists.” [36]

In 1964, in his opening statement at the Rivonia Trial, Mandela, amidst accusations that he was a Communist, explained: “The ANC has never, at any stage of its history, advocated a revolutionary change in the economic structure of the country, nor has it, to the best of my recollection, ever condemned capitalist society. […]” [37]

In 1959, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), intended to be more extreme than the ANC in emulating the guerrilla warfare of the Vietcong and Mao’s Red Army, was formed under the leadership of former ANC Youth League leader Potlako Leballo, an employee of the U.S. Information Service (USIS). [38] PAC being vehemently opposed to “Russian social imperialism” [39] was part of the CIA’s Cold War offensive that included, for example, subsidizing through the tax-exempt foundations the Congress for Cultural Freedom and the National Student Association in the recruitment of anti-Soviet Leftists. Ironically, in its attack on the ANC, PACS’s IKWEZI newspaper alleged that uMkhonto weSizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), the terrorist wing of the ANC, officers Morogoro Joseph Cotton, Shadrack Tladi, and Boy Otto “were openly flirting with the Peace Corps, an international known CIA front […]” [40]

PAC also alleged that V. Nokwe, wife of the ANC’s general secretary and chief of security, D. Nokwe, was employed by Amiran Israel, an import-export company that was a cover for the Israeli Secret Service (Shinbet) in Southern and Central Africa. [41] Amidst this factionalism, it is of interest that PAC was aligned with the UNITA forces in Angola who were opposed to the USSR as “social imperialists” (sic) and in particular to Cuban forces in Angola. [42] UNITA was receiving CIA backing. [43]

This interesting article shows that although the CIA backed UNITA in an effort to counter Soviet influence exercised through the governing MPLA, the rivalry was tribal and not one in which the supposedly “anti-Marxist” UNITA battled for democracy against the Marxist MPLA. Also of significance is that Gulf Oil maintained its contract with the MPLA Government, and the ousting of the Portuguese was of no consequence to their business dealings.

In 1987, Oliver Tambo, president of the ANC, went to New York and addressed a joint meeting of the Foreign Policy Association and African-American Institute. Tambo stressed the influence that American Liberalism had on the ANC ideology, referring to the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and the revolutionary character of the USA. This is precisely the image the U.S. “foreign policy Establishment” sought for the USA as the vanguard of a world liberal revolution, in which disaffected Marxists, Mensheviks, Trotskyists, Social Democrats and Communists played a prominent role, perhaps no better symbolised than by Sedova Trotsky’s resignation from the Fourth International due to her support for the USA in fighting the “Stalinists” in North Korea. [44] Tambo alluded to the meeting held in Zambia in 1985 with Gavin Reilly, chairman of Oppenheimer’s Anglo-American Corporation, referring to the convergence of opinion:

Let us, as fellow countrymen, discuss our problems together. This is what happened when we met Gavin Reilly, the head of Anglo-American. We met as brothers from the same country, separated by circumstance, but otherwise fellow countrymen, and we discussed the problems of our country, and how we saw the future. And we were happy at the end of that meeting. We all assessed it as having been most useful. [45]

In 1990, the year of his release from jail, Mandela toured the USA where he was feted as a celebrity. The New York Times commented: “Perhaps as important, he will meet privately in New York with leading business figures, some of whom still have financial ties to South Africa, in an effort to keep economic pressure on the Government of President F. W. de Klerk.” [46]

In July 1993, Mandela returned to the USA to raise $10,000,000 for the ANC election campaign in 1994. [47]

The South Africa Free Elections Fund (SAFE) was organized by Theodore C. Sorensen, a senior partner in the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. The Fund raised $6.5 million. The law firm’s alumna Loren Braithwaite Kabosha had helped coordinate Mandela’s 1990 U.S. tour. Kabosha “would later co-chair a conference on international investment opportunities in South Africa.” “By 1993, she moved to South Africa full-time to develop SAFE initiatives in the lead-up to the election.” [48]

The Long Walk to Globalization

What was the result of the capitalist-Leftist-U.S. nexus against South Africa? Mandela assured his wealthy backers in 1996: “Privatisation is the fundamental policy of the ANC and will remain so.” [49]

Mandela was feted by the Brenthurst Group of monopoly capitalists, headed by Oppenheimer. Patti Waldheimer, who had been The Financial Times correspondent in Johannesburg and knew the luminaires such as Mandela and de Klerk, wrote in her glowing tribute to the destruction of White rule:

[Mandela] constantly sought the view of international businessmen and bankers on South Africa’s future and he cultivated close relationships with the head of one of the country’s leading mining families [and] entertained at the home of one of Johannesburg’s most ostentatious businessmen […] where guests were met in the driveway with champagne on silver salvets. [He also] dined regularly with Anglo [American] patriarch Harry Oppenheimer. [50]

With the fall of the sovereign Afrikaner State, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) stepped in with a programme for the ANC, which had never formulated detailed economic policies, in what was “an unusually large effort.” [51] “Big business, the IMF and the World Bank [became] increasingly influential in the top ranks of the ANC leadership.” [52]

The Brenthurst Group developed into the Brenthurst Foundation, founded by the Oppenheimer family in 2004, and intended to create an African continental economy along globalist lines. An indication of the influence over African leaders is in its “advisory board,” which includes the “former presidents” of Nigeria, Liberia, South Africa; former prime ministers of Ethiopia, and Mozambique; a former president of the African Development Bank; a deputy chair of the African Union Commission; joined by Jonathan Oppenheimer, and by Richard Myers, former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, et al. [53]

Among the “partners” are the South African Government’s Department of International Relations and Co-Operation; Genesis Analytics; economic advisers; Rand Corporation; [54] Council on Foreign Relations; Sabi Group; [55] The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies (incorporated into Tel Aviv University), founded “to bridge the gap between the Israeli intelligence apparatus and academia…” [56]; University of Pretoria; et al. [57]

If the Left now protests that they did not realize this would be the outcome of the “liberation struggle,” the question is: why not? There were multiple examples prior to the assumption to Government of the ANC of how “decolonization” proceeds. Nicholas Oppenheimer, deputy chairman of the Anglo American Corporation and De Beers, commented on the new dispensation that “in a remarkably short time [the ANC] matured into a government which understands and accepts the disciplines of the market place.” [58]

ANC economics adviser C. Mostert detailed the history and ideology of privatization in South Africa, stating that the Nationalists introduced state supervision of the economy in 1948; a policy which began to be dismantled by the [corrupted] National Party in 1987, which has been continued by the ANC Government. [59] Mostert stated that the ANC has embarked on a policy recommended by the International Monetary Fund; that the word “privatization” is not generally used, but rather “restructuring of state assets.” Mostert wrote:

These privatization initiatives have taken different forms and include:

The complete sale of companies, like Sun Air and seven radio stations to consortiums;

Build, Operate and Transfer arrangements for the building of roads;

The opening of private-public partnerships at local government level for the provision of services like water;

Selling a partial stake (30%) in Telkom to combined American-Malaysian consortium; and

The proposed sale of a 25%-30% stake of South African Airways [60]

The ANC stated: “Eskom is one of a host of government-owned parastatals created during the apartheid era which the democratically elected government has set out to privatise in a bid to raise money.” [61]

The Meaning of It All

In 1999, President Thabo Mbeki went to New York City, where he breakfasted with David Rockefeller, who hosted the event with his daughter Peggy Dulaney, and with CEOs from “companies such as Xerox, Shell, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Chase Manhattan, Citibank, Coca-Cola and Goldman Sachs. Investment guru George Soros was also present.” Rockefeller said that “he and other American business leaders were so impressed with the South African situation that he was certain investment funds would continue to flow into the country.” At a news conference after the breakfast, Rockefeller said: “The investment community in this country is encouraged by the smooth transition in South Africa, first to the government of Mr Mandela and then, because Mr Mandela was so extraordinarily well received, they were pleased that Mr Mbeki was able to carry on that transition very successfully.” “Dulaney said the list represented a distinguished group that reflected the levels of interest in South Africa and the confidence the investment community had in Mbeki.”

Mbeki responded that “[t]hese people are already active in South Africa and do not need an introduction, so I gave them an overview of the situation. They were interested in everything, from how the economy is behaving to the relationship between the government and the unions, restructuring of state assets and management of the budget.” Mbeki believed that “investors he had met would spread the word about South Africa in the wider business community.” [62] David Rockefeller had perhaps not expressed such public enthusiasm for a state system since he returned from China with fulsome praised for Mao, after his boy Kissinger and other eminences of the “U.S. foreign policy Establishment” had cleared the way. [63]

In 1998, President Clinton awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to Mandela. In 2002, President Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. However, the mythic image of Mandela as a revolutionary saint oppressed by the powerful yet emerging triumphant had to be maintained. In 1990, it was first claimed by The Atlanta Constitution Journal that Mandela was arrested after his whereabouts were given to the South African authorities by an American diplomat working for the CIA. Despite the headlines, the substance of the reports showed that this was not a CIA operation, but the initiative of an individual, and furthermore that his actions resulted in the requirement that State Department approval must be given for passing information on South African “dissidents” to the authorities, and that this approval was not given despite requests for three subjects.[64] The question was raised again in 2016 by The Washington Post and Britain’s Sunday Times. The Post stated that “remarkably” (sic) Mandela himself gave no credence to it: “In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela discusses the rumors that ‘an American consular official with connections to the CIA had tipped off the authorities’ but says he had never seen any evidence to support this idea. ‘I cannot lay my capture at their door,’ he writes. ‘In truth, I had been imprudent about maintaining the secrecy of my movements.” [65] Contrary to some reports prepared by individual analysts, [66] CIA task force studies on Mandela did not consider him to be controlled by the USSR nor ideologically committed to Communism. [67]

A major study on U.S.-South Africa relations prepared in 1985 considered the likelihood of strained relations between the USA and S.A. should Pretoria not accede to Black demands, and noted that in 1985 U.S. relations with South Africa were deteriorating as the result of attempted U.S. interference. [68] Interestingly, the report alluded to South African Prime Minister B. J. Vorster stating in 1977 that the USA was a greater threat than international Communism. [69] Unfortunately, it was Vorster who set South Africa on a ruinous course following the death of Verwoerd, which itself has various mysterious aspects. [70]