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Volume 13, No. 12, 27 March 2014 |
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Red Alert The Public Protector |
By Cde Jeremy Cronin
Last week coverage of the Oscar Pistorius trial was momentarily displaced by the public protector's Nkandla report. Let me say up-front I believe advocate Madonsela's marathon media presentation of her report came across as generally thoughtful and appropriately measured. Of course, in the coming weeks details of that report will and must inevitably be debated.
But the core message to be taken away (indeed celebrated) is that in our constitutional democracy no-one is above the law. Or, more accurately (since we're not dealing with a court of law in this case), no-one in public office is above the legitimate scrutiny of the public protector.
Authoritarian regimes are inclined to turn politics and the administration of justice into theatre, reducing the populace into awed spectators. What we had with last week's public protector's report was thankfully something different. It was a case of using a carefully orchestrated live media event to cast light upon (not an aura over) political authority. But are there not, at the same time, some very problematic aspects to this media-reliant stage-managing?
Bear in mind the public protector's legislation calls on the office to report directly to parliament and not particularly second hand, via a media exclusive preview lock-up, a media conference, and much prior leaking and tweeting. Why was the report not tabled first in Parliament? This was not an oversight, as we have since learnt. Madonsela has explicitly said she will not formally table the report to the Speaker, until President Zuma has first provided his responses to the report to Parliament as she has recommended. But is it not a matter for Parliament to decide who should be called to respond to the report? The office of the president has indicated that it will indeed respond to parliament, but the question is not an academic one. More concerning is the fact that, as reported in the Times (March 27), Madonsela said that "the parliamentary portfolio committee on justice - the oversight committee to which she reports - should not be trusted with protecting her office from political attacks."
This attitude presumably has its origins in a fall-out Madonsela had last year with ALL of the main political parties represented in the portfolio committee on justice. It was not just the ANC, but notably veteran DA MP, Dene Smuts, a staunch constitutionalist, who criticised Madonsela for over-reaching, and seeking to bypass parliament.
Our constitutional institutions should robustly check and balance, but also in terms of the core cooperative governance principle of our Constitution, support and reinforce each other. Just as parliament and executive must respect the office of the public protector, regardless of any personal animosity, so that office should respect other constitutional institutions, not least the one to which, in terms of the Constitution and the Public Protector Act, it reports.
The staging of the event and some of Madonsela's prefatory remarks to the substance of her report had all the hallmarks of an attempt to present the media (not a constitutional but overwhelmingly a commercial set of institutions) as her authoritative ally against the executive, with parliament side-lined. This might play neatly into the neo-liberal narrative of "brave individuals" up against the power of "the state" - in which the moneyed power of the commercial media and its billionaire backers gets elided. But short-circuiting our constitutional dispensation - always in the name of "defending" it, of course, is as Dene Smuts would agree a grave error.
As I said, Madonsela's actual report and most of its findings require serious engagement and not a knee-jerk reaction. However, let's note the slippages between the actual findings in the report, and much of the media narrative woven out of it. In some ways this is inevitable. This is why media coverage of the important Farlam Commission has sadly waned over time. Judge Farlam's thorough-going investigation into a complex tragedy is never going to be a simple heroes and villains soap opera, notwithstanding Dali Mpofu's showmanship. With the decision to open the Pistorius trial to live broadcasting, celebrity voyeurism (and ensuing media profits) received a new shot in the arm. But has the media-driven sensationalism surrounding the Pistorius case helped or distracted from thoughtfulness about the extraordinarily high levels of violence in our society?
Of course we shouldn't evoke systemic problems to evade questions of individual (celebrity or otherwise) responsibility. But being turned into ogling or baying-for-vengeance spectators by reality TV isn't likely to advance our collective responsibility for building a more just and caring society - which brings me back to the public protector's report.
Most interest in this report obviously has to do with whose particular homestead Nkandla happens to be. That's inevitable. Opposition political parties are seeking (why wouldn't they?) to personalise Nkandla in a narrowly reductive way for electoral purposes. Much media commentary has followed suit, producing a tabloid tale of hero and villain, David and Goliath. However, in the lessons we draw from this sordid episode of maladministration and runaway expenditure, we need also to understand Nkandla as the tip of a massively problematic iceberg, not least in the construction and property sectors. Ignore that and we'll fail to root out the underlying challenges.
Last week's Economist ran a cover story on "crony capitalism", noting a global surge in "rent-seeking" behaviour, the creaming off of super-profits through collusion and corruption. Along with the usual suspects, like arms procurement and casinos, real estate and construction were identified as sectors chronically prone to rent-seeking. In the magazine's 23-country table SA was middle-ranking, neither the best nor the worst - but we do have a major problem.
Last year the Competition Commission uncovered massive collusion in the construction sector, costing the public billions of rands. Since his appointment as minister in late 2011, Thulas Nxesi has instituted a series of investigations into fraud and maladministration in the ailing department of public works. Former acting director general Sam Vukela, mentioned in Madonsela's report, has already been found guilty on other charges and dismissed. A criminal case may follow. The Roux Shabangu matter and others are already being actively pursued in court. The SIU is involved in several investigations, including Nkandla.
More fraudulent leases have been uncovered, including 356 buildings in which the now physically verified floor space is less than reflected in the lease agreements. 112 leased properties are unoccupied. On Nkandla, well ahead of the report's release, DPW had already begun to implement most of Madonsela's remedial recommendations.
What underpins all these problems? It's a toxic mix of private sector corrupters, venal officials, BEE fronting and the misguided neo-liberal restructuring of the state in the mid-1990s. This restructuring replaced scores of sector professionals with generic managers. Like other departments, DPW has been denuded of professional capacity - engineers, architects, quantity surveyors, property evaluators - leaving it highly vulnerable to external and internal manipulation. As one critical response, a ring-fenced, professionally-staffed, property management entity within the department is now being actively constituted. Whether it's the public protector's office or a line department, we need to professionalise, democratise and consolidate ALL our constitutionally mandated public institutions.
Cde Jeremy Cronin is SACP 1st General Secretary, a version of this piece was published in Cronin's Cape Times, 'Left Turn' column (27 March 2014).
The surge in so-called popular protests and attempts at unseating democratically elected governments: Imperialism's reinvention of "Arab Springs" outside of the Arab world
By Cde Che Matlhako
"People's of the world, the future of a multipolar world, in peace, resides in us, in the organisation of the majority of the people on earth to defend ourselves against the new colonialism, in order to achieve a balance in the universe that is capable of neutralizing imperialism and arrogance"
Hugo Chavez, September 2011
The 5th of March marked the first anniversary since the passing on of Hugo Chavez Frias, the popular former Bolivarian Venezuelan President. The date also coincided with a surge in violent protests, by which the opposition sought to eject a democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro, a la 2002 coup d'état. Various capitals of the world have in the last period witnessed manifestations of violent protests. Whereas in some instances the basis for such can be described as subterfuge and folly, in many cases ordinary working people's real issues have been used to fuel the violent protests, but the intended outcomes are hedged somewhere in Washington, DC; Paris; and London.
In the aftermath of the so-called Arab Spring, imperialism and its proxies have taken upon themselves to invest in fuelling internal disturbances using the real issues confronting ordinary working people, to drive violent protests, whose ultimate demands are carved in such a way as to propel regime change, undermining the democratic processes and legalities.
In Venezuela, for the opposition Chavez's passing on, and the ensuing socio-economic challenges, seem to have ignited the appetite of the opposition and its sponsors in the US, to contemplate even more boldly attempts to unseat incumbent President Nicolas Maduro and reverse the gains of the Bolivarian project achieved thus far.
The opposition's calculations, in the aftermath of their dismal display in the December 2013 local government elections, together with the evaluation of less popular President compared to Hugo Chavez, made them to become even bolder as US intervention continued via limitless funding of fractions of the opposition, using students in private universities to lead the charge.
In the US' eyes the continued existence and example of the Bolivarian revolutionary project (which is outside of their influence and manipulation) is a direct threat to their entrenched interests and those of imperialism. Therefore, they are even brazenly seeking to undermine democracy, with the full support of North America, whose financial support has continued to flow freely despite the loss of innocent lives and wanton destruction of property.
More violent protests have rocked world capitals for varying reasons and in some cases, imperialism has directed and financed such endeavours.
In Ukraine, even though the forces behind the counter-revolutionary protests were few, major world cable news presented ‘Maidan protests' as representing the overwhelming majority of the people of Ukraine. Similarly, the ring-leaders of the violent protests, are publicly known zealots and anarchists, who harbour Nazi extremist feelings and racist tendencies, but this didn't deter imperialism. Instead it served as a useful tool in the course of achieving the geo-strategic interests of the US-NATO axis of encircling Russia (in the case of Ukraine), and subsequently papered over those obvious fissures.
Not much attention though has been given to protests in Sarajevo and Istanbul. In particular, Istanbul's Taksim square protests, which have been ongoing for longer periods, challenges the very basis and praxis of imperialism and neoliberalism, and therefore, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP's decade-long hold onto power and implementation of anti-people right-wing politics in Turkey. But Erdogan's Turkey is the pin-in country of CNN and Al Jazeera, and these eye-sore protests couldn't be flighted for they will create an impression of the disintegration of their erstwhile project.
It is in this context that we believe, it is more compelling to observe the anniversary of Chavez's passing on, and continue to demonstrate unconditional solidarity with Venezuelan revolutionary process, its progressive peoples and all those who continue to suffer the consequences of fascist and ultra-rightist forces - who continue to wreak havoc on the lives of ordinary working people, destroying property and innocent lives lost in process.
The focus of the western media, in the case of Venezuela, has been on the violent response' of the authorities putting down the riots that are seeking to drive fear and anarchy in much of the country. None of this media has paused to pose the pointed question of why and what drives these actions? They would have come to different and proper explanation and therefore exposed the agents and sponsors of such. However, that's not their interests, but that of casting aspersions about the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela- (PSUV-) allied forces and the Bolivarian revolutionary project.
In the same way lies and distortions have been told about Cuba for over five decades, Venezuela has now, together with other revolutionary projects elsewhere in the world become the targets and focal points of cultivating 'internal strife and dissent', instigated, and financed, from abroad, in order to create entry points for the so called 'international community' and external intervention of western powers.
The insidious idea (violently ejecting democratically elected leaders - from Jacobo Arbenz, Salvador Allende, Maurice Bishop, Patrice Lumumba, etc.) emanates from a deep seated hatred, of among others, the fringe fascist and ultra-rights, generated by the Chavista's (in Venezuela) efforts to bring into the mainstream of all aspects of Venezuelan life and polity, the former despised majority comprising of indigenous peoples, mestizos, the underclass, rural and peri-urban poor and the former marginalized Venezuelans, who are the majority in the country but have for many decades suffered marginalisation, and treated as an under-class. This has largely threatened the bourgeoisie elite and their North American way of life and privileges.
Particularly disturbing for the neighbours up north, is the perceived idea of the Chavista's movement's realignment of the economy away from an unsustainable unequal relations with North America (NAFTA) into a mutually-reciprocal relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, in the Bolivian Alternative for the People's of Our America (ALBA), the Union of South American Nations ( UNASUR), the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and cross -regional integration with merging bodies such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS).
Over the past period, as part of a broader US-instigated attempt, some sections of students and opposition forces in Venezuela have embarked on a provocative violent protest action to try and eject the democratically elected Maduro and his Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) and allied forces, which include the Communist Party of Venezuela (CPV). This, despite the fact that recently held local elections in December 2013, confirmed the mandate of PSUV and its allies in overwhelming victory and markedly reduced the influence of the opposition. That the use of subversive endeavours have been contemplated and undertaken despite the fact that every legal electoral process since the dawn of democracy in Venezuela has been opened to all, is indeed unthinkable and only possible, if they confident of the backers support.
Similarly, the rogue elements in Ukraine felt very confident and moved forward without much contemplation of the destructions and loss of lives in continuing violence. The ultimate goal was political power by all means and undermining of the constitutional legalities, including rejecting a nation-wide referendum which might have dealt with the fears of other regions, such as Crimean peninsula.
This brazen attempt at undermining democratically elected left and progressive forces, seems to be the new endeavour of imperialism at stoking (violent) internal dissent, such as we have witnessed from mid-2013 in the aftermath of degeneration of the so-called 'Arab Spring' in non-Arab countries in particular, but not exclusively. Recent scenes of violent protests have dominated the news networks of the entire world, as acts of arson, rampant looting and violence in Kiev, Caracas, São Paulo, Istanbul (in Turkey the protests have not received similar coverage because they threaten the interests of imperialism's key ally - AKP and Erdogan) and elsewhere, were beamed and portrayed as 'democratic' and 'legitimate' efforts at unseating 'dictatorships'.
The narrative being spewed about is that ordinary people are rising up against ‘authoritarian regimes' to seek to claim their democratic rights. In Kiev, Ukraine it is about deposing of 'dictator' manipulated by Russia's Putin, and São Paulo it is about undermining Dilma Rousseff's administration by manipulating the real concerns of the population. Whereas in Turkey, Istanbul's Taksim has not featured that prominently, because it will expose the CNN-pin up poster country - Turkey of Erdogan and thus a key ally in their efforts to redraw the geopolitics of the 'new' Middle East region.
The Caracas (Venezuela) protest as we have pointed out, is about annulling a democratic dispensation, which is economically-politically orientated away from neoliberalism and capitalism. The unavoidable contradictions and threatening of entrenched privileges of the elites in societies seeking a different trajectory to that of capitalism, have become the targets of media distortions and manipulations and centers around which, violent protest are organized and stoked, in the name of 'democratic and legitimate' protests. Upon closer scrutiny and analysis, these actions though presented as similar in character, are different but display a common characteristic of external-instigation and support through varied means and ways.
In the case of Venezuela, foreign funding, particularly USAID through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and overt insurrectionary provocation by diplomatic personnel, has been the key pillars for sowing and spreading the violent protests. President Nicolas Maduro gave an interview to television network Telesur, where he gave his impression of the situation in Venezuela. "It's not another conspiracy plan or another day of street barricades, it's a developing state coup, decided in the circles of power in the United States, conjured with the business elites of Venezuela, and directed and driven in the streets by a sector of the Venezuelan extreme right-wing," he argued.
According to Maduro the alleged plan to remove the government from power was born before Hugo Chavez died in March last year, and was intensified with an "economic war" and "electricity sabotage". The president also referred to Henrique Capriles' refusal to recognise Maduro's narrow electoral victory in the April 2013 presidential elections, and the eleven pro-government civilians who were then killed after Capriles called on supporters to "drain their rage".
In his interview Maduro said a national and international media campaign by the opposition was currently being used to "annul" the state's constitutional right to maintain public order and defend citizens under attack from violent groups. He also said there are groups in Colombia financing the far-right's activities in Venezuela in order to create a "civil war" and provoke "U.S. intervention". Maduro has previously accused former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe of involvement in the alleged plot. The Bolivarian Venezuelan project has never been forgiven for going against the mainstream and Hugo Chavez in particular, and continues to be demonized by the West. This is despite the fact that Chavez, has since the onset of the process of radical change in Venezuela, espoused and embarked on a peaceful transition.
Even before the February 1992 rebellion, Chavez's MBR-200 rejected the idea of a traditional military coup, of a military dictator or junta, and had put forward the idea of convening a constitutional assembly. The idea, accordingly was to find a way, whether through armed struggle or through a peaceful electoral process, to allow the country to break with the past, in order to accomplish the national transition that it so needed. The Venezuelan revolutionary process - a process so distorted by the international media, has inspired many across the world and the exemplary leadership of Hugo Chavez provide impetus towards radical transformation, particularly in the Third World.
It is not surprising that such endeavours and efforts are being undertaken to destabilize Venezuela. The distortions are also not surprising, since what is happening in Venezuela is according to Marta Harnecker, 'a sui generis process that explodes preconceived schemes of revolutionary processes'. It basic characteristics are:
- First, the process began with Chavez's overwhelming victory in an electoral battle and continues advancing via government institutions in spite of all the challenges it faces from opponents. Second, Chavez was a former military man. Third, it has until now been unable to eliminate corruption - one of its main calls for change. Fourthly, it perceives itself as Bolivian and struggles for the integration of Latin America as an important precondition for forward movement. It also conceives of democracy as the political system that brings the maximum happiness to the people. Importantly, serious economic transformations have yet to materialize given the entrenched interests of the elites backed by the US.
- Chavez is the story of much of Venezuela. An impoverished childhood, his military career and the decade of clandestine political activity that ended in a failed attempt to seize power in 1992. His is a struggle and victory against the odds. His elections campaign and final victory of the presidency of Venezuela through the ballot, and the dramatic reversals of fortunes that have marked it: the struggle to reform the Venezuelan economy, the coup attempt of April 2002 in which he was kidnapped and faced summary execution, and the oil industry strike that followed.
- The elite and mainstream media in Venezuela and the US oversimplify, by casting Chavez as the heir of Fidel Castro, and more often than not, they have their facts wrong. The (former) leader of one of the most powerful economies in Latin America was determined to try and use his country's wealth to help the poor majority. Chavez a Bolivarian nationalist, and unashamed socialist has given more reason to continue to revolt against the capitalism and its manifestations and seek to realise a society that brings into the mainstream the majority of the poor and marginalized.
- He continues to inspire us to seek a path of freedom, genuine peace and democracy that brings about a better quality of life for all the people. We must not only defend this but fight, together with all progressives and other forces the world over the overcome the fascists' ultra-rightist elements that seek to take us back in time.
Long live President Hugo Chavez!
Cde Che Matlhako is SACP Central Committee Member, Secretary for International Relations and Solidarity
