Posted on 10/21/2007 2:10:44 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
THE editor of one of South Africa’s leading newspapers faces arrest this week for having exposed the minister of health as an alcoholic.
Mondli Makhanya, editor of the Johannesburg Sunday Times (which has no connection with this newspaper), published an investigation of Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the minister, under the headline “Manto: a drunk and a thief”.
The article revealed how she had been kicked out of Botswana, where she practised as a hospital doctor, for stealing the possessions of a patient who was under anaesthetic.
It also disclosed that she had a liver transplant earlier this year because of cirrhosis brought about by heavy drinking and, when in hospital, threw drunken tantrums, abused staff and ordered them to buy her wine and whisky with which to wash down her medication.
Yet Msimang, 67, remains in office, a close ally of Thabo Mbeki, the South African president. Mbeki, whose second term of office ends in May 2009, appears determined to clamp down on the press as he fights to ensure that he and his allies continue to hold power within the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
In theory, Mbeki is attempting to retain only the presidency of the ANC, as he is constitutionally barred from standing for a third term as president of the country. However, nobody doubts that he is determined to retain power for years.
Msimang, who has called for Aids to be treated with garlic and beetroot instead of modern antiretroviral drugs, is married to the ANC’s treasurer, a key power-broker in the coming months.
The newspaper claimed that her transplant had caused tension among doctors, who normally insist that patients stop drinking up to a year before surgery and permanently afterwards. Some experts said she received the new liver only because of her government position. The paper also found wit-nesses to her drinking after the transplant surgery.
The most shocking of its revelations, which have not been denied by her, concerned her work as a medical superintendent at the Athlone hospital in Botswana in the mid1970s. Hospital staff grew suspicious of the Soviet-trained doctor as patients’ watches, jewellery, handbags and even shoes were stolen.
She was found guilty in Lobatse of stealing a patient’s watch, hospital blankets, linen and heaters, and was declared a “prohibited immigrant”.
On a visit to a Soweto hospital last week, the minister said she was waiting for the right moment to respond to the claims. “When the time comes, this minister will speak out,” she said. “I will not be pushed into a corner to say things just because it is for public consumption. I have a legal opinion and I will stick to it.”
This week Makhanya, 37, and his deputy managing editor, Jocelyn Maker, face arrest under section 17 of the National Health Act for having received photo-copies of the minister’s private health records, which were sent by an anonymous source.
The act says it is an offence to gain access to a person’s confidential records.
Prosecution of journalists under this legislation is unprecedented. Yet, on Mbeki’s orders, a top detective dropped all other inquiries to work on the case, even spending a week in New Zealand interviewing a witness. Meanwhile, the Johannesburg Sunday Times has been told that other investigators have been instructed to “dig dirt” on Makhanya and his reporting team.
The editor, who has restored morale and circulation at the paper since he took up the job three years ago, is exactly what an African National Congress government might normally be proud of: a young, black man who has risen to the top and who more than holds his own with a large multiracial staff.
“In the early days of Mbeki’s presidency, there was almost this air of papal infallibility about him, so everyone was anxious not to be critical,” says Makhanya, a staunch Catholic who grew up in a tough Durban township.
“But those days are gone. The only man I now think can do no wrong,” he adds, laughing, “is Pope Benedict.”
The ANC, he argues, continues to behave as a liberation movement, not a democratic political party. “There is an intolerance and a closedness that are out of place in a modern democratic society.”
The fact that Mbeki views with such venom the Sunday Times, which is by far the country’s most powerful newspaper but with no particular political line, says more about the president than the newspaper.
The state-controlled broadcaster SABC, which is as obedient to government fiat now as it was under apartheid, has denounced the rest of the media for not being sufficiently pro-Mbeki. Its boss, Dali Mpofu, has publicly attacked Makhanya as a liar.
“We lost the SABC a long time ago. It’s very sad,” Makhanya says. “But even there you find that, while television is completely deferential to power, despite all the efforts to get rid of dissident voices they still haven’t quite managed it with radio.”
The press faces further threats to its independence. The state-controlled Public Investment Corporation, which manages civil-service pension funds and is the largest investor on the Johannesburg stock exchange, owns a 6% stake in Johncom, the Sunday Times’s publishers, and is prepared to put pressure on its management.
Brian Molefe, the corporation’s chief executive, said last week that he was challenging the board, ostensibly about an employee share incentive scheme.
He added: “We are not attacking editorial independence or freedom of speech, as I suspect they will say.” Few have any doubt that his real aim is to see Makhanya sacked.
There are also continuous threats to remove all government advertising from newspapers that are critical of the authorities.
Meanwhile, a nationwide security crackdown is under way. Many journalists on the Sunday Times and other papers are convinced their telephones are being tapped.
“We have incontrovertible evidence that it’s happening,” said Makhanya. “Even within the ANC now you find lots of people have got second mobile phones, which are pay-as-you-go and which they use for anything confidential. There’s a climate of fear and suspicion like we haven’t seen since apartheid days.”
Jane Duncan, director of the anticensorship Freedom of Expression Institute, agrees. “When I started, media freedom cases were few and far between. But reports started coming to us of intelligence surveillance of political activists. Now we have an editor being arrested and spied on,” she said.
Critics say that Mbeki is the problem. His ANC Today blog is full of vehemence towards not just opponents or critics but “enemies”. Each junior reporter who writes something he dislikes is accused of trying to “destabilise” and even “destroy” the ANC.
In his seeming determination to hang on to power, he has sacked several figures who showed signs of independence and has displayed a vindictiveness towards them.
Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, the junior health minister and Msimang’s deputy, fell foul of Mbeki when she visited an Eastern Cape public hospital where 200 African babies were dying every year, a situation she termed a “national health emergency”. Mbeki insisted that the death rate was normal and sacked Madlala-Routledge.
In his blog justifying the sacking, he digressed at length on the subject of miniskirts in Britain in the 1960s, arguing that their suggestiveness was akin to the unstated hostile intent hidden behind his critics’ words. This juxtaposition of miniskirts and a justification for dead babies produced a storm of protest and derision.
Meanwhile, Madlala-Routledge has been presented with a bill for every expense she incurred during her years in office, in an obvious attempt to bankrupt her.
Is not Makhanya, who has no idea whether he faces a fine or imprisonment, afraid of Mbeki’s vengeance? “I have to do my job,” he replies simply.
In grip of Mugabe syndrome
Why is President Thabo Mbeki clamping down on the press?
He is angry that no newspaper takes a simple African National Congress (ANC) view of life. Plans are afoot forcibly to change press ownership to make sure “other voices” (ie his) are heard. On top of that, he sees even mild or indirect criticism as the work of “enemies trying to destroy the ANC”.
Doesn’t he have a firm hold on power?
The ANC has a two-thirds majority in parliament and will hold power for a long time to come. But if anyone other than Mbeki is chosen as party president by the ANC congress in December, real power will quickly flow to that person. Mbeki will be a lame duck and might even be forced out of power before his presidential term ends in May 2009.
Surely he can take a bit of criticism?
His actions and writings have become increasingly wild and unbalanced in recent months and he has sacked as untrustworthy anyone who shows anything but slavish deference. It’s the Mugabe syndrome.
Is press freedom in danger?
Yes. If Mondli Makhanya is sacked or jailed, we are in uncharted territory. In addition the government is introducing laws to force editors of magazines to submit stories in advance to a government vetting body - ostensibly to prevent child pornography. But the South African press will not give in easily. Already there are anguished appeals to Nelson Mandela to speak out. Without doubt Mandela disapproves. If he speaks out, Mbeki is finished.
Zimbabwe 2.0
I think Mbeki will be checked here. South Africans didn’t fight so hard for freedom only to lose it again.
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