Islamic Terrorist Cells – South Africa

The revelation from al Jazeera of the request by the United States for details of the ownership of a cell phone number in South Africa to which numerous calls were made over at least a three-month period by an Islamic terrorist organisation comes at a time when rumours are rife that the South African Government has permitted, if not encouraged, the use of one or more military bases in the country for the training of Islamic terrorists.  At the same time, the Government welcomed the arrival of Leila Khalid, a convicted terrorist, to the country on a lecture tour to whip up support against Israel, an event that comes at a time when the relations between South Africa and Israel are at an all-time low, and relationships with the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom, all supporters of Israel, are entering a frosty zone, in comparison with the extremely friendly and active improvement of relations with Russia and China.  In addition to that, the word on the streets is that some five hundred thousand Pakistanis now have residence in the country.

Most of these are rumours, but, as the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire.  It is a remarkable turn of events.  The three countries on the South African ‘Don’t Like’ list are the three that have provided by far the largest foreign direct investment into South Africa in the past, and continue to do so at present.  They are also the economic zones that represent by far the largest proportion of foreign trade, in addition to being on the upward slope of the economic curve, whereas China is stagnating and the Russian economy is on the downward curve.  Pakistan and other Muslim countries are hardly a footnote to the South African economy.  One may be pardoned in asking why the country has such a strong drive towards these new friends.

The answer appears to be that Russia and China were always large supporters of the ANC in the days when that organisation was a bunch of terrorists against the country that was trying to stave off Communism.  Becoming respectable Freedom Fighters has not changed the affiliations, as was clearly seen in the offer by the ANC, probably represented by his good friend Jacob Zuma, to Muammar Gadhafi, who provided large funding and other support to the organisation, as well as to other terrorist organisations, at the time of the Lockerbie bombing, and who was invited to stash the cash that he stole from his own country in South Africa, to protect it from the zealous fortune hunters who wanted it to be returned to its rightful owners, the Libyan people. 

The next question that arises is why the West continues to pump money into South Africa, when the facts of its orientation are clear.  If the fact of Apartheid (certainly an abhorrent system of Government, which, remarkably, was substantially similar to many of the new laws in effect in South Africa now, although the new laws do not have the underpinning of religious faith that Apartheid had) was enough to warrant a withdrawal of funding from South Africa in the days of the anti-Communist War / Freedom Struggle, why is the clear support of countries and causes which are patently anti-West not seen in a similar light?  Perhaps the Western economies are waiting for the collapse of the South African economy, so that they can rush in and grab the mining bargains, in the hope that the next Government will be more enlightened, more intelligent, or, perhaps, simply more realistic.  If that is the case, they will have to join a long queue.  A senior executive of an ANC investment company, during a mildly-inebriated discussion on investment strategy in 1997, told the writer that the ANC planned to manage the economy down, so that it could move in and take control of the best assets before it set about the recovery.  It seems that they have been remarkably effective in that, with all the economic and industrial pointers heading firmly south.  However, enlightened observers will have extreme difficulty in believing that the success is the result of intelligent design, rather than seer incompetence and aggressive corruption.  As the economy stands, there is no J-Curve in sight.