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Part Of The Issue Around Communal Land, Which Became A Matter Of Controversy, Is That We Are Saying That This Land Must Go Back To Communities. Not Chiefs And Traditional Leaders.

-Thabo Mbeki

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Part Of The Issue

Thabo Mbeki

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Part Of The Issue Around Communal Land, Which Became A Matter Of Controversy, Is That We Are Saying That This Land Must Go Back To Communities. Not Chiefs And Traditional Leaders.

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We Were Asked To Host The Pan African Parliament And We Agreed To This.

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I Think That Probably The Most Important Thing About Our Education Was That It Taught Us To Question Even Those Things We Thought We Knew.

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I Am Quite Convinced That We Need To Increase The Resources That Go To Municipalities If We Want The Municipalities To Do The Things The Constitution And The Law Say They Must Do. It Can't Be Avoided.

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The Problem Is Not Unique; The Challenge Is Not Unique To South Africa. Other African Countries Have Faced It. But In Our Case, We Have Got To Solve The Problem. You Have Got An Institutional Traditional Leadership, Which Functions In A Particular Way, In For Instance, Your Communal Areas.

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There Is A Tendency Just To Talk About Foreign Investors. Over 80 Per Cent Of New Investment In The South African Economy Is South African And Therefore The Engagement Of The South African Investor Is Also A Critical Part Of This Process.

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The Reason I Joined The Struggle Against Apartheid Was Because You Had This System Of Oppression, Which Affected Everybody Who Was Black. Whether You Were Old Or Young, Man Or Woman, In A Village Or A Town, It Didn't Matter.

We Want The National Intelligence, We Want The Police, We Want The Scorpions, Any Other Institutions, The Tax People, And So On, The Totality Of These Bodies, To Get Together.

I Know There Is A Lot Of Concern I Know About Plans That Iran Might Have To Develop Nuclear Weapons Which Arises From Positions That Iran Took In The Past When In Fact It Did Not Disclose Things To The Iaea… Because They Were Hiding Something. I Can Understand That.

Hiding Something

The King Had Been A Good Friend Of The Government And The People Of South Africa And We All Mourn His Passing With Our Brothers And Sisters In Saudi Arabia.

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Really, A Critical Matter In The Public Service Is Radically To Improve The Quality Of Management.

It Will Be A Comprehensive Response. The Id Issue Is One Of Them. It Will Make Sure That Home Affairs Has The Capacity To Reach People And To Make Sure That The People Themselves Know That They Have Got To Get These Documents And Where To Go To Get Them.

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It's A Big Problem In South Africa Up To This Day: Many People Want To Open Factories, They Want To Invest, But Then They Discover That They Don't Have The Skilled People To Employ.

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The Question Arose, How Would The Communities Manage This Land On Their Own. That's Why The Communal Land Rights Bill Then Borrows An Institution That Is Set Up In Terms Of The Role And Function And Powers Of The Institutional Traditional Leadership ( Borrows That Committee And Uses That Committee).

There Is A Land Problem In Zimbabwe, There Is A Need Land For Redistribution But It Must Be Handled Different, Without Violence, Without Conflict, Within The Context Of The Law, Bearing In Mind The Interests Of All Zimbabweans Both Black And White. It's Necessary That The Zimbabwean Government To Respond Positively To Those Sorts Of Messages.

Black And White

There Is A Very Long List Of Parties In This Year's Election, Some Of The Parties I Have Never Heard Of.

One Of The Matters That Must Be Addressed Is That Rwanda And Uganda Have To Leave The Democratic Republic Of The Congo. We're Also Supporting Processes To Ensure That The Political Dialogue Among The Congolese Themselves Takes Place So That The People There Can Decide Their Future.

You Need To Be Able To Do That To Market These Possibilities To These Specific Investors Who Would Be Interested In A Sector Of That Kind. It's What Would Be Normally Done By Anybody With Regard To Attracting Investment To Particular Sectors Of The Economy.

If We Only Said Safe Sex, Use A Condom, We Won't Stop The Spread Of Aids In This Country.

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It Is Difficult To Discuss... History.. It Is More Difficult To Talk About Today.. Simple Things…

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Part Of The Issue Around Communal Land, Which Became A Matter Of Controversy, Is That We Are Saying That This Land Must Go Back To Communities. Not Chiefs And Traditional Leaders.

Haiti Was A French Colony, But In 1804, The Slaves Rose Up And Defeated The French And Formed The Republic. For The Last 200 Years, Haiti Has Had A Very Unfortunate History.

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Public Servants

There Are Two Pieces Of Legislation That Are Related. There's The Communal Land Rights Bill. Then There Is The Legislation That Was Approved Which Has To Do With The Role And The Place And The Function Of The Institution Of Traditional Leadership. Now That Legislation, Not The Communal Land Rights Bill, Provides For The Setting Up Of Particular Committees That Would Work Together With The Elected Municipalities.

Procurement Policies Of All Of The Major Parastatals, It Is A Very Important Element Of That Processes That Will Continue.

I Don't Imagine Heads Of Government Would Ever Be Able To Say I'm Not An Economist Therefore I Can't Take Decisions On Matters Of The Economy; I'm Not A Soldier I Can't Take Decisions On Matters Of Defence; I'm Not An Educationist So I Can't Take Decisions About Education.

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If We Don't Move Forward With Regard To Creating A Non-racial Society In South Africa And We Allow This Legacy Of Apartheid To Persist, These Divisions Between Black And White In Wealth And Income And So On, In The Future You Would Indeed Have An Ugly Upheaval.

Black And White

The Communal Land Rights Bill Then Said, Since There Would Be Those Collectives Set Up In Terms Of The Other Legislation, There Was No Need For Them To Set Up Other Structures To Deal With The Land Issues.

It Is Critically Important That Iran Should Not Develop Nuclear Weapons. And That The Necessary Interventions Need To Be Made By The International Atomic Energy Agency To Ensure That, Indeed, That Does Not Happen, In The Context Of Any Nuclear Generation Of Power.

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We Would Continue To Handle Our Relations With The Rest Of The Continent With That Kind Of Sensitivity.

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South Africa Belongs To All Who Live In It, Black And White.

Black And White

We Have Been At The Matter Of Police Pay For Some Time. Indeed, The Minister Of Safety And Security And The National Commissioner Of Police Have Raised This Matter. Treasury Has Been Looking At It And The Public Service And Administration Minister Has Been Looking At It. It Is A Matter With Which We Are Engaged, The Salaries Issue, As Well As The Resource Question With Regard To Vehicles And, And All Other Matters, Including The Skills Issues.

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Those Who Oppressed Us Described Us As The Dark Continent!

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I Am Sure It Is In The Medical Textbooks, There Are Many Things That Cause Immune Deficiency And You Will Find Therefore In The South African Hiv And Aids Programme, That It Will Say That Part Of What We Have Got To Do Is To Make Sure That Our Health Infrastructure, Our Health System Is Able To Deal Adequately With All Of The Illnesses That Are A Consequence Of Aids.

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Your Medical Documents Will Say Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome That Is Aids. What That Means You Have Got This Challenge Of Immune Deficiency. Alright What Causes Immune Deficiency? Hiv. Alright. Is That All That Causes Immune Deficiency? The Medical Textbooks Will Say There Are Other Things That Cause Immune Deficiency. There Is Also Genetic Immune Deficiency That Is A Different Phenomenon.

I Must Say, With Regard To Equatorial Guinea, The Government Of Equatorial Guinea, As Soon As They Had Arrested These People, Sent A Delegation Here To Say They Are Going To Charge Them Because They Have Got Sufficient Information To Say These People Were Planning To Remove The Government Of Equatorial Guinea By Force.

The Matter Of People Being Attracted To Other Countries Is A Permanent Problem In My View, It Doesn't Only Face South Africa. A Whole Lot Of Countries In The World Are Faced With This Problem.

What Moved Us Was Not So Much What Would It Do For South Africa, But There Has Been A Great Keenness On The Continent That The Location Of The Pan African Parliament Must Add To Its Credibility. And, So We Said, Fine, It's A Contribution To This Process Of The Democratisation Of The African Continent.

There Is A Section Of Our Population In South Africa That You Can't Expect To Get Integrated In The Economy Of Its Own. These Are People Without Skills And That Will Include Young People Who Might Very Well Have Matric Certificates, But Don't Have The Skills To Be Absorbed In The Economy. So We Need To Target People Like Those In A Special Way, In A Focused Way So That They Have The Skills And The Capacity To Participate In The Economy. That Requires Special Programmes.

Our Experience Over The Last 20 Years Has Shown That Indeed People Must Themselves Become Their Own Liberators. You Cannot Wait For Somebody Else To Come And Rescue You.

Those Communal Areas Have Got Elected Municipalities, Which Have Got To Do Their Work As, As Fully, Democratically Elected Municipal Councils.

That Surely Must Be A Concern To Anyone Who Decides This Drug Must Be Given To Stop Transmissions, Again From Mother To Child, Which Is Extremely Costly And Must Be Taken Into Account.

I Would Regret It If I'd Failed At School And University, Because If I Had, I Would Have Lacked The Levels Of Education Necessary To Making A Serious Contribution To Building South Africa.

It's Very Worrying At This Time In The World That Any Point Of View Should Be Prohibited, That's Banned, There Are Heretics That Should Be Burned At The Stake.

Your Developed Countries Are Taking Teachers From South Africa, They Are Taking Nurses, Because People Are Better Paid Where They Are Going.

This Is Community Land That Belongs To Particular Clans, And Therefore, It Must Go Back And Its Administration And The Determination As To What To Do, Must Rest In The Hand Of The Communities. That Is Why You Have These Committees, Among Whose Members, Of Course, They Will Be Traditional Leaders. You Will Have These Collectives, Which Must Then Deal With The Land, The Issue Of Communal Rights.

You Might Indeed Be Able To Provide This Money That People Need To Start A Business, But Can They Run A Business? This New Consolidated Agency [national Empowerment Fund] Focuses On That Matter Of Preparing People So That They Can Run Business Successfully.

You Can See Now With All The Assurance That People Have About The Overall General Management Of The Economy, They Then Ask More Specific Questions That We Are Able To Answer.

The Parastatals Are An Important Driver Of The Process Of Black Economic Empowerment And They Have Been Doing It, And Will Continue To Do It.

The Matter Of Who Governs Zimbabwe Is A Matter That Is In The Hands Of The People Of Zimbabwe. The Matter Of Who Governs The People Of South Africa Is In The Hands Of The People Of South Africa.

I Don't Know Why You Should Isolate Women In This Regard. If You Have A Traditional Leader Who Says 'i Am The Sole Exclusive Ruler, I Am The Autocrat', It Will Affect Everybody In The Area, Whether They Are Men Or Women. The Challenge That South Africa Faces, And It Is Not A New Challenge, A Whole Range Of African Countries Have Faced This Challenge, Is That Where You Have Institutional Traditional Leadership, Which In Our Country Is Protected By The Constitution, How Does That Institution Function Side By Side With A Democratic System?

You Have To Make Sure That [grants] Reach People By Virtue Of Their Identity Documents.

I Don't Suppose I Would Describe Myself As A Showman.

Describe Myself

If You Look For Instance At The Automobile Industry, Part Of The Reason That You Have The Expansion Of That Sector, Is Precisely Because We Have Gone Out To Talk To The Automobile Companies To Explain Government Policy With Regard To That Sector, To Talk To Them About The Midp And Things Like That. And Indeed, It Has Been A Very Important Part Of Attracting Those Investors To Put In Money In The South African Economy And Build Motorcars In South Africa.

When I Was In Government, The South African Economy Was Growing At 4.5% - 5%. But Then Came The Global Financial Crisis Of 2008/2009, And So The Global Economy Shrunk. That Hit South Africa Very Hard, Because Then The Export Markets Shrunk, And That Includes China, Which Has Become One Of The Main Trade Partners With South Africa. Also, The Slowdown In The Chinese Economy Affected South Africa. The Result Was That During That Whole Period, South Africa Lost Something Like A Million Jobs Because Of External Factors.

When Will The Day Come That Our Dignity Will Be Fully Restored, When The Purpose Of Our Lives Will No Longer Be Merely To Survive Until The Sun Rises Tomorrow!

I Am An African. I Owe My Being To The Hills And The Valleys, The Mountains And The Glades, The Rivers, The Deserts, The Trees, The Flowers, The Seas And The Ever-changing Seasons That Define The Face Of Our Native Land.

For An Investor Who Is Sitting In The United States, And South Africa Is Very Far From The United States, You Need To Go Out To That Investor To Say, These Are The Possibilities In This Particular Sector.

We Can't Treat The Matter Of Black Economic Empowerment As Just The Redistribution Of Existing Wealth. It Really Has To Focus On New Investment, On Growth, On Development Of Employment And So On And So On.

We Are In The Process Of Negotiating An Agreement With The United States. We Will Be Negotiating Agreements With India And China. We Are In The Process Of Negotiating An Agreement With Mercosur, South America. So There Are A Number Of These Trade Agreements In The Major Markets Of The World.

We Are Quite Convinced, And We Say This To The Palestinians, That Violence Is Not Going To Solve The Problem Of Israel And The Middle East. We Say That To The Israelis. We Say It To The Palestinians.

You'll Find A Lot Of Rural Municipalities, Very, Very Big District Municipalities That Actually Have No Tax Base Whereas Our System Of Government Presumes That The Bulk Of Resources From Government Will Come From Resources That They Will Generate Themselves.

We Raised The Matter Of An Agreement That Was Reached At The Growth And Development Summit, Which Was That We Should Access A Certain Part, 5% Was Mentioned, Of The Funds In The Hands Of The Institutional Investors, Domestically, For Investment In The Real Economy. That Being An Agreement Of The Growth And Development Summit, We Will Engage South African Business To See How We Can Make That A Practical Thing. So, There Is A Different Set Of Engagement With Local Business.

I Was Very Fortunate To Be Able To Go To School And University, Because Many People Our Age Couldn't Complete School. This Gift Of Education Must Be Used In Whatever Ways We Can To Uplift The People.

There Are Black Companies That Are Very Active In The Economy, That Are Growing And Not On The Basis Of Mergers And Acquisitions, But Because Of Putting New Money Into Their Particular Companies And, Therefore, Their Particular Sectors. Indeed, If They Didn't Do That, They Would Collapse As Companies.

I Must Say That, In The First Instance, We Got The Request From Many African Countries Who Said, Look, You People Had Better Host The Parliament. So, The General Feeling Around The Continent Was That It Would Be Better That The Parliament Was Based Here. In Part, Because Of What This Country Has Done With Regard To Establishing A Democratic System, And We Have Responded To That. We Have Said, Fine.

The Engagements With The International Investment Council Have Developed In A Very Interesting Way. It Is, Again, The Point I Raised At The Beginning.

South Africa Was To Evolve Into The Most Pernicious Example Of The Criminal Practise Of Colonial And White Minority Domination.

I Am Sure That It Wouldn’t Be In The Long-term Interests Of China Which Would Continue To Depend On These African Resources For A Very Long Time To See The Emergence Of Any Sense Of Hostility Animosity, Tension, Da Da Da, Between Itself And The African Continent.

The Matter Of Who Governs Zimbabwe Is A Matter That Is In The Hands Of The People Of Zimbabwe.

I Think That Part Of The Problem That Arose With That Legislation, Is That There Probably Wasn't Sufficient Information - Probably There Was Misinformation. I Am Not Sure That They Have Looked At The Legislation.

The Concern Around Probable Questions, Which In A Sense Have Been Hidden, Will Grow Around The World And The Matter Is Critical, The Reason We Are Doing All This Is So We Can Respond Correctly To What Is Reported To Be A Major Catastrophe On The African Continent.

We Are Improving The Entirety Of The System. You Have Got To Make The Grants Available.

We Are Continuously Looking At The Question Of Increasing The Capacity Of Home Affairs And That Is Why Home Affairs Introduced Mobile Units, To Be Able To Reach People. The Matter Of The Establishment Of The Social Security Agency Was To Deal With The Matter Of The More Efficient Distribution Of These Grants, The Reductions In The Levels Of Corruption And Greater Sensitivity. You Are Dealing With Vulnerable People, Like The Elderly, Who You Needed To Find A Way Of Addressing, So That People Don't Have To Be Waiting In The Sun In The Queue, And So On.

The Problem Is Not A Lack Of Understanding Of What We Are Saying And Doing; The Problem Is Difference Of Opinion About What To Do.

Clearly, There Needs To Be An Increase In The Capacity Of The Railway System. That's Why There Are These Projections Of Increasing The Capacity To Carry Freight On The Railways By 30% Over The Next Five Years Or So, Because The Volume Of Goods Moved Up And Down, Imports, Exports, And Within The Country, Has Grown Much Larger Than The Capacity. And This Is Part Of The Higher Costs To Business, Because Charges, For Instance, At The Ports Become Too High And They Put Up The Prices Of These Goods, Whether They Are Imports Or Exports. You Want To Reduce That.

We Will Continue To Count On Your Unwavering Support And Commitment To Working With Leaders Of Our Continent In Bringing About The Desired Renaissance Of Africa.

Many Of Our Own People Here In This Country Do Not Ask About Computers, Telephones And Television Sets. They Ask - When Will We Get A Road To Our Village.

If You Sit In A Position Where Decisions That You Take Would Have A Serious Effect On People, You Can't Ignore A Lot Of Experience Around The World Which Says This Drug Has These Negative Effects.

Сertainly To The Extent That We Talk About Not Just Procurement In The Sense Of Acquiring Goods From The Rest Of The Economy, Even To The Extent That It Is Possible To Bring Black Players In Areas Where We Say We Need To Raise The Capacity Of These Organisations To Deliver Services, It Is A Very Important Part.

As A Consequence Of The Victories We Have Registered During Our First Ten Years Of Freedom, We Have Laid A Firm Foundation For The New Advances We Must And Will Make During The Next Decade.

The Problems That Are Arising At Johannesburg International Airport Are Because Of The Growth Of Volume, Not Because Of Inefficiencies At The Airport. But, The Growth In Movement Of Goods By Air Means That Cargo Capacity Needs To Be Improved. And I Am Quite Certain That We Will Do It.

We Differ With The Israeli Government About A Number Of Things, And They Know That. In The Past, I Have Discussed With Prime Minister [ariel] Sharon These Issues. The Fact That We Differ About Something Or The Other Shouldn't Be A Matter Of Strain.

How Many Murders Are Committed In Gauteng, Or In The Western Cape, In A Month? A Week? A Day? An Hour? But Of Course We Are Not Allowed To Know For Sure. In Close And Direct Imitation Of His Apartheid Models, Selebi Ensures That No Statistics About Crime May Be Published Regularly In The Press.

I Think Anybody Who Knows Anything About South Africa And The South African Economy Would Know That One Of The Big Constraints To Growth And Development Is Skills Shortages. So All Of Us, Need To Come At This Thing As Vigorously As Is Possible And, Of Course, The Private Sector Has The Capacity To Take It On Board.

A Global Human Society, Characterised By Islands Of Wealth, Surrounded By A Sea Of Poverty, Is Unsustainable

You Can't Abandon People There And Say, Go And Find A Job, When You Know They Are Not Going To Be Able To Find One, And Therefore Starve To Death. So We Have Got To Address That Matter, But We Have Got To Address It Systematically.

I Get A Sense That We've All Been Educated Into One School Of Thought. I'm Not Surprised At All To Find Among The Overwhelming Majority Of Scientists, Are People Who Would Hold One Particular View Because That's All They're Exposed To.

None Dare Challenge Me When I Say I Am An Afrikan.

A Matter That Seems To Be Very Clear In Terms Of The Alternative View, Is What Do You Expect To Happen In Africa With Regard To Immune Systems, Where People Are Poor, Subject To Repeat Infections And All Of That. Surely You Would Expect Their Immune Systems To Collapse.

As Africans, We Need To Share Common Recognition That All Of Us Stand To Lose If We Fail To Transform Our Continent.

I Don't Know Why Women Would Think They Would Be Underrepresented In That 40 Per Cent, And I Do Not Know Why They Think They Would Be Underrepresented In That 60 Per Cent Either. Because, Any Community That Has Their Traditional Leader In The Area, One Would Expect That, Among The People, They Would Want To Ensure That This Committee, That 60%, Is Properly Representative.

For The First Time In Human History, Society Has The Capacity, The Knowledge And The Resources To Eradicate Poverty

As We Mourn President Mandela’s Passing We Must Ask Ourselves The Fundamental Question - What Shall We Do To Respond To The Tasks Of Building A Democratic, Non-racial, Non-sexist And Prosperous South Africa, A People-centred Society Free Of Hunger, Poverty, Disease And Inequality, As Well As Africa’s Renaissance, To Whose Attainment President Nelson Mandela Dedicated His Whole Life?

You Can Say To This Unemployed Family, People Are Indigent, That They Must Pay For Water And This And That And Refuse Removal And So On. They Have No Money. We May Very Well Say That, But Does The Municipality Have The Capacity To Do It? So, That's Why We Said That We Need To Have A Thorough Look At The Functioning Of Local Government And That Will Include The Financing. So That This Poor Person Does Indeed Access That Water.

For Instance With Regard To Tourism, That We Should Be Able To Target People Who Are Interested In Investing In The Tourism Sector And Explain That This Is The Size Of The Market, These Are The Incentives In This Particular Area, This Is The Capacity, This Is What Is Needed.

If You Look At Government Policy Generally, What Government Tries To Do In All Instances Is To Make Sure That We Take Care Of All Elements That Might Relate To A Particular Issue.

If You Don't Understand History, You Will Not Be Able To Deal With Today's Issues.

The Point We Are Making Is That The General Global Messages Have Been Communicated, About The Politics Of South Africa, About The Economy In General, All Of These General Questions. The Rest Of The World Understands These Things And Are Saying, Let's Now Come To The Specific Things So That Even We, As Big Corporate Chiefs From Around The World, Can Assist In These Areas, Which You Have Decided Are Your Priority Areas.

What Is The Worst, Is That You Will Have The Meltdown Of Zimbabwe That The Imf Is Talking About. And Indeed What You Will Have Is Growing Unemployment In Zimbabwe, Growing Impoverishment Among The People, Growing Social Conflict. And I Think That Is The Worst Sort Of Outcome, That Collapse Of Zimbabwe Certainly Would Have A Much, Much Worse Effect On The Region Than Mere Image.

One Of The Things That Became Clear, And Which Was Actually Rather Disturbing, Was The Fact That There Was A View Which Was Being Expressed By People Whose Scientific Credentials You Can't Question

We Should Never Become Despondent Because The Weather Is Bad, Nor Should We Turn Triumphalist Because The Sun Shines.

The Poor Prey On One Another Because Their Lives Offer No Hope And Communicate The Tragic Message To These Human Beings That They Have No Possibility To Attain A Decent Standard Of Living.

The Issue Of Racism And Racial Prejudice. It Is Very, Very Difficult To Discuss. It Is Difficult To Discuss The Issue Of Apartheid. Many Have Made The Observation That It Is Very Difficult To Find Anyone In Sa Who Ever Supported Apartheid Because Everyone Was Opposed, It Was Against Our Will And So On.

We Do Not Have A South African As A Member Of The African Commission. The President Of The Commission Comes From Mali, The Deputy Comes From Rwanda And Then We Have Got All These Other Members, Ordinary Commissioners. There Is No South African There. And The Reason, Again, For That Is Not Because We Didn't Have South Africans Who Are Competent.

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