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Wednesday, February 6, 2008 - Web posted at 6:39:05 GMT City Mayor sues tabloid for libel Werner MengesA NASTY relic from South African history, the secretive Afrikaner Broederbond organisation, took centre stage yesterday at the start of a High Court trial on a defamation claim that Windhoek Mayor Matheus Shikongo has lodged against the Informanté newspaper. |
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In a case being heard by Judge Louis Muller, Shikongo is suing the owner of Informanté, Trustco Group International, the free weekly tabloid's editor, Max Hamata, and the publication's printers, Free Press Printers, for N$300 000 in connection with a story that was published in Informanté's edition of September 21 2006. The story was billed on the paper's front page under the headline 'Fincky rocks in land deal'. The actual story, under Hamata's byline, was carried on the paper's second page, under the headline 'Fincky aids Broederbond's land cause'. It started off with a statement that a "Broederbond cartel" was said to have made "a killing" after buying municipal land in Olympia for one cent a square metre and then "cashing in on millions" by selling the land. No further reference was made to the notorious Broederbond - a secret Afrikaner organisation that wielded immense influence and power in apartheid-era South Africa - and no clear reason for the use of the name of the organisation in the context of the story is evident from the rest of the report. The story dealt with a land sale in which the City of Windhoek sold land in Pionierspark - and not Olympia - to the Wanderers Sports Club for N$1 172. The land has since been resold to a property developer that was putting up a N$40 million housing development on the land, with this development financed by Bank Windhoek, it was stated in the story. It was added that the City potentially lost out on millions of Namibia dollars because the City did not exercise its right to have the land first offered to it for sale, as was required under the initial sale agreement with Wanderers. Not mentioned, though, was that the initial transaction in which the City sold the land to Wanderers Sports Club took place back in 1973 already. The Mayor's name however cropped up by the fifth paragraph of the story, with "inside sources" reported to have said that Shikongo, as "a Bank Windhoek board member", should have declared his association with the bank - presumably to the City Council - "instead of letting the underhanded land deal go through without scrutiny". In fact, Shikongo was not a member of Bank Windhoek's Board of Directors at the time. He was a member of the bank's holding company, Capricorn Investment Holdings, though. In the defamation suit that he instituted against Trustco, Hamata and Free Press Printers, Shikongo claims that the article stated things like that he "was connected to a broederbond cartel", was involved in an irregular land deal, had caused the City to lose money, and had abused his supposed position as a Bank Windhoek board member and his position as Windhoek Mayor for personal gain. Trustco, Hamata and Free Press Printers are denying that the article was wrongful and defamatory. Hamata and Trustco are also claiming that the article "was essentially the truth" and that its publication was in the public interest, that in publishing the story they were exercising their right to freedom of expression, and that Hamata had acted "reasonably and without negligence" in publishing the allegations contained in the story. To be associated with an organisation like the Broederbond is no trifling matter, though, according to testimony given by political scientist Andre du Pisani before Judge Muller yesterday. Du Pisani told the Judge that the Broederbond, which was founded in 1918 and disbanded in the last days of white rule over South Africa in 1994, had been described as "a dangerous, cunning, political fascist organisation" by former South African Prime Minister JC Smuts. The Broederbond oozed malignancy. It was racist, anti-Semitic, anti-English, authoritarian and supremacist, with its members believing in the Afrikaners' ordained right to rule over South Africa, Du Pisani said. The organisation, whose membership was only open to white Afrikaner males whose conservative political credentials were held to be pure enough by other Broederbond members, was also "profoundly and corrosively patriarchal", Du Pisani said. It was an organisation that was not just against the rights of black people, but also of women, he said: "It was patriarchy in its most extreme, corrosive form." The Broederbond extended its influence, which after 1948 was politically manifested in the apartheid ideology that was implemented in South Africa, through not only the political spheres of life in South Africa, but also through the economy, education system, churches and in culture, Du Pisani indicated. It was an organisation that was bent on capturing the state in the interests of a small group of Afrikaners who regarded themselves as being superior to the rest, he said. The Broederbond also had a presence in Namibia, with one of the country's former South African Administrators-General, Gerrit Viljoen, for instance having been a past chairman of the organisation, Du Pisani said. He said even in Namibia, people of especially an older generation would still know about the Broederbond and the influence it wielded in the apartheid state and also in South African-controlled Namibia. "There is something that is called political memory. People remember, much longer than you might think," said Du Pisani. To draw an inference that someone is associated with the Broederbond means to infer that the person is also racist and supremacist, and that the person also exercises power unaccountably and closed off from democratic influences from outside, Du Pisani said. The trial is set to continue today. Dr Pieter Henning, SC, and Esi Schimming-Chase are representing Shikongo, with Pretoria senior counsel Kobus Snijmann acting for Trustco, Hamata and Free Press Printers. |
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