Kebble,+Afrika,+BDay+Letters,+05-06-08

Business Day, Johannesburg, Letters, 08 June 2005

 * //Letters from Brett Kebble and Nosizwe Afrika//**

Rude distortion
Business Day has persistently defended the Scorpions in the face of overwhelming evidence that my family has been the victim of an orchestrated campaign against it.

If readers were to take the information in your editorial, Case for the Scorpions (June 7), at face value, they would believe the Scorpions “have nothing to do with the Kebbles” and that the mess of a prosecution visited upon my father, Roger, is the fault of the police.

You concede with breathtaking magnanimity that after a two-and-a-half year ordeal, 16 court appearances and a stampede to rush to judgment, only to have the courts toss the matter out and a surly acknowledgment by the state it had no case, that “the Kebbles may have a gripe with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA)”.

The Scorpions are part of the NPA. Leonard McCarthy, head of the Scorpions, the man charged by Bulelani Ngcuka to review and direct any prosecution of my family, is an important figure in the NPA.

It is impossible for a responsible newspaper to claim that the Scorpions have not played a key role in our persecution.

The claim made in your editorial that the case was dropped “apparently because key witnesses have declined to testify”, is a distortion of a remark made by Andrew Chauke, head of the commercial crime unit.

Your editorial goes on to say: “It is hard to see why the Kebble family should have any particular expertise for the evidence it says it will submit to the inquiry.” That’s rude.

You are saying that a family with evidence of abuse by Ngcuka — who publicly vilified me by calling me a dubious businessman to editors in a bid to rally them to his cause; a family that has personal, painful evidence that the Scorpions declined to investigate a case in which there was ample evidence that we were victims of bribery and corruption — should not present such evidence to the commission.

Johannesburg**
 * Brett Kebble

Young clowns in lion’s clothing
The calibre of our youth leadership is shocking. The political imbecility and idiocy displayed by Fikile Mbalula of the African National Congress Youth League and Buti Manamela of the Young Communist League, in response to Judge Hilary Squires’ findings against Schabir Shaik, was breathtaking.

These crass upstarts’ appalling lack of judgment and strategic foresight borders on contempt for our institutions of democracy.

Our president, deputy president and the ANC have been careful in their comments on the outcome of the Shaik affair. But these two idiots — claiming to speak on behalf of our youth — laid into Squires in terms so personal, childish, petty and nasty that one cannot but despair at where they, if left untamed, will take our youth.

Rather than wait for their leaders to steer the country out of this painful, awkward and delicate experience, these clowns took it upon themselves to lash out at Squires. How undermining of the president! How disrespectful of our youth and workers!

Mbalula, with an astonishing naiveté, and Manamela, spurred by an atavistic demagoguery, may have raised doubts in the world about how committed our youth are to the processes and institutions established to protect our democracy. Coming from what is supposed to be the future of this country, should their comments raise concerns globally about what will happen when President Thabo Mbeki steps down, Mbalula and Manamela should be held personally responsible.

The youth movement of this country was forged on wise, astute and strategic leadership offered by the likes of Nelson Mandela, Murphy Morobe, Billy Masethla, Tshediso Matona, Malusi Gigaba, Dipuo Peters and Ignatius Jacobs.

We must all be outraged by the ugly exhibitionism of Mbalula and Manamela. Their ambitions should not be allowed to corrode the proud legacy the youth has built for itself in this country.

Sandhurst
 * Nosizwe Afrika

From: http://www.businessday.co.za/opinion/comment.aspx?Page=BD4P993&MenuItem=BD4P993