Was the Xenephobia of 2009/10 in South Africa a prelude to genocide?

Siegfried Walther likes

Why the Poor Vote for the ANC

sacsis.org.za

Why the Poor Vote for the ANC

sacsis.org.za

 See below:

 

 

 

 

 

I refer to the above very interesting article.

 

The following occurred to me.

 

When the government of South Africa runs out of excuses for non-delivery, which is the price one pays for corruption and a bloated government,  you can be sure that there exists an  ideal scapegoat who will receive the blame.

Like Robert Mugabe, who blamed his failures on white farmers in an endeavour to prevent his disgruntled, poor and often hungry supporters from supporting the opposition MDC. But for the farm invasions which he initiated, the MDC would likely have come to power. Instead, the people followed their liberator once more, only to find that, after the farmers had fled, food shortages and economic collapse followed.

Hitler did the same thing by blaming the Jews for Germany's woes.

What the ANC is doing now is just a trial run. They know that they will win this election. The real thing will come when they fear losing power. However, the methods the ANC are using to remain in power are of major concern. Telling voters that they stand to lose their social grants if they don't vote for the government is a ploy to profit from the fact that many voters do not understand the difference between the State on the one hand, and the political party in power. Many voters believe that they have the ANC, and not the taxpayers, to thank for their social grants.

 

More disturbingly, the ANC has been known to suggest that if the Opposition DA were to come into  power, the white Madam in charge of that party would reinstate apartheid. Whilst the majority of educated voters aren't fooled,  the ANC's failure to address the education backlog in the country means that a significant number of voters do fall for these arguments.

And if you think that I am suggesting that only black or poorly educated people fall victim to these sorts of tactics, you would be sadly wrong. The people in Germany who followed Hitler were supposedly civilised, supposedly educated , supposedly Christian, and certainly white. Look how easily they fell for his racist propaganda - and this in the 20th Century not in middle ages or during the inquisition.

  The Xenophobic killings and attacks on foreign black refugees which took place a few years ago in this country was shocking enough on its own. But it is even more chilling if one considers that that this might have been a trial run. I

Consider this. If mobs can turn on, kill and rob successful local refugees from other parts of  Africa on the pretext that they are stealing jobs and opportunities from locals, just imagine what could be achieved by directing even greater angry mobs against people are said to be responsible for apartheid and who will be accused of continuing to benefit from it.

The opposition parties are all hoping for a close election. I wonder whether they should be careful about that for which they ask. It could just be the spark the powder keg has been waiting for.

I found it amusing when, during the 2000 US Presidential election, the results were stalled because of disputes and constant recounts in Florida.

Robert Mugabe then made a public and highly generous offer to send Zimbabwean Election Monitors to assist the Americans. You have to hand it to him, it was a once in a life time opportunity for him, and he did not let it go begging.

He was, of course, having his little revenge for the US & Britain's insistence on having foreign election monitors to monitor his so-called "free and fair" elections. Needless to say such monitors were not permitted. But like minded monitors from ...wait for it, South Africa, were indeed permitted.

Yes, it was funny, but ultimately the joke was on him. That US election was quite peaceful (despite the nation being armed to the teeth) and when the US Supreme Court finally spoke, the entire nation accepted the decision and went about their business.

This differs slightly from the obligatory genocide which has often preceded and followed close elections on this continent.

In September 1989, I participated in the Democratic march to the City Hall led by Bishop Tutu and many other UDF activists. The apartheid regime was crumbling and I looked forward to the new, non-racial and democratic South Africa which would replace it.

Today, that dream seems further removed than ever. This is not the SA of people like Mandela, Tutu and Biko, Jay Naidu, and Trevor Manuel,.

South Africa today is becoming a highly polarised society which seems more divided than ever. The ideal of entering politics to serve the needs of the people, and the respect for excellence, for the rule of law, for justice and for a truly non-racist society are all being steadily eroded as those whose incompetence is exceeded only by their greed steadily gain a steely grip on the levers of power. There is a price to pay for such greed, corruption and incompetence, and it far exceeds the forty billion rands of taxpayers money which is wasted each year.

I often wondered about why the Jews in Germany did not leave when surely they could see the signs of the horror which awaited them. But one forgets that they were not just Jews, they were also Germans. And to be fair, could the Jews in Germany really be blamed for believing that their fellow Germans were too civilised and too Christian to fall for Hitler's anti-Semitic arguments. Many Jews must have believed that the anti-Semitic wave in Germany would be of short duration and that common sense would prevail.

In Zimbabwe, about a third of the country now lives and works in SA. Most are not here by choice and would love to return home. Their numbers are divided between the political and the economic refugees.

More and more white South Africans are starting to experience a sense of unease about their future in this country. IF the 2009 Xenophobic attacks on African refugees in South Africa had been restricted to one area, this could have been passed off as an aberration which was untypical. Instead these attacks spread to cities across South Africa like wild fire, and many refugees were attacked or killed, and many Somalis  had their business looted.  The international community were horrified and FIFA even considered moving the 2010 World Cup Soccer tournament to another country.

We have a government which spent Billions on arms instead of addressing the inequities of apartheid. The masses are growing tired of ANC promises of a better life and violent protests against the government are growing increasingly common. As the cost of corruption and the cost of appointing one's friends and political allies to top jobs instead of using excellence as a criterion continues to increase, the government's ability to address the people's needs will continue to decline. It's a time bomb! But unlike Germany, and Zimbabwe, the warning signs here are anything but subtle.

In such a political climate, one requires political leaders of vision who will resist the temptation to use racially inflammatory language and who will refuse to exploit  racial divisions to win elections. And though apartheid was an evil, some twenty years have passed since the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994. However tempting it may be for the government cast all the blame for the poverty and inequity in SA at the doors of apartheid and however attempting it is to remind people of the evils which the white minority government admittedly perpetrated, it is also time for the government to take responsibility for the twenty years it has been in power since then.

Constantly reminding people that they are all victims of apartheid does little to encourage people or to empower people to take responsibility for their own lives. Secondly, instead of empowering people, constantly reinforcing the victim mentality amongst the previously disadvantaged serves to fuel the sort of resentment which can easily spill over into violence. Also, constantly relying upon past injustice does little for national unity. Constantly referring to the past also emphasis white people in terms of that which happened in the past instead of facilitating a non racial society.

Germans will know what I am talking about. At some point, one has to move away from associating Germans today with those from the past who were Nazi's. Whilst no German wishes to deny the Nazi's crimes, they also do not wish to be associated with or defined by that party or their deeds.

However expedient it may be for the ANC to try to maintain power by resorting to the politics of division, one hopes that they will realise that in the end, if the resentment generated ends up in violence, there will be no winners and many losers.

I can only hope that the old guard of the ANC will somehow find a way to start a new struggle to reclaim the legacy left to this wonderful country by Nelson Mandela.

And may the Good Lord also see it fit to keep Bishop Tutu with us for a while longer. He gave us hope in the dark days of apartheid. And like in the old days where he spoke out against the injustices of apartheid, he continues to challenge the injustices, the corruption and the excesses of the new South African government.

Although I'm tempted to leave South Africa, I will not do so as long as there are brave people like Bishop Tutu around. Fortunately, despite everything I have written above, thousand of South Africans have turned their backs on the politics of race. Thousands of us also refuse to allow ourselves to be defined by our historical roles as victims or as oppressors. More and more people are refusing to permit the government to rely upon apartheid as an excuse for the nepotism, the increasing corruption and the mismanagement which affects service delivery across the country now.

The recent and highly controversial toll gate project in Gauteng is a case in point. It is apposed by unions, workers and by various opposition parties. Whether we choose to be united and empowered by that which we have in common and by our common future, or whether we allow ourselves to be divided and to remain victims of our past will determine whether this county can become a prosperous peaceful success, or whether it will instead become deeply divided, violent and poverty-stricken waste land.

Why the Poor Vote for the ANC

sacsis.org.za

MH370 - 24 April 2014 update! (30 June 2014 update)

The updates feature in reverse date order. My main article of 27 April 2014 follows below & after the updates:

30 JUne 2014:

TELEGRAPH

Pilot of missing Flight 370 has been named ‘chief suspect’

By Danika Fears    June 23, 2014 | 5:52amMORE ON:

 http://nypost.com/2014/06/23/pilot-of-missing-flight-370-has-been-named-chief-suspect

"Investigators have named the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 as the “chief suspect” in the plane’s mysterious disappearance after clearing everyone else on board.
 

Malaysian detectives grew increasingly suspicious of the pilot after discovering that Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah programmed his flight simulator with a route that would land a plane on a small island in the Indian Ocean, the Sunday Times of London reports.

Shah had deleted the drills, but computer experts were able to recover them.
 

The official police investigation cleared all of the other 238 people on board the Boeing 777 that vanished on March 8."
 

29 June 2014 Update: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10933917/MH370-New-evidence-of-cockpit-tampering-as-investigation-into-missing-plane-continues.html 

My COMMENTS ON THE ABOVE TWO ARTICLES:

The article regarding cockpit tampering confirms that experts believe someone in the cockpit deliberately switched off a power unit. This analyst is not in the least surprised. This was NEVER anything but an unlawful act, by a hijacker, crew member or pilot. Said so at the outset and still remain of that view.

As so the Captain's elevation: Although the pilots must rank highly as likely suspects (in addition to other crew or hijackers) that at least one of them was involved, or even solely responsible, I do not consider it fair to suggest that one deleted flight to an Indian Ocean Island on his Flight Simulator Computer at home can be regarded as compelling evidence for or against the Captain.

As a flight simulator pilot myself, I can say that half the fun of the programme is to fly to exotic places and to try to land larger airliners on shorter runways or at airports known to be difficult. The saved flight could have been entirely innocent for all we know.

The fact that he was the last person to speak to ATC is something which might be a pointer to his involvement. But that assumes the absence of any 3rd party cockpit incursion which may have caused the Captain to operate under duress.

Unlawful cockpit interference remains the most likely cause, and one of the two pilots must rank as persons of interest, but I would be reluctant to take it further than that on the evidence available.

AND SEE: My blog of 29 June 2014 re: ATSB Report. New ATSB theory no game changer. Does not exclude cockpit interference

http://siegfriedwalther.blogspot.com/2014/06/mh-370-new-atsb-theory-does-not-exclude.html

16 April 2014 update:

*The latest news is that Mr Houston (for whom I have immense respect) has again stressed how difficult discovery and recovery of the wreck will be. In the absence of wreckage, all I can say is:

"Houston, I think you've got a problem!"

24 April 2014 Article follows below:

In this update, I shall deal with the absence of any confirmed debris from the aircraft and later, I shall elaborate on my theory, first published on this Blog 36 hours or so after the aircraft disappeared, as to the likely causes of such disappearance.

The signals or pings picked up a couple of weeks ago in the search area in the Indian Ocean seemed to suggest that the search for the missing Flight MH370 was being conducted in the actual area in which the aircraft went down.
 
Satellite handshake data obtained from Britain, which emanated from the aircraft, caused experts come up with two flight corridors: a southern one ending in the Indian Ocean around 800km or more off the Western Australian Coast, and a northern one ending somewhere in Asia.

The Northern corridor was apparently dismissed because Indian military radar and that of other countries in to the north of India apparently did not pick up any unidentified flight on the evening/morning the airliner went missing. In addition, searches conducted along the "northern corridor" apparently were unable to locate any signs of a crash.

Submersible craft have searched the seabed in the area where the pings were detected. So far nothing has been detected. To be fair, the depth of the ocean and the uneven terrain in the search area were factors which were always going to make the search a less than straightforward exercise.

However, the absence of any debris from the aircraft is becoming a serious concern, particularly since seven weeks have elapsed since it vanished.

Experts in Ocean currents have suggested that debris from the search areas linked to the Southern Corridor is likely to travel westwards, and could end up either on the Western Australian Coast  or the Western Tasmanian Coast. This ought to have occurred by now.

Yesterday at 11 am UK time, it was reported that debris which may be linked to the missing MH370 airliner may have washed up on a beach to the south of Perth, Australia. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau have reported that this debris is NOT part of flight MH370. I assume that regular searches of the entire Western Australian Coast, much of which is apparently remote, are being conducted in addition to the searches at sea. If not such searches should be initiated at once.

If debris which is identified as coming from the aircraft does not turn up on the said coasts reasonably soon, it will raise serious questions as to whether the missing airliner's black boxes were indeed the source of the pings which were detected. The chances that the aircraft remained intact after it crashed, or even a pilot controlled water landing at sea are highly remote.

It is so that the aircraft remained intact during the recent miracle landing on the Hudson river in New York. Firstly, the river was relatively flat, and the pilot involved demonstrated superb airmanship. One cannot, however, compare a river to that part of the Indian Ocean, which usually has high swells. If a wing or an engine of the aircraft, were to strike the a wave or the water, slightly before the other engine or wing, the forward momentum of the remainder of the aircraft would force the plane to cartwheel around the point of that strike and a partial or total breakup of the aircraft would be inevitable. I refer people to the Ethiopian Airlines crash off the Seychelles, which was filmed and is available in the Internet.

If we accept the "suicidal pilot" theory, and further accept that he was alive and in control until the end, then its likely he tried to replicate the Miracle landing on the Hudson. After all, if his plan was to make the aircraft disappear in a deep part of the ocean where it would be difficult to find, it would make sense to make the plane's recovery even more difficult by attempting to land it intact so it could sink intact. However, as stated above, it is unlikely that such an intact landing and sinking at sea would be successful.

It can thus be assumed that the aircraft is likely to have broken up and that significant floatable debris, from seat cushions to items of luggage would have been strewn across the point of impact. Further items would have floated to the surface later.  


Given the costs involved of an expanded underwater search, it is now imperative that debris from the plane is found. Although I still favour the generally accepted theory that the Southern Corridor is the likely route the aircraft followed, and I also accept that the pings are most likely to have originated from the aircraft, the absence of any debris after all this time is causing me, and others, to wonder whether the Northern Corridor, or perhaps other flight paths were perhaps prematurely excluded. The longer the period without any debris becomes, the more the view that everyone in the search may have to go back to the drawing board will continue to gain ground.

You will recall that I suggested that cockpit incursion by a hijacker and/or crew was the most likely cause of the disappearance of the airliner in a blog I published here about 36 hours or so after the aircraft disappeared. Of course, when I referred to cockpit incursion and the possibility of crew involvement, this included a suicidal or rogue pilot gaining unlawful control of the cockpit.

My reasons for concluding this were and are based upon the following:

• The fact that the transponder was switched off causing the aircraft to disappear from ATC secondary radar.

•  The fact that the aircraft reporting system was switched off.

• The fact that the aircraft signed off from Malaysian ATC and did not thereafter make contact with Vietnamese ATC. If anyone wanted to take control of an aircraft without attracting prompt attention, then the handover between area controllers is the ideal time to do so. It gave the aircraft time to divert and to do so unnoticed. Malaysian ATC assumed that the Aircraft was under the Control of Vietnamese ATC and Vietnamese ATC must have assumed that the scheduled airliner was either late or had been delayed at Kuala Lampur for some reason.

• The fact that the aircraft immediately changed course after the hand-off from Malaysian ATC.

• The fact that the change of course was not accompanied by any communication with ATC, which is normal practice for a diversion. Although such failure to communicate with ATC immediately could be explained by an emergency which required AVIATION & NAVIATION prior to COMMUNICATION, the fact that such failure to communicate persisted indefinitely was highly suspicious to me. There are various ways for the pilots to communicate an emergency, including using the transponder to enter a transponder code for radio failure or a hijack situation.

• Ultimately however, it was the combination of all the above factors in one event which lead me to my conclusion.  The 777 is a very reliable aircraft with backup systems in case certain essential systems fail. I could not, and still cannot conceive of a technical emergency which was so catastrophic that it was capable on the one hand of disabling all the above systems, yet on the other hand it nonetheless permitted the aircraft to stay aloft for five or so more hours.

For all these reasons, I concluded then already that an unlawful act by one or more of the pilots and or/someone else must have caused the aircraft to disappear.

Since then, we have learned that the aircraft apparently changed altitudes, and after flying over back over Malaysia in a Westerly direction, it then apparently again changed course and turned South on a course which, quite conveniently prevented it from appearing on Indonesian military radar, or that of anybody else.

In the weeks following the crash, many experts tried to suggest that the accident could well be explained by a massive technical failure, such as decompression, which could have incapacitated the crew, and which could have left the aircraft flying itself...either on auto-pilot, or using its flight computers which will, apparently, in the absence of flight input from a pilot, try to keep the plane aloft by adhering to the last inputs received. This is the so-called zombie plane theory.

When the zombie theory was first advanced, I considered it an unlikely outside possibility. Outside, because the five or so facts in the bulleted paragraphs above, considered cumulatively, scream unlawful interference with cockpit operations by someone, whilst a technical failure which could explain those events in addition to the continued five hour flight did not readily suggest itself. The zombie theory is also rendered even more improbable against the backdrop of the superb safety record of the Boeing 777.

But in my view, the altitude changes, the heading changes by the aircraft, and the final course change onto the Southern or Northern Corridor cannot be satisfactorily explained by the zombie plane theory.

Although the zombie theory was advanced and initially supported by more than a few aviation experts and pilots, it seems that the weight of opinion amongst aviation analysts now heavily favours the unlawful cockpit interference theory i.e. Hijack (with or without pilot assistance, Suicide/rogue pilot.

One of the reasons why the zombie theory was favoured by some experts was because the Suicide/Rogue pilot, or Hijack theories were regarded as implausible. In support, they argued that a suicidal pilot would not have flown the aircraft around the world. Instead, they suggest that he would have crashed it immediately. And if hijackers were involved, they were probably quite organised, and would not have ordered the aircraft onto a pointless flight path which would end in the sea.

The problem is that the facts we do know point strongly towards unlawful cockpit interference and not catastrophic technical failure. When one eliminates all the likely causes on the evidence available, leaving one cause which cannot be discounted, then however unlikely it may be, that is your cause. Alternatively stated, you can't discount human interference because the motives or methods seem improbable in an endeavour to support a theory, like the zombie plane, which on the known facts, is even more improbable.

As for pilot suicide, there are two incidents, one in Egypt and one in Indonesia, where pilot suicide was found to be the cause by the NTSB. To be fair, in both cases, the NTSB were accused by the locals of bias against the pilots and bias in favour of Boeing and the findings were disputed.

If one of the pilots did wish to commit suicide, I can think of several reasons why that pilot may have decided that he wanted to do so in a way which might prevent the aircraft from ever being found:

1. Firstly, he may have feared that his life-insurance would not pay out if suicide was the cause of his death. If the aircraft was simply lost, the insurers would not discover the cause and would be compelled to pay out to his beneficiaries if any.
2. Secondly, the pilot may not have wished his friends or family to find out that he had committed suicide for any number of reasons.
3. Thirdly, the pilot could have held some grudge against his employer and could may have relished the idea of committing suicide in a manner which would also embarrass his employers to boot. The thought of his employers funding a costly search or having to explain the unexplainable vanishing of the aircraft to the world may have appealed to him.
4. Fourthly, the pilot may have wanted to commit suicide in a way which would, in his mind, also amount to the perfect crime.
5. The pilot's actions could have been politically motivated.

There are those who suggest that some importance attaches to the fact that neither pilot asked to fly together or was necessarily aware in advance that they were scheduled to fly together. That may or may not be true.  If a pilot was involved, however,  it is probable that he would have acted alone and that his plans would have included attacking and disabling the other pilot.

It is dangerous to discard theories which remain the most probable simply because they seem to involve conduct which is unlikely or far-fetched. Most of us would never have dreamed of the 9/11 scenario and, were we to have been told of it in advance, many would  probably have rejected the idea as a far-fetched and second rate Hollywood-type plot.

Prior to 9/11, the world understood why hijackers might take control of an airliner with a view to demanding a ransom or the release of prisoners etc. They accepted the idea that hijackers might kill all on board as a last resort - if their hands were forced. However, hijacking with a view to taking control of an aircraft, and committing suicide by using the aircraft as a veritable missile, was simply unthinkable.

The audacious Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941 was also clearly unthinkable to many until it occurred. How else can you explain the total lack of preparedness?

People who plan to commit suicide may not always think or plan rationally, and rejecting the possibility of pilot suicide because it makes little sense ignores that reality.

As for possibility that hijackers were involved, I accept that it is unlikely that they would have gone to the trouble to take the aircraft simply to have it crash in the sea. And yet, the Ethiopian Airlines aircraft was hijacked over Africa and told to fly to Australia. The hijackers were told there was insufficient fuel to reach Australia, but they claimed the pilot was lying and they insisted he proceed. Inevitably, the aircraft ran out of fuel and it crashed into the sea near the Seychelles. This story seems so outrageous, and the conduct of the hijackers so preposterous, that it all beggars belief. And yet, it happened.

I doubt that the hijackers on MH370, if there were any, were quite as ignorant. On the contrary, their operation, if there was one, was probably well planned. Perhaps their intention was to land somewhere and later use the plane as a missile (al la 9/11), and maybe it went wrong somehow.

One possibility I can offer is that one or both pilots may have tried to overpower one or more hijackers in an attempt to retake control of the cockpit at some point after they crossed back over Malaysian airspace and were heading west.  Or perhaps they tried to save the situation and in the process risked not complying fully with the instructions from the hijacker. Anything like that could have resulted in a violent situation in which  a firearm or an explosive might have been discharged and perhaps the aircraft depressurised.

The aircraft could have been deliberately or accidentally turned South during such an incident.

This could leave us with a more plausible explanation of a zombie plane that flew on to the Indian Ocean. It's a zombie theory I could buy into, since its root cause would remain unlawful interference.

A blogger suggested that perhaps the aircraft descended until it could ascend  to fly below another scheduled aircraft heading somewhere West or North. Civilian radar, and perhaps even military radar, would then not picked it up on radar as only the transponder of the scheduled aircraft would be detected.

The possibilities are many and the conspiracy theories abounding on the internet are just as plentiful. The truth is that there is not enough evidence available now to say which is the correct theory.

All I can say with almost total certainty is that unlawful human conduct must have been the cause. There are also those who suggest that we should all wait until the cockpit voice recorder reveals what really happened. They seem to forget that the cockpit voice recorder, which only normally only records the last hour of the flight, will be probably be silent and reveal little or nothing.

A suicide pilot, if there was one, may have committed suicide well prior to the end. If he stayed on to watch the end, he may have kept silent for the last hour to avoid being recorded. It is sad that the voice recorder, in these modern times, only records one hour, but there it is.

The flight data recorder, however, will give the data for the entire flight, and this will at least enable one to establish what pilot inputs occurred at the time the transponder was disabled in addition to the circumstances in which they occurred. This may be instructive, or indeed, even conclusive.

In the meantime, the waiting continues.

+MH370 News

+Malaysia Airlines MH370

+Air Crash Investigation

+Cockpit-Simulation

Extraditon to South Africa & human rights

There has been much negative reaction by members of the South African public in response to reports that a man, extradited to Cape Town from a European Country to face trial in South Africa, is being held in pre-trial custody in conditions which are superior to the mostly dreadful conditions experienced by the overwhelming majority of awaiting-trial prisoners in this country.

Their objections are, of course, based on the salutary principle that all people should be treated equally before the law. The objection to foreigners accused of committing crimes in this country receiving preferential treatment to those received by South African awaiting-trial prisoners is understandable, but misguided.

Conditions in most South African prisons are generally regarded to be deplorable. Awaiting-trial prisoners in this country are often held in grossly overcrowded facilities. Apart from anything else, the overcrowded conditions make it very difficult, if not impossible, for the authorities in charge of prisons to prevent awaiting-trial and convicted prisoners from becoming victims of serious crime. It is no exaggeration to say such conditions violate a whole host of the human rights of those being held in custody in those facilities.

Whilst Britain also has what it regards as an overcrowding problem in its prisons, the conditions which apply in British prisons are, for the most part, vastly superior and far more humane than those to be found in most South African prisons.

In my view, the above disparity is something which any European Court, faced with an application for extradition of one of its citizens to South Africa, is obliged to consider prior to granting any such application. The human rights of all European citizens are guaranteed and protected by the European Convention of Human rights. No European Court can grant any order which results in the violation of the human rights enjoyed by any of its citizens. In this regard, if someone wishes to avoid extradition to South Africa from a European Country, they would be perfectly entitled to raise the fact that their extradition to South Africa is likely to expose them to horrendous awaiting-trial or post-conviction prison conditions which are in violation of their human rights.

A European Court faced with any such objection would be compelled to examine the conditions applicable in South African prisons to establish whether there is any merit to such claims. If it is found that that the human rights of the person, whose extradition to South Africa is being sought, would be placed at risk if extradition were granted, the Court would be entitled to refuse the application. Alternatively, the Court could seek guarantees from the South African authorities that the conditions which the person to be extradited would be exposed to in South African prisons would be in accordance with European or international standards.

To my knowledge, the person whose extradition was recently sought did not pertinently raise the issue of South African prison conditions as a defence to extradition. However, and as I understand it, the South African authorities nonetheless quite rightly guaranteed that the person concerned would receive access to medical treatment of a standard comparable to that he would have received in the United Kingdom. This is a variation on the theme I refer to above. But for such assurances, the extradition would probably not have been ordered.

If I recall correctly, the issue of whether an accused could expect to receive a fair trial in a South African Court was raised in the English Court and, quite rightly, that objection was dismissed.

There is nothing unusual about the prosecution from a country or state seeking the extradition of a European citizen offering guarantees which make it possible for a European Court to order extradition without compromising the human rights of the accused person involved.

The most striking example of this is where DA’s from American states like Texas, which has the death penalty, have to guarantee that the death penalty will not be sought prior to obtaining an order for extradition from a Court in a European Country, where the death penalty is not permitted on human rights grounds.

Applying this approach, there is nothing to stop a European whose extradition to South Africa is sought from similarly seeking guarantees from South African authorities about both the conditions of his pre-trial custody and about the conditions applicable to his custody in prison should he be convicted and sentenced.

South African authorities applying for extradition could easily offer appropriate guarantees in regard to pre-trial custody. Any number of suitable arrangements which would be acceptable to a European Court could be put in place.

As far as the prison conditions which await a European, whose extradition to this country was successful, after conviction is concerned, the picture is more complicated. As is apparent from recently publicised pictures of two young convicts which were taken in a Gauteng prison, prison conditions in South Africa tend to vary.

There is one easy solution to this problem. The deal the South African prosecution can offer is that any sentence handed down by a South African Court would be served in the prisons of the country from which the extradition order is sought. That, together with appropriated guarantees of safe and humane pre-trial custody, would leave the foreign Court with little or no room to refuse extradition.

Yes, this does lead to a situation where such foreigners will always be entitled to better treatment than locals, but instead of bemoaning this, we should seek to correct this inequitable situation by ensuring that all our prisons meet international standards of human rights for all who pass through them. Or we could just do nothing and simply hope for some form of divani intervention.

And as for the argument that he who chooses to commit a crime here should be prepared to do the time here, this can only apply to those who are also caught while still here.

Once we have to go to a British Court, cap in hand, to ask for their assistance to bring a foreign accused to justice, one cannot expect that Court to close its eyes to the injustices we inflict on our own prisoners.

 Nor can we expect a British Court to deprive a British citizen who at the time of the extradition application is on British soil, of that person’s European human rights simply because he is accused of being foolish enough to choose to commit a crime in country where human rights for prisoners are still a work in progress. After all, the English Court must start from the position, must it not, that all accused persons are presumed to be innocent?