The Promise of Justice Book 2 His Story: King Justice Mpondombini Sigcau's struggle for the Kingdom of Mpondo

By John GI Clarke

The Promise of Justice connects history with geography, faith with science, economics with ecology and law with politics in telling an inspirational story of hope.
In 1895 Cape Prime Minister Cecil John Rhodes arbitrarily imprisoned King Sigcau ka Mqikela of the Mpondo nation for siding with his Chiefs against the harsh impositions of 19th century British colonial rule in South Africa.
In 2010 President Jacob Zuma deposed his descendant King Justice Sigcau, mimicking history and threatening to reverse the Mpondo’s success in preventing their ancestral lands from being turned into profit; their traditional way of life undermined by ‘development’; and the Wild Coast domesticated to colonial and neo-colonial powers.
In search of justice both kings took their cases to the highest courts.
The Promise of Justice is written in four parts (each published as separate e-Books) and published in print version in two books.
Book Two, His Story looks back to see what may be learned from pre-apartheid 19th Century history, and sharpens the focus on the courtroom dramas of two Mpondo Kings to save the Mpondo nation from co-option and subversion by an Australian venture capital mining company in collusion with corrupted business partners, state officials and influential politicians in the ruling party. Because of the South African National Road Agency’s (SANRAL) culpable failure to ensure transparency and effective public participation in its tolling plans, woven into His Story is another story: the story of the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance’s (OUTA) court battle over SANRAL’s plans to impose urban tolling on Gauteng motorists. Together the stories show what an active citizenry can do to hold government accountable, build peace through justice, and reconciliation through truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483512365

Book preview

leZizwe

1. Behind the Irony Curtain

‘What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure just ain’t so.’

— Mark Twain

It’s called ‘nominative determinism’. When the name fits the job. Such as, for example, the names of two urologists who authored an article on incontinence in the British Journal of Urology, whose names are Splatt and Weedon. Or the author who wrote a book called Pole Positions – The Polar Regions and the Future of the Planet. His name is Daniel Snowman.

The names of late King of the Mpondo were Mpondombini (two tusked) and Justice: a man who stood for justice by balancing the dilemmas of life between two horns, and who had a memory like an elephant. Our society is full of people who aspire to be leaders of willing servants, and who lead them with the eye for the shortcut, and the short, effortless road downhill. The planet Earth needs servants of willing leaders, who go out in front to find the narrow road that leads to life². Justice Mpondombini promised and, with the stoicism of an elephant, would travel far to deliver. With his feet on the ground acutely sensitive to the minute sound waves travelling through the earth from afar, could walk long distances with patience and foresight.

‘I played as a prop, in the front row,’ he told me, during one of our conversations, ‘but I could also run very fast, so our tactic was for me to hang out on the wing to receive a long pass. The opposing wing and fullback could never catch me and I would score for the team. They never thought a prop could run so fast.’

He then added with great modesty, ‘but as to whether I was a good player, that is for my team mates to say, not me,’ whereupon he rattled off from memory the phone number of one of his old team mates, Mr Lefume, so I could call him and get his perspective. His friend confirmed that Kumkani was a great team player.

The conversation took place in Margate Mediclinic in March 2009, where he had been hospitalised for treatment for his chronic diabetic condition. His condition deteriorated over the next year. Late onset diabetes is a chronic but treatable disease of the circulatory system. The blood supply to the extremities of the body is compromised, with the big toe, feet and ankles suffering the consequence of a lack of nourishment and the absence of the cleansing flow of blood. Kumkani was not inclined to complain of the discomfort. He would grit his teeth and bear it, not wishing to place a strain on family resources. Early treatment is better and less costly in the long run, but humble leaders are especially disinclined to make demands. He was admitted to One Military Hospital in Pretoria in May 2010 for the amputation of his left leg below the knee³.

Things were looking promising. We joked about the fact that his rugby playing days were well and truly over, but his medical team assured him that once a prosthetic leg was made and fitted he would be able to get around without too much handicap.

Social workers are trained to support patients to adjust to chronic health challenges by counselling around the four ‘R’s’, Roles, Relationships, Resources and Reactions. If given the choice of winning the lottery or having ones feet amputated it goes without saying that the lottery wins. Yet research has shown that a year or so after such dramatic events, surprisingly both the lottery winners and paraplegics in fact report a similar sense of overall happiness and wellbeing. The outcome depends on how adequately they are able to adjust in their roles and relationships, manage their resources, and handle the emotional reactions (theirs and others), in coming to terms with the crisis event. Often those experiencing the ‘negative’ crisis fare much better than those who hit the jackpot. Perhaps it’s because it is more likely that people rendered paraplegic after a sudden crisis event are more likely to seek the help of social workers than lottery winners or gamblers who have hit the jackpot at a casino.

§

Social workers tend to be in demand in the gambling industry, but not to intervene in the crisis presented by winning, but the much more commonplace crisis of losing, when gamblers find themselves snared in ‘Hotel California’. Some casino patrons win on the swings, others on the roundabouts, but overall, as the line from Hotel California goes ‘you can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave’.

The odds in a casino are stacked against the gamblers who, as a whole consent to a deal that will reward a lucky few who win alongside the ‘house’. The system is structured to ensure some of the gamblers win some of the time (to keep them in the game), and for the ‘house’ to always win all of the time. The slogan of the National Responsible Gambling Program ‘winners know when to stop’ has a plausible ring to it. However, winners cannot win without somebody losing. Gambling is a zero-sum game. Some gamblers cannot stop. Rone couldn’t, and went into deep crisis.

‘I could forget the world when I was in the casino. Reality ceased to exist there for me. The thrill of winning a jackpot was heady and I’d play bigger and bigger amounts so that I could win bigger jackpots. All along I knew that I was spiralling out of control, but I seemed to be removed from reality.’

A significant percentage of gamblers, like Rone, become addicted to the buzz and fall into a ‘pattern of gambling always believing that one last throw of the dice as it were would allow her to recoup the losses and pay back the monies’ as a court judgment explains in the prosecution of Rone. Over more than a year her ‘borrowings’ had mushroomed into the theft of an accumulated sum of R377,000.

§

For people with money to spare and an appetite of risk, the venture capital market offers a more promising option. It appeals to those with the good sense to realise that it is better to risk one’s money on an investment opportunity that promises some long-term added value rather than the zero-sum game that underwrites lotteries and casino operations. If a profit is to be made, better that it is an all-round ‘healthy profit’ - one that has a win/win benefit.

Mark Victor Caruso is an adventurous Perth entrepreneur on the lookout for investment opportunities that ordinary investment bankers would regard as too high-risk and untested. In 2006, while Nkomba and I were engaging the media to expose the reality of attempted cooption and subversion of the Amadiba community by MRC and its BEE partners Xolco, Mark Caruso was assuring his shareholders that;

‘The Amadiba Community continue to unanimously support the project [the Xolobeni Mineral Sands venture] and have formed a consultative forum supported by the traditional leaders, King and Queen and Pondoland as well as local government authorities. The forum is focused on bringing long term sustainable development to the area and the mining is its key element.’

The complete falseness of this claim has already been established in Book One (Chapter Ten, My Mea Culpa with Mayor Capa) which describes the extraordinary day when Kumkani visited the Amadiba community to turn the tide on MRC. Besides championing the Xolobeni Mineral Sands venture to investors, Mark Caruso also had this to say in his 2006 third quarter report;

‘The No 11 tailings dump resulted from alluvial diamond operations in the 1960’s by the Sierra Leone Diamond Trust. Although the plant was advanced for its time, investigation into the operating history of the plant after the fortuitous discovery of the 969.8 carat Star of Sierra Leone diamond indicated that the initial plant design was flawed and it is believed the operating efficiency would have been reduced with time, leading to the loss of diamonds to tailings.’

When he penned this assessment he was unaware how embarrassingly stupid it would sound when the movie Blood Diamond was released. The plot is centred around the discovery of a ‘big pink’ diamond, ‘the kind of stone that can transform a life.. or end it’. The Hollywood blockbuster is a fast paced action adventure set in Kono, Sierra Leone aimed at raising global awareness of the gross injustices and exploitation, including the phenomenon of child soldiers, associated with conflict diamond mining in Africa.

The message of the film is summed up by the director Ed Zwick.

‘It seems that almost every time a valuable natural resource is discovered in the world—whether it be diamonds, rubber, gold, oil, whatever—often what results is a tragedy for the country in which they are found. Making matters worse, the resulting riches from these resources rarely benefit the people of the country from which they come.’

The film concludes in a dramatic scene with the heroes Danny Archer (a South African mercenary played by Leonardo DiCaprio), Solomon Vandy (a fisherman from a village in Sierra Leone played by Djimon Hounsou) and his son Dia (Kagiso Kuypers), clambering up a hillside with mercenary soldiers in hot pursuit to rob them of the rare pink diamond that Solomon found.

Still more extraordinary was the irony that the scene from Blood Diamond just described above was filmed in a river gorge between the Wild Coast Sun Casino Resort and the Sigidi village where Samson Gampe, Mzamo Dlamini, Nonhle Mbuthuma and Zeka Mnyamana live. For seven weeks of filming the Wild Coast of South Africa was used as a location. Ed Zwick, the actors and crew stayed at the Wild Coast Sun Resort and employed many local Amadiba residents as extras. The beautiful unspoilt Mzamba River Gorge which is the northern boundary of the Xolobeni mineral sands tenement, was dressed up pretending to be an alluvial diamond mine in Kono Sierra Leone. The film earned Oscar nominations for Leonardo Di Caprio (best actor) and Djimon Hounsou (best supporting actor). For the Amadiba community Blood Diamond is most memorable for describing a similar dynamic of disruption that MRC and Xolco were fostering in their own community. In 2006, six months after the film crew had left, Nonhle, Mzamo and Zeka had scrambled up the same hillside that the three Blood Diamond characters (Danny, Solomon and Dia) had ascended six months earlier, to tell their story to the outside world. The three young Sigidi villagers did not have armed soldiers in hot pursuit to try and dispossess them of a ‘big pink’ diamond but they were scared and feared for their lives. The life of the Amadiba community has imitated the art of Blood Diamond in broad strokes. Zeka Mnyamana was in October 2006 outspoken against the mining of his ancestral lands. In a few short months he had been co-opted by MRC and Xolco, leaving his friends and family feeling deeply betrayed.

In the countless occasions that I have since walked from the Wild Coast Sun to visit the Sigidi community I always pause at the spot where Di Caprio’s character, mortally wounded, handed the ‘big pink’ back to the wise ‘Solomon’ who escapes with his son to tell his story. Danny is left behind grasping a handful of red earth. Blood from his bullet wound mingles and flows into the earth as he breathes his last. How much titanium and other heavy mineral deposits were in fact present in his fistful of sand?

Mark Caruso’s optimism about the potential from the Erebus Diamond tailings operation in Sierra Leone proved grossly misplaced. It was a costly flop ending in legal recriminations. He has nevertheless persisted in assuring his investors that there is money to be made from the Xolobeni Mineral Sands, ‘the tenth largest deposit in the world.’

§

Four years after Blood Diamond, Hollywood obliged with a yet more vivid portrayal of ‘live imitating art’. Avatar in 3D provided an added dimension. The irony curtain opened again.

Notwithstanding the potential market value of the titanium deposits, from the Amadiba community perspective and the Mpondo Royal Family perspective, everything that happened between 2006 and 2010 spoke of an impending development disaster if the mining rights were upheld and the N2 Wild Coast Toll road shortcut constructed. Minister Buyelwa Sonjica had in September 2008 only suspended, not revoked, them. By 2010 two years had elapsed without any notable enthusiasm from government to adjudicate the objections from the Amadiba Crisis Committee conclude the matter. Eco-tourism was still in the doldrums of uncertainty pending the outcome of their appeal, and we were determined to keep the pressure on President Jacob Zuma’s Minister of Mineral Resources, Susan Shabangu, to conclude the matter. To try and pull the fat out of the fire for MRC shareholders the BEE company Xolco became ever more disgraceful in deceit and dishonesty to try and recover the rights to mine at Xolobeni. By serving as a director Zeka Mnyamana hoped he could steer it toward credibility to ensure it would provide some meaningful benefit to the local residents. Instead he found himself progressively more alienated from his community. Just as Richard Spoor had predicted, the pro-mining interests were still working to co-opt wherever possible. Where resistance was strong, they would simply subvert.

As the first decade of the 21st Century drew to a close, South Africa was in the grip of the ‘weapon of mass distraction’, hosting of the 2010 Fifa World Cup. All controversies and awkward political issues were parked until after the world’s media had left. The Fifa World Cup provided a useful strategic opportunity to spark the revival of eco-tourism jobs and thus deprive the mining protagonists of the only card they had to play, job creation from mining operations. In 2003 at its height the eco-tourism venture was providing income opportunities for some 400 local residents. Zamile Qunya and his allies had tried their best to sabotage ecotourism, but there was enough resolve and experience still latent within the community to turn the tables on him.

In late January 2010, the holiday movie momentum still had some slipstream to offer. The impact of Avatar still swirling in my mind, and my fingers firing staccato salvoes wherever a gap in the government propaganda defences presented themselves, I aimed some fire from within the fortification provided by South Africa’s most distinguished movie fundi (expert) Barry Ronge. He sharpened the aim and amplified the message in his WRITES ON RONGE sidebar in his popular Spit and Polish column in The Sunday Times.

‘While the movie world raves about Avatar, the drama enacted in the film is likely to play out in South Africa with the Zuma government’s blessing. John Clarke, a social worker on the Wild Coast explains why.

Avatar is a classic tale retold. But why, after numerous films featuring the same basic outline, do we still have mining exploration companies roving the length and breadth of Africa – and elsewhere – behaving in precisely the same way as the Earthlings in Avatar behave?

I am a social worker, and took a group of indigenous people from Pondoland to see Avatar. They felt a remarkable, albeit chilling, sense of reality while watching the film – spectacular special effects notwithstanding.

The vast biodiversity of the Wild Coast and the traditional way of life of the Mpondo people are threatened by the ambitions of an Australian mining company to mine their ancestral lands for titanium.

Next month the South African Minerals Board meets to consider their appeal against the South African government’s award of mining rights to what is nothing more than a dubious Australian venture capital outfit, MRC.

They will be met by Mpondo tribesmen looking like the Na’vi waving placards stating, This is not just titanium. It is unobtanium. But will the Minerals Board (and Zuma’s government) get the message?’

The scene captured the imagination of the editor of another monthly publication, Huisgenoot, who called me to plead for exclusivity to cover the anticipated street protest. I had imagined it would feature Nonhle and her beautiful sisters costumed with blue body paint, in a creative blend of Mpondo and Na’vi traditional dress, covering only what modesty required, riding through the streets of Durban on their way to the public hearing on suitably made up Pondo Ponies.

Unfortunately we had to disappoint the editor. We decided not to antagonise the Minerals Development Board. The hearings were a huge anti-climax anyway and we were glad we didn’t invest resources to win a battle that the Department of Mineral Resources and MRC had to all intents and purposes already lost.

§

The Director General of the Department of Mineral Resources, Advocate Sandile Nogxina, appointed a three-person Special Task Team from among the members of the Minerals Development Board to evaluate the objections that the Amadiba Crisis Committee and Sun International had lodged against the award of mineral rights. The chair of the Special Task Team was Sango Phathekile Holomisa. He is a public figure who rides not one, not two, but three horses simultaneously in a tricky balancing act. He is the President of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa), where he is greeted by his traditional praise name Ah! Dilizintaba. In the course of his normal day job he gets to be called ‘the honourable member’ while warming the ANC parliamentary benches in Cape Town as a Member of Parliament. Occasionally he takes leave from that hallowed institution to be called ‘my learned friend’ as an Advocate of the High Court of South Africa.

It had been an astute move by the government to hand the hot potato of the disputed mining rights to Dilizintaba. After getting over our initial scepticism, we came to appreciate his skill in juggling it. His praise name means ‘the one who cuts through the mountain barriers’.

The media were not allowed into the room ‘because of a lack of space’ but Dilizintaba was careful to sooth things by unexpectedly asking me ‘since you seem to know the journalists’ to be so kind as to keep them informed on behalf of everyone. I wasn’t expecting the ball to be passed my way with such confidence, but it was an easy ball to play because as it happened there wasn’t much to tell them. The much-anticipated event was over in 20 minutes ‘due to the Special Task team having only received five large files of documentation from the Department of Mineral Resources a few days prior, and which they had not had time to study.’

Dilizintaba suggested that it may only be necessary to reconvene if the Task Team had questions, but courteously heard Advocate Gilbert Marcus’ plea for an oral hearing so as to assist the Task Team to get to grips with all the issues. Xolco’s attorney bravely agreed that oral hearings would be useful ‘for we have additional information to contribute’.

Nkomba and I begged for a suspension of hostilities and the removal of the millstone hanging around the neck of the Wild Coast communities ‘so that the thousands of foreign visitors to South Africa might be able experience the Wild Coast as a tourism destination, and take home stories of a wonderful place, to attract more tourists. We need closure on the mining issue. We need to bring the conflict to an end.’

§

Within days of the closing ceremony of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, a tearful call came from Princess Wezizwe Sigcau.

‘John, have you seen the film Avatar?’

‘Yes Ma-Faku,’ I said using the honorific title of respect, which recognises her distinguished ancestry as King Faku’s descendant. ‘I have seen it about six times. Why do you ask?’

‘Because that is what they are trying to do to my father and us a family. President Zuma has announced that my father is to be deposed, and my cousin, Zanuzuko Sigcau, is to be made king. It is all political, John, because we have opposed the N2 Wild Coast Toll Road and the Xolobeni mining.’

President Zuma had announced that King Justice Mpondombini Sigcau was, according the findings of the Commission for Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims, not the rightful king of amaMpondo ase Qaukeni, and that Zanuzuko Tyelovuyo Sigcau was to be installed instead.

It was within my professional skills-set to work with Kumkani and his family in adjusting to the physical health challenges brought on by the amputation of his legs below the knee. Their strong spiritual faith and the sense of meaning in their lives gave them and me resilience. However, I found myself way out on a limb when they were plunged into this altogether more challenging situation when Kumkani and his family had the feet knocked out from under them. Even more devastating was the complete silence on the part of the Government as to what they were now supposed to do. They have only ever known themselves to be of the Royal Family, and had strived to serve the Mpondo people with sacrificial devotion all their lives.

Emergence of Civil Courage.

Disconsolate I wrote to Alastair McIntosh for guidance and to specifically ask him if he could help us get this scandalous abuse of power into the focus of international media. I had followed the same threefold strategy of ‘naming, unmasking and engaging the powers’ that had proved successful for the Hebridean Crofter communities, inspired by the liberation theologian and pacifist Walter Wink. It didn’t seem to be working. He replied.

‘Oh dear, John, I don’t know what to say about this one!

I can only wish you well in seeking to give strength to those who are connected to Truth and the soul rather than to power and money.

Perhaps as a prayerful afterthought Alastair added another paragraph. It had massive ramifications.

‘This evening we had a group of Peace Activist pilgrims visit the GalGael Trust with which I am involved here in Glasgow. One of them is a South African born activist. I had a little rant about our work here and about the way in which deepening of the soul, such as happens on pilgrimage, is where we must take the nuclear debate. She was very much in agreement with this, and came up afterwards to me and my colleague, Gehan, and said the following. I pass her words on to you and you might wish to convey them to the King and Queen of Pondoland. She said: Civil disobedience is difficult to sustain. Only civil courage can be sustained in the long run.’

I shared this with Queen Sigcau and she asked me to draft a media release along those lines.

On 12th August 2010 the following statement was issued in the name of King of Mpondo.

‘We address this statement to the Traditional Leaders of AmaMpondo under the jurisdiction of the