The good, the bad and the ugly --- Part 1

Jackie Selebi

As reported by the Sowetan, here we have a man who went from hero to zero. It is said that he is now on a dialysis machine on account of chronic kidney failure. It would appear that Selebi started succumbing to health problems the instant he heard that the court had decided that he deserved to be incarcerated for some 15 years for corruption.
Ordinary human beings cannot but feel mixed emotions about the whole Selebi saga. Here is a man that made a very valuable contribution to our liberation. Now we are throwing him into prison for 15 years. Given that he is in his mid 60s, the sentence more or less means the end of his life as a free man.

I must be abnormal. I have no mixed emotions. I feel only a solemn exaltation that he is reaping what he has sowed. I have this picture of an arrogant politico, strutting about with complete disdain for our concerns. These included his relationship with a self confessed drug lord, Glen Agliotti. He gave us the proverbial finger saying “he is my friend, finished and klaar”. As our Chief of Police he should have been first in the fight against our pandemic levels of crime. Instead he was first as a corruption don. A more disgraceful course of conduct is hard to imagine, especially given the fact that he had somehow managed to wheedle his way to being head of Interpol as well. Wow! Selebi personifies the ultimate betrayal.

To him, our concerns were irrelevant. They were irrelevant in terms of a prevailing mindset, spawned in a well established climate of patronage. As a member of a new elite he was unaccountable to us ordinary folk. Being “more equal than others”, on our version of animal farm, he was entitled to do as he liked, when he liked and how he liked, whether we liked it or not.

Treating us as the ignorant foolish masses, he disdainfully claimed “these hands are clean”, fully expecting us, as sheep on the farm, to simply accept the word of one of our new breed of leaders. He saw himself as one of the “untouchables”. The arrogance was nauseating. The man was assured, comfortable and supremely confident that he was indeed untouchable.

He was; thanks to our then president Thabo Mbeki. Despite mounting information, propagated by our then free media sector, President Thabo Mbeki, made it clear that Selebi was his man and, as such, was untouchable, just as 'Manto' Edmie Tshabalala-Msimang (then Minister of Health) had been, despite proof that she was a convicted thief who had stolen from her own patients as a ward sister.

What the Mbeki camp, including Selebi, did not foresee was Polokwane. The 52nd National Conference of the African National Congress (ANC) was held in Polokwane, Limpopo from December 16 to December 20, 2007. By vote of “ordinary branch members” of the ANC Thabo Mbeki was removed as leader of the ANC and that guaranteed his subsequent removal as president.

Jackie Selebi lost his patron. He lost protection. He lost his status of being “more equal than others”. He reverted to being one of us, unprotected, vulnerable and accountable. The law jumped on him, took its course and visited him with what he fully deserved. A very big crook is where he deserves to be - in jail.

Lets us be thankful that, in this case, justice has been done, and seen to be done. For that we are thankful, firstly to the ANC’s marvelous process in which ordinary human beings have a voice to effect change that is needed. Secondly, we are blessed with the right to information that a free media deals in, for our benefit. This is now under severe threat on account of the now infamous Protection of State Information Bill. Thirdly we have independent courts manned by conscientious judicial officers acting without fear, favour or prejudice. This may also now be under threat, as there appears to be an agenda to “pack” the courts with “onside” judges starting with a carefully handpicked Chief Justice. 

A question that is arising is - will this big time crook actually serve his sentence? He has become "very sick" with exquisite timing. It is now being claimed that the prison hospitals do not have the capacity to treat him. Shabir Shaik was relieved of the obligation to serve his sentence on the basis of illness. There can be no doubt that Selebi is seeking the same indulgence.

Will he get it? He is a club member. He is part of the new elite. He is entitled to be treated as "more equal than others". Are we not on our own version of "animal farm"?

I would not take any bets on this. Really!

Dr Conrad Murray

As I predicted, the “bad” doctor has been rightly convicted by a jury of ordinary human beings, and sentenced by a judge to the maximum permissible under United States law.

Many have said that they see Michael Jackson (MJ) as the problem and Murray as a victim. Nothing could be more misguided. Like millions of other human beings on this planet, MJ was in serious trouble. He was a drug addict. His latest drug of choice was propofol. He did what he needed to do. He employed a doctor, at very generous remuneration, to help him manage his problem.

What Murray did was to firstly feed his patient with gallons of the drug. MJ was suffering from severe sleep disorder. Understand that propofol is not sleep disorder medication. It is an anesthetic. It does not induce sleep. It induces unconsciousness, so that surgeons can operate. Unless very carefully monitored, the patient can die. On TV this morning I watched a program where a vet was performing a small operation on the hoof of a zebra. His assistant kept his hand on the chest of the zebra throughout the operation so as to monitor the animal’s state of unconsciousness. Murray did not carefully monitor MJ. He did not have the equipment to do this. In addition he was busy phoning around, including phoning a girlfriend. That is when MJ died. Murray was not equipped to resuscitate his patient, and his “claimed” attempts were pathetic in the extreme.

In short Dr Conrad Murray played Russian roulette with his patient, and it cost MJ his life. Under our law I would have had no hesitation to convict of murder on the basis of “constructive intent”. Constructive intent is present when you can foresee death as a reasonable possibility and are reckless as to whether or not it occurs. That was exactly Murray’s conduct, sustained recklessness as to whether or not JM died.
The High Court in Cape Town has just convicted a Taxi driver, Jacob Humphreys, of 10 counts of murder for "recklessly' driving his vehicle across a level crossing, resulting in it being hit by a train. Note that the judge also said that Humphreys played "Russian roulette" with the lives of his passengers.
Murray ceased to be a doctor and became a drug dealer. Because of his criminal conduct the world lost the greatest entertainer of all time. Elvis Presley had the looks, the voice and the physique. Michael Jackson had the magic.

Justice has been done, and seen to be done.

COP 17             

It is the last day of this terribly important talk shop. The World descended on Durban. Many South Africans were led by our ministers in “feeling proud”. And yes, we do feel proud that we can host such an event, just as we all felt rather great to have hosted the Soccer World Cup.

Congratulations must be extended to our International Relations and Cooperation Minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabaneour, who was the official host of the whole thing. She was always beautiful to look at, personable and marvelously upbeat, even when the going seemed to be bad, with the big powers like the United States, China and Canada, in particular, playing up.

Personally I don’t buy the argument that we are causing climate change. I am a 100% climate change sceptic. The science is quite dodgy, and is credibly disputed by reputable scientists. This planet has being undergoing cyclical periods of climate change from day one. That is a simple fact. In addition volcanoes and animals (burping and farting), in years past, pushed more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than we have done in decades. That is another fact. The last and critically important fact is that whatever else scientist may disagree on, they all agree that they really have little understanding of how the planet used to have massive climate changes in the past. It is known that that the sun can play havoc with our climate. That is a fact. Sunspots have their own cyclical activity, and in days gone by there was no one to record and monitor this, as is the case now. 

However we do need to understand that the World, led by the United Nations, needs a big issue to be concerned about. The UN needs to justify its existence. Climate change is now perhaps the biggest industry on the planet. HIV/AIDS is losing its allure. We now have HIV/AIDS fatigue; no question! And climate change, which started off as “global warming”, until the proponents were embarrassed by reality, has developed into a very huge industry indeed. And as was the case with HIV/AIDS, serious money is being made by any amount of entities and people who are connected to the thing. It is big business, very big business.

Let me give you an unarguable example of the inherent lack of good faith/(hypocrisy) that the UN is infused with. As early as 1994 the UN got just about every nation to solemnly commit to taking effective measures to relieve the plight of road crash victims. Please note that over 95% of road crash victims are entirely innocent, as only one or more of the drivers can ever be actually responsible for a road crash. Next, and this is very important, road crash victims are the second biggest pandemic on this planet, after HIV/AIDS. In supporting documentation the UN published statistics that showed that, for many countries, the cost exceeded their entire aid budget. So in 1994, the UN was rightly gearing itself up to adopt the road crash victim issue as a major issue that we should all be concerned with. For reasons, that probably have to do with the fact that the whole insurance and legal sectors stood to lose, rather than gain, if the UN intervened on behalf of road crash victims it, in effect, abandoned its enthusiasm for this issue. So to-day we only have New Zealand, the State of Victoria in Australia, Botswana, Namibia and those few countries that have full scale social welfare, that have an efficient and effective victim orientated model for road crash casualties. Everywhere else the victim, who might be a five year old child, or even a child in utero, is left to find the guilty driver and fight with his/her insurer for justice.

I have tried strenuously to proposition the UN on this issue and have received hardly an acknowledgement in return. There is simply no explanation for the UN to be concerned about HIV/AIDS victims, (mostly self inflicted) and simply ignore the plight of the victims of the next biggest pandemic on this planet, other than crass hypocrisy and pandering to vested interests of big business. I challenge anyone to refute this.

Understand that whatever the UN decides to promote will have many takers. It provides huge opportunity at both personal and organizational levels. 

The other problem, regrettably, is the venue and/or host. The reality is that South Africa is one of the worst offenders when it comes to polluting the atmosphere. And what is more is that it is fully committed to continuing in this mode, with the building of the World’s biggest coal fired electricity power station posted as non negotiable. In all seriousness, would you host an anti-crime conference in the house of one of Al Capone’s gang bosses? It is somewhat obscene to hold SA as a credible leader on the matter of climate change.

It does bring to mind the Soccer World Cup. This was also hailed as a great success for SA. It suited international politics and SA that it be hosted here. The reality is that it cost a fortune for a country of scarce resources and conferred no discernable benefits. That much is no longer even argued. See --- http://coginito.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-world-cup-moment.html

Still I support the climate change initiative. Anything that makes us better planetary citizens is a good thing. We really do need to stop abusing the planet and other creatures. We are wasteful, predatory, irresponsible and downright venal as planetary citizens. It needs to stop.

I would encourage everybody to join Friends of the Earth International, whatever you may believe in.

And, once again, we must congratulate our Minister of International Affairs for a job well done.