WeeklySA_AdminAGENDA: As anti-illegal migration protests spread across South Africa, questions are mounting about who is funding the campaigns, what their ultimate objectives may be, and whether the unrest signals a deeper struggle over power, identity and the future of the state…
By Sekola Sello
A few weeks ago I stated in this column that the current attacks against so called foreigners in this country especially targeting people of African extraction are symptomatic of the kicks of a dying beast.
I went on to state that there will be a painful period for those who are being targeted but this will pass in due course.In the main I still hold onto this sanguine view about the future. This is in spite of the attacks spreading beyond their place of origin which is KwaZulu Natal and now assuming a countrywide character.
Perhaps i failed in making a more rigorous interrogation of the salient elements in what is unfolding before us; namely who are the funders of the people such as Jacinta Ngobese Zuma and former Inkatha Freedom Party Councillor who goes by the name of Phakelumthakathi Ndabandaba. Apart from trying to establish who their funders are, South Africans need to fully understand what the end goal is or could be of the real masterminds behind these actions.
What we are seeing unfold before our eyes is a very complex development. I believe there is a multi pronged strategy at play here whose primary objective is to weaken the state, balkanise some parts of the country and render other parts ungovernable in the mould of Haiti, the Eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya and some Middle East countries.
Those behind this onslaught against the country are going to remain faceless. They operate behind the scenes and I believe they are not known to people such as Ngobese Zuma and Ndabandaba.They are financially powerful, control important media houses, have Western intelligence services behind them and are well versed in the art of creating militias if there’s a need for such and overthrowing legitimate governments.
My arguments may sound far fetched and ridiculous. They may be dismissed as conspiracy theories on steroids.
In my view the dominoes are already beginning to fall. The African National Congress, the party which was seen all over the world as a moral force under Nobel Peace Laureate Nelson Mandela is today synonymous with corruption and kleptocracy.
The ANC has taken a mighty fall and deservedly so. I do not absolve many of its members, especially the leadership from being agents of their own disgraceful faluire. But I also believe that they were infiltrated by fifth columnists.
Today the ANC – the party which had a massive electoral support – is very weak on many fronts. Their support among the masses is gone. They no longer have the leadership with intellectual gravitas
Whereas in the past they did not raise a sweat to garner a two thirds of the voters in elections, they are struggling tiday. In the last polls on May 2024, they could only cobble about 40 percent of the votes
The tripartite alliance is fracturing with the Congress of South African Trade Unions having lost many members to rival federations and because of high unemployment in the country. In the past Cosatu could guarantee the party thousands of voters. No more. The Communist Party has decided to contest the 4 November 2026local government elections independently. The party is also Riven with factions. KwaZulu Natal is no longer its strong base. A majority of university students, the future intellectuals of the organisation have drifted to the Economic Freedom Fighters in particular.
Given all these challenges it is clear that the centre is not holding. Those plotting against the ANC are aware of all these difficulties besetting the party. I cannot prove it but I believe that those who are determined to weaken the ANC are the ones funding the anti – immigrant campaign.
With images of African immigrants being attacked, driven out of their homes, gathering at a KZN police station, some cradling babies and police seemingly unable to stop their attackers, this further harms the standing of the ANC on the continent. The upshot of all this negative image of the country and the ruling party saw a number of African ambassadors based here in our country boycotting the Africa Day celebrations held in the North West.
On May 27 the first group of nearly 300 Ghanians immigrants left the country to return home.
To me it is a given that President Cyril Ramaphosa has ordered our intelligence services to get to the bottom of what is behind these anti immigration protests. To establish who the funders are and their objectives. But therein lies the real problem. Can we trust these operatives to unravel this threat or will they be caught unprepared like it happened during the July 21 unrest. Our intelligence services, just like our senior police officers, are deeply divided. Ramaphosa’s current political problems over Phala Phala – problems which could see him being impeached and forced out of office – can be laid at the feet of Arthur Fraser, the former Director General of State Security Agency.
It requires no great leap of the imagination to surmise that Fraser, who is a close associate of Jacob Zuma, a bitter rival of Ramaphosa, has loyalists in the intelligence services. These loyalists could undermine what Zuma calls the ANC of Ramaphosa which implies it is not the real ANC.
In my view part of this multi pronged strategy to weaken the ANC includes doing the same thing with the EFF. In the run-up to the May 2024 national elections, one of the world’s largest and most credible market research and public opinion companies, Ipsos predicted that the EFF would emerge as the biggest opposition party in the country.
They were expected to poll better than the then official opposition, the Democratic Alliance. This was before the emergence of Zuma’s Umkhonto weSizwe Party and other smaller parties. Some of these smaller parties were financed by wealthy White families such as the Oppenheimers.
Instead of the EFF becoming the official opposition they came out a poor fourth behind the ANC, DA and MKP. They even lost seats in the National Assembly. The EFF blames this outcome on MKP and the smaller parties.
Here is the scenario that could unfold. Once the government and the ANC have been weakened and ousted from office with the EFF reduced to below ten percent of the electoral vote, what we could see is the following:
The Northern provinces such as Gauteng, North West and Limpopo where the bulk of the country’s mineral resources are found will become politically unstable. Some parts will resemble Haiti, and the DRC.. Zama Zama activity will be on a far bigger scale than it is the case at present.
The Western Cape and parts of the Northern Cape will become a haven for whites and the Coloured people, a development which the leader of the National Coloured Congress Fadiel Adams would welcome.
Ngobese Zuma and Ndabandaba claim in their anti immigration campaigns that they are reclaiming their country. Take away all this encrypted message what they really mean is taking back all of KwaZulu Natal and making it a fully fledged territory governed by AmaZulu with king Misuzulu Ka Zwelithini at the head. That is the first prize. They may covet parts of Gauteng and Mpumalanga where there is a large concentration of IsiZulu speakers.
Their funders might have dangled this carrot. What some of these useful idiots do not realise is the value of the port of Durban in global geopolitics. It is too important to the funders to be ceded to Blacks no matter how friendly they might be.
My concluding remarks is that it beggars belief that the people of Vosloorus, Katlehong, Thokoza ( all in Ekurhuleni), the Vaal Triangle townships of Sebokeng, Eaton, Sharpeville, Boipatong, Bophelong and Soweto can embrace campaigns led by Ndabandaba. As I stated earlier Ndabandaba is a former Inkatha councillor. He is still a party member. Residents of these townships know the looting, pillage, plunder and murder unleashed in their areas by Inkatha who were supported by the apartheid era security forces.
In Boipatong some people are now on wheelchairs after being maimed by an estimated three hundred string horde of nearby KwaMadala residents. These KwaMadala hostel dwellers were escorted into Boipatong by members of the South African Defence Force and were linked to Inkatha.
In Khumalo Street, Thokoza, some residents were evicted from their homes by Inkatha members. I don’t know if they were ever able to reclaim those homes. Residents of Mofolo in Soweto along what was then called Roodepoort Road were attacked in their homes and had goods taken by Inkatha supporters after the party held a rally at the Jabulani amphitheatre.
My home in White City is not far from where these attacks had occurred. The same thing happened to some homes in Zone One Meadowlands which face the nearby Mzimhlophe Men’s hostel. These incidents happened in the 1980s.
Sekola Sello is a retired and independent veteran journalist
