VAST MAJORITY OF
ETHNIC XHOSA PEOPLE HATE THEIR OWN XHOSA TRIBALISTS MATANZIMA, KULA, LATE
MANDELA, LATE ANDREW LEKOTO MASONDO ETC. WHO ARE CURRENTLY RUINING SOUTH AFRICA
AND ITS SANDF IN THEIR NAME
3. South Africa under
Mandela-Minion Jacob Zuma is daily get into a worse mess. The once most beautiful city Capital Pretoria
for example is as of this writing a pig sty and eyesore; and your go to the
larger Tshwane where the capital is situated it’s uncollected refuse, water
spewing in the streets alongside sewerage systems unattended to.
4. It is a dark and
darkening mega-city what with quixotic powercuts even amongst the most
financially active malls of this once fastest-growing industrial areas of South
Africa.
5. Jacob Zuma has lost
the plot. In fact he never had one,
except to sing praises parrot-like for his political creator, Nelson Mandela.
6. That on its own would
not have been a problem for me to write about.
After all, it is his own delusion as Mr Zuma if he thinks Mandela,
rather than the people of South Africa, liberated this country from politics.
7. It will become my
problem though. And here is my
rationale.
8. IN ALL THE FAILINGS
OF JACOB ZUMA AS LEADER, YOU FIND NEXT TO HIM IN ALL DEPARTMENTS THAT MATTER
LIKE DEFENCE NOBODY ELSE BUT RELATIVES OF NELSON MANDELA AND
FELLOW-XHOSA-SPEAKER TRIBESMEN WHO WANT HIGH POSITION BY HOOK OR CROOK, FRAUD
INCLUDED WITHOUT ANY PUNISHMENT FROM DEMIGOD-MANDELA’S PUPPET ZUMA.
9. This is in any case,
the situation in the SANDF and the people (like Eric Mabalane [and his maternal
uncle Simon Mabalane of course the old Zuma henchman and militiaman who was
from exile days in Angola, Tanzania and other countries active other
individuals in the anti-human-rights-Zuma-1987-imbokodo-intelligence
gendarmerie that was maiming and killing outspoken freedom fighters like Phiri],
Norman Yengeni (another exile-era ruthless Mandelasque Xhosa tribalist now in
SANDF general’s uniform still perpetrating similar tribalism against Phiri for
writing to the presidency of South Africa about the corruption, fraud and black
racism the Yengenis are to this moment still perpetrating in the good name of
Xhosa) Temba Templeton Matanzima who 2012 uncharacteristically orders Phiri stay
at homeand not come to work for good; and V.R. Masonda of the SANDF who charges
Phiri, presumptively finds him guilty hence salary shutdown for NOT coming to
work via AWOL and I, trailed by my helpless 4-year-old daughter Tamara, am here
running the gauntlet between one Mandelasque Xhosa tribalist unleashed by Zuma
on me and another Mandelasque Xhosa tribalist.Hence the Christmas-period salary
shutdon on whistleblower Goodman Manyanya Phiri with the Amargeddon.
10. The South African
Natiotonal Defence Force is nowhere far to be found behind this mess; as the
common factor
11.
WHY MY SOURCES ON ERIC MABALANE AND SIMON MABALNE
CAN ONLY BE RIGHT OVER THE UNCONSTITUTIONALLY PRESUMPTIVE SALARY SHUTDOWN BY Mr
MASONDA AGAINST PHIRI FOR ZUMA IN JULY 2014
12.
The Mabalanes I know
13.
The blessings of the mabalanes as Phiri’s fellow human race.
14. The Lord God has since 1984 blessed me with a
plethora of our our Tswana subject people called the Mabalanes.
15. I call them a
“subject people” because the area where the Mabalanes I know come from is
traditionally ruled by no other Chief but Goodman Manyanya Phiri’s own
clansman: a ‘Chief Phiri’.
16. This fact alone is
one of the reasons whenever I hear someone called “Mabalane” I quickly relate
with him and treat him or her as a brother or sister since, if we forget about
tribalism (“I am a Tswana Mabalane and that one is can’t be my clansman becaue
he is a Xhosa Mabalane and Goodman is an ethnic-Malawian Phiri and therefore
cannot be the same traditional chief who rules me back at my traditional home
is very asinine indeed, to say the least.
17. To cry out loud, Good
people still wet behind your ears from apartheid retrogressive teachings: we
are one people as African continentally,and we are one people as human beings
peopleing the Planet Earth.
18.
18.1.1. Anti-constitutional
Tribalists and squealers who want on this 2014 or even 2015 post-Apartheid
South Africa to gain cheap promotions to ranks Zuma’s SANDF Brigadiers General
(one too many of such tribalists has unfortunately already emerged for Phiri
from the Mabalane extended family forget that most surnames on earth are older
than the ethnicities or nationalities where such surnames are to be found are
in most cases very much older than the nationalities or ethnicities where they
are to be found.
19. For that matter,
Phiri is the classical example as no othe surname on earth will be found older
than Phiri. This is so because
PHIRIS/PHARAOH/PEARYS (A clan name that means “Fire”, “Mound” “Mountain” “Wolf”
or “Hyena”) long before the babel of toungues began and the globe was scattered
with our species since speaking different languages. Phiris ruled the Earth
long before exoduses of people from Africa began and long before skin colours
changed TO BLACK, BROWN, PINK, GREEN OR
WHAT-HAVE-YOU as, because of geographical isolation and even some lives in
caves of the world as a definition of
some nationality or ethnicity.
19.1.And Phiri ruled the
globe even longer before current African nationalities like Batswana, Zulu, etc
came to the fore.
20. As such, I totally
fail to under stand how one of the Mabalanes I know find it within his or her
conscience with the full consisteny of his godliness stemming from the Phiri
clan that rules his or her soul to make it his or her duty to go and blurt out
pure lies about hiw own traditional Prince Goodman Manyanya Phiri to the SANDF
Mandelasque-Xhosa-tribalists these days marshalled by Mr Jacob Zuma previously
Thabo Mbeki previously Manela himself.
21. I need to say though
that from the day I first came to know a Mabalane from the same extended family
that even on 2014 is on my case trying to gain promotion with Zuma SANDF with
the lie Phiri walked into some SANDF office in 2014, WARNINGS ABOUNDED ABOUT
THIS FAMILY AS BEING ALIVE WITH APARTHEID-ERA SPIES AGAINST THE ANC by
1984. And comrades were telling me left
right and centre never to befriend a Mabalane if I wanted to survive the
anti-Apartheid struggle.
22. However, it is never
prudent intelligence work to avoid contact with those that you suspect of
working for your enemy. You have to eat
with the devil and never allow the pusillanimous side take the better of
you. War by its own definition is not
for cowards.
23. As such, no clan name
in South Africa today knows more than the collective Mabalanes about the most
intimate details of my career as a soldier of APLA, MK, APLA and SANDF. Chief among those in the know are
24. Mr Eric Mabalane Eric is in the know because he
works in the same corps as I. He has
been with me through a military college course or two and knows how my head
works just as I know how his does. Eric
also knows the conditons of my suspensions in and out as well as how to
manipulate them for my destruction or salvation, whatever his proclivity of the
day is.
25.The exiled Simon
mabalane a.k.a. Earl
26. The other Mabalane
who bears intimate knowledge of me is Eric’s
uncle, Earl Mabalane, More
officially known as Mr Simon Mabalane:
Simon Sekgokgo Mabalane. Simon, at
some stage available on +270795124384 was born Friday, 12 August 1955
27. As of this Year 2014,
Mr Jacob Zuma will not hold any serious state function without inviting the
participation of Mr Simon Mabalane. They
got acquainted with each other during the years of exile both of them, like
myself, operatives of the Intelligence Corps of the broad liberation movement
the ANC and the PAC.
28. Simon was one of the
MK forces uncharitably known as imbokodo, which was some kind of
counter-intelligence militia of the ANC.
They were used to root out Apartheid spies from the ANC but the problem
was: they themselves were too highly infiltrated by real Apartheid spies to do
anything better for the ANC save to murder their own if very patriotic comrades
who dared stand for what the ANC itself in precepts (inclusive of the more
non-partisan Freedom Charter) stood for e.g. the eradication of tribalism which
was rampant in those camps in the form of Mandelasque-Xhosa Tribalism.
28.1.1. When ordered by the
Zumas, the Andrew Masondos etc, to kill you for your stand, to toruture you or
simply to assault you with results of gross bodily harm, the Simons would have
neither squaable quibble nor scruple in taking the order without asking the
question why? what proof? or what rights does the intended victim have in
international law prior to the drastic measures to be taken against him or her
now?
29. Except what I have
been told of his personal excesses at the expense of human rights in ANC exile
military camps, I do not know much about Simon’s personal involvement in those
dastardly deeds, although I do see no reason why he would have otherwise have
kept his job so closest with the Zumas and the Tambos (two of the to-the-death
believers in the asinine theory of intellectual and political superiority of
Xhosa-speakers as authored by Nelson Mandela) had he not been an exemplary
member of the imbokodo.
30. I had heard for an
example that Simon was one of the Apartheid agents within imbokodo and a fact
that the ANC ultimately discovered and wanted to punish him for it whereupon he
escaped to the USA in order to avoid the said punishment. But on being
confronted about this, my friend Mr Simon Mabalane was to tell me yes it is
true that he ended up going to do privat work abroad. Yes it is true he made enemies with the ANC
in exile. But the real reason for the
enmity, he says: was because of his leniency towards discovered enemy agents.
He did not believe in beating up people or killing them for participating in a
war game which is what Umkhonto weSizwe and the SADF were all about. You do not kill any enemy force, he says,
when he surrenders or even confesses to having been sent by the enemy. But many of such people were killed cruelly
in the camps, says Simon. And he disapproved of that, which is why he ended up
being persecuted by his own comrades and the resultant flight to the USA on
this part.
31. I know a lot of what
Simon Mabalane talks about whenever he explains his past to me. For an example, in the 1984 when I first made
acquaintance with him, he used to work at an office called something like “The
Castle”, “The Mansion” or some similar word in Portuguese. This was a double- or triple-story WHITE building right in the middle of
our Angolan military camp of Luanda, Viana.
32. The Castle was the
most conspicuous target for any enemy fire.
And there were countless enemy forces around the camp, what with
Angola’s erstwhile Civil War fought by Unita’s Jonas Savimbi who was a
well-known lackey of Pretoria against the ANC.
33. “Why must these
comrades enjoy sleeping in that tomb called The Castle?” I one day asked a
Zulu-speaking comrade who was doing animal husbandry for our Viana Camp.
34. His small eyes turned
into a pair of WWII buttons on the heavy
jacket worn by Adolf Hitler. His mouth,
propelled by a jawbone somewhat dislocated ostensibly from previous assaults by
imbokodo
the soldier’s facial appearance left nothing between reality and the imagination of watching the
posterior of a bird answering back.
35. “First I was
assaulted over my face and other parts of the body for being a Zulu. Your great buddy comrade, Earl, was part of
the group that injured me.
36. “Secondly, I was
assaulted for that very question you are asking now Terence Qwabe: why a tall
bulding right inside our camp should be allowed to stand on, and worse be
painted white
37. “So be very careful
with your questions around here. You are
still too young to suffer the fate some of us have suffered”
38. I was 23. I did not understand why he though of me as a
boy still. I did not understand either
how of all people, Earl Mabalane could have been part of a feeding frenzy among
a pack of wild dogs attacking a man for no other reason than being his own
ethnic self.
39. But slowly and surely
I finally discovered the truth. The Castle, just like many other similar
structures in MK camps in many other areas in Africa, were said to be actually
the safest areas should the enemy be targeting that camp!
40. The enemy knew that
own forces would be sleeping in those structures and would do its best not to
hit such!
41. Although I have asked
my friend Simon Mabalane a lot of things about his past, I have nonetheless
never asked him about his alleged panelbeating of that comrade. He will be reading about it for the first
time here.
42. I must say Simon was
very good to me, really.
42.1.1. First, he was among
the first camp officers who quickly spotted my knack for English and short of
recommending me for a journalism course that I go work for MK’s and ANC’s Radio
Freedom, said I should help Viana Camp with the preparation and analysis of
Current news and events from South Africa.
The guerrillas simply swooned over my pronunciation in the English
Language: they said it was deeply African, erudite but unaffected.
43. Simon Mabalane then
went to Comrade Chris Hani (he was MK Commissar) to suggest I was being talent
wasted in Angola where Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Tanzania could make
better use of stuff like my Queen and my analytical powers. That is how I surprised everybody (most of
whom had been to Angola for more than 10 years despite wishing otherwise) when
within two years of being flown thereto by Mr Jacob Zuma, Comrade Chris Hani
jetted me out for Tanzania.
44. This is not all to
say I was unaware of Simon’s company like a Zulu-speaking guy who went by the
name of Sishi. Sishi was the man who
debriefed me on my arrival in Angola and he shared The Castle with the likes of
Simon, of course.
45. Sishi was roughshod,
blank and directionless for every single interrogatory he held with me.
46. “Yesterday I received
information you were selling drugs in South Africa but you did not mention that
fact in your biography will you now tell me why?”
47. “What drugstore?” I
asked surprised. “I’ve told you I’d been schoolteacher on farm schools called
The Gem and Khutsala both of them neighbouring schools in the Transvaal. Never worked at no dispensary in my whole
life.”
48. “Drugs!” bellowed the
dark-brown lanky Sishi in his blue jeans, and pinstriped white and blue shirt. “I mean hardcore drugs…you wer selling
cocaine and mandrax, Mr Terence Qwabe!
Just admit the fact and we forget about it”
49. “OK,let me put it
this way for you.” I said alarmed. “I
have never sold anything in my entire life except timber. My father was a lumberjack and so I helped him
every so often in his kind of business.
I guess the drugs they told you about were some kind of stuff some smart
scientists might have extracted from the resin of those gumtrees and wattle
trees. But my last information was that
the timber my father and I produced were destined for Johannesburg where it helped in the mining sector.”
50. “Resin extracted by
smart scientist, you say?” Sishi said clearly infuriated. From that first floor of The Castle he
dragged me by the upper arm to the nearest window. “Listen, Chum: we are not talking about smart
scientists here. We are talking about
your smart ass. See that ship container
over there?”
51. I saw it all
right. It was one of the containers said
in hush hush tones to have kept a guerrilla incommunicado until he suffocated to death with neighther
food nor water but quanta galore in their gazillions hitting the roof from the
Sun enough to dissuade even the most spiritually-Spartan Sharack, Meshack or Abednego from daring the roof of that metal.
52. And when the lifeless
body of the man was removed from the shipping container, Simon Mabalane’s and
Sishi’s Camp Commander Pro in full view of his lieutenants, put a slug into its
brains prior to sending the body over for post-mortem by Angolan authorities.
53. “The man was already
dead…what did you do that for, Commander?” one of them asked in disbelief.
54. Nonchalantly, the
reply came: “The man did not suffocate.
He died in combat. So, can’t you see I am making post-morterm easier
for the Angolan authorities?
55. That, then, was for
the Jacob Zumas , the the Xhosa-speaking
Andrew Masondos and the Simon Mabalanes,the meaning of putting a querulous
soldier like Goodman Manyanya Phiri incommunicado on the year Eric Arthur Blair
futuristically, dedicated an entire fictional
masterpiece.
56. I swear George Orwell
(1903-1950) must have been there with me in that military camp of South
Africans in Angola in 1984 when he ominously wrote the classical book: “1984”.
57. Thirty years down the
line, George Orwell is still among us South Africans here in Pretoria busy
writing his other Classic “Animal Farm” where even though the
South African constitution clearly stipulates that we are all of us equal and
there is no racial superiority based on colour creed etc. Jacob Zuma is still allowed by this nation to
propagage the teachings he imbibed from Nelson Mandela that Mandela’s fellow-Xhosa-speakers are innately superior (akekho
ofana nabo ongeyena UmXhosa noma UmXhosakazi a smessage propagated in
the Indoctrination Song: “Nelson Mandela Nelson Mandela akekho ofana
naye”) to cher South Africans and anybody who exposes their misdeeds
should be hunted down and persecuted for decades like this writer is.
58. Even now, for the
Jacob Zumas, the Xhosa-speaking Templeton Temba Matanzimas and the probably
equally-Xhosa-speaking Snake in the 2014 SANDF grass, and and their
indispensable Mabalanes STILL
the meaning of putting a querulous soldier like Goodman Manyanya Phiri incommunicado hence the shutdown of my salary in July in
order to coerce me into coming over for the dastardly purpose.
59. Sishi and I presently
returned to our respective seats with me
rattled but not cowered. How could I get locked up incommunicado for saying
what what I know for a fact which is I never sold contraband in South Africa?
60. “Now, Terence.” He
started.
61. “Yes, Comrade.”
62. “You are coming from
6-months’ detention in Mozambique where Comrade Zuma found you behind bars for
crossing illegally into Mozambique, right?”
63. “Right!”
64. “And you said to the
Mozambicans you were looking for the ANC.”
65. “No, I was looking
for the PAC, but if the PAC was nowhere to be found in my immediate exile the
ANC was equally good since the two organizations in my view fought for the same
goals.”
66. “Do you know that the
PAC was founded through CIA connivance and to this day is still being funded
chiefly by the Americans?”
67. “I am not in a
position to answer you there. I guess
the same thing can be said about the ANC too, that it is a tool of this or that
other superpower. It is not for us
soldiers to sit and unalyze such propaganda.
Ours in my view is to serve the people of South Africa through those
organizations but not to serve the organizations per se.”
68. Then Sishi hit me
once again with one more of those banal qustions: “Who told you that the ANC,
unlike the PAC, was to be found in Mozambique?”
69. “I did not know that
the PAC was banned in Mozambique, if that is what you are telling me now by
implication. But the presence of ANC in Mozambique is common knowledge to
anybody who listens to radio. The ANC’s
own Radio Freedom broadcasts to the entire South African nation the fact,
especially after the Amatola Raid by the South African Air Force. So why shouldn’t I know things known even by
schoolchildren.”
70. “Terence, I think you
had better go for today coz I don’t think I’m am in a right mood to take the
impudence with which you respond to my questions.”
71. This interview was of
course condacted in Zulu, a language in which both Sishi and I were
proficient. And as I stepped out of The
Castle I remember feeling like a naked man garlanded several live eels fresh
from the waters just when I said goodbye to my sauna.
72. For that matter, as I
entered my tent shared with members of my section with whom we had all flown in
from Mozambique the question from every mouth was “Who?” “Who?” “Who?” “Who?”
and “Who debriefed you so you look this awful?
Wasn’t your friend Earl around to soften matters a bit then?”
73. “I am not aware if
Earl is a recording officer, too. But I was with Comrade Sishi”
74. “Yuck!” came the
response.
75. Ten years after that
conversation I[1]
was, coming from one of my regular broadcast recording on Radio Tanzania Dar
es-Salaam for the Voice of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania and its
Military Wing the Azanian People’s Liberatin Army, I was to overhear a
conversation led by one acquaintance of mine from Angola:
76. “…And so the mother,
fresh from South Africa visited him…the Boers have no problem these days
allowing our parents to come and see us.
It was great for the man to meet his mother again and hug her and the
other comrades joined in the merriment as well as in entertaining his old lady
until the following day when she was due for return home.
77. “However, the tragedy
started to unfold when the mother was about to leave on the following morning
and apparently somebody had apprised the mother of the dude’s doings in
particularly Angola.
78. “As he hugged him
again goodbye, she threw the cat among the pigeons with the question: ‘What is
this imbokodo
my child said to be your organization within the ANC organization? Whatever you do in that shit organization of
yours, please you don’t personally get yourself killing innocent souls of South
Africa and I am talking like your mother who knows the bad reputation imbokodo
has earned in KwaMashu, Emlazi, Emdantsane, Soweto, Mamelodi and whatever other
South African township as the slaughterhouse of our children in exile.’
79. “The mother had been
gone hardly 3 hours when a shot rang in his bedroom and when the comrades
rushed in check, they found him bleeding to death from a bullet wound in the
head.”
80. I could not hold my
curiosity: “Who?” I asked.
81. “Who?” “Who?” “Who?”
“Who?” everybody seemed to be saying that same word back to me, until a bosom
friend of mine I had also been to tertiary with on my 1992 Diploma Course in
journalism saved me from the misery and the mystery of that deja-vu
82. “We are talking about
one Sishi, here, my friend Mordecai King.
He tells us how and why Sishi committed suicide rather than face a slow
process of personal atonement for having listened to the dirty politicians in our
broad liberation movement who will use us to commit heinous crimes for them,
and crimes that stay on our conscience till the day we die unless we are brave
enough to recompense. You knew him,
Mordie?”
83. “He knew him all
right, Monde! First I did not know that
Terence Qwabe for the ANC is Mordecai King for the PAC. But…” he said standing up to hug me in
greeting. “Whatever you call Terence, he survived only by the skin of his teeth
from being Sishi statistic Angola in 1984!”
84.The repatriated Simon
Mabalane a.k.a. Earl AND HIS SISTER’S BASTARD OF A SON KNOWN AS ERIC MAGOMA
MABALANE
85. I had totally
forgotten about the person of the Earl I had met in Angola in 1984 until I hit
the military training area of Lohatla. I
was there for my All Arms Training a course in the SANDF done by Army Captain[2].
86. For that matter, even
though I knew a bit of the Mabalane history in general (other than from the
Eric and Simon branch) I do not even recall having known that the Earl I had
met in Angola several years before was a
Mabalane too, even though, he (having had access to my confidential records
must have known I was Phiri ‘and therefore chief to his Mabalane clan’ not the
Qwabe clan I was using for my nom de
guerre).
87. Here is how this
realization hit me home. The 35 or so
students on that course could of course not have been captains only. For starters, there was I whous was already a
lieutenant colonel even from day one I in 1998 integrated with the SANDF. (I
was there to fill up my lack of hard-core military training after a whopping 15
years lost in exile and back in South Africa because, among others, Oliver
Tambo [ANC 1983-1987 in Mozambique, Angola and Tanzania), Clarence Makwetu [circa
1992-1998 in Tanzania and South Africa], and Nelson Mandela [1994-1998 in South
Africa]) were clearly doing everything in their power to wish me away because
of this sole aberration I was in their eyes: a man who could stand for his own
cause even though he was no native Xhosa-speaker! I think I simply frightened these leaders too
much.
88. Even as I write this
I shudder to think I have no clue from the secular world what it is in me that
sends big people wishing I did not exist.
89. Like any other
pedagogical centre, military schools and their classes elect monitors or
committees to lead those students in order to facilitate communication between
students and instructors. However, the
Army brings a complication in that matter because of rank. The army would like to make officers under
instructions (students) a.k.a OUIs know that while they are students at at an
Army College, they are equal and devoid of ranks. This is in practice bunkum[3].
90. Now leading other
students while you are naturally also studying is no mean matter. Now I was on Day One fancied by the other
students to become their Student Committee leader and I tendered an apology in
advance because I wanted to concentrate on my military studies in which I knew
I was very weak having not been given the Tambo-ANC’ opportunity to go study
military in Russia, Germany or the many other countries; having been denied the
Makwetu-PAC to go for military science study in China, HERE BACK IN MY
MOTHERLAND SOUTH AFRICA WAS MY FIRST EVER SERIOUS CHANCE OF ACQUIRING MILIARY
SCIENCE IN PRACTICE AND I WAS NOT GOING TO LET POPULARITY STAKES HINDER MY WAY.
91. In any case, there
were many other senior officers with us there.
92. Examples a Lieutenant
Colonel Mkhentane (ex-APLA like myself hailing probably from Mdantsane in the
Eastern Cape why not pick him for your Course Chairman, Captains?)
93. Lieutenant Colonel Lanti
Mokgoatsane +27728957371 of Atteridgeville Pretoria, born Saturday,
29 September 1956 (How about him for your Course Chairman, Captians?).
94. There was even a full
colonel on that course an ex-APLA gentleman like myself who previously, if many
decades before, had been on one stage a bodyguard to exiled PAC Leader maverick
Comrade Potlako Leballo (and so Come on, Captains, there is a real ‘terrost’ if
you need one, but please leave Phiri out of the race.)
95. I succeeded to stay
off the leadership and the committee was well elected and started the onerous
task of establishing itself and flexing a modicum of authority.
96. But the ugliest of
things started to happen on that course, if for a reason I will never probably
to know. But what irked me was the fact
that classes were never respected, probably because the chief of that course
was, if I have my records correct, a Colonel Johannes Jacobus Steyn (Jaap)+27829275890
born Wednesday, 13 June 1956. Now Jaap
Steyn was a no-nonsense kind of a guy, the old-time soldier who took his
military service with pride and the earnest the calling deserves. Unfortunately it came to cost Jaap dearly in
later years in an SANDF politicized by Messrs Mandela, Mbeki and now Zuma who
apparently think that “being loyal to the government of the day” which is an
oath all of us soldiers have taken “means accepting anti constitutional
practices like corruption, fraud and racism within the ranks of this state
asset as practised by one too many relatives of Mandela’s or Mbeki’s or Zuma’s in uniform.”
97. On my last count Jaap
Steyn was demoted two ranks down to a Major. Stated reason and the reason for
which he was ‘successfully’ prosecuted
chiefly because financial strangulation was applied in the process pretty much
as in 2014 Jacob Zuma is prioritizing
the shutting down of my salary before telling what ‘crime’ I could have
committed afresh in the SANDF: it apparently was one of those crimes related to
behaviour unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman; and if my memory serves me
well, there was even a woman involved there.
98. However,
officer-to-officer conversation in the SANDF will reveal that Jaap was targeted
for his Spartan behaviour in uniform, mainly; and secondarily, as a
knowledgeable officer who also took his role as a respectful but fearless
advisor to his new General Officer Commanding the Lohatla School. How I wish I were that black brigadier
general (ex-APLA) who had recently taken over command of the Training
Camp! I would by now have learnt an
entire military encyclopaedia into my head and been a better officer by now by
lacing a bit of humble pie my more experience Spartan of a junior seemed to
contradict me.I mean, when your junior from the standing army seems to
contradict you…I do not care you come from what guerrilla Army APLA, MK,
Sendero Luminoso of South America or Lord’s Resistance Army of Uganda IT SIMPLY
THERE IS SOMETHING YOUR ARE NOT GETTING RIGHT FOR THE SOLE REASON THAT STANDING
ARMIES OPERATE IN A DIFFERENT WAY FROM GUERILLA ARMIES AND YOU CANNOT TAKE
GUERILLA ARMY ACTITIVITIES AS JACOB ZUMA IS TRYING IN 2014 WITH PHIRI SALARY
UNCEREMONIOUS SHUTDOWN AND APPLY THEM TO A STANDING ARMY JUST LIKE YOU WILL BE
OUT OF YOUR MIND TRYING TO RUN A GUERILLA FORCE VIA THE SCIENCE OF A STANDING
ARMY.
98.1.1.
99. So, what do you doif
you are ex-Guerilla Brigadier General of massive Lohatla which is one of the
best live ammunition training schools in the world? You get time, preferably non-office hours,
and haul your junior to some coffee bar or similar place and say to him or her:
Listen,Colonel, break that issue down for me more slowly than you did in the
last meeting. Where did your general go
wrong there, Colonel?
100.
Ninety-nine point nine percent he or she will tell you the hard
cold facts destined to improve you and improve the combat readiness of your
new-found unitary army, in this instance,the SANDF.
101.
But alas, these political appointees relatives of
Zuma-Mbeki-Mandela, have neither the acumen for thinking that way. Rather they will search and find the smallest
slipup you commit in order to charge you, get you out of the way and, after
shooting that messenger, they hope to live happily thereafter irrespective if
the SANDF combat capabilities sink or swim thereafter!
102.
103. HOW I MET LIFE
SHORTCUT SEEKER AND 2014 ZUMA WEAPON FOR PHIRI SALARY SHUTDOWN: BASTARD ERIC
MABALANE
104.
105.
I have digressed too much to continue on Jaap Steyn. Suffice it to
say that the Course Leader for own particular course for which I had been
cajoled for chairmanship, was another white gentleman, tall, lanky,
hard-working but a lot jollier than Jaap.
His name escapes me, but he was of lieutenant colonel rank about whom I
later was to hear so much of the grapevine he was emigrating to Australia which
got me wondering how does a member serving hiw own country emigrate to serve
another one. Maybe I should work hard to consult him and find
out how to do this legally now that Jacob Zuma has, even though most
unconstitutionally, fired me from his Army via the August-15 2014 salary
shutdown.
106.
I will nonetheless for ease of following this story about the
Mabalane family refer to that white officer as “The Australian”, therefore.
107.
The were some four or five other intructors who assisted The
Australian in instructing our course.
Even Jaap, the capo di tutti capi had a subject that he taught, too.
108.
Once when our course committee had been elected (The Chairmanship
had since gone to a white Major Kuun, if I remember well, and he came from the
same unit as I in Nelspruit where our General Officer Comanding had been one Mr
Derrick Mbuyiselo Mgwebi b. Friday, 28 December 1956 and a good man who,
unfortunately, because fo his Xhosa-speaking background, was to be dragged into
the Xhosa-speaking camp of self-professed Mandela-Cousin Brigadier General
Bobelo, in order to victimize me as still is most probably the case with this new
2014 round of salary-shutdown-victimization involving Jacob Zuma’s Mabalane or
two).
109.
Major Kuun did a sterling job as course chairman. But the problem never left him and his
committee. And here was the problem.
110.
Whereas Jaap Steyn a full colonel, never had problems instructing
the course.
111.
Whereas Lieutenant Colonel The Australian, too, never faced any
problem instructing the course, the rest of the instructor walked the gauntlet
of a daily 5 to 10 minutes after entry of lecture room with students chatting
with one another without considering if there was an instructor in front of
them. The lecture room was like a bar, and precious time was daily lost as the
poor white major (it was mostly the white instructor majors who were subjected
to this kind of treatment it was like they were not being seen). With black instructors it was a bit different
and better, probably because they are more experience in dealing with laissez
faeri side of us blacks, and on entry into lecture rooms the blacker
instructors had a lot more humour than the white insructors who tended to wear
dour faces. But we had not come all the
way from Cape Town, Nelspruit, Polokwane, Durban; come to expose ourselves to
the inclement weather of Lohatla only to watch one Eddie Griffin after another
making jokes or military science, had we?
112.
Now one of the best qualities of a military officer is leadership
and the initiative presupposed thereby.
113.
Here we were, I think for two weeks already after the course
election sub-merged in a beer-hall situation when we were supposed to be
probably the most disciplined class in the Republic army people, soldier, and
for that matter, OFFICERS. Here we had
the poor instructor major once again standing like a doll in front of us for
minutes unable to speak because of the student captains’s nonchalance and
comrade P.K Leballo’s bodyguard never
raised a finger as I would have expected from the most senior student by rank.
114.
Even whenever the bedlam had subsided, any task given, any
exercise instructed by the poor Major to get a principle cemented in the mind
of each student, would be met by a wholesale and very impudent public copying
of the material from one student at the back to the one to the front of the
class. The majors instruction that it all be individual task simply falling on
deaf ears. We are black captains. It is a new South Africa. And you white major shall not tell us how to
pass this course without our Ubuntu cooperation!
115.
I watched this canker and failed to fathom the silence of my
fellow senior officers in class with me.
116.
Of course, I could not blame my three to eight other lieutenant
colonels for not acting under those situations.
I had better blame myself, rather.
117.
Major Kuun was not blameworthy, either. He was only a major and as
I have already indicated, the assertion of being without rank when you are a
military student is simply pie in the sky and there is no way a major will
stand in a class where I am a student too only to shout me me down for making
noise. There is going to be chaos if
that happened.
118.
The third week of bedlam in class was halfway through when I
regretted my pre-course stance of not participating in the course because my
greatest fear of losing qualitative learning
time at Lohatla was now worse a reality than if I were course chairman If I were course chairman, I thought to
myself, I would have over and above my rank have had more galvanic power to
stop the decline of this course which if allowed down its slope would probably
have only 10 out of the 35 passing at the end of this course.
119.
If I stood up now and said: “Guys, cut the shit and concentrate!”
what leg would I be standing on? I wondered to myself. But before I could answer myself, I was on my
feet, my hand raised to the white major in front of us requesting to have a louder
say over the countless powwows in the lecture room.
120.
“Yes, Colonel?” the instructor major said, breaking his own
silence for the first time in the first 3 minutes of his entry into Lecture
Room.
121.
I walked forward and stood to the right of the major, facing the
course. The lectue room went as silent
as a grave as I began to speak.
122.
“I do not know about you, my fellow officers, but I came here to
learn. I have to tell yo this: I have a
very poor military background, and I am sure many of you captains and my fellow
officers under instructions will know more about the Army that Lieutenant
Colonel Phiri. For that matter some, if
not most of you, are going to pass this course even if you hear nothing from
this instructor here.
123.
“But guess what? Even thogh
I know next to nothing about military science as yet, save my basic military
training that I did in Tanzania, there must be a good reason why a joint Board
of SADF, APLA and Umkhonto WeSiZwe found me in 1998 fit to wear the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel.
124.
“And now, if any single one of you here is curious enough to find
out what the thing is that makes me tick for all seasoned senior SANDF officers
from those various and disparate armies YOU SHALL INDIVIDUALLY, EASILY BUT VERY
RUEFULLY, FIND OUT THE FACT IF YOU ONCE AGAIN MAKE NOISE WHILE AN INSTRUCTOR IS
STANDING IN FRONT OF US READY FOR THE DAY’S INSTRUCTION”.
125.
I do not know where those words came from; and writing this in
2014 I can’t remember what I would have done if another noise-making session
had happened again.
126.
All I know are the two facts that Firstly
126.1.
I never did that for the any reason I wanted to be this black
fellow who had desired to to toady up to the predominantly white establishment
of the Lohatla-based College the making of which today can (and should) to this
day not show me even one benefit that came my way as a result. Rather I did that out of principle and would
have done the same if I were a whiteman and the College establishment was black
while most of us students were white like me.
126.2.
The second thing I know for fact is: there was never ever again
any noise in that class for the rest of our schooling course. And when all of us passed and reportedly
passed very well, The Australian Course leader said for about three times in
his speech during our graduation that the stellar performance of our course
(where usually one to five students will fail for every course and be expected
to supplement etc.) “was thanks to the discipline of our course as initiated by
Lieutenant Colonel Goodman Manyanya Phiri.”
127.
I have lived my entire life filled with nothing but praises for
what I do among fellow men. And I am
hard put trying to remember a situation where a community vilified me for my
intervenions. It is so that whenever I
do good I never plan beforehand to reap kudos from it. I will put my shoulder agaist the wheel of a
stalled truck out sheer self-interest and the interest of my neighbours.
127.1.
Hence, as The Australian spoke, what counted for my mirth was the
fact that Officer Goodman Manyanya Phiri had succeeded in fighting for a class
environment where Goodman Manyanya Phiri could stand proud and say: “I have
earned my All Arms Course Certificate, never committed fraud in order to pass
it like too many of Zuma’s Mandelasque Xhosa tribalists succeed to do with
impunity to this day. Phiri passed
without any use of any theoretical Uncle
Thabo Mbeki, Cousin Jacob Zuma or Nelson Mandela or whomever else Senior
Politician to coerce the SANDF give me the certificate even where I could have
passed. I succeeded to do that for
myself and for the entirety of the class that passed without one failure.”
128.
After the course we naturallyreturned to our various units and I
find my reader asking: “but where is the Mabalane element to this story?”
129.
“Espera um momento!” as they would have said in the Portuguese spoken in the Mozambique and in
particular the Angola where I got my smattering of not only this one of many
Latin Languages (Portugues), but I met my first Mabalane set deep in the
current saga.
130. DISCIPLINARY MEMBER
FOR WHAT DISCIPLINARY INFRACTIONS?
131.
Two days of my haranguing of the class for making unnecessary and
disrespectful noice in front of the instructor and in many respects on behalf
of Course Chairperson Student Major Kuun, I was approached by Mr Kuun.
132.
“Colonel.” he pleaded. “I
have sat with my committee and we cogitated over your words in class the other
day. I must say we appreciated it very
much you were so bold; but it is going to be a drop in the ocean if we do not
coopt you into the committee.
133.
“Now, coopt me in what sense?
You are a Major Mr Kuun and I a lieutenant colonel. How is this going to work out on day-to-day
committee deliberations. Aren’t I going
to be accused of pulling rank every time I want to differ with view put forward
by my Chairman? This is indeed an
awkward situation, Major. I shoud have
agreed to be Course Chairman when you guys wanted me to but now we in this jam
partly due of my earlier stance.”
134.
Major Kuun responde: “No, Colonel.
You don’t have to fear such. For
that matter, there is no shortcoming of talent for my committee right now. All we require is that stentor of your voice
full of morality and authority respected also by the full colonel or two we
have with us in the course as students.
It was for me particularly noteworthy that neigher of them said a word
in opposition to what you said essentially breathing fire down the necks of all
of us, including the full colonels themselves.”
135.
“OK, Major. You can coopt
me… as what you said?”
136.
“Disciplinary Member: we will create that post even though it
currently does not exist and I will shortly announce to the course.”
137.
We parted ways with the major: he to his dormitory which he shared
with another white student. And I
remained in mine where I was on my own.
Told you so! Rank counts even if
you are a student under instruction!
138.
One other curios thing I find recounting these episondes that took
place some 12 to 14 years ago is that I do remember attending even one meetng
of that Committee, Probably because there was not one single incident calling
for disciplinary action againt any of the student.
139.
The onlyone that came closest to such was the incident of Student
Lieutenant Colonel Mkhentane who, over one weekend out with us succeeded to
nearly capsize his white Toyota Camry which reportedly ended up in a ditch.
140.
None of us his fellow students were in the car with him when that
happened. And there was no adverse
effect on the smooth continuance of lecture the following Monday. If anything, Course Leader The Australian had
great time naming some of the routes of Own Forces’Advance after words like
“Route Camry”, “Route Toyota” or “Route Boitshoko”.
141.
It was his car he had damaged.
142.
I was his free time when he damaged it.
143.
I was his money that he used to get it back on the road again.
144.
Such was the smoothness of that course and I am sure if any single
one of my former classmates read this, they would bear me out them that must as
of this writing be for the majority standing ranked senior Army officers as of
this writing.
145.
What they cannot vouchsafe
to is the how part of my leadership capabilities and today I am letting
the public into one of my my hitherto closely-guarded life secrets
146.
It is a godsend via one of my greatest bodily assets. And I want to explain this in detail because
my asset has been baffling me since forever, and half of the time a blessing
and the other time a bane.
147. WHAT AN AUDITORY
CUTIEPIE IN THE PHIRI WOLF!
148.
I first discovered this ‘blessing’ 23 years ago. I was thirty, strolling some one hundred or
two metres to my hotel room in theSwahili-speaking Ilala Dar es-Salaam when two
women seated outside spotted my approach and started an inane conversationi.
149.
“He is a cutiepie, isn’t he?” one said.
150.
The other woman disagreed: “Always too preoccupied... with his
threadlike writing…atakua kichaa huyu!”.
151.
She was pointing out the fact of my absorption with Sir Isaac
Pitman Shorthand as a sign that I was in her view, predestined for a lunatic
asylum.”
152.
They talked so loudly that I was convinced they
were coaxing my response, an occastion to which I rose when I arrived at the
porch.
153.
In the Kiswahili language I accosted the second participant in the
tête-à -tête and said: “Hey, Madwoman!” I said poking fun at the fact of what
she had said about me go crazy on Isaac Pitmans’s shorthand system.
154.
“Does any of your relatives equally afflicted even remotely
resemble me, huh?”
155.
And while she was dumbfounded for a response, I gunned for the
Cutiepie: “Nawe hapa Kipenzi umesema nani libwana haswaa? Basi njoo kwetu Afrika Kusini nitalipa mahali
yako yote kwa wazazi wako!” I accosted the Cutiepie first.
156.
Both women held their heads within both their palms in utter
shame. Just as well neither of them had,
unlike Mr Eric Mabalane or some white military students decades later in South
Africa would, said any thing evil.
157.
Like I would do for two people in their tete a tete some 50 to 150
metres away, I had heard every word they had said from that distance when they
said it!
158.
I never thought much of that incident until some seven years later
on my intake into the SANDF in 1998, the integration.
159.
“Now we are coming to your ears, Colonel Phiri. And all you do is press this button every
time you hear the beep sound, OK?”
160.
Quite OK, I responded.
161.
The machine firt smothered my eardrums with its beep sounds. Thirty seconds later the siren was degraded to the aforesaid beep
fit for consumption by a civilized human being.
162.
As instructed, I of course
kept on pressing every time I heard the beep; but presently the sounds
diminished but not without the lower lip of the technician descending
commensurately.
163.
Sergeant Major! I asked alarmed:
What Is Wrong?
164.
“You are having a fantastic hearing capability, Colonel Phiri.” He
said “Great asset for combat situations and Lots f congratulations I say!”
165. MY OWN HEARING
DESTINED TO KILL ME SLOWLY
166.
Naturally, it is always great news to hear you have some claim to
supernatural powers; it gives you some foolproof edge over your fellow human
beings?
167.
WRONG!
168.
I guess in this respect that the greatest disadvantage for this
gift will be when I lie dead in my coffin and later, my grave after my clinical
death,of course pending the many other deaths which who knows may occur another
whole year after the clinical one.
169.
For an example, I have heard from some authority that of the five
senses humans have, the sense of hearing is the last to cease functioning in
the sense that where normal people might for example be still registering
sounds in their brains five days after their death, Phri will probably need 10
more day, thus hearing every earthworm scratching my coffin for a piece of me
down there dammit and the footsteps of every tomb raider up on the
surface! And so maybe I should weigh the
pros and cons of cremation and once and for all hear the three (maybe five)
expected pop sounds in succession for my two eyes and one big one for my tummy
if I shall have escaped a disembowelment for my organs. Nasty phenomenon this death thing! Just like its cousin, Birth!
170.
But hear me tell you about the other bane direct from near-canine
hearing capabilities. It is because of
my surperior hearing capability that you are reading my blogs all because I in
2002 overheard three or four senior white officers coup against some black
course chairman in another course I attended, and incident I reported about and
thereby courted something like 13 false charges in retaliation for my
reportage.
171.
As my years advance I find it more and more impossible to sit at
public bars particularly in the black townships where they love their sound
volume better with a the boost. And if you want to make me angry, just stand a
street down from where I sit and write and converse with someone up the street
or whistle at each other across my ears!
172.
173. ERIC MABALANE FAILS
TO BELIEVE PHIRI A FORMER FREEDOM FIGHTER WITH COUSIN SIMON FOR COOPERATING
WITH WHITES POST-APARTHEID.
174.
Now to the much awaited Eric Mabalane element to this story.
175.
There is until this element one thing that I had never known: It is the fact that one or several captains were apparently
peeved no end by that memorable haranguing I had given the class at the
beginning.
176.
I was to discover that chief amongst them was one Army Captain Eric Mabalane (at some
stage with contact +27782138166) Mr Eric
Mabalane a.k.a.Magoma
(middlename). Magoma was born Thursday 21 January 1965. And here is how I came to know the fact.
177.
On the first or second day’s attendance for our All Arms Couse in
Lohatla, Northern Cape, were were given each, some 5 minutes to
self-introduce. And the first to do so
was Student the Full Colonel whereupon us lieutenant colonels followed to be in
turn followed by majors and the majority captains.
178.
During my presentation I mentioned among other things that I have
worked extensively with APLA, for some time also with Umkhonto Wesizwe (MK) of
the venerable ANC ruling party fo South Africa particularly in 1984 till 1987
abroad when I was in the midst of the likes of Comrades Simon Sekgokgo
Mabalane, Tshepo Welcome Cheela (born Tuesday 06 September 1960 and my Camp
Commissar at Viana Luanda Angola), Moreti Johannes Mojo Motau (Tuesday, 10
March 1953 (all SANDF men already then except Mabalane) as well as, among many
others, Jackie Malebo (T.E. Maleboborn Sunday, 26 August 1956) one of our
Dakawa camp coordinators in Tanzania where Motau too used to coordinate prior
to Malebo’s tenure.
179.
I must have blown my trumpet too loud for Eric Mabalane because,
the more days passed on especially after my cooption as disciplinary member,
the more I read an unmistakable frown of dislike every time I had occasin to
bump into the occasin for some mundane task or duty as my fellow officer under
instruction (OUI)
180.
Wrack my brain though I did, I could for several weeks not place
the frown. Nor could I confront him (for
obvious reasons) and ask “Captain, why do you seem to dislike everything about
me?” upon which he would be within his rights to respond: “I do not owe you any
constitutional or military duty to like you, Colonel Phiri”.
181.
However, hardly a fortnight passed after my last wrestle with the
conundrum when abracadabra and eureka I triumphed into the correct placing of that perpetual scowl on
Eric Mabalane’s face peculiar to his presences in the company of Manyanya
Phiri! .
182. SUDDENLY ORLANDO
PIRATES SCORED A FUNERAL FOR ERIC MABALANE
183.
Eric Mabalane did not know of this asset on my part. Nor had I too begun to appreciate its full potential when I walk
another one of my 100 metres or two towards this group of six captains arguing
over a point that at first was unclear when Eric, even though he could see me
approaching in Zulu clarified for all and sundry (including my self) to
hear: “You cannot be arguing that this
puppet of the Boers Phiri is right when he does that, can you? But the worst thing I hate about him is when
he claims to know my cousin Earl from the Angolan exile. When was this man ever
in exile, do you think? This colonel is
a charlatan and fraud of the Boers, I tell you.
For example, you tell me why he is so comfortable next to white people
when we are all of us still so distrustful of these people?”
184.
“You will never know a man’s hearing capabilities, Folks.” One of
them said prophetically. “So start
shutting up now and lets talk about more mundane things that will explain our
raised eyebrows? A funeral OK?”
185.
“No!” Protested the other captain in collaboration. “The goal that Chiefs scored against Pirates,
last nigh!
”
186.
“What a goal!” “I believe
it was the goal of the year!” “My uncle says to me over the phone there is no
goalkeeper today who could have stopped that goal. And even in the past it was only Pirates’
Patson Kamuzu Banda who could have done
so; and on a good day, Chief’s Banks Setlodi too.” “Banks Setlodi not of Moroka
Swallows, then?” “What do you know about
soccer to ask?”
187.
“How are you doing, My Captains?” I greeted as I passed the
coterie.
188.
“Eh.. eh.. eh fine fine fine, Colonel!” responded Captain Mabalane on behalf of all. I later on
that evening lay on my bed pondering that revelation.
189.
How did exactly was I rubbing Eric Mabalane the wrong way? Did Eric at his age think it was more proper
to have chaos at College where there was supposed to be quiet and imbibition of
knowledge? Or did I court and hug too
much limelight for my speaking the other day.
190.
As for my supposed over-relaxation in the midst of white people
and my fondness of speaking Afrikaans when I am with them aint this part and
parcel of my constitutional freedom of choice and association I fought
for. Is the growth of somebody Eric
Mabalane (somewhere there in Lucas Mangope’s Batswana Bantustan of Bophuthatswana
where not one white face lived for kilometres away) to be superimposed on my
growth at Lion’s Glen farm where at four I was a favourite at playing with all
other children including the farmer’s
boys’s like Byron Jacob and his younger brother while their grandmother, a
kilometre away from our Phiri home, never stopped lionizing and entertaining me
at their house. Surely, if white skins
will bite black skins, my parents would have warned me there and then to stay
clear of the Jacobs.
191.
My parents did not. I did
it myself out fear.
192.
Fear not of the white people themselves.
193.
It is the goose and their ganders who, with my height, threatened
to gulp me down eyeball by eyeball. They
are the only creatures I have in my entire infancy feared more than I feared
the dogs the Jacobs kept. Otherwise,
even during the thick of the Apartheid system that I and many other South
Africans hated I do not have even one single case where a group of white people
out of their racial supremacy belief targeted me for my anti-apartheid stance
that I at high school or during my teaching years never hid. I remember being persecuted by neithr white
group nor a black group in South Africa as I must have indicated somewhere in
my writing that the first time I experience even tribalism existed in South
Africa was during my exile in the camps run among others by Eric Mabalane
cousin, the Earl I am today finding out it considered a crime to Eric if I said
I knew the bloke.
194.
It is the first time, and I believe also the last with the Zumas
hounding me for decades and persecuting me for exposing Mandelasque Xhosa
tribalism in South Africa’s Army. Is
their source of political power then lying solely on that brand of theirs for
Apartheid? If not, why are they hounding
me with their Mabalanes day and night?
195.
From that day on then, Eric Mabalane kept his vendetta against
Phiri alive, unbeknown to him that I was fully aware thereof. And here is how I knew he was never letting
up talking about me.
196.
I never allowed that night of pondering leave me motionless over a
captain two ranks lower than mine. I
would not be left transfixed even if he were a major general as I will never
brook malicious gossip when it comes to my ear.
197.
So the following morning, I singled out one of the captains who
had been in the mudsling discussion aganst me.
He was Xhosa-speaking…and as a rule I tend to get along very well with
Xhosa-speakers at any work environment unless they be generals and colonels who
have got their high positions through the ongoing Mandelasque Xhosa
tribalism. Once again, I make no apology
for disliking these Zuma lowlifes in high positions as Generals of Zuma SANDF
just because of the gratitude of the Zuma who himself was a lowlife when he
left Robben Island to be made by Mandela and Tambo Chief Intelligence officer
of the ANC only to murder in exile even his fellow Zulus who were, like most
people who like writer love the ANC too much to shut up as Zuma ‘lowlifers’ in
senior government positions are killing with corruption from Nkandla to the
National Defence Force.
198.
Of course Jacob Zuma is no ‘lowlifer’. He is the President of the ANC and the
lowlifes who did upgrades in a corrupt way for his Nkandla homestead were neverordered by him. Schabir Shaik was never
order by Zuma to pop candy into his open and insantiable mouth in corrupt
ways. And the K.K. girls (Khuzwayo and
Khoza) he had illicit sex with around Johannesburg are the ones who in a sense
raped Zuma by dangling their vaginas too close to the man. And so, let us leave Jacob Zuma in the SANDF corruption
Mandelasque Xhosa black racism raging on and reducing the national asset into
another African rag-tag army.
199. ERIC MABALANE THE
MANDELASQUE XHOSA TRIBALIST
199.1.
I was careful here not to confide in one Mabalane fellow-Tswana
speaker as it would be tempting my luck to do so.
199.2.
“Mfondini!” I brought in IxiXhosa the attention of one of those
captains to me.
199.3.
“Colonel!”. he responded, saluting with boot hitting the Lohatla
crimson ground ferrous dust flew.
199.4.
“You are overdoing the salute, Mfondini Captain; and I can always
tell an affected move, you know? At ease
then!”
199.5.
He stood at ease and grinned widely, shaking his head in chuckles
as he did so.
199.6.
I smiled back at him. And
the rapport was firmer than the iron under the ground of Lohatla.
199.7.
“Kha undixelele, Mfondini: yintoni le kade ithethwa nguMagoma
Mabalane ngam kuni apha izolo?”
199.8.
Taking him that way to the coteries anti-Phiri indaba made him
laugh even some more. It was the most
genuine chuckle I had ever heard.
Powerful too.
199.9.
I discovered I was levitating from it. And while I was still amazed, my centre of
gravity lost to his laughter, a powerful
hand grabbed grabbed my wrist pulled me towards the westward shadow of
that morning.
199.10.
Smile wiped off, the round face of the stocky captain took on a
more serious look about, but not serious enough to erode his charmingly chubby
looks which succeeded to confine the seriousness to the knot between his
eyebrows.
199.11.
“For a long time I had wished, Colonel” he responded in his native
IsiXhosa. “To talk to you about how you are being perceived by most of us captains
principally due to the things that Magoma Mabalane tells us about you.
199.12.
“Most of the captains believe him because he talks from
authority. But I do not believe his
stories about you because I know him personally better than I know you to be
able to judge your motives in all your utterances and actions, Colonel”
199.13.
“I guess I know already what the captain goes about saying about
me” I said.
199.14.
“Do you?”
199.15.
“Yep! Heard everything yesterday as he was lecturing you,
Guys” I said.
199.16.
“Uzakuva njani kade ungekho apha kuthi sithetha ngawe? Hayi
kalokhu!” marvelled the captain over my avowed distant-hearing capabilities.
199.17.
“What I had wanted from you is a confirmation of my suspicions
that very many of your captains will take of what Magoma says about me as the
drivel that it is. And I am glad you
served my inquiry well”
199.18.
“Colonel, there are things that you must know though, and I am
sure you do not know them”
199.19.
“Such as?”
199.20.
“What is your mothers maiden name?
and if you must choose identity between that of your mother and that of
your father where would you go?”
199.21.
“Obviously my fathers. He
is the one who asked for my mothers hand in marriage. He is the one who paid the bride price. He was the sole breadwinner for my home ever
since I was born till I reached majority.
And this is how our culture holds it.
What a question, Captain!”
199.22.
What if your father was a playboy who never married your mother
and you were as a result brought up by your mother and her people? The Captain me further.
199.23.
“No doubt again!” I said.
“I will be my mother’s people’s child complete with my mother’s surname
and I will not care about him when I am an adult too and he a jaded oldman.”
199.24.
“That is the ideal, Colonel. It is the ideal. I am an embodiment of those ideals,
particularly because my mother was no ihenyukazi.”
199.25.
“Wench?” I said shocked.
“That is a strong word even in IsiXhosa, Captain”
199.26.
“Yes!” said the Captain stretching to bring his mouth closer to
the ear I was giving him with tilted head.
199.27.
“Captain Magoma’s mother was a wench, Magoma has grown to know the
fact too. He is bitter about that fact
and in our midst as Xhosa-speakers he does not hide the fact that his
biological father was a Xhosa-speaking friend of Nelson Mandela’s and he feels
more accepted among us Xhosas than his fellow-Tswanas.
199.28.
“I respect his feelings and his choices but I do not like when he
goes about breaking your image for no cause, Colonel Phiri coz all you are
seemingly doing is is to smoothen the course for all os us as without
discipline too many of us are bound to fail this course .
199.29.
“So I am saying if there is anything you can learn from a captain
today: STOP ASSUMING THE ETHNICITY OF A MAN FROM HEARING HIS SURNAME AND US
XHOSAS HAVE THE MOST VERSATILE SURNAMES IN SOUTH AFRICA SO THAT THERE IS NO
EUROPEAN SURNAME WE DO NOT FIELD, NOR ZULU, NOR PEDI, NO TSWANA AND NOW WELCOME
TO A MABALANE XHOSA.”
199.30.
“Captain, we are late for class.” I said coming out of the stupor
the short uniformed men had subdued me with.
199.31.
“I am marching to class now with the Committee’s Disciplinary
member to my right and a whole lieutenant colonel nothing will touch us, Masiye
and let’ go!”
200.
From that day I understood how, Eric Magoma Mabalane’s maternal
uncle, Simon, was such a highly-prized counter-intelligence member for
Xhosa-speaking leaders of the exiled ANC and their minions like Jacob
Zuma. Orders straight from Robben Island
with a Mandela missing a concubine or friend’s concubine, to be more precise!
200.1.
“Now, Colonel: I never told you this or else my fellow Xhosas will
kill me. But “
201. Eric Mabalane and Day One of his Post-Lohatla SCANDALIZATIONOF
PHIRI
202.
When I went to the South African Army College where I was joined
by self-professed Mandela-and-Matanzima-Cousin Brigadier General Winnie
Ntombizodwa Bobelo only to ultimately inveigle with her College Sweetheart
Lentsoe and many others, the first tell-tale signs of Eric Mabalane’s vendetta
was when once again the course approached me informally to ask whether I was
prepared to stand for election as their course chairman when the time for such
election came.
203.
I was unsure. I wa hoping
that the reason for my my subsequent regrets for my refusal at the previous
course (of captains like Eric Mabalane who were anyway junior officers) were no
more valid seeng that Junior Command and Staff Duties Course I was in right now
for which I was once more coaxed for leadership was stuff for majors who are
the first rung of senior army officers in the SANDF.
204. PHIRI AND THE FOOL’S
PARADISE WHERE THE FOOLS NEVER GROW
205.
Surely, if I stood for no election, no chaos even remotely resembling
Lohatla could erupt even if the course could elect donkeys to lead the mature
senior officers we all of us were. And
so, for the same previous reasons of wanting to spend most of my tieme studyng
rather than committee palavering, I had decided to stay namby pamby about my
choices of standing or not standing for that election. I guess my attitude was: let me first get a
good look at this group and decide whether they will for their seniority
promise to act like real senior or they will revert to the actions of the
dolorous immaturity in the juniority of captains’course in Lohatla.
206.
Eric Mabalane , who was still a captain when I went to Pretoria
Thabatswane for my (JCSD) course in 2001, was naturally not there with us. But his telepathetic presence was felt when
during the thick of campaigns..it was in fact a one-man campaign for one Major
Matli who hailed from the favoured Xhosa-speaking province of Eastern Cape who
was being campaigned for.one day I drove into the College..I was driving in
from home for day’s learning when two male major approached me again: “Can we
campaign for you, Colonel? We think you
can make a good Course Chairman for us, far better than the Major Matli who is
making inroads he is going to be the Chairman ultimately unless challenged by
one as you.”
207.
“Felow Officers.” I said.
“Though allowed, and perhaps encourage by the College, the idea of campaigning for chairperson of the Committee
does not sit well with my conscience.
This is the Army, and if you are fit for a position then you are fit
because of your know-how in leadership of the Army and not because of your
campaingn skills.”
208.
“That is exactly why we came to you,Colonel, because we have seen
signs of pure politics in this campaign by the Matli group and even though you
are not campaigning, they on their side see you as campaigning because your
name is on the lips of every second major’s mouth for that position. And I, as
an ANC member and former MK soldier am here to tell you the things said about
you in those corridors are not felicitous at all.”
209.
“Like…?” I asked, interest piqued.
210.
“You are supposed to be a yesman to white people and that is why
you should never be allwed to lead this course.” misconstruance
211.
“Didn’t know I have to be a naysayer to everything white people
say, either. And if that is what they
think of me..I know my comes from a misconstrual for my leadership role in a
previous course at Lohatla where I worked in harmony with everybody including
the whites. But if for them a true
coexistence between black and white is one of eyeball to eyeball
confrontation,maybe they do deserve their Major Matli for a course chairman and
let’s see where it will take them. I
will stand for election to witn all right but please don’t go into any
campaigning for me. I is just well below
me to campaingn, for that matter against a major. Anything else they say, in the corridors, my
majors?”
212.
The white guy found his voice: “Ker..Ker..Colonel! Whah whah what
disturbed me were-words like ‘Th…th.. th…aht PAC ker..hah..nel Phiri can..ker..hennot
be allowed to lead a course like this under an ANC guv..government.’”
213.
“Ah!” the black major filled him up. “I heard that one too. It is like people must have seniority just on
the basis of being members of the ruling party.
What happens tomorrow if a different political party wins SouthAfrica’s
elections? Must all the generals who got promoted by the ANC lose their
positions?”
214.
Election day came our three names were proposed (Matli, Phiri and
a white student whose name escapes me. Major Matli beat Lieutenant Colonel
Phiri by about 10 votes).
215.
A motion was put to the house according to our vote we be be for
Secretary (Phiri) and I think Diciplinary member (the white officer).
216.
I declined to serve for two reasons: the kind of false gossips and
poor politicking o so misplaced in the Army used in the campaing to boost
Matli’s chances at my expense.
217.
Secondly I was not going to be speaking my mind in that committee,
for if I did, once again, I would be accused of pulling rank as Matli’s senior,
the colonel getting even by rank from the loss he lost against the Course
Chairman the Major.
218.
I nonetheless pledged to support the Committeee as an ordinary
student and I did even though I found whatever advice I gave to Major Matli
over the year fell on deaf ears as he moved from one political speech pro-one
political party in South Africa to the
next speech all of which, mixed with the sleaze and sex for promotions those
who had campaigned for Matli involved themselves in, let to the ignoble racial
explosion that made South African national headlines only hush-hushed by the 13 false charges
fabricated against me now as contained in my other blog.
219.
Eric Mabalane had won that Day One of his Post-Lohatla Campaing
against Phiri
220. Eric Mabalane’s Day
Two of his Post-Lohatla Campainng Against Phiri
221.
Then there was a second sign that Eric Mabalane had never forgiven
me for what I said or had stood for during our course together back at Lohatla.
222.
This is how it unfolded: When around Year 2005 his cousin Earl
Simon Sekgokgo Mabalane flew back from America to integrate with the SANDF, I
found myself occupying on the second floor of our Headquarters office, an
office adjacent to his.
223.
Accident? Design?
224.
I did not know. I did not
care. I was just happy to rekindle our
buddy-buddy relationship started in Angola some 20 years before.
225.
Rekindled too, were the warning I had heard those many years
before in Angola about Earl:.“You are a man of many controversies, Colonel
Phiri, what with the Court case intitiated against you at the South African
Army College during your JCSD.” went one warning initially.
226.
“Stay out of Colonel Mabalane if you know what’s good for you for
we see you chauffeuring him around in your own Toyota Corolla, chauffeuring
even his mother in law and even his children like Danielle whenever they want
to do shopping seeing that Colonel Mabalane has no car. He is fresh from America where he escaped
when we had wanted to kill him for his pro-Xhosa-tribalism activities once when
you were already gone from the ANC back to your PAC in the late 1980s and early
1990s.
227.
228.
This man is bad news, Phiri,
we tell you!”
229.
For previously-mentioned reasons, I did not listen to their
advice.
230.
Besids,there were far too many things I like about Mr Simon
Mabalane than those I hated, inclusive of his squealing habits, which I never
doubted. I will towards the tailend of
this part, say some more abot my pros found in Simon Mabalane.
231.
Now I believe by now as reader you will not doubt any of my
statements suggesting that I have as black friends as white ones, and that skin
colour does not even a bit determine my chances for selecting one as a friend
or otherwise.
232.
I am not colour blind as some observerers have dubbed me; rather I
am largely colour blasé! I do admit,
though, that there is a great element of selectiveness even in my state of
disinterestedness about people’s cultural identies.
233.
If I find a group of five Swazi-speakers huddled in one corner and
anothr five of Xhosa-speaker in another.
I will join the Xhosa-speakers for the purpose of a greater of learning
something new. There is very little my
mother’s people can in comparison teach me
234.
If I find a group of five Sotho, Tswana, Pedi-speakers huddled in
one corner and anothr five of Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele and Swazi-speakers in
another. I will join the Sotho
grouping. There is just too little my
mother’s fellow Ngunis can teach me.
235.
Five whites win the day for me over my fellow five blacks.
236.
Five women will eat the cake for me, while my fellow man eat
humble pie.
237.
Five Chinese make better sense for me than five fellow South
Africans and I guess the day ET come visit the planent if I will still be alive,
I will prefer their company to Homo Sapiens.
238.
239. SIMON MABALANE
PATRONIZES MANYANYA PHIRI
240.
Anybody who has studied my character even in the most casual of
ways will tell you that my attitude towards other races or ethnic groups is
never affected; it is like when I dislike an attitude by a member of any
particular group, I NEVER BEAT ABOUT THE BUSH OVER MY OWN FEELINGS.
241.
Now before I proceed any further I need to put you up to speed how
well-travelled Simon Mabalane is. Over
and bove the Americas he has been to
Asia, in particular Russia and its erstwhile USSR.
242.
I believe there is about no country in Europe he has not been
to. I is my belief that among his stints
for the ANC he has also been bodyguard for Mr Oliver Reginald Tambo, erstwhile
President of the ANC, with all the globe-trotting attendant with shadowing a
diplomat of Tambo’s stature.
243.
One thing I am trying to drive home here is: Simon Mabalane can
never be accused of harbouring any hangovers over white people at this stage of
his life.
244.
He has lived with them whites abroad and even speaks fluent
Russian, for my unaccustomed ears.
245.
So, I immediately saw the
propaganda working of his cousin Eric when on one occasion of me
introducing introducing him to one of my
white friends when the rest of that day revealed a streak totally out of place for his
character and experience with peoples of the world.
246.
“Phiri.” he asked me as I drove him back to his place. “How did you start to befriend a whitey in
the first place? Don’t you know that the
only whiteman worthy for your trust is a dead one?”
247.
I smiled and drove on but sought the best response to make him see
I knew he was coming from the corner of his Eric Mabalane’s I said: “You know,
Colonel. I am an intelligence officer
like you. Don’t you know that supping
with the devil is considered a strength rather than a weakness? Or you are
telling me when you were in Russia you never befriended even one whiteman?”
248.
Simon kept his silence thereafter.
249. MABALANE SHOWS HIS
AGE-OLD IMBOKODO HAND ONLY NOW MISPLACED IN DEMOCRAIC SOUTH AFRICA
251.
These were people who were applying for a job in the Pretoria
based Correctional Services point which, too, not surprisingly is chockfull of
Zuma’s Mandela people WHO ONLY GOT IN BECAUSE OF NO OTHER REASON EXCEPT BEING
MANDELA PEOPLE!
252.
I confided in Simon Mabalane about the CVs which were now piled on
my office table, complee with ID photocopies and residential addresses of the
poor people all the way from Cape Town to Polokwane, Durban to Port Nolloth
with the DEAFENING ABSESENCE OF APPLICANTS WHO CAME FROM THE FAMOUS MECCA OF
JACOB ZUMA KNOWN AS MANDELA’S EASTERN CAPE HOME PROVINCE.
253.
The following morning my imbokodo-Zuma-ANC-1987-intelligence-hoodlum
confidante of Phiri’s was nowhere to be
found at work during Roll Call!
254.
He had in fact taken a day off in order to leave Army Headquarters
for Defence Intelligence Headquarters on Madiba/Vermeulen street to go report
his anti-Phiri scoop over the CVs.
255.
The fact hit home when at around 10 he behind dark James Bond
glasses and under a black leather jacket sauntered into my office trailed by
two toughies similarly dressed.
256.
I stood up from my desk as form of salute to my military senior,
but he as usual, cordially insisted me
to be relaxed in his presence.
257.
He then said most extraordinarily: “Phiri, here they are at last”
258.
“Did I invite these gentlemen?” I aked. “Hello, Sirs!” I said stretching my arm which
they each gingerly held. “Do we know one
another?” I asked the two pairs of dark glasses”
259.
Presently Simon Mabalane said: “I don’t think you will know them
Phiri because they are underground, but they are here for those CVs. You know of course that if those CVs hit the
mass media it’s bad news for it will
paint the Xhosa-speaking Mbeki government as suppressing non-Xhosas from
government employ as all ethnic groups of South Africa are represented in those
CVs, except Xhosa-speakers.”
260.
“I know.” I replied feeling like breaking his face with one good
blow of my hand. “But why didn’t yu tell me yesterday that
those CVs were of interest to you?
261.
I would have saved them from the shredding machine for your
friends to have. But please don’t use
the word to me again of underground people.
Just say Counter-Intelligence officer is sounds more professional even
though I miss the point why CVs of of civilians scattered in the streets should
be of importance to Army Couner Inelligence officers. Or is it my possession of them that makes it
a sudden Army concern?”
262.
None responded.
263.
“Anyway, ” I said. If you are really desirous of seeing what kind
of stuff it was we can drive back to the streets and I bet you will find scores
more others.
264.
We hopped into the car and drove up Patriot Street towards the direction
of the road where I had seen far more CVs still lying around.
265.
Along the way, Simon Mabalane poked fun at my Phiri surname in
order to obviously please and entertain his friends and show he was “in
command”. I was not impressed at all
when he said I must be a real Phiri=Wolf if I had the capability of sniffing
out from my office CVs lyng miles away.
266.
Even as we arrived at the main site where those CVs still lay
scattered along the street, the three men who were in civilian dress just sat
in the car while I, in full military uniform had to walk all along the street
picking the papers for them.
267.
I know for a fact that some of those hoodlums he was with could
not have been of anry rank higher than Major.
I have got a feeling it was a captain and his lieutenant. They should have come out of the car and
picked the papers they desired themselves.
268.
They would have looked better than I did in uniform squatting all along the road in order to haul
this or that bundle of paperwork to take
to their car.
269.
Even they could not finish the paper that were lyng n the
street. When they were satisfied what
they had got, they drove me back to my unit lines and went their way with their
precious Simon Mabalane.
270.
Ordinarily I was supposed to distance Simon Mabalane from that day
on. But strangely I did not. There was something about him tht made me
feel he was vulnerable, did what he did squealing on such nonsense as he had,
out of dispair rather than discipline.
271.
Simon was not inclined to doing military courses, I sensed, and
even as I write this do doubt if there is any course he did since my effective
suspension around 20-12.
272.
He was a man who seemed contented with what rank he had; also a
man who believed he could one day be promoted to Brigadier General by means
only of currying favour with politicians like Mr Jacob Zuma.
273.
It was also like indeed he had been given the task of keeping an
eye over me; but he was implementing the task with great reluctance.
274.
For the most I pitied him more than I was seething for him.
275.
The pity also thickened whenever he was commanded to perform this
or that task a walk in the park for any other colonel who had been to at least
4 courses prior to his rank attainment.
276.
Sometimes I felt like his senior gave him those mundane task in
order to humiliate him and show ‘his total lack of staff-work understanding’.
277.
You do not abandon a one on
mere account that that he came the previous day to demand CVs.
278.
And so my camaraderie with Mabalane resumed in earnest even
though, I almost forgot, the whiteman of whom Simon had said tome he is best
befriended dead did return a favour too. “That friend of yours, Phiri, that
Colonel Mabalane is bad news. One can
see it from his eyes; and one wonders how you get to be friends with such a
man.”
279.
Well, one of the things that make Simon Mabalane tick forme is his
status as family man. We knew each other’s families so well that on my second
marriage I invited him to be the bestman.
280.
On his part, he introduced me to his better half, a senior airforce officer; to his mother-in-law, a
Zuluwoman who apparently hails from Emgazini in KwaZuu Natal, a particular area
of KZN famed for origins of the Ntshangase clan.
281.
Needless to say, I also got acquainted with his two beautiful
daughters, Danielle and Sandra.
282.
It is on that score that Simon and I parted ways when I left
around 2011 for suspension. No hard
feeling to write about, even though we
clearly stood for different agendas in terms of our worldview for the SANDF.
283.
There will be one thing
though that I would like Simon Mabalane to ponder as he with God’s Grace I sow
wish him moves on to greet Year 2015 n the company of his daugheters Danielle
and Sandra.
284.
“How does it feel to enjoy Christamas and New Year’s day with your
children, otherwise completely resident with their mothers, while Lieutenant
Colonel Goodman Manyanya Phiri,a father of a daughter as much beloved to her
father as Sandra and Danielle has had to be given off for adoption because
single-parent Phiri’s salary has been shut down because of the doing of Eric
Mabalane in July, or the doings of Eric Mabalane in collaboration with Eric’s
uncle, who is Simon Mabalane?”
285.
Or am I too imaginative to think that Eric Mabalane did not walk
alone to some SANDF Snake in the grass to seek his own quick promotion to
becoming brigadier general at the expense of Phiri, but did in fact first
report to Cousin Simon, who, too much used to reporting Phiri for even
nonsensical CVs in the street so even greater opportunity for raising the
Mabalane name at my expense and as such went with Eric to corroborate whatever
fiction Eric reported first to Simon in the month of July?
[1] Nom de plume was Mordecai King
[2] I must stress the point once again that neither is Lohatla a state
scecret to state in writing; nor is it a secret that Captian cannot be promoted
to Major rank in the Army prior to doing All Arms Course.
[3] You will hear the same nonsense when you are going to face a senior
military judge ranked a colonel when they tell you it does not matter if you
defence counsel is a major or a colonel as officers of Court are durng Court
session treated as equal. Just see one
blog post where I was represented by a colonel in Court and get your own feel
if a major iin the same position would have challenged with the same vigour the
travesty of justice Thabo Mbeki and his second in command had initiated against
me as a coverup of Nelson Mandela Cousin Bobelo-Zini’s fornication for
promotion in theArmy College.