Johannesburg – It seems implausible: one family falling victim to three horrifying, separate crimes – all on the same day. 

Trevor O’Callaghan, from Randburg, still can’t believe that his son, Joshua, was nearly killed last Friday, March 23, and he is desperate to track down the driver of a dark grey Mercedes-Benz that left the 11-year-old child for dead in the middle of the N12.

“We are not victims. We were attacked three times, but all I can say right now is how grateful I am. I am grateful my son is alive, grateful my father-in-law is alive and grateful me and my wife were not shot,” said the father.

Joshua and his grandfather, Leigh Acar, went fishing on Friday morning at a lake in Benoni. He was staying at his grandparents while his parents attended a wedding in Cape Town.

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The city of Paris on Monday made anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela an honorary citizen but refused to grant an honour to Venezuela’s late leftist firebrand leader Hugo Chavez.

Mandela was “an emblematic and historic human rights figure,” deputy mayor Pierre Schapira said in a speech to a meeting of the city council that bestowed the title on the Nobel peace prize winner.

But the council refused a request from communist councillors for a place in Paris to be named after Chavez.

Schapira noted that the mayor of the Venezuelan capital Caracas had been stripped of any real power because he was an opponent of Chavez, who died earlier this month.

He said poverty had declined and access to education improved in the Latin American state under Chavez but that it was too early to agree on his legacy. – Sapa-AFP     

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For the Serole family a huge weight has been lifted after they managed to bury their father with dignity last Thursday.

Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti, and acting provincial Premier Nono Maloyi attended Simon Maruping Serole’s reburial and memorial wall unveiling. Serole was a victim of farm evictions and after his death he was buried on the side of the road next to Lilliespan Farm near Coligny.

Addressing community members at Baitshoki Sports Grounds, Nkwinti said: “Land is an emotive issue. It can make people fight, even families among themselves, but as the government we have committed ourselves to implement this process of land reform within the Constitution. The land was taken through war but we are taking it back through law.”

The government was in the process of establishing a land management commission to track all the illegal evictions of farm workers, Nkwinti said.

Serole was a farm worker employed at the farm Lilliespan who embarked on a labour strike in 1999 demanding better working conditions.

He sustained back injuries during the confrontations and died a few weeks later after he was discharged from hospital.

The farm owner allegedly denied Serole’s family permission to bury him on the farm, indicating that he no longer wanted them on the farm.

The family, together with other farm workers, approached the then department of land affairs to help them oppose an application for an interdict by the farmer.

Albert Serole, the eldest son of the deceased, recalled the time when his father was still alive: “We were working together in the farm. We were very close. We were like friends and our family was very happy.

“After my father’s death, my mom started getting sick and she died in 2002. Our family wasn’t the same anymore.”

He said he was happy that the department had brought dignity back in their family.

The department acquired a 20ha farm, Buffelsdoorn, in the Dr Kenneth Kaunda district and Tlokwe local municipalities, for the 20 evicted households to resettle. This was in August 2000.

The department also assisted the community to establish the Baitshoki Communal Property Association, a legal entity responsible for the administration and management of land on behalf of the community.

Provincial MEC for agriculture and rural development Desbo Mohono said Serole’s case highlighted the difficult conditions of communities living and working on farms.

The case has had implications on the amendments to existing legislation such as the Extension of Security of Tenure Act, 62 of 1997 in relation to the provision on burial rights.

The political star of outgoing ANC provincial treasurer and deputy legislature speaker Philemon Mapulane continues to shine following his election to the party’s highest decision making body last year.

Together with two other party officials in the province – Pinki Moloi and Pinky Mokoto – Mapulane was elected to the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) at the Mangaung conference last year. The three are now set to relinquish their posts and concentrate on their national duties. Moloi is the Dr Kenneth Kaunda municipality mayor and Mokoto is a Ngaka Modiri Molema municipality councillor.

Provincial ANC spokesperson Kenny Morolong said the provincial executive committee (PEC) had already accepted the three officials’ resignations.

Morolong said: “The PEC accepted with humility the resignation of the three members from the PEC as they are going to serve as NEC members.

“The PEC wishes to extend its appreciation to comrades Philly Mapulane, Pinky Mokoto and Pinki Moloi for their distinguished leadership and unparalleled dedication to organisational work during their service in the PEC and wish them well in their responsibilities in the NEC.”

Morolong also said the names of three party members – Ntombi Koloti, Suzan Tsebe and Fenny Motladiile – were brought forward as possible replacements for the three officials.

“These replacements are subject to ratification of the provincial general council whose date will be decided at the next PEC meeting. The PEC will also, at the said meeting, appoint an acting provincial treasurer in consultation with the NEC,” he said.

Mapulane’s political future seemed to have hit a snag after he was fired as municipal manager at the Madibeng local municipality in 2010 and was slapped with charges of gross misconduct, bribery and corruption.

However, he was not convicted on any of the charges and managed to reinvent his political game when he was elected ANC provincial treasurer at a conference held in Rustenburg in 2011.

Last year, Mapulane was sworn in as the provincial legislature deputy speaker, a position he currently holds.

His rise to the NEC paints a picture of someone who has defied the odds and could be destined for bigger political responsibilities in the future.

Oupa Matla, a senior member of the ANC, said the party would have to find replacements for Mapulane and the two others in areas they were deployed.

Meanwhile, Kenny Morolong has been appointed as deputy chairperson of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA).

However, Matla said the appointment would not affect Morolong’s PEC responsibilities in any way.

“He will remain the provincial ANC spokesperson while serving in the NYDA board but it’s a positive development to our profile as a province,” he said.

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Pretoria – The death of 13 South African soldiers in fighting against rebels in the Central African Republic (CAR) is Pretoria’s worst military setback since the end of apartheid and puts a dent in any ambitions it has of becoming a continental superpower.

To a post-apartheid public not used to the sight of body bags returning from foreign military theatres, President Jacob Zuma’s confirmation on Monday of a bloody nine-hour firefight in an impoverished but mineral-rich country 3 500km away came as a shock.

“Homeward bound – in coffins,” the late edition of The Star newspaper said in a front-page headline.

A sombre Zuma paid tribute to the troops, saying the 200-strong force held off 1 000 “bandits” attacking a base near Bangui, the coup-prone former French colony’s capital, which fell hours later to the rebel advance.

He said the setback would not get in the way of regional political and diplomatic aspirations of Africa’s biggest economy which, since the end of white rule in 1994, has been a standard bearer for democracy and the rule of law.

“The actions of these bandits will not deter us from our responsibility of working for peace and stability in Africa and of supporting the prevention of the military overthrow of constitutionally elected governments,” he said.

The debacle has sparked intense criticism of South African policy in its own backyard.

The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) called for a full inquiry into what it said was a “highly questionable deployment” of 200 troops into a de facto civil war without the support of helicopter gunships or military transport aircraft.

More scathing was the attack from within the military’s own ranks, questioning Zuma’s support for now-ousted CAR leader Francois Bozize, a veteran military strongman who served as a general in the 1977-79 “Empire” of dictator Jean-Bedel Bokassa.

Bozize seized power in a 2003 coup before winning an election two years later, and signing a deal in 2007 with then-president Thabo Mbeki to have 20-odd South African trainers overhaul the CAR military in Bangui.

SANDU, the military’s union, said Zuma should never have gone to Bozize’s aid by beefing up the deployment in January, especially after he was accused of ignoring a peace deal signed with the rebels.

“The Bozize regime is notorious for its corruption, nepotism and maladministration,” SANDU said in a statement.

“His dishonouring of that agreement should have been the green light for the withdrawal of our troops from that country. South Africa had no further business being in a country governed by a crooked dictator.”

For Zuma, the timing could not have been worse as he dusted off the red carpet for a summit of leaders of the BRICS group of major emerging economies, including a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping on his first overseas trip as head of state.

“This is tremendously damaging for South Africa and the reputation of what was perceived as one of the major military powers in Africa,” said Alex Vines, an analyst at the Chatham House think-tank in London.

“You are dealing with a South Africa at the moment that doesn’t have a clear strategic vision of what it’s doing other than being a member of BRICS, which is a lazy way of papering over a lack of strategic thinking at all sorts of other levels.”

The episode has underscored Pretoria’s lack of diplomatic savvy and the risks inherent in acting unilaterally, as well as rubbing in the humiliation of the army’s one other post-apartheid intervention when it ended up with a bloody nose in 1998 at the hands of the armed forces of tiny Lesotho.

“They did not at all understand they were backing the wrong horse. They did not consult with the region,” said Thierry Vircoulon, a Central Africa researcher at the International Crisis Group.

“The policy of doing it alone ended up in the disaster this weekend.”

South Africa’s three other African deployments are with a United Nations force in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with the UN in Sudan’s Darfur and an anti-piracy operation off the Mozambique coast.

Zuma has also held talks with Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos about the possibility of staffing a regional peacekeeping force in eastern DRC to back a peace deal signed last month.

The CAR debacle – and scepticism about the reasons for sending troops to a country so far away – has ensured any deeper involvement in the DRC will come only with cast-iron objectives rather than fuzzy notions of promoting regional stability.

“If you asked me to guess the real reason, the deployment in the CAR was really a result of some misplaced policy to export South Africa’s ‘government of national unity’ model,” said David Maynier, defence spokesperson for the opposition DA.

“It has completely failed.” – Reuters