A must read scathing attack on red Ronnie by Peter Fabricius in the Pretoria News: Rebel without a game plan
Fabricius relates how Kasrils has always trumpeted his personal revolution above his party's lines, almost fearing that peaceful negotiations would snatch his revolution away from him.
This resulted in the needless death of 28 demonstrators in Bisho in 1992 when Kasrils led an unnessecary protest march against the government of an "independent Ciskei". Negotiations had already been underway for 30 months and these "independent homelands were bound to disappear eventually".
Here's an excerpt from the column
The ANC government supports a negotiated two-state solution to the conflict to create independent Israel and Palestine states living peacefully side by side. Kasrils, though, prefers the one-state option, with Israel forgoing its current status as a Jewish-majority state by submitting to a Palestinian majority. It's a perfectly respectable position to hold, of course, and in many ways more logical than a two-state solution. But it is also eminently impractical given the regional sentiments. And, more to the point, it's not the official line, either internationally or in South Africa. But as Bisho demonstrated, Kasrils does not care too much for the official line and is always looking for a hole in it to charge through, his splintered lance to the fore. The other day he wrote an article in the Mail and Guardian in which he suggested that Israel should no longer be recognised, called the state "baby killers'' and added that "those using methods reminiscent of the Nazis (should) be told that they are behaving like Nazis". This week, the Ceasefire Campaign, the Centre for Policy Studies and a few other NGOs held a seminar to discuss the Middle East and invited Kasrils to be the key speaker. The invitation to the seminar included the quotes above from Kasrils's article. Jewish groups complained to the Goethe Institute and the institute's Nikolai Petersen agreed that likening Israel's actions in Lebanon to Nazi Germany's systematic extermination of Jews was insensitive and simply wrong. Kasrils purported to be writing and speaking in his personal capacity. But a cabinet minister simply cannot speak in his personal capacity on a policy matter of such importance. He is confusing the government's message on the Middle East, and, as this week's events suggested, hindering relations not only with Israel, but possibly with another important country, Germany. |
Comments