Out of Africa III

Africa plans largest game park

Plans to create the world's largest game park are being finalised at a meeting in Botswana in southern Africa.

The planned conservation area will straddle the borders of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It will include the unique Okovango swamps, Chobe game reserve, the spectacular Victoria fall, Kariba dam and the wild Mana Pools. Some of Southern Africa's greatest wildlife areas.

The proposed Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Park will become a premier tourist destination.

This is not the first transfrontier park in southern Africa. The first was the the 35,000-square-kilometre Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park on the borders of Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Remarkable vision was shown in creating this as there were too animals on the South African side in the extremely well managed Kruger National Park and a decimated game area on the Mocambique side. However fences were taken down and the indiginous Mocambique population were encouraged to reap the benefit of tourism and stop hunting with AK - 47's.

The other is the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park between the Kalahari Gemsbok Park in South Africa and the adjacent kalahari desert in Botswana.

The future of wild life and tourism in southern Africa is looking very good. With current game relocation skills, the vast areas that are being set aside for game movement and the buy in by the indiginous populations and the financial benefits they will see, these parks are a winner.

Out of Africa II

The annual African National Congress meeting is taking place at Gallagher Estate outside Johannesburg. There are several issues of interest.

Firstly is the thorny subject of succession. Current South African President and leader of the ANC, Thabo Mbeki, is constitutionally bound to step down as President at the end of this election cycle.

His erstwhile deputy, Jacob Zuma, is positioning himself to stand for President. Recently Zuma has been acquitted on a messy rape charge and is currently being investigated on charges of accepting a bribe. Zuma is a populist choice but is a huge threat to business as he supports the idea of nationalisation of banks, mining, etc.

Mbeki and his supporters have made suggestions of the need to alter the constitution so that he can stand for a third term.

Of more interest is the second issue. Currently the ANC govern with a huge majority. This is because it is a tripartite alliance between them, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). At the ANC meeting, the SACP representatives have been suggesting that it is time to go on their own as many of their policies are ignored by the government, whilst the ANC (Mbeki) have said that they, the ANC, are not a Communist party and will continue pursuing a capitalist agenda.

This is all happening against the background of a large, prolonged and messy Public Service strike for increased wages which has all but paralysed government.

The tripartite alliance is on shaky ground.

Democratic governments are really as good as there opposition allows them to be. For any government to remain unchallenged is the foundation for for poor governance, corruption and plain old incompetence. Strengthening opposition to a sitting government will keep them honest.

There is a pre-existing example of this in South Africa. During PW Botha's reign, when he wanted to start change, the Afrikaans community became divided between the 'verligtes' (enlightened) and the 'verkramptes' (narrow minded), and this eventually lead to weakening of the National Party Government as a separate Afrikaans party was formed, the Herstigte Nationaal Party. This marked the beginning of the end of Apartheid.

Out of Africa I

In a speech to the Financial Times in London South African Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu has warned that the gap between rich and poor in South Africa is widening.

He said “most (people) are languishing in the wilderness,” criticising the slow pace of wealth redistribution since the end of apartheid in the country in 1994.

It is not the first time Tutu has spoken out against South Africa’s economic policies, arguing that that had enriched only the few, and not the many. Many of the ruling ANC upper eschelon have accumulated wealth beyond belief in the 13 years that they have had the opportunity to dip into the public purse.

This is against a background of suspicion that very senior ANC politicians accepted bribes from British arms dealer BAE estimated at approximately ₤150 million.

Earlier this year Tutu also criticised the South African government for failing to back a UN resolution condemning human rights abuses in Burma, and in 2004 suggested the ruling African National Congress party was stifling internal dissent.