Translated from French for the Saker blog by Y

In South Africa, on April 27, 1994, 25 years ago, the first multiracial elections were held. Thanks to them, the hell of apartheid was going to be forgotten and heaven on earth was going to happen, since fountains of non-racial democracy were going to flow milk and honey. Hallelujah!

Twenty-five years later, the illusions were dispelled and the country sank:
– Official unemployment rate, 27.7% (unofficial rate 40%).
– Unemployment of young people aged 15 to 34, 38.8% according to the official rate.
– GDP growth in free fall: 3.5% in 2011; 2.6% in 2012; 1.9% in 2013; 0.6% in 2016; 1.3% in 2017 and 0.8% in 2018, whereas it would take 7% for several decades to simply stabilize poverty.
– Economy entered a technical recession since 2018.
– Income of the poorest part of the black population almost 50% lower than before 1994.
– One in three people surviving on food stamps, the Social Grant.
– With the exception of agriculture, a branch still controlled by whites, all the South African economic sectors are in decline or bankruptcy, starting with the labor industries (textiles, clothing, footwear), which could not resist Chinese imports. As for the mechanical sectors in which, before 1994, South Africa produced most of the parts it needed, they are moribund. The mines have sunk. Due to production losses and rising operating costs, many secondary wells have closed, resulting in the layoff of tens of thousands of miners. Maintaining production would have required a huge investment, but the social climate, corruption and insecurity discouraged investors who preferred to shift their activities to less uncertain countries.
– The mining industry is penalized by repeated power cuts because the public company Eskom, literally plundered by its new leaders appointed by the ANC lived on the legacy left by the white regime without making the necessary investments. As a result, mines, which now account for 10% of South Africa’s GDP, employ 8% of the country’s labor force and are the country’s largest employer with 500,000 direct jobs, have lost more than 300,000 jobs since 1994.
– Crime makes South Africa one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
– The once exceptional medical network has disappeared.

In the face of this disaster, let us look back. In 1994, when, after lying to his people, President De Klerk brought to power a Nelson Mandela who was absolutely unable to conquer it by arms, he bequeathed to the ANC [African National Congress] the first economy of the continent, a country with communications and transport infrastructure on par with developed countries, a modern and prosperous financial sector, broad energy independence, a diversified industry, high-level technical capabilities and the first African army.

Free from “racial oppression”, the “new South Africa” was immediately prey to the ANC predatory party, whose incompetent and corrupt cadres had as their main objective their own enrichment. Cartoon of the corrupt, President Zuma was ousted by a coup d’état internal to the ANC and this brought to power Vice-President Cyril Ramaphosa. On this occasion, the media world sang it as usual: rid of the «mafioso» Zuma replaced by the «virtuous» Ramaphosa, South Africa would be able to reconnect with Nelson Mandela’s legacy.

Now, as I said at the time, apart from the fact that a Venda was going to replace a Zulu, this palace revolution was not going to change anything in the country. From Jacob Zuma, linked to the Gupta Indian gang, succeeded former trade unionist Cyril Ramaphosa, who had betrayed his fellow miners by selling himself to the white employers. In fact, it was on the boards of the mining companies on which he was appointed to counter the demands of the miners whom he had represented before 1994 that he built his colossal fortune!!
Taken between the pressures of the pro-Western business circles of which he was the creature, and those of the heavy radical-racial tendencies that constitute the business of the ANC and the supporters of Julius Malema, the new president was quickly paralyzed. And, of course, he used the usual joker of the desperate ANC politicians, namely the denunciation of the scapegoat represented by the white farmer.

25 years after the first multiracial elections, and as Julius Malema rightly said: “The only thing that has changed in South Africa is that a white government has been replaced by a black government.”
With a difference however: before 1994 blacks were not starving, they were healed and educated for free, electricity was working, water shortages were unknown and the policemen were doing their job.

But all this is a thing of the past because between 1994 and 2019, the ANC, the Nelson Mandela’s movement, led South Africa to disaster. According to the World Bank, and despite achieving ¼ of the entire continent’s GDP, the country has now become one of the five “worst performing” countries in Africa, just ahead of Comoros, Madagascar, Sudan and Swaziland…

In 25 years of power, the ANC has therefore ruined a prosperous country, transforming it into a “third world” state, drifting into a sea of shortages, corruption, social misery and violence.

source : http://bernardlugan.blogspot.com/2019/04/27-avril-1994-le-debut-du-naufrage-de.html