‘Cheerleader for war crimes’ was not an angel of mercy
Your puff piece on Samantha Power left a bad taste. I can only come to the conclusion that you know very little about this warmonger .
She points a finger at Russia, Syria and Iran, the usual US suspects, and their acts of barbarism against civilians. Apparently this “creeps her out”.
What clearly does not “creep her out” are the barbaric acts of the US and its lapdogs in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc.
Power was always a willing cheerleader for these war crimes euphemistically referred to as “regime change”. Some angel of mercy.
Brian van der Vijver, Cape Town
Give us liquor in restaurants
The case led by the Cape Town-based Chefs Warehouse restaurants is credible and I agree 100% with it. I’m therefore advocating for liquor to be sold at restaurants, with quotas being implemented, for example a maximum of three 340ml bottles of beer per patron so that alcohol quaffers do not see a loophole to turn restaurants into sin bins.
I can’t stomach restaurant food with soft or hot drinks. The people who come up with these fascist liquor laws have most likely got fully stocked home bars and then dictate to the rest of the population.
Luyanda Marlon Kama, Port Elizabeth
NPA dashes hopes of quick arrests
So the National Prosecuting Authority needs 600 more prosecutors to take care of the workload. Could this not have been anticipated sooner? Or has it been caught flat-footed, not having realised the immensity of criminality that has brought this country to its knees?
Whatever the answer, it’s an admission that bringing wrongdoers to book is going to take an age. By next March, when the Zondo commission calls it a day, there will be a ton or more cases to address, exacerbating the problem and extending the delay. The hope of quick arrests has been dashed. Again.
Cliff Buchler, George
Makana maelstrom
You’ve brought South African journalism to a new low by publishing the ANC defence of Makana municipality, authored by Jeff Peires, “A small-city time bomb with a big legal agenda” (June 28). Peires worked as an assistant for the Makana administrator, Pam Yako, during her tenure from October 2014 to July 2015, so he knows full well the reason she left after nine months. He claims she “was pushed out prematurely … by the same kind of people who are now howling for another administrator”.
Peires attended the same meetings as I did, where Yako made it clear that she had other business interests. She had to be persuaded by civic society to stay in office longer than six months. At no time did she mention that she was being pushed away by civic society, though she had an ongoing fight with the Makana council, which did its best to make her feel unwelcome.
The article is tainted and grossly unreliable. The big story is that, having accepted all the failures of service delivery as accurate and factual, Makana and the Eastern Cape government are still trying to block the high court judgment. If they were “here for the people” then surely they could spend the time and resources being wasted on litigation to benefit the beleaguered community in Makana.
I think you missed the story that all sectors of our community coming together, whatever their political persuasion, is a democratic success story, and not, as
Peires claims, an opportunistic conspiracy. Tim Bull, Makhanda (Grahamstown)
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Put Sanral in charge of all roads
Peter Bruce, in “Our road diverges up ahead and Cyril must choose” (July 5), says: “Ramaphosa’s best hope may lie in the infrastructure programme he has in his pocket.” Such a programme will of necessity include roads, often regarded as the most effective catalyst for development after education.
I would like to give the president some advice, based on six decades of involvement in road infrastructure development during my career, including being deputy director-general of the department of transport from 1989 to 1998.
While national roads administered by the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) are world class, as rated by the
South African Institution of Civil Engineering in its scorecard on our infrastructure, provincial roads, with a couple of exceptions, are rated “not fit for the purpose they are intended to serve”.
The provincial road authorities have for some time been woefully poor in their performance. My advice to the president is that if he wishes effective and efficient implementation of his roads programme, he should delegate overall control of the task to Sanral, and not involve the provincial authorities.
Malcolm Mitchell, Hillcrest
Fixing the Middle East
In “Chief justice, the first lesson Israel can learn from SA is moral clarity” (June 28), is Ziyad Motala denying our chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng the right to freedom of religion? He cites Israel’s support for bantustans. I met Yasser Arafat in July 1997. He said: “The two-state solution will never work.” When I asked why, he replied that “a Palestine in Gaza and the West Bank will be like SA’s failed bantustans”.
I agree with Motala that Israel has a duty not to support bantustans; neither in Israel nor SA. Gazans need to vote on rejoining Egypt, as before 1967. West Bank Arabs need to vote on joining TransJordan, as planned in 1921.
Gerald Levin, Rouxville