Friday, December 30, 2016

New Year - another chance for us to make it right

It is the last day of 2016.  I look back on it and realize that it was not all bad.  I have been to hell and back a couple of times this year with health challenges.  There were highlights – things I achieved that others would have thought impossible.  I brought a drug into the country (legally) to treat me and that was no small feat with our red tape and the “manyana” attitude.   In between I wrote a book and caused a few upheavals on FB.  I loved a lot.  A lot of people disappointed me.  Others surprised me with their kindness.  I am in a reflective mood – wondering what this next year has in store for me.  I would like to do something for the prison situation, the abandoned buildings and the rats, the homeless and the displaced people … I would like to make the people more aware of rare diseases.  I want to fly a kite and drive an 18 wheeler.   I want an online shop for all the art and crafts I do in bed so that I can pay for my own medication the medical aid rejects. I want to become a better friend, one who spreads cheer around – and I want to live (but not like this).  I want to see an immunologist…there is not one in South Africa.  I want a better chance at living a quality life.  I want to continue to fight for those who have no voice.  I want to be play a role in the international woman’s movement called #IBaredMyChest where women are taught to be Bold, Brave and Ballsy.  I just want to live a full life … one where I can take care of myself and I am not so dependent on others for the simple things like making my bed or helping me shower and dress.  I want a lot of things for next year, but mostly, I want to live a worthwhile life.  What are your dreams or ambitions for next year? 

Friday, October 21, 2016

Why I cannot ask for Help even when I need it

Our table had a lot more than this picture
We were a large family of 5 children before my parents got divorced.  My baby sister, Gizelle, was only 4 years old.  I was 10 years older than her.  We were a staunch Roman Catholic family and went to Mass every Sunday, confession every Saturday afternoon and Catechism lessons on Friday afternoons.   One day, when I was about 13 years old, we asked our father to please buy us an icecream at the Lounge Tearoom (the only place open on a Sunday) before going home.  To our amazement, he drove to the Lounge Tearoom and told us to come inside with him.  My mom stayed in the vehicle.  He ordered two 10 litre tubs of icecream and asked each one of us what sweets we would like.  We each chose a sweet and then he went to where the sweets were and took another 11 packets, making them 12 packets for each child.  We were deliriously happy.  These kinds of things just did not happen in our family. Then he filled his arms full of biscuits and baked jam tarts and paid for it all.  You can’t imagine the excitement in that van;  children at the back with all this food, and mother in front.  

When we got home, he put all the icecream and sweets on the dining room table and gave us each a spoon and plate.  There was no place at our table to fit another thing on it.  It was a layer of sweets and buckets of icecream.  And then … he turned.  “You will not leave this table until every single thing has been eaten, and you will also eat your lunch.  I want to see if you ever ask for sweets and icecream again”.  Can you imagine the pile of sweet food that we had to consume before lunch – giving us 40 minutes to eat it all?  We started eating, and eating, getting more satiated as the minutes went by.  He was standing there watching us. What a cynical sadistic look he had on his face.  “Hurry up, eat – you have 30 minutes left”.  What a sad and sick way to treat children who were not used to abundance in anything, let alone in sweets and icecream.  But this satisfied the devil within him and he did not fight or beat my mom that day.  We were all sick and vomiting for the rest of the day, while my father laughed, telling us not to ask for things because you never would know what you were going to get.   Maybe this the reason why I ask for nothing from anyone now that I am old and actually needing help? 

When it is Safe to Sleep

Front:  Gizelle, behind mom (Joyce), me and Yolanda
It is instinctive to want to rationalize disaster or suffering and put them into a framework so that we can cope emotionally.  This may seem like a silly thing, but I can’t go to sleep unless there is perfect silence around me.  This became even more of a profound and troubling situation once I got married, because he could not sleep without the TV going.  I spoke about it, asked about moving the TV, I begged and I got nowhere until the day I just moved out the bedroom and into one of my own where I could have quiet and could sleep.
This started in my childhood.  Pubs closed at 11pm in those days.  My father would come home when the pubs were closed either alone or with some of his drinking pals, mostly the police from the mobile unit.  He would make my mom get up and rustle up food for everyone at midnight, but I knew then it was safe to sleep because there were strangers in the house.  He would be too tired by the time they left to exert the devil within him.   If he came home alone, I would like awake until there was silence in the home.   I listened to all the fights and was vigilant because I thought that if it got out of hand, I could always run down the stairs to save my mother.   I had four younger siblings, the youngest was 10 years younger than I was.  I would have the youngest in my bed and the smaller ones in my bedroom and in the second bedroom which was upstairs.   When they would wake up from the noise of the fighting downstairs, I would tiptoe to their beds and bring them quietly to me, whispering to them to be quiet and trying to comfort them.
One night something bad happened.  I was, as usual, lying awake, waiting for my parents to go to sleep.  The fighting started and it escalated to a physical beating.  I heard my mom scream, “Do that again and I will kill you”, with more noise of bashing and beating. 
My father was screaming, “Tonight I will fucking kill you, you bitch”.
 I jumped out my bed so fast and flew down the stairs.  My father was standing looking at me while my mother sat crumpled up in a chair crying. 
“If you want to listen to us fight, you may as well watch us.  Go and fetch your sisters and bring them down here”, he said.   My brother had a room outside so he was not in this mess with us.
I fetched my sisters, they were awake and crying…and brought them downstairs into the lounge.
“You can now watch us fight”, my father thundered and with that he lifted his hand and beat my mom so hard across her head that the chair she was sitting on toppled over and she was on the ground.   I ran to her, but he pulled me roughly back, all the while screaming “You want to interfere; now you are part of the fight”. 
My memory is a bit hazy after that but the sadistic bastard made us all stand in a row, my mom included, while he went to fetch his camera.  We were all crying and in shock, but he took his photographs of our misery.  When he was finished, he sent us to bed.  At least this time we did not have to strip and have photographs taken of us in the nude.  I still lay awake listening, straining my ears for the slightest sound.  I was sure that that was the night he would finally kill her.   The photograph pinned to this blog is one of the photos taken that night. Look at my little sister's face.  I don’t recall where my sister, Joy, was that night.   He truly was a street angel and a home devil.   

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Where I got my "fuck you" Attitude

I learned to speak Xhosa before I learned English.  I was the fifth generation born and brought up in the Transkei.  Since it became self-governing in 1963 we did not really have apartheid issues.  The first hiding I got was from the headman (Nthabonzima) for throwing stones at cars.  My earliest memory is of waking up one night and looking for my mother.  I found her in the lounge in the dark with a rifle pointed out the window and she told me to be quiet.  The fear was tangible.  The Poqo were on a murder rampage and petrol bombs were the weapon of choice. 
At the end of Standard 8, not knowing a single word of Afrikaans, my father decided the best punishment to knock me into line and make me a good South African was to put me into an Afrikaans medium school for Standard 9 and 10.  I remember him saying that I would never make it.  Right there in the new principal’s office, where I had been taken - I thought, "Fuck you - I will show you".  That gave me my fuck you attitude which I still have.  After the first 3 months I refused to speak any other language to my father but Afrikaans.  Then he had the problem.  I went deaf to any other language. 
In 1976 I woke up to find that I was an alien in my own land and had to apply for a residence permit to live in the land where generations of my family had lived.  Thank you very much NP!!  And then I got arrested three times.  Once for dope, once for transporting indigenous plants over the border and once for contravening the sea fisheries act twice.  Well, a girl has to do what a girl has to do.  My name was crossing a lot of cops’ desks in the Transkei. 

I was shocked when in 1978 I came to SA for the first time and saw whites’ only signs.  I was even more shocked for being arrested with my two young children for being on a black's only beach.  I was indignant - not because blacks were not allowed in certain places, but that I was not allowed in certain places because I was white. 
I joined the black sash - was part of their information chain but found them to be too  nansy-pantsy for my liking.  So I went down to the banned ANC offices, paid my R12 and became a member and asked what they needed and wanted.  Much more exciting - could out ride the security cops with no problem.  I suppose that is when my name crossed the desks of the police in South Africa.  
Next bit of activism was finding a school for my son because he was dyslexic and the waiting period for the correct school was two years.  I staged a sit-in at the Department of Education and refused to leave until they had put my son in the right school.  They called the cops who took me away.  Next I got other parents to help and we staged a sit-down on the road, blocking all traffic to the school 
Then it was fighting the school system and I led the Education without Fear in Port Elizabeth - but only after I had hit a school principal for beating my young son.  I went to lay a charge against him before he could get his breath back.  
No husband, no money and two children and only an Afrikaans matric!!  I held down two jobs to put the roof over our heads and got my BA in psychology in 3 years and in the top 10 in the country.  The Honours degree came after that and then I became a professional student in my spare time.  I found I did not know enough about anything.  
I was shattered that the ANC was not what they promised to be.  They did not give a damn about the constitution and we were in shit with unemployment, rising crime and people dying like flies from AIDS.  Since my kids no longer needed a 'mommy' and I had enough money, a home and everything that opened and closed (by the sweat of my brow) - I decided that I would not be a whining white bemoaning the state of our country, but I would do something about it.  The only thing I could do was become an AIDS activist.  I found the place with the highest AIDS rate and the highest unemployment and where there were no resources or NGO's - Middelburg, EC and went there to help.  I stayed in Lusaka, the oldest township in the country at the time so that I could feel what it was like to live under those conditions before I could help.  I ended up spending the next 10 years taking care of 76 children and selling my home to keep them.  They were abandoned, neglected, sick orphans.    The very government departments that were supposed to protect the children - the cops and the social development did not give a damn so I took them on.  Twice I got court orders against the Social Development for contravening the children's act - but that made me unpopular.  I also got evidence of police corruption which I passed along ... then I was deep in the shit. I had too much evidence ... so I got raided by the Scorpions on 6 December 2006.  They returned everything on 17 December 2008, including all the broken computers.  I was never charged.  Death threats aplenty ... Amnesty International pulled me out of SA because the risk analysis was serious that I was going to be killed. Hahaha, here I am still.  While in the UK, got sick, read a book about Eugene de Kock in Dec 2008 and thought - fuck this, now I am going to choose my fights.  And I chose Eugene de Kock after doing as much research as I could.  A good fight to fight!  I also continued speaking internationally and raising funds to keep the children's homes going.    Before I got ill, I was doing a bit of save the trees stuff and chained myself to a beautiful tree that had birds nesting in it.  The council called the cops (they don't carry guns) and they asked me nicely to leave so that the council could cut the tree down.  But what the hell for ... the tree was beautiful and they wanted to cement the place and put an artificial fountain in its place.  I lost that fight because the council cut the tree down at night. 

I have to always have a purpose bigger than myself to give my life meaning - EdK gave me reason to fight for my own life. I am still extremely concerned about him.   I have another two fights on my hands with prisoners:  Heinrich van Rooyen and Garath Riutherford.(Please read up on them.  These are two men who are innocent of their crimes and are in prison because of police corruption.  Perhaps you may have an idea I have not thought of).    I just don’t have time to die properly because there is still the enormous problem of rats in our country.   My activist work is lot slower and less frenzied.  If you can help me with any of my “fights”, please contact me. 

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Don’t blame it on the whites – blame it on apartheid. Those “pale intruders” also lost their human rights.

Transkei
 Under the Bantu Authorities Act of 1951, the Transkei became, in 1959, the first region to be established as a Territorial Authority; and in 1963 it became the first Bantustan to be granted 'self-government'.  I was 7 years old. Kaiser Matanzima supported the apartheid concept of separate development.  He was Chief of the AmaHala clan and should have been subject to the rule of the Paramount Chief of the Tembu, Sabata Dalindyebo.  The Paramount Chief opposed separate development. Matanzima entered the Transkei Territorial Authority (known as the Bunga) in 1955.  To bypass the authority of Dalindyebo, the apartheid government appointed him Regional Chief of Emigrant Tembuland in 1958, and in 1966 consolidated the position by making him Paramount Chief of the Emigrant Tembu, thus making him Dalindyebo's equal.  The people were not happy and the PAC started agitating to eliminate the apartheid regime within the Transkei. 
My first memories are those of waking up in the middle of the night to look for my mother, only to find her sitting quietly at the front window, with a rifle in her hands.  “Sssssh”, she said to me.  “Go back to bed”.  Little did I realize at the age of 4, that life and death was outside our windows and doors.  Petrol bombs were the weapon of choice and therefore we had burglar proofing made of thick but small holed wire on the outside of our windows so that any petrol bombs thrown would bounce off the windows.  Our doors were covered in sheet metal for the same reason.  The Pan African Congress’s armed wing, Poqo were on the warpath, killing anything that supported the apartheid regime which meant, whites and Matanzima’s advisors.  They succeeded in killing one of Matanzima's advisors in October 1962. They also killed Tembu Chief Gwebindala Mabuza in October and Chief Mageza Dalasile in December.  Numerous whites were also killed  and the small towns where whites lived where protected by men of the Commando’s patrolling the outskirts of the towns.  My father was never home at night – he would be on patrol.  It was a frightening time to live through.
Matanzima ran a brutal regime, and using the infamous Proclamation R400, neutralized all opposition through bannings and detentions. The Transkei became independent in April 1976.  White people woke up one day in April to find that they were now foreigners in the land of their birth and the birth of countless generations.  We had to get permits to remain, permits to work and we had to have passports so that we could travel.  Not everyone was lucky enough to obtain these permits – many were just collected by the army and police and driven to the border and dropped off their just in the clothing they wore.  Businesses and homes were ex-appropriated and people were paid out a minimal sum for what they owned.  These businesses were then handed over to a black individual, leaving the white with no option but to trek out of the Transkei to survive.  I have not heard one pale native scream “give us back our land”. 
Matanzima maintained power with the help of Pretoria and legislation modelled on the Apartheid system.  Suddenly we found that we were no longer ‘one’ but we whites were the ‘other’.  Travelling anywhere through a Transkeian border post became a nightmare.  We were treated with contempt and disrespect, and if there was a seat in your car that was open, one or other of the border guards would get in and demand a lift to wherever you were going.  That came to a halt when we started putting empty boxes onto seats that were not being used.  There is nothing more frightening than road blocks and border posts where police and border police brandished AK47’s while rolling drunk.  One wrong move, one wrong word could have ignited a shootout.

Corruption in the homeland drastically depleted its funds and in 1980 the South African state assumed control over the homeland's budget.  Between 1978 and 1980 South African grants amounted to approximately R573-million. Also in 1980 most of the members of the opposition DPP were arrested, and some were banned. Dalindyebo fled and went into exile in Zambia, where he forged links with the ANC. He died in 1986.  General Bantu Holomisa mounted a bloodless coup in January 1988. Holomisa ruled as chairperson of the Military Council.  He unbanned the UDF and other anti-apartheid organisations and in 1994, the Transkei became part of South Africa again.   For many of us pale natives, South Africa is not our home.  Our home is the Transkei but there is nothing left of what we had other than overgrown cemeteries in small towns and trading stores. And everything that does not work, or needs attention – it is always the white person’s fault.  The unruly people of our land cannot understand the simplicity of the situation.  You can’t blame things on the whites – if you going to put any blame anywhere, put it on the system that was in place more than 20 years ago.  And we pale natives will put the blame for today’s disastrous government right where it should be – on the SACP/ANC alliance. 

Thursday, October 13, 2016

How Corruption between Policemen and Scorpions ruined my life

My Children

(Written by Investigative journalist Jack London for Noseweek, March 2007. All writing between brackets is mine)
Dianne Lang, known with affection as “Mamma Dee” in the townships around a small Karoo town for her work with abandoned and “at risk” children, has fled the country, following a blitzkrieg of raids by the Scorpions investigating the alleged misappropriation of more than R1m of donor funds from her award-winning project.  Before she took off for London on 6 February, Dianne, who has not been charged, claimed that the elite crime-busting unit was set on her by a police inspector in the Great Karoo town of Middelburg – after she rejected him as a lover.
Noseweek has also unearthed disquieting evidence that officers from the Scorpions were involved in an unauthorised investigation at 50-year-old Dianne for a full year before the probe was officially sanctioned.  During this time, speculation about her pending arrest swirled around Middelburg, causing her eventually to flee the town, her reputation in tatters.
“I have not misappropriated funds nor have I taken money from the children”, she says now.  “But my reputation is gone: I am already considered a criminal.”
On 5 (6)December last year, (2006) in “Operation Dynamite”, Scorpions teams from Eastern Cape headquarters in East London swooped on eight premises in Middelburg and Port Elizabeth, removing computers and financial records of her SA Care Trust, which operates as the Dianne Lang Foundation.  The search and seizure warrants state that there is reasonable suspicion that theft and/or fraud, as well as money-laundering and/or racketeering in contravention of the Organized Crime Act, has been committed against SA Care Trust from the beginning of 2003.
The Scorpions’ operational head in Pretoria, deputy director David Demerell, tells Noseweek that he signed the authorisation for a preliminary investigation, called a Section 28 (13), in July or August last year.  However, a year previously – in August 2005 – Dianne was tipped off that she was being secretly investigated by the unit.
In the apartheid years Dianne Lang was a card-carrying member of the ANC and a Black Sash activist.  More lately she was a counselling psychologist in Port Elizabeth until she decided to launch her own fight against the Aids pandemic, with a support centre for HIV positive residents of the townships clustered around Middelburg.  The town (population 44 000) lies in the Sneeuberg mountain range in the Great Karoo, surrounded by sheep and game farms. “Everyone knows everyone or is related to them,” says a local.
With a R15 000 donation from Vodacom, Dianne bought a tumbledown house in the middle of town for a support centre.  One night in the middle of winter she found three children on her doorstep, two 10-year-olds who had been gang-raped and a desperately ill three-year-old.  When she took them to the local offices of the department of social development she was told:  “These are street children; put them back on the street”.
A doctor in town told her the children would all die soon of Aids.  “I thought, well, I’ll keep them till they die.  At least I’ll nurse them and they won’t die hungry, cold and alone”.

Thus Dianne’s epiphany became the district’s needy children – HIV positive or not.  She sold her house in Port Elizabeth’s Blue Horizon Bay and after paying off the bond used the balance for start-up funds.  Today 35 children live at Care House, looked after by a staff of seven, plus volunteers from America and the UK.
However, the arrival of black children at the project’s five houses in the mainly-white centre of town, plus her crusading style, made waves.  The wife of a prominent resident came to her door and told her: “I’ve just come to warn you that if you don’t get these kaffirs out of town, we’re going to burn your houses down”.
Relations with the local office of the Department of Social Development have never been smooth, either.  “They are totally incompetent and there is no service delivery from them,” says Dianne.  “I’ve been a pain in their side”.
It seems that things were looking up when police Inspector Louis Jenner arrived on the scene.  Jenner and his “van partner”, Inspector Wollie Meyer, are both area representatives of the SA Police Union, and figures to be reckoned with in this small community.  Jenner became chairperson of Care House’s house committee, and threw himself enthusiastically into his charitable duties.
Running Care House, says Dianne, costs about R70 000 to R80 000 per month.  International donors have rallied to the cause, the largest being the UK’s Grace Foundation, with an on-going contribution of £2500 (presently around R35 000 per month).  Every six months Dianne would set off for the UK, to raise more ever-needed funds through lecture tours.  One trip raised a record R100 000.
In 2005 her work with needy children was recognised when she won the Clarins Most Dynamisante Woman of the Year Award.  She handed the R150 000 prize money over for the children.   But 2005 also brought turmoil in Middelburg as her relationship with Inspector Louis Jenner soured.  On April 5 there was a stormy visit by Jenner to her house, and the following day Dianne appealed for help in a “confidential report” to Middelburg’s acting police commander, Captain Flip Meiring.
After Jenner became chairperson of her house committee, wrote Dianne, he became very involved with Care House.  “At first I thought this was because he was chairperson, but later it became obvious that this was an excuse to spend time in my company”.   “I very soon realised that I was not dealing with a normal case of love, but one of obsession.  He said he was in love with me and could not help it”.  When she remonstrated, Jenner would ”get mad and slam the door”.
During one of these outbursts Dianne told her suitor that she no longer wanted him in her house and suggested that he resign from the house committee.  “He told me I was a dishonest and despicable person and that I would pay for what I had done to him”.
She had already fallen out with Jenner’s “van partner” and fellow SA Police Union representative colleague, Inspector Wollie Meyer.  She had trained his brother Neil Meyer as a home-based care worker, but after a string of verbal and written warnings started in February 2005 (falsifying attendance record, physically punishing children, dereliction of duty, gross insubordination, etc.), Neil Meyer was dismissed after a disciplinary hearing on 12 September.
Between that July and September there were three mysterious burglaries in Middelburg – one at Dianne’s house and two at the Care House office.  At the office, computers were taken, as well as trust files.  In the last break-in, on 25 September, messages were scrawled on the wall: “watch out bitch”, “easy to kill you bitch” and so on.  The culprits were never found.  The day after the 17 September second break-in, Neil Meyer’s brother, InspectorWollie Meyer, was saying: “the computers are already in East London (the Scorpions’ regional HQ) and the shit’s going to hit the fan in Middelburg”.
Dianne first became aware of the Scorpions’ covert – and, we now discover, unauthorised – operation during August 2005, when she was called to the office of the headmaster of Middelburg’s VDM school, Edgar Williams.  In an affidavit, Dianne says the headmaster “informed me that Inspector TC (Wollie) Meyer has been to see him to tell him that I was under investigation by the Scorpions”.   Rumours of Dianne’s imminent arrest swept through town.  She stuck it out for a year until last August – the time the preliminary investigation was finally authorised – when she returned to Port Elizabeth, leaving the children of Care House under the collective wing of manager Diana Jagers and the rest of the team.
It was also last August that Dianne discovered who had put the Scorpions onto her.  On 22 August she attended a meeting with Advocate Dale Robinson of the National Prosecuting Authority in Grahamstown, to discuss the status of a case she had opened against Inspector Louis Jenner for assault and crimen injuria.   With her was a private detective, former police brigadier Charlie Kemp whom Dianne had hired to help her.   Says Kemp:  “Jenner had made a statement about the allegations made against him by Dianne.  Advocate Robinson read the statement to us and in it Jenner said he had reported her to the Scorpions for embezzling funds”.
Will Manual is the Scorpions’ East London-based investigating officer in Dianne’s case.  Manual declines to discuss the investigation and will only confirm:  “It’s ongoing”.
In Middleburg, Inspector Jenner, married and father of three, is reluctant to talk about Dianne Lang, other than to confirm that he fell out with her.  “She decided she wants to operate the Care House on her own,” he says.   Jenner denies it was he who made the complaint against Dianne to the Scorpions.  “No. Who says so? Who gave you that information?,” he demands.  “From your statement,” we reply.  “Where did you get that information from?”
Why are the Scorpions involved in this case at all, when the amount allegedly involved is apparently not much more than R1m?  The unit’s guidelines say that fraud and economic offences should generally exceed R10m before they get involved.  Deputy director David Demerell explains that intake criteria may be relaxed when it comes to factors like international donor money and the poorest of the poor.  A fortnight before last December’s raids Demerell authorised the probe into Dianne to be upgraded to full Section 28 (1) status.
So what evidence has Will Manual and his colleagues at the Scorpions dug up on Dianne Lang?  A bunch of payments totalling more than R1m from the bank account of SA Care Trust into her personal account, we can reveal.  Dianne doesn’t deny it – and says there’s a simple explanation.  “I borrowed money on my overdraft and lent the foundation money.  Then when donations come in, I paid myself back.”

The trust’s unaudited accounts for the year ending 28 February 2005 – prepared by the Port Elizabeth accountancy firm of Buckingham and Associates – show that Dianne received a total salary that year of R35 000 (a frugal R2916 per month).  They also record that she was owed R418 778 for long-term loans.
Noseweek  has established that in July 2005, after a welcome R75 000 donation from “PNP Golf Day”, the trust’s bank balance stood at R288 925.  This, however, was depleted by a whopping R200 000 paid to Dianne in two amounts of R100 000 – on 26 July and 13 September – leaving the trust, after other minor disbursements, with just R78 966,78. (These payments were for personal loans to the trust).
Around that time Dianne’s managing director’s salary was increased to R16 000 per month – the amount she’s still drawing to this day.  SA Care Trust’s trustee and bookkeeper, Port Elizabeth businessman Stuart Irvine, says: “Since 2003 the trust has received in excess of R1m from Dianne in loans that she raised through her overdraft and house loan.  These have been repaid to her when we have funds.  She’s still owed more that R200 000.
At Buckingham & Associates, the Scorpions removed financial records and a computer as the firm’s Christine Hickman was finishing the trust’s 2006 accounts.  “I gave them a good dressing down,” says Hickman.  “They think Dianne’s embezzling funds, which is absolutely ridiculous”.
Vodacom and a Netherlands charity, Stichting Kinderpostzegels, have both withdrawn their support of SA Care Trust.  But the Grace Foundation’s £2500 per month is still trundling in.  And last November, a month before the raids, Dianne’s old enemy, the Department of Social Development, came up with a  one-off subsidy payment of R182 000.  (By this time Dianne was looking after 76 children)
SA Care Trust’s bank balance is now down to R70 000 – barely enough to get through last month.  “I’ve got to raise money, otherwise we’re going to close down,” says Dianne from the UK.   She plans to stay in London for at least a year.  “I feel despair: can I carry on any longer?  I feel anger: that the persons who have caused all this – and I know who they are – can get away with it.  I feel confusion: I know I was doing the right thing, saving the children, making a difference in their lives.  So why is it all so difficult?”
Down in Middleburg, plumber Hough Theron, who lives next door to Care House in Smid Street and takes its children fishing at nearby Grassridge dam, has a view on that.  “If Dianne hadn’t come in and made such a dramatic impact, perhaps people would have accepted her.  Her big mistake was to make an impact and they didn’t like that.  They said:  “For 10, 20, 30 years we’ve been doing it this way, why should we change?”   “Louis Jenner got absolutely carried away with her, but Dianne wasn’t interested at all”.

(On 17th December 2008, the Scorpions returned everything they had seized during their raid expect one computer and another computer was returned in pieces.  Together with the trust’s returned materials were the materials of two other companies which had obviously been under investigation.  One box of documents had gone mission.   A letter from the Scorpions admits to damaging the computers and makes a claim that when funds were available, the computers would be returned/replaced.  They would also look for the missing box of documents.  This never happened.   I believe that the severe stress I endured played a large part in my subsequent diagnosis of leukemia.  I have never been charged and I have never been notified of the outcome of the investigation.  However, the Scorpions inadvertently left the forensic audit amongst the returned documentation.  Over a five year period there was  R11.00 unaccounted for.  This could have been for anything from buy stamps and not recording it or giving children pocket money or money that they needed for school.   How much it cost the state to chase after me boggles the mind, but sadder still was the fate of the children.  They had lost their Mamma D and I had lost my children.  The home closed in 2010, leaving more than R400 000 in my loan account, when all the children were either returned to their parents, to foster parents or to the streets.  While many children have died during this time, many are now adults and we are still in contact.  A Christian group took over 7 foster children.  Will Manual is a private investigator, Jenner and Meyer have been promoted and Meiring has left the police force.  I was very traumatised by what had happened and this article is a very small part of what went down.  Amnesty International and the Helen Bamber Foundation for victims of political torture helped me to understand what had happened to me.  They also gave me insight into why the Scorpions behaved in the manner that they did.  It is all designed to put the “suspect” under extreme mental and emotional pressure.  I had not only lost all my money, but I had lost my sense of security and the foundation on which I had always lived.  The Helen Bamber Foundation  gave me back to me.  I have wanted to write the sequel to Saving Mandela’s Children, but the hurt is still fresh and I am not ready to go through the documentation to write another book of this nature just yet.)

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

The Political Dirt on cannabis in South Africa.

Hemp (note heads) grown in SA on permit
Hemp picture of South Africa permit
Another warning on the glyphosate containers is “Notify all inhabitants in the immediate vicinity of the area to be sprayed and issue the necessary warnings.”  The communities in Eastern Cape were not warned that poisonous herbicides were going to be sprayed over their lands. The herbicide has scorched the earth of cannabis fields and neighbouring food crops as well.

In 1988, Dr Thandeka R Kunene founded the 100% black owned proudly South African company called House of Hemp.   In 2010, House of Hemp became the first private company to be awarded a 6 year exclusive permit from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health to legally cultivate and process hemp in South Africa. Their farms are at Misty Mount in Lebode, Qamata in Queenstown, Wellington in the Western Cape and in Nkumba Bulwer KwaZulu Natal.
To keep this under the radar, these farms have names such as Evergreen Cooperative, Rapula Farming, Qamata Irrigation Scheme and so on. 
Since these are registered areas, the police helicopters and their poisonous herbicides by-pass these farms. WTF?  Dr Thandeka R Kunene is the Coordinator of the National Hemp Foundation’s Private Sector Working group.
What they sell through Hemp for Africa are the following:
Cold-pressed oil from the seeds
Hemp De hulled seed (left after the pressing)
Protein Powder made from the whole seed
Hemp fabric
All these items are available in from Hemp 4 Africa.  I have no doubt that there are hundreds of uses for this plant.  It will keep the earth clean and it will be good for us.   You can email EugeneCeronio@gmail.com or call him on 076 162 1686.  The oil and seeds has many nutritional (we are not allowed to say medicinal because that is also illegal) properties, but you can get that info from emailing Eugene directly.
I want to know what they do with the rest of the plant.  What are they doing with the flowers or heads of the crop?   It is the flower or head of the crop that contains the cannabis oil because the oil glands are on the flower.  What are they doing with it?  Are they exporting it?  Or are they using it in some other devious plan.  And if they are only taking the seeds, how are they going to plant another crop?  I asked Eugene this question and he said that 10% of the seeds of a crop are held back for the next season.  I am not so sure.  There is an eerie relationship between the maker of the poison that is sprayed, Mansanto and the seeds, our government who have made cannabis illegal, the fact that there are farms producing it using pseudonyms to cover their tracks; and the cohesion between the 100% black company (remember that hemp and cannabis are the same thing) that are not sprayed because they are in restricted areas.  The sum total of all this is that the government (all black company) has made it legal for them to grow and distribute but illegal for the man in the street to possess or grow it.   There is something very wrong with this scenario.

It is reminiscent of my finding that while antiretroviral medication was being blamed by the Minister of Health and the President as being poisonous, we were making the medication and exporting it.  Hundreds of thousands of people died because they were denied medication.   Is this what is happening here again?  And the sheeple keep their blinkers on while the government steals from those who need it most?   The SAPS say they use a different poison called Kilo Max to spray marijuana fields, maintaining it poses no threat to human, animal or environmental health …. Aaaah!  Pull the other leg. 

Unraveling the Truth of Cannabis & Glyphosate

Hemp 
Cannabis has been used by mankind for medicinal purposes for thousands of years.  Emperor Fu of China in 2900BC declared it a medication containing the perfect balance between yin and yang.
The cannabis plant that has the highest amount of CBD’s is the indica cannabis strain.  The stativa plant is high in THC.  However, both strains have CDB’s and THC in them.  It is just the percentage of each element that makes the difference.
The thing that most astonishes me is that those who sell this cannabis oil, whether pure or otherwise, are not cancer sufferers themselves.   Have you ever noticed how much advice you get from people who don’t have cancer and who never had it either?  The craziest advice I received was to drink a bottle of holy cows piss from India.
From my own experience, shatter is the most effective for anti-nausea and pain.  Hash and Shatter are the same thing and does not need to be made using 100% pure alcohol, which is one of the methods of producing the cannabis oil.   BUT, it is expensive.  The best is to use the leaves off the plant (fresh) and put it in your salad and learn to smoke it.  It tastes just like rocket, and eventually you will get past the smell of smoking it.   By smoking it, you are getting what you need and you can regulate how you feel.  Start off with one or two puffs until you find the number of puffs that helps you.  I have never had to use more than three puffs (they are called hits).  This cannabis/dagga/marijuana stuff has a language all of its own.  Oh, one last thing – use the Sativa plant.  It works the best of all.
There are different names for different strains of cannabis.  White Widow is a hybrid strain that is 40% sativa and 60% indica.  This strain is believed to be the strongest strain in the world.  There is a strain called Charlotte’s Webb.  It is high in CBD (Cannabidiol) but low in THC (A compound, C21H30O2, obtained from cannabis or made synthetically, that is the primary intoxicant in marijuana/cannabis/dagga/hashish).
Let us look at the difference between hemp and cannabis.  Both plants are part of the same species but there are some small differences.  Hemp grows up to 15 feet tall, has long stalks and grows closely packed together.  Marijuana grows around 5 feet, grows outward with more leaves and buds and therefore needs more space to grow.
The biggest difference between hemp oil and cannabis oil is that to make hemp oil, the seeds are cold-pressed like olive oil.  Cannabis oil on the other hand, is made from the buds or flowers of the plant.
Hemp is grown in over 30 countries and cannabis remains illegal in most.   Think of the Transkei when reading this difference claimed by the so-called experts:  hemp can be grown best in areas that produce good crops of corn (mielies), while cannabis needs a humid environment…the perfect combination of weather conditions in the Transkei.  The only difference I can find is that hemp contains more CBD than Cannabis which has more THC. 

Now I need to share information that I think is criminal on the part of our government.  For almost 30 years, the government has been spraying large tracks of land in Pondoland (Transkei) with poison, destroying not only the cannabis, but also the maize.   Despite the governments denial, the poison that is used contains glyphosate.  Glyphosate is one of the herbicides used by Monsanto and there are reports of resultant birth defects during animal testing.    The warning label on the herbicide states: “Glyphosate is a highly active herbicide that in very small quantities can cause serious damage to crop seedlings and deciduous fruit trees and grapevines during the budding and early season growth stages.”  Our country is deliberately putting their citizens at risk with their spraying of poison.  Maize crops are destroyed, the bit of cannabis they grow which is often their only source of income is creating a situation where our people go hungry.  I believe that by doing this, the government is busy with a criminal activity by using poison on our land.  I would not touch any cannabis that has been sprayed.   In my next blog, I will be sharing another part that the government is playing in the on-going cannabis story. 

Monday, October 10, 2016

Cannabis Oil - The Elephant in the Room

The mere mention of cannabis oil by people who know nothing about it and insist that I will be cured of my cancer, pisses on my battery.
I think I have some experience and can say a few things about cannabis oil that perhaps not everyone knows.   There are too many cases of people claiming that cannabis oil cured their cancer.  Let us look at this logically.  We are all individuals and we all react differently to different chemicals and we all have various kinds of cancer and illnesses.  To make a claim that cannabis oil cures cancer is irresponsible and highly dangerous.  Not all people react the same way to any medication, natural or not.  The cannabis oil I have been on for three years has helped with my pain, my sleep and my nausea, but done eff-all for my cancer. 
To make 5ml of cannabis oil the correct way…with a low content of THC (the part that makes you feel warm and fuzzy) and a high CBD levels (the part that heals) costs approximately R300.
My point it this:  People are playing into the cancer patient’s fear of death and selling them cannabis oil that has been mixed with a number of other oils, making it less effective.  People become desperate to be cured and they will spend their last penny and borrow money and put themselves into debt in a wild and desperate bid to stop the cancer from growing.  My problem is with the middleman who usually is only in the business to make money.  My problem also is the empirically suspect claims of a cure of this or that ailment.   I know people who pay up to R1800 for 3ml of cannabis oil.  I personally feel that it is criminal to sell something that grows wild at those prices; the exorbitant prices paid for such small amounts boils down to only two things.  1.Greed and 2. because the growing of cannabis is illegal.  The cost goes up because of the danger pay – you could go to jail for growing or transporting the raw material needed to produce the medicinal oil.

The most potent form of cannabis is called hash/shatter.  It costs around R900 in South Africa.   It lasts longer than the oil.  It is like toffee and needs to be kept in the deepfreeze.  While it is still frozen, the smallest amount is chipped off and you ingest that.  However, after much research I have found that one ounce of cannabis can make 3ml of shatter and it does not cost anywhere near R300 to produce in your own kitchen.  Over the next few days I am going to take you on a journey of discovery - one that will shock the socks off you. 

Saturday, October 8, 2016

Those Commies - dangerous folk

I have always been someone who abhors labelling people by the colour of their skin or by any other classification, but enough is now enough.   Racism is built into every facet of our society.  We have race-based laws.  Our government promotes racism, and if they are not promoting it, they are ignoring it because it fits their political agenda.  Julius did not pop up on his own – he was schooled as part of the long term planning of the SACP/ANC. If this were not true, then the ANC would have sorted him out before he got to this point.  His unruly behaviour has swayed many young people to behave with no respect to people or property and who have a “give me” mentality.  These are the kind of people who would sell their mothers without a problem.  That is what the commissars of Russia did.
White people are the only people who are racist and the only people who are taken to task or to court for making racist remarks.  Black people, on the other hand, can say what they hell they like.  They can say they are going to kill whites; that white blood is going to spill; the rhetoric regarding race is everywhere you look or read. 
Nelson Mandela said:  Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.  But that is exactly what is happening.  If white people do not realize it, they are very stupid.  Whites are in the minority.  And the race based laws are in place so that the minority have less and are not treated equally.   Where did the Bill of Rights go to?  . 
What the hell do these young blacks have to be frightened of that they have to spew out hatred and animosity towards us? This anger of theirs is born from their fear.
There are not even enough of us to be a threat to them, so what is their problem? 
I would like to hang FW from the nearest flag pole for selling us out to the SACP. The fact that he got a Nobel peace prize devalues the Nobel prize completely.  All this race based shit we deal with is commie shit.   The communist under the ANC flag.  And it suits the political agenda for the ANC to allow these types of things to happen. Just look at the number of communist words that we use in this country.  It is comrade this and comrade that; it is commissar this and commissar that. Look at the word parastatal.  The Oxford dictionary defines it as a word used to describe a company or organization which is owned by a country’s government and often has some political power.  I had never heard of a parastatal until about 15 years ago.  Do EFF people even know that the name commissar (which they call one another) was used to describe a secret police force who would more often than not, report anyone who said anything negative about the Russian government and the poor victim would either be sent to the gulag or he would be executed immediately.   

FeesMustFall is just another one of those ridiculous situations where a few threaten the many.  Most students want to be educated – the criminal and communist element amongst them is turning FeesMustFall into another racial event.  Are we going to have a repeat of the 80’s when all universities are burned down?   The burning of the schools led to an entire generation of uneducated people.  We are now going down the same road.   Do these commie bastards not know that communism was a class based fight and had nothing to do with colour?   Most whites are quiet; they walk around with their heads down, trying not to draw attention to themselves, ashamed of the colour of their skin.  They don’t stand up and fight back.  They don’t take the race hate speakers to court.  They don’t open up cases with the police about it.  We are sitting on an effing time bomb.

A News 24 comment called “Baskets of bitterness” reports that “In South Africa, there are two groups of increasingly bitter people: those who expected things to get better immediately when apartheid ended and those who wish they could have all the privileges they gave up when apartheid ended.

I think that is bullshit.  I believe that the communists are the problem.  They don’t even know much about communism – they think that it was a race based ideology.  They don’t even know that it was about class.  And just as in Russia, the ones at the top get richer and richer and the ones at the bottom get poorer and poorer.  These young people spewing hate need to be arrested and locked up and given some education from the inside of a prison cell.

I used to feel that the words ‘black’ and ‘white’ should not enter a conversation.  People are people, no matter what colour they are.  But I have had enough of this ineffectual president who gives us the finger and his side-kick Malema who rolls around in money.  I have had enough of people being vilified because of skin colour.  I have had enough of this shit and I am going to fight back.  Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I can only be an armchair (bed actually) warrior, but I will do my best to give what I get.   

Friday, October 7, 2016

How Safe Is Our Brother? - Part 14

How do I continue telling the story behind the story after I have received a phone call warning me that lives are in danger because of my writing?  How do I still tell my story?  I have a need to put that stressful period in perspective, as all humans do, so that we can move on with our lives.  No one I know who knew him personally and were very good friends of his has had any real contact with him.  This is not the behaviour of the man I got to know through my years of research and my years of listening/reading stories from men and women via my inbox.  Something is very, very wrong.  Why have we not been told what the parole conditions are?  Is it because he is not actually on parole and that he is still under guard and not free?  I know that the people who read my blog are not stupid and I also know that you are thinking what I am thinking.  How do we keep our brother safe?   What kind of freedom does he have when he is guarded 24 hours a day by four guards?  How can he become de-institutionalised under those conditions?  How does he become a social being again when he is not allowed to do as he wants?  Why is he invited to book launches only to be sent away under guard?  The correct ending to this story would have been the MFP that was planned for his release.  My dear friends, where do we go from here? Where do I go from here?  I was once told by a police commissioner that the best way to stay safe was to become well-known.  Now do I just keep my mouth shut and pray that “they” don’t hurt my friends?  Or do we pick up the drum and start drumming again?? 

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Unlucky Part 13 on EdK

Parole??
My hands shake as I write this after receiving a phone call from someone living in another country.  I am angry that so many people have been threatened with death because of what I write.  It does not matter what country you live in, your life is in danger if you tramp on the wrong toes.  People disappear, they commit suicide, they have accidents.  What are “they” afraid of?  Why are “they” afraid of me telling the story behind the story?  I have only told the truth and still, I am not even a quarter of the way through what really happened.
Why don’t “they” threaten me?  When people are threatened with death, one has to sit up and take things seriously.  I am also very angry that the threats are made to those I care about and not to me.  Why do they not tell me to stop writing?  Eugene is not free and for his sake and the sake of those I love, I will no longer be telling the story behind the story. I have been warned to stop.  I will stop on this subject, but my fuck, I am angry.  Those who dripped poison into Eugene’s ears – their poison will evaporate; he never will know the truth about me either.    The reason the original site was shut down so quickly overnight is because Eugene (I could hear JK in the background) told me to shut it down immediately.  My request to give it a week got a “no” answer. That phone call was not a very ‘nice’ phone call. Poison can go everywhere. Hence, the quickest thing we could do was change the name and delete everything ever said about Eugene.  And now, I have to shut my mouth on this issue.  May God protect Eugene and all those who have been threatened.  I am truly silenced on this issue now. 

EUGENE DE KOCK - Part 12

Eugene, Vos and Conrad 
From here on out, Conrad was the real hero.  He took my calls, he kept in touch with me and he found EdK and facilitated his first meeting with his family.  This photo was taken on that day.  PP was also there but from my informant, she walked around smoking and was not invited into the circle of the family.  Even at this stage, Elmarie de Kock was giving me some real awful inbox messages.   I could not understand where the hostility was coming from.  From her point of view only PP was allowed into the family circle and I was to leave them all alone.  Can you imagine if I had walked when I first started getting her vicious inbox messages.  Nothing more would have been done and Conrad would not have been our hero.  
Conrad Kruger wrote this to Ben on 13 May, 2015 at 1:27AM.
Beste Ben
Hier gou 'n "update" dat jy weet wat my beplanning is:
1. Die afspraak met Eugene (en Regter vd Merwe) is bevestig vir Sondag;
2. Ek sal 'n geseëlde koevert met dokumente en insluitend jou e-pos aan
Eugene oorhandig;
3. Ek sal deur Adv Jaap Cilliers uitvind oor Adv Roelof du Plessis se
"rekening". Hul sit in dieselfde gebou;
4. Ek het met Piet Croucamp gepraat oor die voertuig situasie (Hannelie het
dit aan my genoem dat Eugene blykbaar 'n voertuig gaan benodig), sy
kommentaar was dat Eugene se lisensie verval het en ook as gevolg van sy
oogoperasies dit nie nou 'n prioriteit is nie en dat hy geneem word waar hy
wil gaan.
5. Ek sal die brief van Julian Knight ook met hom bespreek, of as ek nie
alleen tyd met hom kry nie, ten minste 'n afskrif in die koevert sit.
Lekker vlieg en groetnis
Conrad
My email to Ben on the 13 May was:
I have taken not one penny or enriched myself from my association with this cause in any way. 
The unpleasant character assassination via TM, JK, Annemarie Jansen and Elmarie de Kock of me is totally unacceptable.  (The Save Dianne Lang fund raising initiative was done without my knowledge and I had no access to that page – I did however, every week, send a list of donations through to Maria Bezuidenhout).
Jim Hooper paid 125 pounds into my UK account which I used to purchase another air purifier for my room that has to be sterile if I am not to pick up a germ.   What this has got to do with Anemari Jansen is beyond me.  
Apart from you, the above, Gert Fouche and the Balsak fonds - no one has donated much other than the first month when I received a few thousand rand in R100 donations.   
Since a bone marrow transplant is no longer possible due to a failed bone marrow and immune system, perhaps the Save Dianne Lang group should be closed.  The immune cell donor implants every 2nd week can keep me alive another 2 years IF I do not pick up a germ.  That is the latest news on my health. (I am now officially the longest living person on replacement IVIG)
Sure, we don't have money and all my savings have been swallowed up with medical bills.  We truly live from hand to mouth and the money that has been given to me has made a huge difference to the quality of life.  I would not have the air purifiers, the oxygen cylinders, the wheelchair or the medication that alleviates the worst pain if it were not for the generosity of people.  I have even been able to have a carer to help me bath, change linen etc. three times a week.   And I am deeply grateful for the gifts. 
However, the very last thing I would have wanted is to be blamed for using EdK as a way of making myself rich.  I find the very suggestion nauseating.  
Perhaps it is time for me to bow out gracefully - I have no regrets about fighting for Eugene.  I have done all I could and I know that I have not benefitted by one penny through this cause of EdK and his freedom. 
I am deeply saddened by the character assassination of me via TM, JK, Anemarie Jansen and Elmarie de Kock. 
Always with loyalty to you Ben
With love MC xxxx