They DID say that - Part 2

2002-12-19 07:57

Cape Town - Here is the second part of 100 quotes from and about southern and South Africa, published in the media during the past year. They will keep you amused, riveted or horrified, depending on your mood and views.

Of crosstitutes and other party animals

"I'd rather win my case in congress, than be known in the future as a "crosstitute" - Afrikaner Unity Movement leader Cassie Aucamp.

"A constitution is not a key to open a bedroom to take political prostitutes to bed. A constitution is not a condom to be used for convenience to play games with political prostitutes." - Pan Africanist Congress deputy president Dr Motsoko Pheko about the scrapping of the anti-defection clause to allow elected representatives to cross the floor without losing their seats.

"I would like to remind those who are still thinking of going and crossing to other parties that the window is not open, and if they fly blindly into the window, they might hurt themselves..." - United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa after his party won a temporary interdict against the defection legislation, pending the outcome of a Constitutional Court ruling.

"The crossing-the-floor legislation allows people to steal the election after the election has taken place, without even having to bother to perpetrate fraud during the electoral process." - Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi.

"I don't know of a system that allows for a shift in the landscape other than going and asking the landscape." - Constitutional Court Judge Johann Kriegler about the government's argument that the defection legislation was necessary to deal with shifts in the political landscape between elections.

"They are opponents, people with whom you disagree. Enemies are people whom you would kill." - deputy minister of social development David Malatsi, who was appointed through the co-operation agreement between the New National Party and the ANC. Malatsi said he had, all along, regarded the ANC as a political opponent, not as the enemy.

"The events described in this report reveal an unhappy state of affairs which, viewed separately, give rise to concern. They seemed to lead into an immense heart of darkness." - the report of the Desai commission into Democratic Alliance donor funding.

"Now that I have been found to be spotlessly clean concerning all the lies that have been told about me and my personal finances, I can resign with a clean conscience and with my head held high." - former Western Cape premier Gerald Morkel, who resigned as the province's DA leader after the commission report was released. The commission found Morkel had lied about, but not personally benefited from, donations by German fraud accused Jürgen Harksen.

"Next, they'll probably say I've sexually harassed Saartje Bartmann!" - Western Cape then-premier Peter Marais, who has been accused by five women - all serving or former politicians - of sexual harassment. It was decided not to prosecute him.

"You may call us whatever you want, ultra-left, ultra-right. All we know is that we are ultra-hungry. If those who are ultra-rich do not respond to the people who put them in that position, there will be social instability in the country." - Congress of SA Trade Unions president Willie Madisha, after ANC president Thabo Mbeki castigated the ultra-left within the party.

"Privatisation cannot be destroyed by a two-day strike... It is trying to kill an elephant with a toy gun." - Pan Africanist Congress deputy president Dr Motsoko Pheko about Cosatu's two-day national strike against privatisation, unemployment and poverty.

The Winnie streal continues

"I will remove any stumbling blocks and whoever is in my way." - ANC Women's League president Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

"No one is taking my house. Anyone who says that is insane. I didn't defeat the Boers for nothing." - Madikizela-Mandela on her refusal to hand over the Orlando West house she once shared with former president Nelson Mandela, despite a court order to give the house to the Soweto Heritage Foundation.

"Surely it is inconceivable, even to an imbecile, that I alone can consume groceries of R10 000 a month... is it really possible for anyone, even the 'supernatural Winnie', to get donations of R50 000 a month?" - Madikizela-Mandela, who denied receiving any donations from well-wishers, as was claimed during her bail application in a fraud and theft case.

Crime and punishment, and Grootvlei: The movie

"The fact that one person allegedly commits a crime, for me it's neither here nor there, because what you are saying to me is that I must be so cautious as never to make any mistake whatsoever." - Justice Minister Penuell Maduna, after the murder of an East London businessman by Dumisane Ncamazana, who was released from prison on a presidential pardon. The charges against Ncamazana were dropped, but later reinstituted. He was convicted and jailed for life.

"Wake up, you fucking white bastards!" - one of the murderers of KwaZulu-Natal couple Robin and Joan Dent, who were shot in front of their 13-year-old son in a farm attack.

"What will be the reaction of ANC leaders if farmers start chanting: 'Kill the Xhosas, kill the black man' during the funerals of the Dent couple?" - Freedom Front leader Pieter Mulder. The words "Kill the Boer, kill the farmer" were chanted during the funeral of African National Congress stalwart Peter Mokaba on the day the couple were murdered.

"Why must people be killed like chickens, like pigs, for just R1 000? Man, we are shocked, shocked, shocked." - attendant Bernard Gama about the killing of five of his colleagues at a petrol station in Cape Town.

"I suppose the deaths should shock me, because this is the first time it has happened." - Naledi Mosito, the head of an initiation school near Heidelberg, Gauteng, where five boys died and about 20 others were infected and injured.

"Some among our own people seem quite happy to communicate the most-horrible image of our country in the belief that we are the worst in the world and somewhat an ugly aberration in terms of global human society." - President Thabo Mbeki, disputing that South Africa was the world's crime capital.

"Colleagues... know him as a warm individual of high integrity." - Shireen Sedres of the University of Cape Town about the arrest of James Kilgore, the alleged leader of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a radical group which committed politically motivated crimes in the United States in the 1970s. Kilgore worked as a senior researcher at the university as Dr Charles William Pape.

"This seems to be saying to the people of this country that the ultimate price you, as taxpayers and receivers of services, will pay is none of your business." - IFP MP Gavin Woods, who resigned as chairman of parliament's public accounts committee. He was reacting to the joint investigating team into the multibillion-rand arms acquisition programme which said that the decision about what the country could afford or not was ultimately a political choice.

"We cannot give better particulars than this. Maybe, we should bring the Mercedes Benz and park it outside the court." - State counsel Jan Henning after lawyers for former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni and German businessman Michael Woerfel argued that the State had failed to supply enough detail on the fraud and corruption charges against their clients. Yengeni is alleged to have received a Mercedes Benz 4x4 at a huge discount in exchange for an arms-deal related favour to Woerfel's company.

"We are not in the business of making movies." - correctional services commissioner Linda Mti, explaining why he thought the head of the Grootvlei prison should be suspended. With the consent of the prison head, four inmates videotaped a warder selling a gun to an inmate and another supplying a prisoner with a youngster for sex.

Money on the run

"Reasons that are difficult to find." - what was behind the depreciation of the rand at the end of 2001 and beginning of 2002, according to President Thabo Mbeki.

"It's a rerun of what happened last year, in reverse." - independent economist Sandra Gordon about the rand's recovery against the dollar later in the year.

"Auntie Molly took us for a ride." - an unidentified Saambou client about the bank's collapse which left her and thousands of others without cash for a few days.

"Your chances to be bitten to death by a donkey are better than your chance to win the Lotto." - economist Dawie Roodt, who described the national lottery as a voluntary tax on people who were bad at maths.

Read more quotable quotes on News24 tomorrow

- SAPA