PrintMay 26, 2007
Al-Qaeda in South Africa
Jonathan Schanzer, a former Treasury intelligence analyst, and director of policy for the Jewish Policy Center, writes in the Weekly Standard that South Africa is the newest home for worldwide terror groups. Schanzer notes these troubling developments:
- In May, South Africa's intelligence minister invited Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas member and prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority, to lead a delegation to South Africa.
- In June 2003, South Africa's deputy minister of foreign affairs, Aziz Pahad, met with representatives of Hezbollah.
- According to a U.S. intelligence estimate, al Qaeda leaders are operating throughout South Africa and are exploiting the country's banking system; South African passports are finding their way to al Qaeda operatives worldwide.
- In January 2007, the U.S. Treasury named two South African cousins--Junaid Dockrat and Farhad Dockrat--Specially Designated Global Terrorists for their support to al Qaeda and the Taliban.
The entire article is a must read, as Schanzer cites detailed evidence of extensive terror group and the South African government. In his words concerning the diplomatic row over the Dockrat cousins mentioned above,
Pretoria appears to have cast its lot with the two terror suspects, rather than the United States.
But after describing the detailed intelligence supporting his assertions, Schanzer soft-pedals the reasons for the South African government's alignment with terror groups. The history of the post-apartheid government is much more malevolent than most Americans realize. The African National Congress (ANC) has dominated the country's politics in the post-apartheid era and is often spoken of in neutral terms while given a pass in the international community for its efforts to "redress social injustice."
The ANC was labeled a terrorist group prior to 1990, but despite its mainstreaming in the 1994 transition government, it officially formed an alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), and defines itself as a "disciplined force of the left." This is simply whitewashing the fact that the ANC was and is the political arm of global socialists who have been on the march in Sub-Saharan Africa for decades.
Thanks to our inattention during the 60s and 70s, and the willing cooperation of the American left PR machine during its fanatical and simplistic anti-apartheid campaign during the 80s, the global proxy war in Africa has at least for the moment, tipped in favor of the forces of tyranny and their terror agents. What at one time was a prosperous, resource rich country, with a military powerful enough to take on the forces of South-West Africa People's Organization, the Soviet Union and Cuba, is now wallowing in the pit of failed socialist programs and officially sanctioned retribution under the guise of public unburdening and confession.
Even the normally soft Foreign Affairs magazine can't ignore the deteriorating situation. Jeffery Herbst notes that in effect, the ANC has a one party rule with "former Marxist activists turned top government officials" who discourage Western style economic development. These ostensibly social justice types and their pet theories,
...have resulted in little more than the enrichment of a few black patriarchs. Meanwhile, this South Africa is being ravaged by AIDS, thanks in part to the government's bizarre refusal for years to acknowledge the link between HIV and AIDS and its insistence that the disease can be treated with a homemade remedy.
On top of all this, the left's institution of strict gun control measures has made South Africa such a haven for criminals that violent crime is second only to the drug cartel dominated Colombia. These draconian gun laws have placed law abiding citizens in the crosshairs of organized criminal groups and now Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah.
Like all good intentioned causes of the American left, the anti-apartheid movement focused on a truly horrible form of government and the racial oppression it engendered. But the campaign ended up throwing the baby out with the bath water while the social justice types walked away to find their next cause. We know that Democrats and the left take every opportunity to delay or deny the implementation of US global strategy. What's next? The de-funding of the President's and the military's effort to deal with the African threat they helped create?
Douglas Hanson is national security affairs correspondent of American Thinker.
