Towards the end of 1980 an ANC terrorist, Thula Bopela, visited the former Rhodesian security policeman (then retired) who arrested him in 1969 and sent him to jail for a life sentence. By now, Mugabe took power and offered an immediate release of all political prisoners. The terrorist visited the policeman, named Ronald Peters, in Bulawayo and demanded to hear him say: “I have been wrong, you won the struggle.”
But the policeman listened to the terrorist gloating for a while before he said: “Mr Bopela, you are much mistaken – you haven’t won anything. You know, as far back as 1877 the white man in Rhodesia realised that eventually the black man will use his majority numbers to rise up and take power. But we also know the nature of the black man in Southern Africa. Yes, the ZANU PF might be in power here and eventually the ANC will take power in South Africa. You will have titles and wear gold chains and believe that you have power. But without the skill to govern, you will have positions without power. You will have land, but not know how to farm it. And eventually the struggles for power will start. A small, wealthy elite will form and they will be more concerned about protecting their wealth than with trying to be a government. You will see many parties forming in Zimbabwe and South Africa and the power struggles will start, even within the Zanu PF and the ANC. And eventually, exactly because the black man is always fighting for power, he will lose it. On the other hand, the white man knows that power lies in power sharing – multitude of parties opposing each other, but uniting on matters of importance. Mark my words: It will last two or three decades before the internal struggles for power destroy all your freedom movements.”
Bopela, disgruntled with Mugabe and Zuma, wrote his story in the Zimbabwean Herald recently.
It is common knowledge that as early as 1958 dr HF Verwoerd spoke of the time “…when a black majority government takes over power in South Africa…” Not “IF”, but “WHEN”… And of the power struggles that will destroy such a government.
This we have seen in Polokwane with the Mbeki/Zuma power struggle. We have seen this happen with the break-away of Cope, which then foundered on the rocks of internal power struggles itself. We have seen the split taking place with the break-away of the EFF. We have seen the power struggle first between Mugabe and Kaunda and then between Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai basically destroying Zimbabwe. We hear rumours of the power struggle between Zuma and Ramaphosa.
And on Sunday a senior ANC man revealed that the time for the internal destruction of the ANC through power struggle has arrived. Minister Nathi Mthetwa addressed a meeting in Durban on Sunday where he revealed the concern of the ANC about increasing calls from the SACP’s League of Young Communists for the SACP to step out of the coalition with the ANC. The internal struggle in the coalition has become so bad that the young Communists are now putting pressure on the SACP to contest the 2019-election on their own, and not as part of the ANC.
And this, Mthetwa said, will destroy the ANC. “You know we survived the PAC, UDM and Cope. We also survived EFF. We will not survive this time around,” he warned.
Interesting how the prediction of a retired, and probably long deceased, policeman in 1980 is now coming true.
Read the original article by Daniel Lötter on Front Nasionaal SA
South Africa Today – South Africa News
