Crawford-Browne, Terry

Terry Crawford-Browne

The South African arms deal

1 September 2003Feature Terry Crawford-Browne

Terry Crawford-Browne reports on the European companies - profitting from weapons sales to South Africa, the legal challenges campaigners are making to the 50bn+ Rand deal and the deal's disastrous impact on domestic politics and society itself.

The South African “arms deal” has been described as “the betrayal of the struggle against apartheid” and as “the litmus test of South Africa's commitment to democracy and good governance”. The scandal has become the millstone around President Thabo Mbeki's presidency.

An opinion survey conducted last year by South Africa's leading pollster found that 62% of ANC voters want the arms deal cancelled, 19% want it cut and only 12% support it. On no other issue, including Aids, was the…

A question of priorities

1 March 2001Feature Terry Crawford-Browne

Following investigations by a special unit and whistle-blowing by concerned ANC MPs, a dramatic arms for oil scandal is emerging in South Africa . Terry Crawford-Browne asks what South Africas priorities really are clean water or armaments?

The Defence White Paper released in May 1996 had noted that there is no foreseeable conventional military threat to South Africa, and that the government has prioritised the daunting task of addressing poverty and the socio- economic inequalities resulting from the system of apartheid.

The South African Constitution similarly declares in Chapter 11, Section 198 (a) that: National security must reflect the resolve of South Africans, as individuals and as a nation, to live as equals,…