www.inside-politics.org

Analysis of and commentary on South African politics from a liberal perspective.

Category: Foreign Affairs

The ANC’s dubious donors


ANCFlagARTICLE: I am going to try and keep Inside Politics going but my new commitments will make writing more sporadic and so, along with the odd post from the archives, so to speak, I shall probably keep things shorter. That said, the article below, originally published in 2007, is still relevant today: a good illustration of how the ANC historically placed its own financial condition ahead of any human rights considerations that might curtail from whom it solicited donations. That fact still holds true today, even if the donors are more often domestic than international. It sets out of some of the party’s more more dubious funders and what the papers said about each donation at the time.

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Reflections of a departing diplomat


SPEECH: Former Leader of the Democratic Alliance and current South African Ambassador to Argentina, Tony Leon, is to vacate his post and return to South Africa at the end of September. What follows below is his farewell speech, delivered to the Argentine Institute for International Relations. In it, he reflects on his term and some of lessons about diplomacy he has learnt during his time in South Africa’s diplomatic core. An interesting insight into the thinking of an Ambassador.

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