Picture this — you land at Cape Town’s international airport on your way to the beautiful “mother city” of South Africa.  As you leave the building on the way to the city, your eyes wander across to look at the splendour of Table Mountain.
Strikingly, you first see a sea of shacks as far as your eyes stretch. The people living there are black South Africans, living in absolute squalor.

Welcome to DA City, proudly presented as the success of the opposition Democratic Party, a city, where everything works. Or so it’s propagated.

South Africa’s former president Thabo Mbeki, once quoted an academic from the University of Stellenbosch, Amanda Gouws, for fear of being called racist if he would have made the utterances himself.

“The struggle against racism will be with us for a long time. This is because the racist legacy of colonialism and apartheid will be with us for long time,” Mbeki stated.

Mr Mbeki went further in his reference to the Democratic Alliance (DA) leader’s accusations when he stated that there were “some” who felt that black South Africans should say nothing about the hurt they felt because it was “a denial of the search for national reconciliation”.

He described those accusations as “a deceitful political manoeuvre to achieve short-term political gain.”

Colonial-apartheid-UDI history was always used to not only confuse Africans, but also to mislead the white mindset with inaccuracies. The founding of South Africa’s Democratic Party, the Helen Suzman Foundation and their leadership, are just two of such examples.

A short history on the DA.
The Democratic Party (DP), or as it wants to be called today, the Democratic Alliance (DA), was founded in the opulent Saxonwold, Johannesburg villa of the white rugby boss of South Africa and senior member of the secret brotherhood, Afrikaaner Broederbond (AB), Dr Louis Luyt. Dr Luyt was for a long time the president of the South African Rugby Union (SARU), at that time being a racist apartheid organisation, discriminating against the black majority.

Dr Luyt was also involved in the Information Scandal in the 1970s under the late Prime Minister John Vorster and his Cabinet member, Dr Connie Mulder — he, who once said on SABC-TV news that there will be no blacks living in South Africa, motivating the creation of Bantustans, also known as Homelands, similar to the American Homelands for the indigenous Indians. The late Dr Connie Mulder is the father of the Mulder brothers, who lead the Freedom Front Plus (FF+). He too was a senior member of the Afrikaaner Broederbond.

Mulder senior’s cohort in the Information Scandal was one Dr Eschel Rhoodie. Dr. Luyt founded the South African English daily newspaper with funds from the notorious Information Scandal, during which hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ money were stolen and laundered.

Dr Luyt founded “The Citizen” newspaper. It was funded from the money the Information scandal had embezzled.

His drive was to give the ruling apartheid Nationalist Party government an English daily medium platform in support of the already existing “Sunday Times”. Today, the Caxton Group publishes “The Citizen”. It is their flagship.

The late Dr Luyt lived in retirement in Balito Bay, Durban.

Another founding father of the Democratic Party was the former chairman of the powerful, covert and exclusive Afrikaaner Broederbond (AB, an elite brotherhood), then also rector of the Randse Afrikaanse University (RAU, today University of Johannesburg, UJ) in Johannesburg. Dr. Wimpie de Klerk eventually became the editor of the Afrikaans Sunday paper, Rapport. He died a number of years ago. He was the brother of former colonial-apartheid president of South Africa, F W de Klerk. A former executive director of the powerful Anglo American Corporation (AAC) and member of colonial-apartheid parliament, however for the white opposition

Party, the Progressive Federal Party (PFP), the late Dr Zach de Beer counts among the founders of the DP/DA. Apartheid ambassador to the Court of St James in London, Dr Dennis Worral too was part of the founding team. Another member of the white opposition party, PFP in Cape Town’s Parliament and co-founder of the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa (IDASA), the late Afrikaaner academic and multi-millionaire businessman, former rugby player, Dr Frederik van Zyl Slabbert made his contribution.

So, too, did the attorney from the Johannesburg suburb of Randburg, Wynand Malan, also member of the Afrikaaner Broederbond.

It was clear then already that Dr Zach de Beer was the link between South Africa’s powerful private business sector, Anglo American Corporation/De Beers and the owners of the mining industry and on the other hand, white political power in apartheid South Africa.

The Democratic Party was known from its inception, as a joint venture of influential white-owned business and exclusively white-controlled power politics. The late Helen Suzman was the founding mother. She had a foundation in her name, the Helen Suzman Foundation. Her foundation promotes the principles of a “US-approved, Western-style, neo-liberal capitalist democracy for Africa”.

The late Helen Suzman served as one of the patrons of the above foundation. Suzman had also served for decades in the white colonial-apartheid parliament under various prime ministers and presidents such as Verwoerd, Vorster, Botha and De Klerk.

Margaret Thatcher’s former High Commissioner to colonial-apartheid South Africa, Lord Robin Renwick of Clifton; the former West German minister of finance, Dr Otto Count Lambsdorf, who headed the liberal German foundation, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and linked to the liberal political party in Berlin, the Free Democrats (FDP) assisted the formation of the foundation. Lord Robin Renwick of Clifton was known to be a trusted friend of Helen Suzman.

Others were Colin Eglin, who together with Dr Zach de Beer were Suzman’s colleagues in Cape Town’s parliament, and the former Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) Member of Parliament, Patricia de Lille. It makes sense that she returned home to the DA via her political creation, ‘Independent Democrats (ID)’. De Lille was then not an elected Member of Parliament, but an appointed one.

The Helen Suzman Foundation networks with opposition parties in the Sadc region such as the Zimbabwean MDC-T, the Mozambican Renamo and Namibian political parties (opposing Swapo), in order to promote their philosophy of the “US-approved, Western neo-liberal capitalist democracy for Africa”.

It was Suzman through her party political seat in Johannesburg’s most affluent suburb of Houghton, who had groomed the former leader of the Democratic Party, the party that followed the PFP — Tony Leon.

Brothers Tony and Peter Leon are the sons of the retired South African judge, Ramon Leon. Leon senior was notorious during his years as a judge in apartheid South Africa, when he was feared as a “hanging judge”. Ramon Leon, who upon retirement, advised the government of Lesotho, achieved that reputation as he had sent many a black South African to the gallows, who had refused to respect racist apartheid laws. Leon senior retired to Durban.

  • Froese is freelance political- and socio-economic analyst based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Follow him on twitter @theotherafrika or his blog: theotherafrika.wordpress.com

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