So I was not surprised when the envoy from Rabat Youssef Amrani  walked up to the podium where I was speaking from at the Pretoria Country Club and yelled “Liar, liar” when I compared the regime of King Mohammed VI to those of John Vorster and P.W.Botha.

I likened Morocco’s illegal occupation of the Western Sahara in 1975 to South Africa’s futile attempt to hold onto South West Africa – now Namibia – that I

was reporting on at the United Nations in New York at the time.

So strong is Morocco’s wish to obliterate this truth, now that it is trying to forge better relations with African nations, that it forces its servile media to comply.

I have had personal experience of this having once attended an editorial conference of the newspaper Le Matin du Sahara.

When I asked whether they would ever publish a piece criticizing Morocco’s occupation of the Western Sahara, the editor sidestepped furiously.

When I followed this up with a question on whether they could ever, under any circumstances criticize the king, he literally left the room.

Since I was an official guest of the Moroccan government my visit was reported.

The next day the newspaper carried my picture taken with the editor in the pressroom.

The caption said the South African visitor had expressed amazement about the technology available to the newspaper.

Absolute balderdash.

Honest journalism has no place in a country where the leaders display a capacity to lie repeatedly to please the king.

Over the years I have noted the similarity in the ability of the Moroccans and the apartheid regime to shoot themselves in the foot.

When they reach a crossroad with an option between ethical behavior and ignominy, they can be relied up to take the latter path every time.

This week Morocco fumed as Spain taking in the President of the Saharawi Democratic Republic, Brahim Ghali, for COVID treatment.

Relations between Ranat and the former colonial power are shaky at best.

It was when the dictator General Franco died and Spain quit the Western Sahara that Morocco sent its troops in.

When Spain decolonized in Morocco, it retained two enclaves, Ceuta and Melila, on the African mainland to protect shipping on the Mediterranean and it has refused persistent Moroccan calls for their return.

Moroccan desperate to flee the poverty and parlous human rights in their own country frequently risk personal injury by trying to scale the two-meter-high, barbed-wire-topped fences around these enclaves which means effectively they have reached European territory

Not surprisingly, Spain has not apologized for its humanitarian gesture in treating President Ghali.

One has to ask what occurred to the Moroccan authorities to protest?

The Moroccan media have been dragooned into a rearguard action bombarding social media with reports of Spanish courts seeking to drag the president into court, based on complaints from a Saharawi dissident.

The mainstream media and the Spanish authorities put paid to this with discounting any idea of Brahim Ghali being summonsed.

One might say this has dented Moroccan credibility. However it is impossible to damage a quality that has not existed in decades.

The post Yet again Moroccan authorities and media play and fast and loose with the truth appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

In the year under review the South African Commission on Human Rights dealt with more than 400 race-baed complaints.

It also handled more than 700 allegations of inequality.

The South African Human Rights Commission’s director Alexandra Fitzgerald says race-based discrimination presents the greatest challenge to the work of the body as evident by the volume and frequency of race related complaints received by the commission’s  head office in Gauteng – which is the busiest centre  – and provincial offices,  of which Cape Town carries the heaviest load.

This is the third year in which an increase in complaints has been recorded.

Fitzgerald says this does not necessarily reflect an increase in racism in South Africa.

Rather it shows  South Africans are becoming increasingly aware of their rights and that more and more people are being exposed to reports of unfairness, discrimination and racism on social media.

South Africa has a chequered  history with the declaration on human rights.

In 1948 the apartheid regime was one of eight governments  that refused to sign it.

The post Race-based complaints still dominate Human Rights Commission’s inbox appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

They have a standing ovation to Pravin Gordhan who urged South Africans to read this another books to realize what is happening.

Pauw says its very difficult to decide whether the apartheid regime was more corrupt than the present government.

ends intro

Jacques Pauw says without its magnificent constitution South Africa  might end up with a government as evil as the apartheid regime.

“Certainly when you look at the greed of the current government, it looks like they will stop at nothing to fill their pockets,” he says.

It’s not about black or white. It’s about what governments do with the power they are given.

Pauw says that scares him.

The post Pravin Gordhan urges South Africans to read Jacques Pauw appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.