by Hannes Wessels Reading Richard Steyn’s excellent account (Louis Botha: A Man Apart) of the life and times of General Louis Botha was enlightening, enjoyable but also saddening. Despite the best efforts of the author and publisher I fear the story of this remarkable man will soon be known to only a tiny few because […]
by Hannes Wessels My infatuation with Kenya goes back almost 50 years to my early teens when I first read Robert Ruark’s African classics; Something of Value and Uhuru. Enthralled by the people, the places, the savagery, the beauty, the tragedies, the triumphs; these pages were life-changers for me and I was left as a […]
by Hannes Wessels This last week saw the broken people of Zimbabwe being being gunned down and beaten into merciless submission by goons deployed by a poorly disguised Junta determined to protect the ill-gotten gains of a miniscule minority at the expense of a benighted multitude. Finding themselves destitute and bereft of hope, thousands […]
by Hannes Wessels Looking at what has recently taken place in France, the UK, Europe and elsewhere, I was reminded that we are not alone in Africa with our troubles. While we must accept our continent boasts some of the most atrocious governance on the planet we are not the only ones being led […]
by Hannes Wessels On 11 December the South African Constitutional Court delivered a scathing judgement against former president Jacob Zuma’s decision in 2014 to support a Mugabe initiated pseudo-legal manoeuvre to block a South African Development Community (SADC) tribunal ruling. This court had been constituted at the time of the formation of SADC and was […]
by Hannes Wessels South African billionaire Johann Rupert is in terrible trouble with his countrymen over comments recently made in a television interview. Eschewing political correctness Rupert committed a cardinal crime by telling the truth, causing nation-wide outrage across racial divides, by suggesting all is not well in the ‘Rainbow Nation’ under the ANC rule […]
by Hannes Wessels Ten years ago, a married mother of two children who happened to be a Catholic Christian and therefore part of a small religious minority, was picking berries near her home 30 miles outside Lahore when she took a drink of water from a metal cup at the communal well. A Muslim neighbour […]
Hannes Wessels Mixed emotions of sadness and anger are visited upon me when reading the news that the small group representing Rhodesians killed in the Great War will have to mourn their dead discretely and away from the main event at the Cenotaph in London on Sunday. The Royal Family will lead the country […]
by Hannes Wessels I fear not enough people are likely to read Colonel Eeben Barlow’s book ‘Executive Outcomes: Against All Odds’, which offers a detailed account of his eventful life as a crack South African soldier, spy and covert operative, followed by his exploits as head of the potent private military company he created […]
by Hannes Wessels The continental catastrophe that has engulfed Africa may go down in history as the greatest, politically motivated, human calamity of all time. Hundreds of millions of poverty-stricken people are getting poorer while an ever diminishing, tiny elite get richer and richer. Central authority in most countries is dissipating, legal strictures introduced […]
