Thread by @twieterazzi

Connecting some dots

[A thread]

In the 1980s a clique of mostly white lawyers belonged to the Legal Resource Centre which was funded by Ford Foundation, Carnegie and the Rockerfellers.

The LRC was founded in 1979 and pursued public interest law.

The LRC did some wonderful work and represented a lot of people to exercise their legal rights.

They helped a lot of poor Africans for free during the diabolical days of Apartheid.

Arthur Chaskalson who was ConCourt President from 1994 to 2001 and Chief Justice of South Africa from 2001 to 2005 worked at the LRC.

Several judges were trustees of the LRC and this pissed off the government of the time.

Judge Kriegler who is part of Freedom Under Law, which has been on the opposing end of President Zuma was a trustee of the LRC.

Between 1978 and 1988, Judge Kriegler served on the board of the Urban Foundation which was set up in 1977 by tycoons Harry Oppenheimers, Anton Rupert & Clive Menell.

Ramaphosa was recruited to the Urban Foundation in 1977.

Paul Pretorius, a senior counsel who led evidence of President Zuma at the State Capture Commission also spent five years at the LRC.

Peter Harris who is currently President Ramaphosa's attorney also spent time at the LRC where he would have worked with Pretorius.

Harris would later work with Judge Kriegler at the IEC in delivering the 1994 election.

Harris was previously partner at Cheadle, Thomson and Haysom that represented unions including NUM of Ramaphosa back then.

He helped Ramaphosa seal the #CR17BankStatements through his current law firm

Sisi Buthelezi is another prominent lawyer to work at the LRC. She worked with Harris at the Hoek Street Law Clinic of the LRC.

She is now Justice Khampepe of the ConCourt who recently penned the judgment committing President Zuma to 15 months in prison.

At the Urban Foundation, Ramaphosa worked with Irene Menell, the wife of Clive Menell who was one of the founders.

After his divorce to Mama Winnie, Mandela stayed with Clive and Irene Menell at their home. Irene would later serve on the board of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Ramaphosa also worked with the late Judge Jan Steyn who headed the Urban Foundation from 1977. Steyn was also involved with the LRC.

In 1990, after announcement of Mandela release the Urban Foundation became the Independent Development Trust chaired by Steyn.

On the board of IDT were people like Mamphela Ramphele, Stanley Mokgoba, Harriet Ngubane, Wiseman Nkuhlu and Eric Molobi

Ramphele would later have a short stint in the DA, Molobi co-owned a consulting company with Peter Harris whilst Nkuhlu is chair of Rothschild & Sons in SA

CR who worked for the Urban Foundation formed by mining magnates Oppenheimer & Menell would curiously facilitate the formation of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1982.

He had not worked in a mine himself. In 1986 he was part of COSATU's delegation which met the ANC Lusaka

The Menell family owned the mining conglomerate Anglovaal with the Hersov family.

In 1998 Anglovaal unbundled into Anglovaal Industries (AVI) and Anglovaal Mining (Avmin). In 2003 ARM of Motsepe would own AVMIN assets.

Ramaphosa is married to Motsepe's sister.

Just for context AVI owns loved brands like Willards, Ellis Brown, Yardley, Carvela, Five Roses, Provita, Kurt Geiger, Gant, Green Cross, Spitz, Bakers, Trinco and Freshpak.

They are an essential part of your daily life.

In 1987 Ramaphosa led the Mineworkers strike involving hundreds of thousands of workers. Workers demanded wage increases of 50% from R230 per month on gold & R335 per month on coal mines. These were considered not to be living wages.

About 60,000 workers were later dismissed

25 years later in a democratic setting a similar phenomenon occurred in Marikana where mineworkers demanded a living wage of R12500 in a protracted violent strike.

In 2012 the SAPS would murdered 34 mineworkers after Ramaphosa called for concomitant action. He was a shareholder.

After the Marikana massacre of August 2012, in December 2012 Ramaphosa gets appointed as Deputy President of the ANC.

At that time he was Chairman of MTN since 2002. The same year Phuthuma Nhleko was appointed CEO of MTN. Phuthuma was Project Manager at the Urban Foundation

In 2012, same year of Marikana massacre and when CR became DP of ANC, Nhleko founded the Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Fund with Johann Rupert.

2012-07-11 CR appointed to board of Optimum
2013-11-15 CR resigns from Optimum, replaced by Phuti Mahanyele
2016-04-05 Phuti resigns

Another former CEO of MTN who replaced Nhleko is one Sfiso Dabengwa. He was part of the CR17 campaign trustees. Sfiso is part of Phembani and was board member at Eskom appointed by CR. He is married to Phuti Mahanyele, former CEO of Shanduka. He worked for CR at MTN.

In Nov 2014, when CR was DP of SA, Ramaphosa family assets were put in a "blind trust." But Phuti, CEO of Shanduka & wife of Sfiso remained director of Optimum till 2016.

This is the time when Phembani would be fighting for the Eskom coal contract ultimately won by the Guptas

So CR is now President

His Shanduka assets were handed over to be managed by Phembani led by Phuthuma, a former member of Urban Foundation.

2 years ago Terror Lekota, the former Chairman of the ANC & Minister of Defence under Thabo Mbeki accused Ramaphosa of having sold out to the apartheid security branch. He famously said that CR accused his comrades including Lakota & Biko of putting communist ideas in his head.

In his book, CR would later explain that when he came out of detention in 1977 (same time when his comrades went to Robben Island and he joined Urban Foundation), he realised that there where white people he could work with to further their objectives.

In 1991 CR became Secretary General of the ANC, defeating Alfred Nzo at the Durban Conference.

Prior that, Kgalema Motlanthe had joined Ramaphosa's NUM in 1987 after serving time in Robben Island.

He became education secretary then replaced CR as General Secretary in 1992.

In 1997 at the Mafikeng conference, after CR had resigned from his Secretary General role, Kgalema was elected SG of the ANC. He would serve for 2 terms until 2007.

In 2009 when he became president of SA, Kgalema awarded CR, Irene Menell, Roelf Meyer etc with Order of Baobab

On the list of people awarded the March 2009 Order of Baobab by Motlanthe is
- Cyril Ramaphosa
- Irene Menell
- Aanon Rosholt
- Roelf Meyer
- Ethel Normoyle

CR and Roelf became friends at CODESA as ANC and NP lead negotiators & later became business partners.

Another recipient of the Baobab is Irene Menell who would not only have recruited CR to the Urban Foundation, and housed Tata Mandela after his divorce to Mama Winnie. Her husband's company Anglovaal would unbundle mining assets to later be owned CR's brother in law, Motsepe

In March 1995 when Queen Elizabeth visited South Africa, one of the places she visited is Missionvale, a clinic run by the Irish Sister Ethel Normoyle, one of the recipient of the Baobab.

Sister Ethel came to SA in 1972 from Ireland to do humanitarian work.

One other recipient of the is Baobab Aanon Michael Rosholt who chaired Barlow Rand.

Apart from working with Sam Motsuenyane to establish NAFCOC and supporting Black Trade Unions in the 1980s, Rosholt chaired the Urban Foundation.

He was involved with Business Against Crime.

Meanwhile, another prominent lawyer to have worked at the LRC is Dunstan Mlambo who is currently Judge President at the Gauteng High Court. He joined LRC in 1987 and later served with Judge Jody Kollapen as trustees.

He penned that PP judgement establishing Zondo commission

Moreover, Tembeka Ngqukaitobi is the senior counsel who represented Zondo Commission in the ConCourt contempt proceedings of Zuma. He was law clerk to Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson and also worked at the Legal Resources Centre.

He later opposed Zuma's interdict of his arrest.

At the beginning of the thread a mention was made of the funders of the LRC.

Probably worth another thread to look more closely as to which NGOs in SA are today receiving money from the Big Three