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The Price of Whistleblowing in South Africa
By all accounts, Jimmy Mohlala was that rarest of creatures, an honest man.
As Speaker of the Mbombela local municipality, and a former executive within the South African Football Association and member of the World Cup organizing committee, he built a reputation as someone who was outside the influence of the rampant political corruption which is the norm in most of South Africa and the ruling ANC, of which he was a member.
Unfortunately, standing up for the little guy and crusading for the truth only goes so far when you run up against the combined power of big money and national politics when they're on an all-out greed run.
Like, for example, the 2010 World Cup.
Mbombela, a "local municipality", is part of the Ehlanzeni District Municipality, which is in the Mpumalanga (formerly Eastern Transvaal) Province of SA, which is the location of Nelspruit Stadium, one of the new brownfield mega-dollars football venues that South Africa is building.
In the overall scheme of things, Jimmy Mohlala was a pretty small cog in the project, and he would have stayed in his role as an anonymous local functionary as the whole World Cup extravaganza swept over the region like a tidal wave except for one small thing:
That pesky honesty thing.
You see, in the mad rush to get these stadiums built in time for Sepp Blatter and Chuck Blazer and their pals to entertain the world's biggest celebrities in the remarkably venal "VVIP" suites which will be located a few hundred yards from grinding poverty, disease and human misery which they are trying hard to sweep under the rug, the developers - and their partners in graft, the ANC - have cut a lot of corners.
Like, for example, paying for the land.
Under South Africa's "Land Redistribution Act", large tracts were given (or given back) to tribes and clans who could show historical ownership rights.
The site for the Nelspruit Stadium was given to a clan who in turn hired the Matsafeni Trust to manage it.
But when that site was chosen for the stadium, a trust administrator sold 6000 acres of land he didn't own to the municipality for one Rand, or about eleven cents US. It was later revealed that the administrator is a business partner with the Mayor and another local politician. Imagine that.
Jimmy Mohlala was working to expose the swindle.
So last Saturday afternoon, under a flame tree on the quiet, leafy street where Jimmy Mohlala lived with his family, three masked men waited in a car for two or three hours until Jimmy came out of his house to help his 19 year old son move some cars into the garage.
Whereupon two of the men emerged from the car and began shooting. His son saw the men approaching and screamed "Daddy, just run away", but Mohlala was already wounded. He made it inside his house and got to the stairs, apparently attempting to get the gun he kept by his bedside.
The masked men entered the house, shot him several more timess and then fled.
They took nothing. Except Jimmy Mohlala's life. The local police released a statement saying that there is "no apparent motive" for the slaying.
People these days are quite proud of themselves when they spout off their political or social point of view, telling everyone how they "spoke truth to power". Usually it's simply the vanity of a dilettante, meaningless adolescent mewling.
People like this are blissfully unaware that in some places, speaking truth to power means putting your life on the line.
Jimmy Mohlala spoke truth to power. And Jimmy Mohlala is dead because of it.
Sepp Blatter has announced, through a FIFA mouthpiece, that "this is an isolated incident". Meanwhile, the stadium continues to rise.
The full-bore racing locomotive that is the natural result of the combination of corruption, greed and arrogance amongst developers, politicians and world football's poohbahs is barreling down the tracks.
Jimmy Mohlala tried to get in the way. It didn't even slow down.
As Speaker of the Mbombela local municipality, and a former executive within the South African Football Association and member of the World Cup organizing committee, he built a reputation as someone who was outside the influence of the rampant political corruption which is the norm in most of South Africa and the ruling ANC, of which he was a member.
Unfortunately, standing up for the little guy and crusading for the truth only goes so far when you run up against the combined power of big money and national politics when they're on an all-out greed run.
Like, for example, the 2010 World Cup.
Mbombela, a "local municipality", is part of the Ehlanzeni District Municipality, which is in the Mpumalanga (formerly Eastern Transvaal) Province of SA, which is the location of Nelspruit Stadium, one of the new brownfield mega-dollars football venues that South Africa is building.
In the overall scheme of things, Jimmy Mohlala was a pretty small cog in the project, and he would have stayed in his role as an anonymous local functionary as the whole World Cup extravaganza swept over the region like a tidal wave except for one small thing:
That pesky honesty thing.
You see, in the mad rush to get these stadiums built in time for Sepp Blatter and Chuck Blazer and their pals to entertain the world's biggest celebrities in the remarkably venal "VVIP" suites which will be located a few hundred yards from grinding poverty, disease and human misery which they are trying hard to sweep under the rug, the developers - and their partners in graft, the ANC - have cut a lot of corners.
Like, for example, paying for the land.
Under South Africa's "Land Redistribution Act", large tracts were given (or given back) to tribes and clans who could show historical ownership rights.
The site for the Nelspruit Stadium was given to a clan who in turn hired the Matsafeni Trust to manage it.
But when that site was chosen for the stadium, a trust administrator sold 6000 acres of land he didn't own to the municipality for one Rand, or about eleven cents US. It was later revealed that the administrator is a business partner with the Mayor and another local politician. Imagine that.
Jimmy Mohlala was working to expose the swindle.
So last Saturday afternoon, under a flame tree on the quiet, leafy street where Jimmy Mohlala lived with his family, three masked men waited in a car for two or three hours until Jimmy came out of his house to help his 19 year old son move some cars into the garage.
Whereupon two of the men emerged from the car and began shooting. His son saw the men approaching and screamed "Daddy, just run away", but Mohlala was already wounded. He made it inside his house and got to the stairs, apparently attempting to get the gun he kept by his bedside.
The masked men entered the house, shot him several more timess and then fled.
They took nothing. Except Jimmy Mohlala's life. The local police released a statement saying that there is "no apparent motive" for the slaying.
People these days are quite proud of themselves when they spout off their political or social point of view, telling everyone how they "spoke truth to power". Usually it's simply the vanity of a dilettante, meaningless adolescent mewling.
People like this are blissfully unaware that in some places, speaking truth to power means putting your life on the line.
Jimmy Mohlala spoke truth to power. And Jimmy Mohlala is dead because of it.
Sepp Blatter has announced, through a FIFA mouthpiece, that "this is an isolated incident". Meanwhile, the stadium continues to rise.
The full-bore racing locomotive that is the natural result of the combination of corruption, greed and arrogance amongst developers, politicians and world football's poohbahs is barreling down the tracks.
Jimmy Mohlala tried to get in the way. It didn't even slow down.
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Comments
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Great story Bill. Sadly, it doesn't surprise me that the 'authorities' (I use the word loosely) in SA are cutting corners to get the job done for the despicable Mr Blatter and co.Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 08:57 AM by Ollie Irish 
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The 2010 World Cup has train wreck written all over it. Stories like these make it hard to justify traveling to the tournament.
Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 09:18 AM by wolfp10
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It is embarassing, and frankly sad, that the body supposedly holding the best interests of the world's game is so crooked and opaque.
Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 09:28 AM by sdotsom 
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The SA authorities have said it's too soon to assume that the killing was due to his WC whitleblowing.
Jimmy was no saint himself. In 2008 alone he was charged in different cases with rape, assault, and drunken driving. It's hard to say whether those charges were also political reprisals.
Well, considering that those stories appeared in only one place - an ANC newspaper - and each one of them appeared immediately after an ANC attempt to get rid of him, it's a little tough to come to any other conclusion.
They made a concerted effort at character assassination. When that failed they took the more direct route.
There's a lot on this story coming out on the internet:
http://www.runofplay.com/2009/01/05/...-south-africa/
but you're not hearing about it in the mainstream media.Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 10:02 AM by Clint Eastwood
Updated 07 Jan 2009 at 10:28 AM by Bill Archer -
Thanks for continuing to bring these stories to light. The 2010 World Cup represents an opportunity, not just for SA, but for all of Africa to move forward. However, the corruption of FIFA combined with the latent corruption in local SA politics seems to be creating a toxic mix that no World Cup tournament, no matter how great or memorable, can completely erase.
It's somewhat reminiscent of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, is the award of such an event to a nation enough to create real change in politics and in the lives of individual citizens? The jury is still out on Beijing, but it seems that SA 2010 is destined to enrich the already powerful few while doing little other than offering distraction and temporal enjoyment to the suffering majority of South African citizens.
But I'm sure Sepp will pat himself on the back for a perceived change in SA as the result of the 2010 tournament.
RIP Jimmy.Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 10:54 AM by Malaga CF fan
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The party of Mandela -- I assumed that South Africa and the ANC would be a beacon of freedom and progress. The only thing this WC may do is expose the ugly truth.Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 10:56 AM by Reignking
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What a sad, disgusting story. Given my love of football, it'll be hard not to watch the WC on t.v. But after reading this story, I absolutely no interest in directly contributing to Blatter's ugly reign. Though I had long considered going; this confirms my refraining.Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 11:29 AM by rednow.red4ever
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I really enjoy reading your articles. Yours, and Peter Kings.Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 11:31 AM by turman
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Sepp is going to get what he deserves. Those type of ********ers always do. As long as he knows we will be smiling when it happens.Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 12:37 PM by CrewPens
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Bill's blog entries on the corruption of FIFA and world soccer are making want to boycott the whole thing. The only chance at all of ending these outrages is for the world to get sufficiently disgusted that they'll turn away. That they won't depresses me to no end. I mean, how f***ing important is soccer, anyway? Is a game really so important to the world that they'll look away from rampant corruption, from a man and an organization who literally believe they are above world law?
If that's true, then soccer is no longer just a sport. It's a narcotic.
Since there's no hope of the world standing up to these thugs, the best I can hope for is that WC2010 is an utter disaster, losing untold millions of dollars and maybe even having to be cancelled. I realize what a blow that would be for Africa, but damn it, what other chance is there for these b*stards to get what's coming to them?Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 01:09 PM by LordRobin
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