Anti-apartheid activist in protest over poverty

from The Telegraph

By Sebastien Berger in Johannesburg

An anti-apartheid activist has rejected one of South Africa’s highest honours in protest at poverty in the country.

John Minto, a New Zealander, led demonstrations against a Springbok rugby tour of his country in 1981, some of which turned violent.

The events shocked white South Africans and galvanised the international anti-apartheid movement.

He was nominated for membership of the Order of Companions of OR Tambo, named for the late ANC leader and reserved for “eminent foreign nationals and other foreign dignitaries for friendship shown to South Africa”.

Previous recipients include Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, both posthumously, and Kofi Annan.

But in a letter to president Thabo Mbeki published on Mr Minto’s website, the union organiser told him: “When we protested and marched into police batons and barbed wire here in the struggle against apartheid we were not fighting for a small black elite to become millionaires. We were fighting for a better South Africa for all its citizens.

“It is now 14 years since the first African National Congress government was elected to power but for most the situation is no better, and frequently worse, than it was under white minority rule.
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“The faces at the top have changed from white to black but the substance of change is an illusion.”

Under Mr Mbeki’s Black Economic Empowerment policy stakes in major companies have been sold off to black entrepreneurs, often at a subsidised rate, and some businessmen have accumulated vast wealth.

But critics say that the measures have only benefited a limited number of people, often with strong political connections.

The wealthy, dubbed 'black diamonds’, live lives of privilege in Johannesburg’s gated communities, while at least 25 per cent of South Africans remain unemployed.