POINT OF ORDER
TIM COHEN: Implacable foe waits in the wings for Zuma
Chase’s move against SA in the ’80s signals what is in store for Jacob Zuma
If there is one thing a politician should not mess with, it’s the bond market. Ask PW Botha. And, although he doesn’t know it yet, JG Zuma. My next statement will be hotly disputed by historians, politicians and commentators but it is demonstrably true: the most important single factor in the demise of apartheid was the bond market. Not the armed struggle, not sanctions, not the internal labour movement, not the end of communism, not the parliamentary opposition. Although all played a role, the big enigma about apartheid was not its evilness but how long that evilness could endure in the face of international opposition and internal chaos. The same is true of many other repressive states. But then the bond market intervened, and the rest, as they say, is history. The story of apartheid and the bond markets is beautifully told by journalist Anthony Sampson in a chapter of his book Black and Gold, titled Pulling the Plug.In July 1985, Chase Manhattan bank chairman William Butcher deci...
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