Koos Bekker, Naspers apartheid-era role needs closer interrogation

IT WAS interesting and nauseating to see Koos Bekker’s Media24 attacking Sekunjalo Investment Holdings and businesses with links to Dr Iqbal Survé.

Both Bekker and News24 editorin-chief Adriaan Basson seem to either have short memories or selective amnesia.

It’s no secret that Naspers and Media24 are beneficiaries of apartheid. The very platforms they use today to discredit black businesses and opponents of their political masters were built by standing on the necks of black South Africans pre-1994.

In fact, Naspers and Media24 were so embedded within the apartheid state and the National Party (NP) that their editors were even invited to sit in on Cabinet meetings.

What about former Naspers managing director and Bekker partner Ton Vosloo, who so graciously donated R150 000 to the NP’s election campaign in 1987, or the NP’s reciprocation of a stake in M-Net for Naspers?

Another fun fact about Bekker is that he had ambitions to become a public prosecutor, which he did for a short while. That’s right, Koos Bekker was an apartheid-era prosecutor enforcing the grotesque apartheid laws.

Perhaps we should also be talking about how, post-1994, Naspers and its executives refused to participate in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, about the group’s involvement in the perpetuation of aparthied – a crime against humanity.

This is important because in his book, former apartheid spook Paul Erasmus talks about the use of agents in media organisations. They were used to implement Stratcom – a covert smear campaign against leaders

of the liberation movement. Their most high-profile target was one Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

It is absurd that nobody is looking at the role Bekker and his buddies at Naspers played during apartheid. It is

shameful that through his Media24, they try to whitewash history. If anything, they should be forced to return their ill-gotten gains.

Perhaps Adriaan Basson should take a deeper look at the organisation

he heads or is he too afraid of the truth?

Bekker and his buddies must be held accountable, or do those standards of journalism apply only to black South Africans?