A friend and an enemy

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When I finished my National Service I was working for a local company wholesaling and distributing fiberglass raw materials. It wasn't long though before I was offered a position with Rothmans , a cigarette company.

We had a white sales team and a black sales team targeting different markets. I know these were apartheid days and this is how it worked. We knew no different as that was how it was in those days.I got on well with the black guys and treated them like anyone else. Not everyone did though, especially certain older members of the staff.

There was one guy called Phillip who was black and on the rural sales team who traveled into the
outlying areas. He was well educated and spoke differently to the other guys in his team. He was adopted by a white couple and was educated at a private school. In those days blacks weren't allowed to attend government schools and had to go to private schools. Thankfully that has changed today.

It must have been hard for him as you couldn't just do what you wanted. In some areas you had to carry identification as you weren't allowed there after a certain time. If you were stopped you had better have a good reason otherwise you would be locked up. The police were mainly Afrikaans then and felt their country was slipping from their grasp. They didn't listen to common sense and were sometimes fairly brutal in dishing out punishment.

I knew Phillip for two years before I immigrated back to England. I had done two army camps reluctantly and had worn my uniform around the office regularly. When I left we had a farewell party for me and he wanted to tell me something ,but just couldn't do it.

Fast forward 11 years and I have returned back to South Africa and a chance meeting I ran into Phillip in a shopping center. We hit it off like we had seen each other every day and no time had passed. We went out for drinks and this is where he told me he was a soldier in the ANC army called Umkhonto we Sizwe. He had been the enemy I was supposed to be fighting and was classified as a terrorist.

I can recall asking him what he thought of me seeing me in my army uniform knowing I was his enemy. I wore the special forces badge and was top of the ANC hit list. If there was a plum easy target it would have been me surely. He told me he knew I wasn't like the others and I was no racist and that is why we got on so well. He saw me for who I was and knew I wasn't a threat.

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I was offered a business opportunity with Phillip and his friends back in 2005 and it involved government tenders. They told me a chap called Zuma will one day be President and it was ripe for the picking. Zuma was already climbing the ranks and was powerful in the Natal province.This group was guaranteed tenders as they had all been long term members of the ANC party and involved with the military wing they wanted me to help them secure the contracts. They wanted me to negotiate with the companies and they would do the rest.

I must admit it was tempting , but I turned them down. It didn't make sense to me how they could supply fuel to Government departments when they had no fuel to sell. The way it worked was you set up a company and get a price from a fuel company like BP or Shell and add a mark up. You don't touch it your self but get the business because of who you are. This didn't make sense to me at the time as I thought a tender went to the lowest price.

Seeing what has happened since with the corruption I am glad I rejected it as I could have been deep in it if I had said yes. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I joined this group and how much money they printed. The last time I saw Phillip he told me they were supplying toilet paper to the prison services.I haven't seen him for years and still regard him as a friend and wish him well.