Bell Pottinger have been declared guilty of deliberately attempting to destabilise South Africa for the express benefit of a client.
This was a job they accepted willingly and for which they were paid handsomely. The British PR industry has seen fit to punish the company (not the individual directors) by removing their prestige membership status.
Meanwhile the SA press (including this newspaper) and judiciary appear comfortable with the messenger taking the rap.
Little seems to be happening to those who instructed and paid the messenger to in fact recklessly and deliberately destabilise a country for their own benefit.
It is obvious who the ultimate beneficiaries of this treasonable act are.
Add to this the plethora of lies and political obfuscation delivered by President Jacob Zuma to Parliament on a number of occasions; from promising half a million jobs, to misleading Parliament and misusing taxpayers' funds on Nkandla; to blatantly lying about the motivation for firing Nene (remember the reason provided – he was to take up a potion at Brics); to the absurdity of demanding Pravin Gordhan return from London based on an apparently falsley constructed e-mail; and and and…
At what point will someone accuse the president and the Gupta entourage of treason – a jailable offence.
“O, what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, Whilst bloody treason flourish’d over us.”
Source: The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.