Cops in parliament
IT'S certainly a rum thing, the riot police going into parliament. Who ordered them in? In the days I was
down there in the press gallery, the police on the premises reported to the Speaker and nobody else.
That was brought home very forcefully one afternoon when a cop – one of those on the parliamentary
staff - suddenly came into the office I shared with some colleagues and very politely asked if I would
accompany him to somebody who wanted to interview me.
He took me to an office in the Senate building. There sitting behind a large tape-recorder with a
bristling moustache was a plainclothes colonel, an absolute caricature of the security policeman, who
proceeded to fire at me a string of goonish questions about the gruesome murder of Dr Robert Smit in
Springs, a year or so before.
Smit had been the Nat candidate in an election, having recently returned from a stint at the World Bank,
in New York. But what was I, a wordsmith from Durban, supposed to know about it? The thing was
totally bizarre.
The colonel's moustache positively quivered as he fixed me with a beady eye, tapped the tape-recorder
to emphasise that my words were being taken down and asked: "Is there anyone you suspect of
murdering Dr Smit?"
I wasn't quick enough to denounce the Receiver of Revenue and the Chairman of the Maize Board. Just
then the first cop came in again and started whispering urgently to the colonel. He switched off his tape
recorder and I was told the interview was over.
It turned out that a whole lot of my colleagues had been similarly rounded up at random and were
being given the same grilling. Word got to the opposition. Colin Eglin rose in the House and asked the
Speaker and members if they were aware what was going on?
Jimmy Kruger, Minister of Justice, was gobsmacked. He knew nothing about it. The Speaker was
astonished. The special branch spooks were unceremoniously sent packing. The Receiver of Revenue
and the Chairman of the Maize Board were safe. What the cops' real mission had been remains a
mystery.
Things might have changed today. But back then no copper dared set foot in parliament unless he was
on the staff and accountable to the Speaker. Questions remain.
Confrontation
THE Speaker back in those days was a man named Jannie Loots. He was retiring and diffident in
manner and scrupulously impartial, as the Speaker has to be. His two main challenges seemed to be
keeping tabs on the wicked spur-of-the-moment humour of opposition MP Horace van Rensburg and
coping with the volcanic rages of prime minister PW Botha.
On one occasion he ordered PW to withdraw an unparliamentary remark. Botha, livid with rage, tried to
argue, the fraught situation not helped by cries from Van Rensburg (who else?) of "Gooi hom uit! Gooi
hom uit!"(Chuck him out! Chuck him out!).
Speaker Loots might have been mild in manner but he had iron in his soul. He won that confrontation,
Botha backed down.
Can anyone imagine it happening again?
The law
SOME gems from the American court records:
• Attorney: "Can you describe the Individual?"
Witness: "He was about medium height and had a beard."
Attorney: "Was this a male or a female?"
Witness: "Unless the circus was in town, I'm going with male."
• Attorney: " Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice
which I sent to your attorney?"
Witness: "No, this is how I dress when I go to work."
• Attorney: "Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?"
Witness: "No."
Attorney: "Did you check for blood pressure?"
Witness: "No."
Attorney: "Did you check for breathing?"
Witness: "No.
Attorney: "So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the
autopsy?"
Witness: "No."
Attorney: "How can you be so sure, Doctor?"
Witness: "Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar."
Attorney: "I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?"
WITNESS: "Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practising
law."
Tailpiece
FIRST Mayan: "Hey, you wanna drink?"
Second Mayan: "I'm working on this calendar, but I guess if I don't finish it won't be
the end of the world."
Last word
Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible.
Frank Moore Colby
No comments:
Post a Comment