Letter to paper

The Editor
Natal Mercury 14/2/06
EcoPeace not Ecoparty

The feature by Greg Arde about EcoPeace (Mercury, 9-2-06) contained two factual “errors” and numerous strategic omissions. These relate to the identity of the interviewee, Alan Murphy, the fourth occupant of the council seat won by EcoPeace in the 2000 election.

In the article, Murphy states that EcoPeace was founded in 1995. Not so – what was founded then was Ethekwini Ecoparty. After it lost its deposit in the 1996 election it became moribund, and by early 2000 he was its sole active member. At that stage a group of activists including myself got together with Murphy, formulated fresh ideas and a new platform, and launched eThekwini EcoPeace in September 2000.

He further states that EcoPeace won its seat by getting “about 2000” votes. Not so – whereas the old Ecoparty fell somewhat short of that number, in 2000 EcoPeace got more than twice that, (4253 to be precise; for verification, see www.elections.org.za).

These departures from the truth reflect the same state of mind which leads Murphy to omit, among other things, that since the 2000 elections, EcoPeace’s entire activist group of that time (except himself), and all its previous councillors, have either left EcoPeace, or been forcibly purged; that its constitution has been violated, then furtively and radically amended, its finances mismanaged, and that promises then made to voters have, if not abandoned, been seriously compromised – a fuller account may be found at http://truth-about-ecopeace.blogspot.com).

(Ex-Cllr) Michael Graaf

[This was published but with some cuts, mainly in the final paragraph; most notably the blog URL was omitted, perhaps because at that stage it featured only the Preliminary Posting - which I advise people to look at before the Long-Delayed Document, as it gives highlights of that document, without the tedious but legally necessary step-by-step, referenced format. Click on Preliminary Posting to the right of this text.]