Throughout, Tutu was warned that it would be far easier to impose sanctions and disinvestment than it would be to reverse the damage. Arrogant and foolish as always, he ignored this, totally incapable of understanding that Rockefeller and the rest of the New World Order gang were sublimely indifferent to the problems of millions of unemployed Blacks, but intensely interested in winning control of a resource-rich country.

So, we got what Tutu wanted: and now, for the second time in 12 years, SA suffers a near-total Western investment cut-off, not least because of a lack of confidence in ANC economic policies. Nor, we are told, can we hope for any IMF or World Bank bale-out.

Commenting on this in the London Times, R W Johnson wrote: "Politically, the Government faces a no-win situation, whatever happens." He has also said: "The SA Government simply cannot survive if the present investment famine continues."

In its 1994 election campaign the ANC’s main battle cry was: "Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!" The extended fallout of Tutu’s maniacal campaign stymied that. The Reserve Bank states there are fewer jobs available now than in 1982. Thwarted expectations about jobs, housing, health and education, combined with the colossal breakdown in law and order and lack of firm leadership, have generated massive disillusion and anger among the Black millions: anger so great that it could all too easily explode into yet more political conflict. And that anger is being skilfully exploited.

On affirmative action: "Highly skilled and experienced Whites are being retrenched, bribed to quit the civil service, so as to pave the way for . . . the appointment of inefficient and inexperienced ANC members." He refers to the 1969 Morogoro Conference stipulation that "African" should not be read as "Black" Africans. "We should be preserving and developing such skills as we do possess."

Rubbing salt into the wounds, he comments that while terrible, grinding poverty is increasingly the lot of people on the ground, "many ANC/COSATU leadership have become multi-millionaires." The ANC’s response has been to seek to discredit the UDM and Holomisa at every opportunity, ridiculing Holomisa as "an erstwhile military leader of a Bantustan," the UDM as "a party of castoffs." They forget that Holomisa won the most votes at the ANC’s 1994 congress in Bloemfontein.

Obviously, the name UDM strikes a chord with many people. When Mandela addressed a meeting in Pondoland in March, his audience comprised mainly children. When Holomisa arrived a week later, it was adults who came to listen to him. For all practical purposes, the ANC has lost control of the Eastern Cape. The urban people scorn the ANC, while in the rural areas most people are illiterate and do not know one party from the other. But they know Holomisa and see the UDM as giving hope to those at the very bottom.

The UDM is doing strikingly well in the North West Province, having snatched top officials away from the ANC, NP and Mangope’s Christian Democratic Party. Defectors to UDM include Chief Bennet Motsatsi, a former Bophuthatswana Cabinet minister who used to deputise for Mangope, his younger brother, Chief William Motsatsi, a former CDP vice-chairman and Dr Johann de Wit, a former CDP chairman.

Most remarkable, though, is Leonard Brown, a former top ANC official, now UDM provincial chairman. From the Nats the UDM has won former NP women’s section provincial secretary, Carla van der Westhuizen. UDM spokesmen say that in the next election, their party will be the official opposition at least and may even take the province from the ANC.

And, through its growing Coloured support, the UDM is beginning to make inroads into the ANC’s support base in the Western Cape.