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Gold/Mining/Energy : SOUTHERNERA (t.SUF) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chas. who wrote (536)	12/18/1997 9:26:00 PM
From: Factfinder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7235

Hi Chuck I was engaged in RSA on a consulting contract for a period of three years acting in a senior management position in a company owned by a trust which was started by Nelson Mandela and Walter Sizulu. It was a fascinating cultural experience. I had a great deal of contact with senior ANC party members at various functions I attended and I had the opportunity to get to know some of them socially. This country is undergoing a historic transformation that has been better managed than most other similar power base shifts. The people that I met through these encounters had the highest level of integrity and resolve for the betterment of the country. I did not encounter corruption at any time unlike other countries like Zambia, Kenya etc where senior policticians are opportunists looking out for themselves only and couldn't care less about the people. There is no doubt that there are many challenges facing the nation with high unemployment and a whole generation that sacrificed itself for the cause by boycotting the bantu education system that tried to teach people how to be servants. The young are getting the education today that these people missed and are integrating into mainstream society. It is very difficult to get a feel for a country unless you spend a period of time there in a non tourist capacity but I was most impressed with the number of very educated professions who are not leaving and are buying into the program as time goes on as this is their home as well unlike other countries where the white population had to flee when the power shifted to the aborigional population. With respect to Canada I feel I am quite knowledgeable about our history and current state of affairs wrt the aborigional population having spent 15 years of my life working with Indian and Inuit first Nations citizens in their communities in Northern Ontario, Manitoba, Quebec and and the North West Territories. We isolated our First Nation population and never fostered integration of our population. It is too bad that we woke up so late in history and didn't treat the last generation with the same sensitivity that we treat many visible minorities in Canada today. The current generation First nation resent what took place in the past and are moving farther apart today rather than closer to the mainstream population. They will now move forward with an agenda of self Government at all costs and will become increasingly radical to achieve that objective. the fact that they are geographically isolated from the rest of the populus will not foster any type of convergence of society. As a result they will bargain hard for Economic opportunities that arise out of Natural Resource exploitation because this is one of their only sources of future revenue. Look at Voisey Bay for example. There will be many other projects that become marginal or not feaseable because of the high overhead that will be imposed as a result of this need these people have to exist in the society that we have created for them. Enough said and I apologise for steering off topic but I want to emphasize that I feel quite confident about the future for SUF as this is a very knowledgeable and smart group of people who know how to find diamonds and to access existing reserves in difficult places to do business in for those who don't understand Africa. The Angolan project will evolve into a very profitable operation as well as the time is right after many years of war and a need to rebuild the economy with outside expertise coming in as JV partners to the locals to restore the operations abandoned by Anglo and de Beers when the war broke out. Good luck investing