GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General
29 September 2026
Two of the five South Africans who addressed the White Cross Project Conference at the National Press Club in Washington DC last Friday are members of the University of Cape Town’s Council.
The media invitation to the conference, issued by Lex Libertas last week, listed the two UCT Council members, Mr David Ansara and Advocate Mark Oppenheimer, in a line-up of speakers that also included Lex Libertas’ Executive Director (former Deputy CEO of Afriforum), Dr Ernest Roets, Editor of the Race Law Index, Dr Martin van Staden, and Editor of Politicsweb, Dr James Myburgh.
The conference was followed, on Saturday, by the installation of about 3 000 white crosses on the National Mall in Washington DC bearing the names of alleged victims of farm attacks in South Africa.
Ansara is the Chief Executive Officer of the Free Market Foundation, based in Johannesburg. Although the Free Market Foundation projects itself as a liberal think tank, in the context of South African politics, its stated opposition to State intervention, minimum wages and black economic empowerment – and the company it keeps – place it squarely in the right-wing camp. Oppenheimer, the President of the South African Institute of Race Relations, is a member of the Johannesburg Bar whose clients have included the Free Market Foundation and Afriforum.
According to its media invitation, Lex Libertas advocates for “constitutionalism, decentralisation and community self-governance”, while the White Cross Project is described as an international advocacy initiative to promote solutions to political incitement of violence against minorities, farm attacks and rural safety, racial exclusion through legislation, and threats to property rights.
While the above-mentioned gentlemen (all, incidentally, White men) are Constitutionally entitled to their opinions, including to deny the necessity for post-apartheid redress, and to advocate for a return to a form of minority rule, now framed as self-governance, their peddling of the disinformation that White South Africans are under siege, while deliberately poisoning South Africa’s relationship with its second biggest trading partner, the US, is a subversion of both South Africa’s democracy and its sovereignty. The sweets they are accepting from President Trump’s White House come at enormous cost to the rest of us.
The UCT Council is the highest governing body of Africa’s top university. It has been mired in governance crises, leadership battles and polarising political resolutions over the past 10 years. That two members of Council were doing the right-wing’s dirty work in Washington last week is a new low.
Media Enquiries: media@forgood.org.za