British PR firm Bell Pottinger secretly devised a racially divisive campaign on behalf of President Jacob Zuma’s son and business cronies for a fee of about $170,000 a month.
Leaked e-mails have revealed that Bell Pottinger created a dangerous strategy of exploiting South Africa’s racial tensions to benefit the interests of the wealthy Gupta brothers, businessmen with close connections to Mr. Zuma and his family.
The Guptas, in partnership with Mr. Zuma’s son Duduzane, used their corporate vehicle, Oakbay, to hire the British firm in early 2016, at a time when the two families and the Zuma government were increasingly embroiled in corruption scandals.
Soon, the British agency was helping push a racially explosive campaign by Oakbay and the youth wing of Mr. Zuma’s ruling party that invoked “economic apartheid” and “white monopoly capital” that had a “stranglehold” on the economy. In one leaked e-mail, the agency called for “emotive language” such as “economic emancipation.” In another e-mail, an agency executive praised a youth leader in the ruling party who had threatened “civil war” against an opposition party.
The strategy expanded into social media, where hundreds of fake Twitter accounts were created to push the same racial message, often targeting white businesses and journalists with hate-filled rhetoric. It is unclear exactly who created the accounts, although the South African media have revealed that many of the accounts were linked to Gupta-owned companies.
The Bell Pottinger campaign blamed white-owned businesses for South Africa’s problems, fuelling racial conflict in a nation still struggling to heal its apartheid wounds.
On social media, thousands of South Africans hounded the British company with the hashtag #bellpottingermustfall. Whenever the agency tweeted on any subject, it was immediately deluged with hundreds of furious tweets from South Africans, calling it “evil” or worse. The company was stunned by the reaction. It briefly locked its Twitter account to make it private, then began blocking its critics to prevent them from seeing its tweets – an extreme move for a PR agency.
