SA Londoners protest against Bell Pottinger over Gupta ‘dirty money’

Members of the largely South African-expatriate public pressure group We Are South Africans gathered outside the offices of public relations firm Bell Pottinger in London on Saturday morning to protest against the company.

There were reportedly about 30 protesters singing songs such as “Shosholoza” and brandishing placards.

They had earlier been granted permission by the London Metropolitan Police Service to protest in the upmarket financial district of Holborn, where the controversial firm that used to represent the controversial Gupta family’s company Oakbay is based.

The group on Thursday said it wanted Bell Pottinger – which has been accused of intentionally sowing the seeds of racial division in South Africa in order to deflect attention from allegations of “state capture” by the Guptas and President Jacob Zuma – to pay reparations to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund for damage it allegedly caused to the country’s economy and its people.

It wants the firm to pay over all the profits it made from what is understood to have been called “Project Biltong”.

Justin Eden, the organiser for the We Are South Africans protest, said in a statement the UK PR company had “caused immense racial division in our country that ordinary people had to mend”.

“Based on the ‘State of Capture’ report by previous public protector Advocate Thuli Madonsela it is clear that monies paid to Bell Pottinger could have been obtained through irregular tenders‚ known or unknown‚ alleged or not.

“We therefore calmly urge Bell Pottinger to donate the money they have received from Oakbay Investments and affiliated companies to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund as reparation for the damages they have caused the South African people as well as the South African economy‚” the statement said.

Bell Pottinger confirmed on Wednesday that it had dropped the Guptas’ holding company Oakbay as a client, saying it had fallen victim to a politically driven “smear campaign” in South Africa over the last few months.

The company has denied it ran an underhanded “deflection campaign” for the Guptas.

“It has been alleged that whilst we were contracted to Oakbay we were primarily working for the Gupta family with the full approval and involvement of President Zuma. This is completely not the case,” it said in a statement.

The protesters also want an undertaking from Bell Pottinger that it will stop interfering in South Africa’s political scene from now on, and they also want to know if they are still representing the Guptas’ other companies, or any of the family members in an individual capacity.

Bell Pottinger has declined to give media interviews on the matter.

Last year, the family’s involvement with the Guptas came to light when veteran journalist Stephen Grootes discussed his experience of being invited to have an exclusive interview with the eldest and most influential member of the Gupta family, Ajay.

He wrote about how he was sent a mail by the “now famous” London-based public relations firm Bell-Pottinger asking him to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before he would be allowed to know which famous person he’d have the opportunity to interview.

He signed it and it turned out that person was Ajay Gupta.

The Guardian reported last year that the firm has often taken on highly controversial clients including “the government of Sri Lanka; FW de Klerk when he ran against Nelson Mandela for president of South Africa; Thaksin Shinawatra, the ousted Thai premier, whom protesters claim still controls the country; Asma al-Assad, the wife of the president of Syria; Alexander Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus; Rebekah Brooks after the phone-hacking scandal broke; the repressive governments of Bahrain and Egypt; the American occupying administration in Iraq; the polluting oil company Trafigura; the fracking company Cuadrilla; the athlete Oscar Pistorius after he was charged with murder; the Pinochet Foundation during its campaign against the former Chilean dictator’s British detention; the much-criticised arms conglomerate BAE Systems – Bell or Bell Pottinger has represented all of them.”

They first came to fame by assisting Margaret Thatcher to become the British prime minister in the 1980s.

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