Atul Gupta and his family have been criticised for allegedly improper links to Jacob Zuma. Credit:AP Last week, the source of the Twitter campaign was revealed, and the repercussions are still rocking South Africa. For months, Bell Pottinger, a London-based public relations company with a reputation for patching up the images of controversial clients, had denied claims that it was behind the #WhiteMonopolyCapital campaign and said it was the victim of a political smear campaign. But on Thursday, one day after a British PR industry group announced that it was looking into the allegations, Bell Pottinger acknowledged that some of the allegations against it were true and that its campaign, which had whipped up the country's racial tensions, had been offensive and inappropriate. It confessed "work was being done which goes against the very core of our ethical policies". The company apologised, fired a partner and suspended another partner and two other employees.

Protests extended to throwing stones at a branch of the ABSA. Credit:AP/File The company, however, did not spell out in detail how it may have controlled the Twitter bots and the crude images circulated on Twitter, nor did it respond to a request to clarify its role. Bell Pottinger, founded in the 1980s, has long courted controversy through its past and present state clients, including the Bahraini monarchy, the Rajapakse government in Sri Lanka and Asma al-Assad, the wife of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. In October 2016 it emerged that the Pentagon had hired the firm and given it over $US500 million to produce fake videos of terrorism and perform PR work. Jacob Zuma at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. Credit:Getty Images The "White Monopoly Capital" campaign was widely seen as intended to deflect criticisms from Zuma and the Gupta family, which has been accused of using corrupt influence to get favourable government deals. The family denies any wrongdoing.

A Gupta-owned company, Oakbay, had hired a Bell Pottinger partner, Victoria Geoghegan, to plan the spin campaign. Implicit was the unlikely notion that the wealthy family, which migrated from India in the 1990s, somehow represented the struggle of black businesses trying to overcome white, apartheid-era capitalists. Ferial Haffajee, editor at large for Huffington Post South Africa. Credit:Huffington Post/South Africa The campaign blew up when the South African opposition, the Democratic Alliance, accused the PR firm of sowing racial divisions and complained to the British PR industry group, the Public Relations and Communications Association, which is investigating the complaint. The company faced a massive backlash and recently switched its Twitter account to private to stop furious South Africans from posting criticisms and attacks. Hired: Victoria Geoghegan, a Bell Pottinger partner, was at the heart of the spin campaign. Credit:Twitter

Bell Pottinger severed ties with Oakbay in April, saying that attacks on it prevented it from representing the company properly, and soon afterward it hired a law firm to review the work done for the Gupta company. The law firm presented Bell Pottinger's management with evidence "which dismayed us," a statement from Chief Executive James Henderson said. Although some allegations against the company were not true, he said, "enough of it is to be of deep concern. There has been a social media campaign that highlights the issue of economic emancipation in a way that we, having now seen it, consider to be inappropriate and offensive." Bell Pottinger's role emerged after some 200,000 Gupta company emails were leaked to local media. In a country with lingering racial tensions, a divided government and deep economic rifts, Bell Pottinger wanted to create a political narrative designed to rally the masses around the Guptas and Zuma. The Gupta family is controversial because of accusations that it has enriched itself through a massive web of patronage and corruption in South African government agencies. A report by a government ombudsman last year found the Guptas had effectively "captured the state," influencing government appointments and offering bribes to government officials. According to leaked emails, Geoghegan met with Jacob Zuma's son, Duduzane Zuma, a close Gupta business associate, in January 2016 after outlining a five-month, $US647,000 ($850,000) campaign plan via email. The plan included using an activist group to tweet and agitate about "economic apartheid."

Bell Pottinger would generate material to "illustrate the apartheid that still exists," she wrote, referring to the system of legally mandated segregation and repression of blacks before 1994. The main organisation that emerged at the centre of the campaign was a radical Marxist group named Black First Land First, formed in 2015, which has repeatedly defended the Gupta family and Zuma. The emails published in local media contain no evidence the organisation was paid, but its campaign gained force, including recent protests outside the houses of journalists who have written critically about the Guptas, and an alleged assault on a white editor. On Thursday, members of Black First Land First threw stones at a South African bank, ABSA, during a protest, injuring a customer. A South African court last week ordered Black First Land First not to intimidate or threaten 11 journalists or ABSA bank customers. On Twitter, many South Africans expressed scepticism and disgust about the #WhiteMinorityCapital campaign.

On Friday, the Democratic Alliance, or DA, called on Bell Pottinger to fully disclose all its dealings with the Gupta family and Zuma. "Until then, their apology is nothing but a PR stunt brought on by the public pressure applied by the DA and the South African public," a statement from the party said. Los Angeles Times