South Africa, 1990–2004
THAT RAINY NIGHT IN 1982, when the two of us – ‘Baba’, or Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, and I, ‘Homeboy’ (mFana’kithi, one of my many noms de guerre) – slipped across the border into Swaziland still stands out in my memory, not only because I fell and sprained my ankle. Whenever the weather grows cold, the ankle still protests a little and I relive that night’s mishap. But the incident marked, too, the start of a gradual rupture with my friend Jacob Zuma, whom I had till then considered to be a straight-cut, simple man of the people. For if I had not overheard him soon afterwards referring to my mishap in a two-faced manner, then my memory of the event would not be clouded by feelings of ambivalence, and all I would recollect would be my leaning on his shoulder for support as he guided me safely back across the border into Mozambique.
Twelve years after that incident, our whole world had changed. South Africa had been politically free since the first national elections in 1994, which saw the elevation of Nelson Mandela as president. Mandela himself was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki, in 1999, and Zuma in turn became Mbeki’s deputy while I served alongside them both in the cabinet. Zuma’s original rise to prominence in the country owed much to Mbeki. They were both born in the same year, the one into a leading struggle family of intellectuals, the other coming from an impoverished rural background. While Mbeki had the advantages of a university education in Britain, Zuma had little formal education, was largely self-taught as a child, herding cattle whilst his friends went to school, and may be perceived as harbouring a degree of resentment for ‘clever’ blacks. The duo began a second term in 2004 after that year’s general election when the ANC’s popular vote rose to within a whisker of 70 per cent, the highest it had achieved till then.
It appears that Zuma was not Mbeki’s first choice as deputy president in 1999. Mangosuthu Buthelezi, leader of the Zulu-based rival of the ANC, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), says Mbeki approached him but he turned down the offer. This was possibly because the powers of the position had been greatly reduced since Mbeki’s tenure, when he was a virtual prime minister under Mandela. For many years the ANC, short of Zulu leaders though not of Xhosa ones, had been keen to ensure their presence in leadership, and Thabo Mbeki was no exception. I thought that Mbeki’s initial preference for Buthelezi might have distressed Zuma. On an election campaign in the run-up to the 1999 national elections I was present when Zuma made a speech glibly explaining that it was the ANC’s tradition that a deputy president always succeeded a president when the latter’s term of office came to an end. It occurred to me at the time that this kind of ambition could cause problems. It crossed my mind again when I learnt from a source close to his family that he was already saying in 2000 that Mbeki would block him from ever becoming president. Resentment and ambition were already brewing.
Mbeki and Zuma had once been extremely close. They originally worked for a year as a team in Swaziland in 1975–6, forging links with contacts inside South Africa sympathetic to the ANC. Later, Zuma joined a trusted quartet led by Mbeki that was involved in secret talks with representatives of the apartheid regime in the late 1980s. He was certainly hand-picked by Mbeki for this role, which greatly aided his political profile. This channel paralleled Mandela’s historic talks as a prisoner with his jailers, the dual initiatives eventually merging and flowing into the formal negotiations between the ANC and the white government for a political settlement.
The negotiations process was accompanied by violence and killing on a scale that was not matched even in the strife-torn 1980s. It was in this violence-prone period that Zuma made a positive mark for himself, and impressed Mandela and many more besides. He was deployed to his turbulent home province of Natal, later KwaZulu-Natal, which was controlled at the time by Buthelezi’s IFP. In the 1980s the IFP had literally fought off the United Democratic Front (UDF), which was strongly pro-ANC. The IFP had become aligned to the National Party, and some two hundred of its members had been secretly trained in the Caprivi Strip by the police and South African Defence Force (SADF) as a counter to the ANC.1 Natal had come to resemble a killing field with so-called black-on-black violence stoked by apartheid security forces and led by a shadowy policeman, General Jack Buchner, who was police commissioner in the Zulu homeland.
In this situation Zuma’s background and shrewdness were impressive qualities, assisted by his knowledge of the region, his fluency in the language, and his affinity with the rural people and their culture. He got on well with the Zulu monarch, King Goodwill Zwelithini, like him a polygamist and always requiring ever more funds. It would be an exaggeration to say that it was Zuma alone who managed to neutralise much of the enmity between the role players, including the king, and win over considerable numbers of supporters to the ANC ahead of the 1994 elections, but he nonetheless proved an adept leader in those circumstances and built up a personal following from that time. It was Zuma’s relationship with the likes of Schabir Shaik and other ambitious businessmen that began to raise eyebrows and concern about his fallibilities and constant need for a handout, whatever the source. There were ANC militants like Harry Gwala and Blade Nzimande who frowned on Zuma’s approach to peace-making, which they viewed as far too conciliatory.2
Long before Mbeki stepped down as president, relations between him and Zuma had become increasingly strained. Indeed, as I shall explain, Mbeki had dismissed Zuma from his position as deputy president in a move that would later rebound on him and lead to his own dismissal by the party. This fraught relationship between the two came to reflect a bitter and divisive schism within a proud and historic liberation movement that had always prized its unity as its greatest source of strength. In a wicked twist Mbeki was destined not to serve out his full term of office as president of the ANC and of the country partly owing to the rift between Zuma and himself and to growing factionalism within the movement, which began to tear it apart.
In the meantime I had served Mandela as deputy minister of defence, and was appointed minister of water affairs and forestry by his successor, Thabo Mbeki. Incidentally it was in that position that I once had the occasion to be in the company of Deputy President Jacob Zuma and King Zwelithini. They treated me like a hero on a day in 2000 when I renamed the Chelmsford Dam, near Newcastle, in KwaZulu-Natal, after the Zulu general Ntshingwayo, who had annihilated Lord Chelmsford’s invasion column at the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879.
The promotion to a full cabinet position by Mbeki had surprised me as I had never been particularly close to him. I was historically more aligned to the military grouping of Joe Slovo and Chris Hani, and the South African Communist Party (SACP) leadership of Slovo, rather than any Mbeki grouping. We considered both Mbeki and Zuma moderate and less inclined to mass action, and did not quite trust Zuma. To my surprise Mbeki appointed me minister of intelligence services in May 2004, a senior post carrying considerable responsibility. I was aware he had become concerned about the ineffectiveness and pro-Zuma politicisation of the security and intelligence sector, and I felt he had become more confident in my ability owing to my loyal service in government. By then he too had certainly lost confidence in Zuma.
At the cabinet appointments Mbeki was accompanied by the secretary general of the ANC, Kgalema Motlanthe, a man of dignified bearing whom I greatly respected. That gave me a comfortable feeling, as it conveyed a synergy between government and the political movement.3 I also had high regard for Motlanthe as a seasoned revolutionary. He was five years younger than Mbeki and Zuma, had been leader of the powerful National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), a Robben Island prisoner, and, like Mbeki and Zuma, a former member of the SACP. The careers of the trio were to feature together dramatically in the years ahead.