Johannesburg–Pretoria, August–September 2005
LIFE HAS ITS STRANGE TWISTS, and I seem to have had more than my fair share. I happened to be in the Cornish fishing village of St Ives, at the beginning of September 2005, with my then wife, Eleanor. We were on a short break in the UK, having been invited to a friend’s wedding near Land’s End. Then after spending an incredible day with the writer David Cornwell, better known to the world as John Le Carré, we decided to spend the night in nearby St Ives. While we were wandering about the village, in an eerily quiet dusk, with mist rolling in off the sea, I regaled Eleanor with the old rhyme, ‘As I was going to St Ives I met a man with seven wives …’
I paused for effect: ‘Jacob Zuma?’ I joked as my mobile phone rang.
It was Saki Macozoma, a fellow ANC national executive member who had become a director of Standard Bank. I did not know him socially and we were not close, but simply exchanged courtesies at political meetings. He complained to me that the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) had been keeping him under surveillance and he wanted to know why. I knew nothing about this and asked him to explain further. He told me that over the previous days both he and his wife, and associates at work, noticed that he was being watched – at home and work. He had ascertained that his car was being followed and he had photographs to prove it. He informed me that he had complained to a top NIA officer, Gibson Njenje, a fellow ANC member known to him. Gibson had come clean, apologised, said it was a mistake and had called off the surveillance team. I assured him I would immediately look into this when I got back home within a few days. He thanked me but said he would be submitting a formal complaint through his attorneys.
The fog was thickening as we made our way back to our hotel along cobblestone alleyways – a perfect setting for a Le Carré novel. While his stories are replete with sinister goings-on in the corridors of power in London and Moscow, I was taken aback by this strange turn of events at home.
I returned to Pretoria post-haste and, before gathering with the NIA leadership, had a meeting with Saki Macozoma. His story made me wince.
The previous week he had walked from his home in a quiet, upmarket Johannesburg suburb to buy the newspapers. He encountered a couple of men driving around the suburb, apparently lost. Their vehicle had out-of-town registration plates so they were easily spotted. He asked whether he could assist and they produced a piece of paper with an address. It was the same street he lived in, but whereas his house number was, let us say, 14, the number on the piece of paper was 41. He pointed them in that direction. He soon noticed another car with two men driving around. Like the first, it had out-of-town registration plates, which was unusual. This raised his suspicions. On returning home he found his wife in an agitated state, saying that men in a car had been taking photographs of their home. Together they noted several vehicles that afternoon all with unusual number plates. Next day, driving to work, he observed one such vehicle on his tail. Watching from his office block, he spotted several similar vehicles. Apart from the issue of why Macozoma was being watched, the actual operation, akin to blundering Keystone Cops antics, was acutely embarrassing. I once again assured him that I knew nothing about this and would be immediately meeting with Njenje and the head of NIA, Billy Masetlha, to find out what was going on.
Sitting in my office, I faced Masetlha, the head of NIA, Gibson Njenje, his deputy, and Bob Mhlanga, manager of counter-intelligence, and younger than the other two, who were both 1976 Soweto-generation activists. I had known them through my years of service in Lusaka, where they were based after initial training in Eastern Europe.
When I was appointed minister of intelligence in May 2004, the director general’s post was about to become vacant. Masetlha was in office by the year’s end. He had considerable experience as an intelligence officer in exile and had held a variety of posts within SASS, home affairs and the President’s Office. He had been serving there as security adviser to the president before he was released for the NIA post. On my part I agreed with Mbeki, whose responsibility it was to appoint DGs, that Masetlha should be given the opportunity to prove himself. I was a bit wary of all these changes, and interviewed Masetlha several times before agreeing to give him the job.
Gibson Njenje was a more settled character, who always appeared to me serious about getting on with his work. Whether in exile or back home, he avoided any sensationalism and had kept out of controversy. He had moved in and out of intelligence work in government for stints in the private sector.
I had known Bob Mhlanga when he was a keen 20-year-old in Lusaka working for the head of the ANC’s security department, Mzwai Piliso. He had advanced speedily up the ranks, but swift promotion, so detrimental to thorough grounding, had given him boots, in my view, that were too big for him. All the same, I recalled pleasant conversations with the young man whenever I visited Piliso, and he had displayed commitment and discipline in those days.
Sitting before me, the trio were tense and silent, and I had the sense, through years of experience in similar situations, they would all be singing from the same hymn sheet. Bob kept playing nervously with his car keys.
They watched intently, waiting for me to make the first move. I thought of my lunch just a week previously with John Le Carré. He had used the phrase ‘wolf boys’ in discussing a visit we discovered we had both made to a German security minister and his silent ‘wolf boy’ protectors. They did not take their eyes off visitors for a second. Whether it was American, Arab, French, Russian, Chinese or African, all security services had their complement of ‘wolf boys’, as did South Africa.
I had the trio’s written report before me, which I had read, and asked them to give me a full oral explanation. NIA had learnt that an agent from a foreign service was landing at Johannesburg’s international airport, and their surveillance teams were deployed to watch for him. They had missed him, however, but were aware that one of the people he intended to meet was Saki Macozoma. They stressed that Macozoma was not suspected of being an informant and did not know that the man was an agent. That was the gist of their story. As for the inefficiency of the surveillance teams, the trio tried to pin the blame exclusively on the field officer in command of the operatives; he had been placed under suspension.
I told them I thought their story was implausible. Since Macozoma was not the target, and since he was a senior ANC member, why not seek his assistance about the identity of the agent once he was approached by him? I was insistent about this, as I had emphasised since becoming their minister the need to utilise ANC sources, with their extensive contacts, to secure sought-after information.
I pointed out that a sensitive political issue such as the surveillance of an ANC leader should have been raised with me in the first place. I did not say so, but if Masetlha did not trust me he was duty-bound to have informed the president, which I knew he had not. The president was as surprised as I was that Macozoma had been placed under surveillance.
I turned to the utter incompetence of their surveillance operation. Where such methods were needed, these had to be well planned and effectively carried out. They had failed to brief the surveillance teams; they had failed to provide them with adequately registered vehicles; they had not even supplied the correct address; and the target and his associates had easily detected what was going on. They were grossly inefficient; failed to oversee the operation at a high level; left their foot soldiers groping around and directionless; and brought the agency into disrepute. The bungled operation was their responsibility, not the fault of the field officers. It was their dereliction of duty that required a serious disciplinary inquiry.
I certainly believed they were trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Something serious was amiss, which they were concealing from me. I consequently requested the inspector general of intelligence, Zola Ngcakani, to conduct an investigation into the legitimacy of the operation.1 Ngcakani was a tried and tested veteran of the ANC, an elderly man of sober habits and views, elegant and upright with the gravitas of a judge and the demeanour of a retired diplomat. I felt he was a safe pair of hands. But would he be able to outwit the wolves?