CHAPTER 12
Knocked Down by a Feather
ANC National Executive Committee meeting, Esselen Park, 18–20 November 2005
A FEW DAYS BEFORE PRESIDENT MBEKI warned members of the intelligence services that no member was permitted to pass on information to any unauthorised person, quite an extraordinary development had taken place at a tense meeting of the ANC’s sixty-strong National Executive Committee (NEC).1 The secretary general, Kgalema Motlanthe, announced that he would be handing out a dossier of emails that he had received from an anonymous source.
The document of more than 150 emails purported to reveal a conspiracy to prevent Jacob Zuma from succeeding Mbeki as the next president of the ANC. There could have been objections to Motlanthe’s intervention on the grounds of the non-procedural approach, but it was a period when everyone was on tenterhooks and at pains to avoid confrontation: placid on the surface but like ducks paddling furiously below. Indeed, as pointed out by the Mail & Guardian: ‘By handing the emails to the NEC, Motlanthe was openly flouting the official line. Already on October 23, Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils had issued a public statement, warning against “sinister emails” doing the rounds, labelling them “clearly fraudulent” and “reminiscent of Stratcom operations during the apartheid era”.’2
I had high regard for Motlanthe and did not doubt his integrity. It occurred to me then that my hunch about who might have been anonymously depositing copies of the emails on his doorstep was possibly correct.
Like others, heads down and in silence, I focused on the document before me, and to my surprise encountered scores and scores of poorly cyclostyled copies of emails. I scanned the pages from the initial emails, already familiar to me, commencing in February 2005, to a profusion of many more, climaxing in occurrence during the period July through to September, and petering out in October at the time of Masetlha’s suspension that year.3
The gist of the collection was the existence of a sinister conspiracy against the ANC deputy president, Jacob Zuma, together with the secretary general of the ANC, Kgalema Motlanthe, and Billy Masetlha. This was the so-called conspiracy to prevent Zuma from becoming the next ANC president, about which Zuma had been alluding for several years without ever producing a shred of evidence. As previously mentioned, it appeared that there were two groups of plotters. The one group, allegedly a Xhosa faction, was led by Saki Macozoma, a fellow NEC member in our very midst. The group included prominent figures in the ANC, government, the political opposition, state prosecutors, Scorpions members and business. Their objective was the political and economic control of the country. Their primary targets were Zuma, Motlanthe and Masetlha.
The second group, acting independently of the first, was headed by Tony Leon, leader of the parliamentary opposition, supported by apparent white racists in the Scorpions and by leading journalists. By sheer coincidence this group similarly targeted Zuma, Motlanthe and Masetlha in order to provoke the alleged division within the ANC, lead to its breaking apart, and allowing the ‘white man’ to again assume control of the country, led by their ‘champion’, Tony Leon.
All the errors I had noted in the emails I had already seen were rife throughout the Kgalema dossier. I hoped that my NEC colleagues would be up to the challenge of at least spotting the most obvious mistakes in language usage and the unbelievably foolish nature of the ‘conspiracy’ scenario. The concern, as I well knew, was that virtually all, save for a handful of computer and email literates, would be befuddled by the technical aspects. Most colleagues had staff attending to their correspondence and would never have sent an email in their lives. The conjuror’s trick was to blind the ignorant and naïve who knew next to nothing of IT, so that mail between A and B would be unquestionably believed. After all, the ‘proof’ was manifest in print before their very eyes. Everyone had heard of the ‘hacking’ or interception of emails, and here appeared visible proof of that. The question of how these came into the secretary general’s hands could be a moot point. I knew that most people would not question the technical aspects of the IT, but I hoped that the bizarre contents of the emails would be seen as ludicrous.
The collection of correspondence commenced with the emails I had seen dating from early February 2005, between Saki Macozoma, Bulelani Ngcuka and his wife, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. The trio, with others, appeared to conspire against Zuma. Phumzile would be rewarded with her appointment to Zuma’s position of deputy president of the country (which did in fact come to pass in June of that year) and her husband Bulelani would be amply rewarded with funds to ‘catapult’ him into the business world. The subject heading used for these emails was ‘death knell of Zuluboy’, alluding to the conspirators’ aim of ‘making sure’ that the ‘Zulu bastard is nailed to the cross’.
By 20 April, Macozoma, the ringleader of the ‘Xhosa’ conspirators, in an email to a senior government official, identified Kgalema Motlanthe – misspelt as Motlantle throughout the document, whether by an Afrikaner or African author – as an impediment to their aims: ‘By the time the NGC [ANC’s National General Council, due to meet at the end of June 2005] arrives we should have got him [Zuma] out of office. The NGC should be used to make sure that he is dead buried and that he has no constituency … If we fail to do this how are we going to contain Motlantle [sic], Cyril [Ramaphosa] and other hopefuls?’
On the same day Macozoma reminded Phumzile of his promise to make her the country’s deputy president: ‘I can you tell [sic] right now that Zuluboy’s position is yours … You can be assured of the position because the Chief [Thabo Mbeki] believes in you. Another thing that guarantees you thies [sic] positions is the fact that … you are of Zulu descent, that makes it impossible to accuse us of tribalism.’
On 16 August Tony Leon featured in a so-called chat room with his group of conspirators: the journalist Matthew Buckland and the prosecutors and Scorpions investigators Gerrie Nel, Izak du Plooy and Johan du Plooy, carefree of any danger from their treasonable discourse:
IdP: We are about to raid Zuma’s premises … We are going for all his houses as well as his attorney and [Zweli] Mkhize, the MEC for KZN. It will be a spectacle.
TL: Do you have enough manpower to do that?
JdP: We’ll use the ‘A Team’ from the old days and few darkies to sprinkle on …
TL: What about Motlantle? [sic]
IdP: His time is coming, [Vusi] Pikoli [headed NPA after Bulelani Ngcuka] has given us the green light to ‘keep him in the news’ until we have enough time of effect a raid on him and his comrade [Manne] Dipico.4
MB: We are running a story about [Motlanthe] this weekend about his house in the golf course. We need to nail him to the same cross with his financial advisor Majali.5
The emails of 27 August again featured the same ‘chat room’ personalities:
TL: I hear you are being victimised by NIA, what’s going on?
JdP: We have had meetings with them and they are very hostile
IdP: They are very angry about the raids as you know …
TL: Do you think they have a leg to stand on?
GN: Netshitenze6 [sic] has assured us that nothing will happen to us since Mbeki believes in what we do. However I think we need to sort out the NIA bastards.
JdP: We need to find something on Billy Masetla [sic], and get him out of NIA because he is the thorn in our sides.
B: I’ll check the archives for the time when he was still at home affairs, maybe there’s something we can get from there. Anything, his personal life, his weaknesses, his bank accounts, etc.
GN: We will get our friends … to check on that, see if we can’t start harassing him on things he hasn’t paid yet … We need something substantial eventually, that would justify a raid. Pikoli would be delighted to go get something and raid and destroy Masetla [sic], he hates him with a vengeance.
On 12 September, there is email communication between Macozoma and Vusi Pikoli, who succeeded Bulelani Ngcuka as head of the National Prosecuting Authority:
SM: I had a chat with Bulelani regarding the issues at hand. I think we need to up the tempo on Masetla [sic]… What are your boys finding on this guy? He needs to be replaced ASAP!!
VP: You guys need to help me out … [Bulelani Ngcuka] is offering me some shares … For now my guys don’t have anything on Masetla. However one of my guys, Nel, has a potential good friend in NIA, in the technology section … he may be able to assist. I agree that Masetla is becoming a problem.
SM: I’m glad you have a potential ally on the inside. Let’s use the Boers where we can.
On 9 October, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka writes to Macozoma:
PMN: Hi Saki. What is your view regarding the Khampepe Commission. Don’t you think we need to reign [sic] in that woman. Zuluboy’s trial is commencing, Masetla [sic] is attacking Vusi’s team, the commission is on, we have the youth league and communists giving us trouble, it looks like we are losing the battle to the populists.
SM: As discussed I have requested Vusi to invite Billy Downer7 [for our meeting] sometime next week for the briefing regarding Zuluboy’s case. As for Masetla [sic], you need to inform me on how things have gone with Ronnie [Kasrils]. You have nothing to worry regarding Sisi [Khampepe], she is fully aware that her career depends on the findings … We cannot allow [Jackie] Selebi [the national police commissioner] to control this team.
On 15 October, Pumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka writes to Ronnie Kasrils:
PMN: Hi Ronnie … There is not much accept [sic] to congratulate you on handling Billy who is fast becoming an uncontrollable bullterrier. You did very well to inform the media and lambaste him in public. How is Leonard [McCarthy, head of the Scorpions] doing?
RK: He [Masetlha] is becoming a real nuisance now … He does not even honour some of the meetings I call. I hope you guys won’t mind me using the M&G newspaper, I have some good contacts there. I’ve also sent a statement to Anton Harber, he says he has good contacts within the Sunday Times. Leonard is okay … [but] bothered by the fact that Billy knows too much about the issue of our overseas friends and our co-operation with them. What is wrong with me organizing meetings with Mossad, since it’s known that I am a Jew. I’m contacting the best to assist our country with counter-terrorism … then I’m judged. It’s hard to be of Jewish descent.’
I was aware that there had been intimations that I was a Mossad connection, which was a cheap smear. I never played at ‘Jewish victimhood’ or spoke in that manner, but knew from Barry Gilder, who had been transferred from home affairs to head the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee, that some people were harping on our Jewish connection in an effort to place me in an ethnic bracket.
I believe that what those manufacturing the emails were doing was cloning a real timeline of events so that the emails appeared authentic, seemingly introducing new topics and characters as they actually transpired in real life. This was easily effected by following events, mixing truths with half-truths for the sake of authenticity, fabricating communiqués and then backdating them. An example in point occurred on 19 October, in a chat room exchange with Leonard McCarthy, in which I say: ‘I’d like to inform you that I will be meeting with Gerry Adams the IRA leader today before noon … I’d like you to be present … to prove that you do not only talk to British, US and Mossad people.’
Gerry Adams had indeed been in South Africa and I had co-hosted a party for him that evening, so the date was correct. But I would not ordinarily refer to Adams as an IRA leader. He had become president of the political party Sinn Fein, and whatever his past IRA connections, new circumstances required meticulous political correctness in reference to him, to which I strictly adhered.
I also noted with some amusement that I first made an appearance in the email script as soon as I began tangling with Billy Masetlha. So in an email that Mlambo-Ngcuka wrote to Saki Macozoma (on 9 October) she states that ‘we need to get Ronnie to deal with Masetla’. The unsuspecting reader accepting the email date stamps as genuine would regard this as proof of an impending entanglement with Billy. By sleight of hand a concocted email, handcrafted but made to look genuine, and backdated prior to any action against him, could be made to look authentic since such an imbroglio did take place.
However, so amateurish and prone to error was the sequence of the emails that on close examination I believed any objective reader without a political bias would recognise they were fake. (The problem was, however, twofold: IT could fool the naïve; and those with a partisan political agenda needing or wishing to think anything bad about their rivals would suspend objectivity and reasonable belief.)
By way of example, in an email from me to Phumzile on 20 October at 21.30, I write: ‘As you are aware I have now managed to suspend the two Masetla [sic] allies8 … Billy is going to be a difficult one. And I will really need you to come to my rescue by assisting me.’9
Phumzile replies: ‘I don’t think that you need to worry … Billy will have to go.’
Yet Masetlha had already been suspended several hours before Phumzile was supposed to have written this. If the emails had been genuine, I would have known and, as I was responsible for Masetlha’s suspension, would have referred to it, rather than asking for someone to ‘come to my rescue’ in dealing with him. An authentic email from me would have referred to that piece of salient news.
This was followed by an email from Phumzile to Saki on 21 October 2005, at 6.30 a.m., in which she laments: ‘It’s time we nailed Billy to the cross. We cannot have one man seeking to disturb our plans.’ Saki replies at 6.39 a.m.: ‘Relax on that one Phumzile, we’ll nail him.’
Genuine, real-time emails would have had both these exchanges refer to Masetlha’s actual suspension nearly twenty-four hours earlier, during the day of 20 October. In real life I would have been informing Phumzile on the night of 20 October that we had suspended Masetlha and his two subordinates.
I had the advantage of familiarity with the subject matter, so was able to read through the dossier well ahead of my colleagues. I decided to leave the conference room and seek an early cup of coffee. I bumped into Kgalema, and could not resist beseeching him with the words: ‘Comrade Kgalema, surely you can’t believe these emails are genuine?’
I was shocked to discover he did, for it confirmed my worst fears that such potent emails, which I considered fake, could apparently take in someone like him. I felt weak at the knees. I could have been knocked down with a feather.