ANC National Executive Committee meeting, Esselen Park, 18–20 November 2005, continued
FEATHER-DUSTED, BUT NONETHELESS as determined as ever, I returned to my seat feeling depressed. Once all had completed the reading of the emails, I concentrated on nothing but the discussion.
It was Kader Asmal, as usual, who spoke out first, and he was damning of the emails, which he termed clearly fake and an effrontery to any rational-minded individual’s cerebral capacity. He later chided me for having coined the term ‘hoax emails’ as ‘hoax’ was not as explicit as ‘fake’. Kader Asmal, focused as a reader and quick to spot errors, referred to the absurdity of the chat room welcome to Anton Harber which had enquired: how were things at Caxton’s? Kader guffawed in that exacting way of his, as though talking down to his students in a lecture hall, explaining that Caxton’s was not a place but part of Harber’s title in his new post at Wits, as Caxton Professor of Journalism.1 Of course, Kader Asmal, like others, also demolished the idea that liberal democrats like Harber, Buckland and Tony Leon could be involved in a crusade for a return to a white racist South Africa.
It was Saki Macozoma, clearly burning with rage, who spoke next and, in a most aggrieved manner, expressed his anger at the surveillance operation that he and his family had endured, and the libellous nature of the emails, which he decried as clearly fabricated and malicious. He denied ever having sent any of the mails, and explained that he had never utilised the email address that appeared as his.
I told the meeting that the emails were a clear attempt to reinforce the claim of a conspiracy at play against Jacob Zuma and was a blatant attempt to pull the wool over our eyes. By way of example of how fake things were, I provided the simple example of how different people, from entirely different backgrounds, consistently misspelt names such as Motlanthe (as ‘Motlantle’) and Masetlha (as ‘Masetla’) in the exact same way. This was highly unlikely.
I pointed out some other easily detectable technical faults and errors, such as the errors in timeline in the correspondence between Mlambo-Ngcuka and me at the time of Masetlha’s suspension. But I decided to keep the technical aspects to a minimum. As my main thrust, I decided instead to focus on the apparent disregard of security, by both the Macozoma group and the Tony Leon group, as comrades could well understand the dangers involved in risking sedition and treason. Most present had some experience of clandestine work in the struggle days, of the use of codes or jargon to preserve secrecy, and would be on more comfortable ground debating this. I clearly recall saying to Jacob Zuma on one particular occasion in the NEC: ‘Msholozi [his clan name], remember the three little letters MCW [Military Combat Work] which we studied with amaRussia [the Russians]?’ He could not resist a smile and I continued: ‘You know how strict we were to preserve secrecy. Can you imagine these conspirators, all well aware of the painful consequences they could face if exposed, stupidly committing their seditious thoughts to emails, when we have all heard in these times how prone such communications are to interception?’2
I continued, that since Phumzile and I lived on the presidential estate, and my front door and her back door were a mere hundred metres distant, if we wished to discuss something sensitive and potentially dangerous to us both, why would we resort to emails? I could simply walk over to her back door by night, knock for her attention, and chat to her in the garden under a tree, where we could not be bugged.
I enquired of Motlanthe how he had come into possession of the emails. His reply was that the bundle had been left outside his Luthuli House office door. I almost asked whether there was any relation between that and the day of the fire when Masetlha had engaged in firefighting theatrics.
There was some general discussion about a conspiracy that was clearly afoot, but by whom it was difficult to be sure, even conceivably by a third force wishing to create confusion and set comrades at one another’s throats. This was a possibility that could not be immediately disproved. Although the overwhelming majority of NEC members clearly regarded the emails as indeed fake, Kgalema requested that he be given a mandate to establish an independent ANC task team to investigate their veracity. Five or six hands immediately shot up in support, and at a glance we could see the minority who sided with him: Ngoako Ramatlhodi, Tony Yengeni and Fikile Mbalula, the Youth League leader, being the most prominent. Mbalula had glanced at me sitting quite coincidentally next to Macozoma when he entered the meeting. He had waved a dismissive hand at us with the words ‘just to be expected’ – as if sitting together was proof of a conspiratorial link.
Yengeni and Ramatlhodi were different propositions. Tony Yengeni, known to me from underground times, was a courageous MK commander. Once he received his military training abroad, he had no interest in hanging around near the leadership waiting for a plum job in exile, which could have been his for the taking. He was fixated on returning home and had the political understanding to realise the need to focus on building underground cells, linked to the people, in order to launch armed operations. When he was captured in Cape Town and brutally tortured, he did not break. I worked with him after 1990, organising mass action, and again admired his dedication and flare. As an ANC MP in the new parliament, and as ANC chief whip, he was similarly dedicated, but a weakness for luxury cars and fashionable clothing got him into trouble. Disciplined by parliament for evading the truth about a R150,000 concession he had received for a Mercedes Benz, he was criminally charged and spent a year in prison, where I visited him and discovered how anti-Mbeki he had become. I felt his antipathy to Mbeki stemmed from a resentment that the president had failed to prevent the criminal proceedings against him.
As for Ramatlhodi, I had worked with him in Zimbabwe in building the political underground in South Africa and was impressed with his skill and dedication. I was fond of him too and had made a speech in his honour at a family celebration when he graduated as a lawyer. He had been a young member of Mbeki’s Lusaka group and he clearly admired the future president. Back home he became premier of Limpopo province, when it was still called the Northern Province, and as water and forestry minister I worked well with him and his officials. At some point the Scorpions began to investigate him for possible corruption, which never was proved, but it appeared to me that he, like Yengeni, believed Mbeki should have interceded to quash any investigation from the outset. Like Yengeni, too, he had a good political head, and so it was possible that both personal and political grievances were the reason, from what I picked up, why he was running with the Zumaites. All the same, it was disturbing that comrades like them were becoming so disaffected with Mbeki and his leadership style for it was perceived that he operated within a narrow circle of confidants – in exile and back home.
I was among the first who supported Kgalema’s request for the establishment of an independent ANC inquiry into the emails. While the majority could have insisted this was unnecessary, and that it reflected a lack of trust in a state process, it was probably the right way to go if we were to have a chance of settling differences – or so some of us hoped.
What we gained in return was an agreement that comrade Motlanthe would provide President Mbeki with the set of emails so they could be handed to the inspector general for his investigation. This would be more arrows to the IG’s bow, and I knew he would be delighted. All the other copies had to be handed back to Motlanthe.
The meeting gave me a renewed opportunity to connect the dots in the puzzle which had been unfolding during 2005. On returning home from the NEC meeting, I sat down at my desk, and began jotting down a timeline under the heading ‘Who Dunnit?’
Connect them dots!!
What the IG had cleared up, to my relief, was that the admirable Kgalema Motlanthe was no more than an unwitting recipient of the email packages deposited on his doorstep. The summary of Zola Ngcakani’s report released to the media made that clear.3
I slept well that night, looking forward to meeting the inspector general the following day, and handing him the new batch of emails. Ngcakani would have them professionally analysed and his investigators would seek to track down the source.