Pretoria, March 2015
NOTWITHSTANDING THE PRESS COUNCIL having cleared my name, a one-time comrade-in-arms made negative allegations about me. Willie Hofmeyr, clearly the pointsman for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) on the issue of the Spy Tapes, and one of only two officials who by admission had listened to all of them, submitted a last-minute affidavit to the courts, on 31 March, 2015 in an effort to thwart the Democratic Alliance’s attempt to set aside Mpshe’s decision not to prosecute Zuma, and reinstate corruption charges against him.1 His affidavit appeared to indicate that Hofmeyr was possibly one of the anonymous informants in the Sunday Times story alleging I was the mastermind in the conspiracy against Zuma.2
This aspect of Hofmeyr’s submission of concern to me was his allegation that ‘from the tone of conversation’ between myself and McCarthy it was clear that I had functioned as a ‘conduit’ between McCarthy3 and Mbeki. To illustrate his allegations Hofmeyr cited calls between McCarthy and me over a six-month period; argued that there was no valid reasons for our interaction since I was not his line manager; claimed we spoke in ‘guarded terms’; that we met more than five times in the run-up to the ANC’s Polokwane conference; that together with Bulelani Ngcuka I was a ‘middle man’ for Mbeki; that he had worked out that I was ‘the guy’ and Mbeki was ‘the man’ referred to by Leonard McCarthy in one of the phone intercepts; and said that he was troubled by my stating in a radio interview that I had only met McCarthy once when in fact I was close to the man. He cited a lunch which he claimed had taken place at my home in Johannesburg in 2003, to which I had invited McCarthy, Nic Rowell (who had worked for a while with the Scorpions), several others and himself.4
This reference was factually incorrect. The luncheon did not take place at my home. Rather, we were all hosted at the Parkview residence of the British author Tim Butcher and his journalist wife, Jane Flanagan, as a farewell for his friend Nic Rowell. Nic had asked them to invite me, my wife Eleanor and son Andrew. When we arrived, we were introduced to Leonard McCarthy and his associate Faiek Davids. Hofmeyr arrived soon thereafter. Coincidentally, another guest present was Phylicia Oppelt, who was editor of the Sunday Times when I had my dispute with the paper over its Spy Tapes story.
If I had not publicly identified myself as ‘the guy’ in 2009, when the initial Spy Tape intercepts were leaked to the media, I very much doubt if Hofmeyr or anyone else for that matter would have deduced it was me. My approach has always been to state my case before conjecture gets out of hand. I had indicated many times over the years that I had known McCarthy from the time of Judge Sisi Khampepe’s commission, and explained the reasons why I had been willing to meet him in the run-up to the Polokwane conference. It was false to conclude that I had been trying to conceal the association. As for Hofmeyr’s conclusion that my interaction with McCarthy was ‘suspicious’, what would have been odd was if the minister of intelligence had had nothing to do with the head of the Scorpions. On several occasions I had made it clear that I had dealings with McCarthy so mentioning I had only met him once in a radio interview depended on what period I was referencing.5
The constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos said of Hofmeyr’s intervention: ‘Hofmeyr’s affidavit is, in fact, a lot of hearsay and conjecture. I’m not sure how helpful it will be to the NPA, which wants to stop the judicial review of the decision not to prosecute Zuma … the NPA is completely politically compromised, has been for a long time and that won’t change.’6 In the event, the Pretoria High Court rejected Hofmeyr’s argument and found in favour of the DA.
With the help of Hofmeyr’s affidavit, I finally could connect the rest of the dots and work out what was going on in that murky world of emails, Spy Tapes and all the other puzzles taking place in the house of smoke and mirrors that South Africa had become. The vexed mystery of who at least one of the anonymous informants was – often referred to as senior government sources, anxious to provide their version of events from behind a curtain of secrecy – had become clearer.
A letter to the press from someone who had worked with Hofmeyr in the NPA in earlier years, and had then regarded him ‘as a man of integrity, moral courage and a keen mind’ wrote how subsequently they became ‘disgusted at [his] role … in the withdrawal of the charges against Zuma’ in 2009. The writer expressed disappointment at Hofmeyr’s being ‘susceptible to political pressure in performing his constitutionally mandated legal duties’ and being ‘so ambition driven’ in his quest for more senior positions.7
I bump into Willie Hofmeyr on and off at funerals of struggle friends and at book launches, and interact with him without rancour. What happened between him and me was minor compared with other disappointments. At times I am vexed but I have long learnt not to be consumed by personal disappointment. It is the corruption of a whole movement that really troubles me – the darkness that has descended on many in the liberation struggle, which they once served with courage and commitment. We have seen comrade turning against comrade; witnessed so many betrayals, seen, too, how the cancer spreads, depending often simply on the leader served; how integrity and principles could become eroded; how ego and ambition overrode the foremost principle of all that we had grown up with – the principle of service to the people and not to one’s self.
This is, on a personal, individual level, what I have called a Faustian pact. Very often, underlying our behaviour are economic interests, as well as social, cultural and psychological factors, and ego, all bound together in wondrous and often unfathomable complexity. To understand the actions of so many of our compatriots, the answer is to follow the money trail. With others, perhaps those comfortably off, the driving force may be ego fulfilment and position. All this, however, falls within a bigger picture. To understand the plague that has become rife in the land, one needs to examine the political and economic forces at play within the context of the compromises and trade-offs made at the time of the negotiated settlement, and the enormous challenges these pose for the future.