Deputy President Thabo Mbeki was greatly angered when he discovered details of Robert McBride’s activities in Mozambique, writes Wally Mbhele
Deputy President Thabo Mbeki was so much in the dark about Robert McBride’s undercover spying activities on behalf of government intelligence agencies that a special team of intelligence officials was dispatched to interview the diplomat while he was in prison and report back to the deputy president on the veracity of the claims.
McBride was released this week from a Maputo jail after his period of detention, in terms of Mozambican law, expired without a case being brought against him. He was being held on suspicion of dealing in arms.
A contention by Mbeki – made in a letter to McBride’s wife, Paula – that Robert McBride had “no mandate from any of the legal organs of government” has caused heated debate within the African National Congress and was at the root of a dispute this week between Robert McBride and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), which is still publicly denying that the released diplomat performed any spying work for it.
But the Mail & Guardian spoke to a number of intelligence operatives this week who confirmed that McBride worked with them for the NIA. Some even said that McBride had recruited them for the NIA.
He was also appointed to the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee (Nicoc) by Thutukile Mazibuko, acting director general of the Department of Foreign Affairs, who subsequently denied any knowledge of McBride’s investigation into arms smuggling.
Because of Mbeki’s position, many ANC officials fear being openly associated with McBride. He spent six months in jail without a single senior government or ANC official visiting him. They were again conspicuous by their absence when he returned home this week. Those who expressed support for him did so by phoning him, while he held a meeting on Wednesday with ANC Women’s League president, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
And with the NIA again publicly disowning McBride, the credibility of the country’s spying agency was being questioned as various government intelligence operatives threw their weight behind McBride.
McBride indicated that he is to seek a meeting with Deputy Minister of Intelligence Services Joe Nhlanhla to explain exactly what his links were with intelligence agencies and exactly what he was doing in Maputo before his arrest on alleged gun-running charges. He has repeatedly said he was investigating gun smuggling to the heist gangs.
Despite the support for McBride among intelligence operatives, a senior NIA official who confirmed McBride’s intelligence work in a sworn affidavit presented to the Mozambique Supreme Court was hauled before a disciplinary committee before being subjected to a lie-detector test. The polygraph test found the official was not lying about his co-operation with McBride’s investigations into arms smuggling and highway heists.
Another official of the South African Security Service (Sass) also supported the theory that McBride provided them with counter-espionage information.
It is understood that senior intelligence officials – dispatched by Mpumalanga Premier Mathews Phosa on behalf of Mbeki – twice visited McBride in his Mozambican cell where they interviewed him about his NIA activities. There was evidence corroborating his version, even though it was found that his operations were not officially sanctioned at the highest levels.
McBride’s catalogue of his intelligence work and the list of NIA officials he worked with is understood to have made Mbeki extremely angry.
It is this discovery that underlay Mbeki’s angry outburst at a high-level ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting, following differences over a stinging letter Mbeki produced during the meeting. The deputy president condemned McBride for running “foul of the law in Mozambique” and suggested he “be dealt with according to the law of the country where he has voluntarily placed himself”.
In the letter, sent to Paula McBride, Mbeki stated: “All of us need to bear in mind the fact that whatever your husband sought to do in Mozambique, and however praiseworthy his intentions, it was done without any mandate from any legal organs of the South African government and without any effort on Robert [McBride’s] part to inform our government and any of its agencies of his intended actions.”
According to sources, Mbeki produced this letter for discussion as a motion was tabled calling for the “McBride affair” to form part of the NEC deliberations.
While other NEC members objected to the tone of the letter, pointing out that McBride had been set up by old-guard military intelligence operatives, Mbeki was outraged when he discovered the extent of McBride’s intelligence work, which sometimes stretched as far afield as Paris, where he investigated apartheid-era assassins of ANC officials.
McBride, according to M&G sources, was responsible for uncovering details of the assassination in Mozambique of ANCactivist Ruth First. He also investigated the assassination in Paris of ANC official Dulcie September. According to intelligence sources, McBride personally debriefed apartheid spy Craig Williamson on his missions abroad before handing on that information to a current member of Cabinet.
Various NIA functionaries approached by the M&G this week described how they were recruited into joining certain sensitive NIA structures following the NIA’s request to McBride for assistance. They revealed details of how they infiltrated certain international mafias operating in South Africa which the NIA could not break into.
Some spoke about their roles as agents who specialised in counter-espionage. They revealed the name of a high-ranking NIA official to whom they reported and who, according to these agents, praised McBride’s sterling contribution in recruiting them.
The reason why Mbeki launched a tirade against McBride’s alleged intelligence activities, according to sources, is because they were not officially sanctioned although they were undertaken with the full knowledge of certain key intelligence officials.
In the letter to Paula McBride, Mbeki wrote: “If what is reported is correct, that he sought to act against the illegal trade in weapons, it was possible for the relevant South African organs of state to act on this matter on the basis of agreements that exist between the governments of Mozambique and South Africa.”
Accordingly, said Mbeki, “if Robert [McBride] had information which led him to act in the way he did, there was nothing stopping him from approaching Minister [of Safety and Security Sydney] Mufamadi, or indeed his own ministers at foreign affairs, to communicate this information.
“He would then have had the possibility to propose ways and means by which, in his view, the culprits could be apprehended and brought to book, according to the laws of both South Africa and Mozambique, in keeping with international agreements which our government, of which he is part, has entered into.”
Mbeki argued that he was certain that had McBride followed the necessary procedures with the appropriate law enforcement agencies of both Mozambique and South Africa, they would have worked with him to catch any law-breakers without any complications.
However, said Mbeki in a letter filled with frustration and anger, “Robert [McBride], an official in our Department of Foreign Affairs, one of the repositories of our international instruments, ignored all this and decided to embark on a private enterprise which has led to an unfortunate outcome for himself, our government and yourselves as a family.
“Among other things, this behaviour has created serious doubts in many parts of the world about the respect that officials of our government have for agreements which the very government they serve enters into, and which they are supposed to implement,” Mbeki wrote.
“We will not condone such behaviour with regard to the particular matter of the actions of your husband. Neither would we expect any other rational person to do so. The public agitation that has taken place and is continuing in our country seeks to suggest that our government has the power and the responsibility, virtually to dictate to the Mozambican government how it should handle the `McBride affair’. I would like to state this clearly that your husband was arrested in Mozambique, he having taken himself to Mozambique of his own volition,” Mbeki added.
Of the pressure group that campaigned for McBride’s release, Mbeki said his government would not succumb to any pressure, regardless of its origins and the manner of its expression, which suggested that Mozambique is not an independent state, “but some territorial entity to which South Africa can dictate specific courses of action with regard to matters arising out of the arrest of your husband.
“We will not act in any manner, which, in any way whatsoever, suggests that Mozambique is no more than a bantustan of democratic South Africa. The public agitation within our own country also seeks to convey a message that we believe Mozambique has the possibility to compromise the independence of its own judiciary by compelling it to abide by decisions which would have been taken by our government and then imposed on the Mozambican `client state’.
“Further, nobody in our government needs to be educated about the role Robert [McBride] played in the struggle to liberate our country and people. Similarly, none of the members of this government engages in propaganda campaigns to educate the public about what he or she also contributed to the struggle.”
On Thursday, the NIA insisted that McBride needs to provide the names of people who either recruited him or worked with him. As far as they are aware, there are no people who worked with McBride in the intelligence community.