/ 8 December 1995

Did IFPman work for Boss

Mehlo Mvelase

MELCHIZEDEC ZAKHELE “MZ” KHUMALO — the alleged link man between Inkatha and the paramilitary unit at the centre of the Malan murder trial — has a long history of doing propaganda work for Pretoria.

The Mail & Guardian has established that Khumalo — the Malan trial’s “accused number 7” and the alleged middleman between IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Operation Marion — began his career as an apologist for Pretoria’s intelligence agencies as far back as 1963.

Khumalo was officially employed by Eschel Roodie’s infamous Department of Information, which spent millions of rand on furtive propaganda campaigns in the rest of Africa and in some European countries to promote apartheid and the homeland policy.

But the Information Department had close links with the Republican Intelligence Agency and its beefed-up successor, the Bureau of State Security — a police and intelligence agency that was designed as a power base for the then-Prime Minister BJ Vorster.

The relationship between the Information Department and Boss was so close that Boss chief Hendrik van den Bergh was obliged to resign just a few months before Vorster was forced out of office by the famous Infogate exposure of Boss and Information Department

Khumalo is described as “one of the first black recruits” to the Information Department. His work involved travelling through rural South Africa showing films promoting the government’s “separate development” plan and writing for the government publication Intuthuko Yabansunthu (Black Development).

Sources close to Khumalo’s family say he worked for Boss while the Information Department was his official employer. Although Boss used journalists working for trade magazines in South Africa and abroad as agents for propaganda work, there is no evidence that Khumalo collected hard intelligence against opponents of apartheid.

It was during his travels for the department that Khumalo met his future patron, IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi — beginning an enigmatic 20-year relationship.

The department apparently fired Khumalo in the early 1970s for being a “double agent”, after allegedly catching him smuggling information from the agency to Buthelezi.

At the time, Buthelezi was under investigation by Boss for his African National Congress sympathies. Khumalo had come to respect the Inkatha leader and began offering him copies of Boss reports. Buthelezi is reported to have been initially sceptical, but offered him a job in KwaZulu’s agriculture department after his dismissal.

In his new job, Khumalo continued his extensive rural travels — this time journeying throughout KwaZulu in a homeland government Landrover. As Buthelezi’s relationship with the ANC soured in the late 1970s and ANC youths began their exodus out of the country for military training, Khumalo began collecting political information for the IFP leader.

In the early 1980s, Buthelezi appointed Khumalo as his deputy personal secretary. Khumalo became his personal secretary by the mid-1980s. His rising status made him a valuable asset both to Military Intelligence and to the South African Police’s security branch when they began to form ties with the Zulu nationalist movement.

Khumalo began to play an active role in KwaZulu homeland security matters during his stint in the chief minister’s office, where he built a network of intelligence agents within government departments to ensure staff loyalty.

Khumalo played a major role in the creation of the KwaZulu Police, which he pitched to Buthelezi as a bulwark against the ANC. The formation of the IFP-aligned union federation, Uwusa, was also Khumalo’s brainchild.

The Malan indictment says Khumalo became the link man between the SADF and the IFP in 1986 when he took over contacts with the government following initial discussions with Buthelezi.

The indictment alleges Khumalo assisted with the recruitment of the 200 Caprivi trainees, paid their salaries, visited the camp, told the SADF the trainees “were getting restless and wanted to practise their skills”, and oversaw the planning of the 1987 attack on the home of Victor Ntuli.

Khumalo also managed — with political commissar Daluxolo Luthuli — the training of further IFP supporters at Mkuze in northern KwaZulu-Natal. When the Inkathagate scandal broke in 1991, sources said Khumalo sat quietly through a marathon session of IFP central committee in Ulundi before announcing, shortly after midnight, that he would take the rap.

Buthelezi apparently stood up to hug Khumalo afterwards. The next day, Khumalo was instructed to go on holiday to avoid the media while the IFP issued a statement blaming him for Inkathagate.

Shortly afterward, when Khumalo’s son died in a car accident, Buthelezi restored Khumalo’s faith in the IFP by bringing a cow to the funeral.

Khumalo then began to work covertly for the IFP, continuing his involvement with the party’s para-military organisation, alongside Luthuli.

Asked to comment, Khumalo told the M&G he was not able to give interviews to the media at this stage.