A dispute over provincial borders has degenerated into allegations of heavy-handed tactics, reports Stefaans
ALLEGATIONS of intimidation and strong-arm tactics are being laid at the door of Eastern Transvaal Premier Mathews Phosa by “enemies” of his drive to incorporate the Northern Transvaal enclave of Bushbuckridge into his own province.
Phosa has denied the allegations, but this week retreated into uncharacteristic silence in response to an impending R300 000 defamation suit against him by Sheila Sithole, the ANC Women’s League chairperson in Bushbuckridge. Sithole is also Commissioner on Women in the office of Northern Transvaal Premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi and a member of the legislature in that province.
Claims of a “border war” between the African National Congress provincial governments of Phosa and Ramatlhodi are officially denied. But an atmosphere of fear, division in party ranks and mutual, if veiled, recrimination is a clear indication that agreement on the transfer has not been as amicable as it is presented to be.
Bushbuckridge, consisting of districts of the former Gazankulu and Lebowa homelands, has some of the strongest ANC branches in the country and is a bastion of political support for Phosa and his allies in the Eastern Transvaal
The two provinces agreed in principle last September to transfer the territory to the Eastern Transvaal, but a complex constitutional process still has to be followed.
Phosa’s representative Oupa Pilane, reacting to news that Sithole was about to serve papers on Phosa, this week said the premier’s only comment was that he had referred the matter to state lawyers.
Sithole’s demand for R300 000 defamation damages is likely to open a Pandora’s box of accusations of strong-arm tactics used against ANC members in Bushbuckridge who have been perceived by Phosa’s government to be against incorporation. There are allegations of death threats, of an attempted trumped-up charge against Sithole and of pressure on a cameraman to hand over a videotape which potentially incriminated Phosa.
Even an incident when demonstrators took Ramatlhodi and Sithole “hostage” during a visit to Bushbuckridge last August is alleged to part of a conscious strategy used against perceived opponents of incorporation.
Phosa arrived in a helicopter to “rescue” his Northern Transvaal counterpart and Sithole when pro-incorporation demonstrators surrounded them and barred them from leaving a rondawel where they were to meet local chiefs.
The Sithole camp alleges many of the demonstrators had been bused in from outside Bushbuckridge for a “staged” demonstration and believes the rescue could have been pre-
Sithole announced her intention last month to sue for defamation after Phosa had allegedly called her and two other ANC leaders from the area “mpanyulas” during an April 9 Chris Hani memorial rally in Bushbuckridge. The Shangaan word loosely translates as “arsehole of an animal” and, according to Sithole, is customarily never used in the presence of women or older people.
Confirming this week that legal papers were about to be delivered on Phosa, Sithole said: “The premier went too far. I don’t see the need for what was said. We belong to the same organisation … You can’t solve a party thing at a public rally.”
On April 25 Phosa, who served as ANC headquarters lawyer before last year’s elections, was asked at a press conference about the meaning of mpanyula. He reportedly said: “It means ‘idiot’, but of course I never said it.”
The next day Jacques Horak, Sithole’s lawyer, revealed he had two videotapes of Phosa’s speech. Phosa, in a transcript in possession of the Weekly Mail & Guardian, uses the word a number of times in apparent reference to Sithole and ANC Bushbuckridge figures Sam Mkhabela and Laurence Mogakane, who both served on Transitional Local Councils (TLCs) in the district.
In the transcript Phosa appears to imply that the TLCs — which had been instituted under the Northern Transvaal government — undermined incorporation. He accuses Sithole of launching ANC Women’s League structures in Bushbuckridge “in secret” and all three of “sowing confusion” about
He also urges the rally, in apparent reference to the three, to “use the whip, clap them, don’t agree”.
Sithole this week denied having “meddled” in the boundary issue, and asserted that she had re-established Women’s League branches in Bushbuckridge, not “in secret”, but on the orders of the Northern Transvaal ANC leadership — under whom all Bushbuckridge ANC structures resided at the
Four days after Sithole’s lawyer revealed he had the tapes, Bushbuckridge ANC member Joseph Malope, who had filmed Phosa’s speech and handed a copy to Sithole, was approached by four men — including Kelly Modipane, a murder convict and younger brother of Phosa’s MEC for Finance Jacques Modipane — who demanded the original video cassette. He handed them a copy, telling them it was the original.
Malope says in an affidavit that he was summoned to an ANC office the next day and put in telephone contact with an ANC Eastern Transvaal official who told him he should not have given Sithole a copy of the tape.
“He said that I should hold on so that he could get Mathews Phosa on the phone. I heard that he spoke to someone, whom I could not identify. He then came back to me and said Comrade Phosa said that I must immediately go to the police station at Bushbuckridge to open a docket against Comrade Sheila (Sithole) …
“I told (the official) that I do not know what the docket is about. He said I must open a docket … stating that she ‘robbed’ the video by ‘false pretences’. I agreed because I felt intimidated and afraid.”
Malope did not make the affidavit against Sithole; instead he asked for police protection.
The WM&G is also in possession of an affidavit by Bushbuckridge Women’s League co-ordinator Adele Zitha, who also serves on Ramatlhodi’s Commission on Women. She states that she had been visited by a Nombuso Ndlovu “[who] we know is a close ally of Phosa” last October and threatened she would be killed if she did not leave the commission, as her membership of a Northern Transvaal body would “convince people to join or be loyal to the Northern Transvaal
“She made no bones about the fact that if I should continue to work for the Commission on Women I should be killed.”
Phosa’s representative Pilane described the death threat against Zitha as “just a rumour” and denied Phosa knew Ndlovu. He said Phosa respected Zitha’s right to work for the Northern Transvaal premier.
He also denied Phosa had instructed anybody to intervene with Malope in an attempt to recover the video cassette or to lay a false charge against Sithole. “What might have happened between the Minister of Finance (Jacques Modipane) and him has nothing to do with us.”
Modipane earlier this month admitted having sent a bodyguard and his brother to get the video tape from Malope, but denied intimidation. He was quoted to have said: “This business about being sued was in the press and Phosa wanted to see the video everyone was talking about … The whole thing is being framed. Why would I send my official car if I wanted to intimidate him?”