A top Apla commander talks to the M&G to counter a `smear campaign’ against the PAC leader. Marion Edmunds reports
The role of Pan Africanist Congress leader Bishop Stanley Mogoba as state witness in a terrorism trial nearly 10 years ago is being quietly touted as a key reason why he should not try for a seat on Parliament’s intelligence committee.
The PAC flew a top Azanian People’s Liberation Army (Apla) commander to Cape Town this week for an interview with the Mail & Guardian, to dispel rumours generated by African National Congress sources that Mogoba had compromised his comrades by turning state witness in the 1988 trial.
The PAC is hoping that publicly explaining the court case will end what it believes is a smear campaign against Mogoba, orchestrated by elements in the ANC to undermine the party in the run-up to the elections.
The party, smarting after uninvited visits to its offices by National Intelligence Agency operatives, wants the issue debated in Parliament next week.
The ANC publicly raised questions about Mogoba’s integrity last month when it emerged that President Nelson Mandela had advised him not to seek a seat on the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Intelligence, to shield him from the “indignity” of a security check.
The PAC interprets this as an attempt to portray Mogoba as a security risk and a sell-out, possibly even a spy. It denies that he “cracked” under pressure on Robben Island, and that there was something mysterious about his release from the prison in the 1960s.
ANC sources told the M&G Mogoba had turned state witness against former Apla commander Enoch Zulu when Zulu stood trial on 32 charges ranging from terrorism to possession of illegal firearms in 1988. Zulu was sentenced to 24 years’ imprisonment. He was released in 1991, as part of a general amnesty.
ANC MP Nosizwe Mapisa-Nqukula, who chairs the intelligence committee, says she was not aware of rumours about Mogoba’s past. “I read what you do in the media. It is the prerogative of the president to make the appointments to the committee.”
This week, Zulu, flanked by Mogoba and PAC stalwart Johnson Mlambo, denied Mogoba was in any way responsible for the imprisonment, saying the story had been distorted.
They said Zulu had stayed with Mogoba in his Durban house while on the run and, after his arrest in Warmbaths in the former Bophuthatswana, had revealed this under pressure to the police. The police then subpoenaed Mogoba to give evidence.
“This caused a grave moral dilemma for us,” said Mogoba. “The matter was discussed within our ranks and there was consultation between myself and Mlambo. When we weighed it in the balance, it seemed that it would be better for me to tell the truth than to go to jail.
“The police kept on embarrassing me by saying, you know the truth, you don’t want to tell the truth and yet you are a minister,” he said. Mogoba insisted he only told the court that Zulu had slept at his house.
An angry Patricia de Lille said the PAC is preparing to take legal action, if the rumours persist. “Why are they not coming down with their list of spies, of ANC moles? What about all of them who sold out about Robben Island? This is very nerve- racking. Bishop Mogoba is a victim of the whole thing. He has been tried by those faceless bastards.”
The row also seems to have inflamed old grudges in the PAC against the ANC. The party believes the ANC is jealous of the political ground it has made since the 1994 elections. The PAC is also indignant about Mandela’s public offers that the PAC join up with the ANC, saying the offer was never followed by substantial talks.
“He is playing to the gallery, he has not yet shown us how the PAC would benefit from such an alliance,” says PAC general secretary Mike Muendane. “Mandela puts himself in the best possible light and us in the worst, treating us like arme skepsels [poor creatures].”