Marion Edmunds
The Pan Africanist Congress found itself battling on two fronts this week to clear the name of its president, Dr Stanley Mogoba. This week it was alleged he had collaborated with the apartheid government against a comrade.
Hours after PAC MP Patricia de Lille tried to shift the spotlight away from her party by insinuating that a string of top African National Congress leaders were spies at a rowdy parliamentary debate, a former Azanian People’s Liberation Army (Apla) commander, Enoch Zulu, announced that Mogoba had betrayed him in his treason trial in 1988.
These statements have severely embarrassed the PAC and exposed its weak flank in the Transkei, where there is sill residual support for former PAC president Clarence Makwetu, Mogoba’s arch-enemy, and the man the PAC suspects is behind Zulu’s U-turn.
PAC leaders De Lille, Mike Muendane and Johnson Mlambo have rejected Zulu’s version. Mlambo said it was Zulu who had betrayed Mogoba, when he cracked under police torture and revealed where he had lived while on the run from the police.
Zulu had been the PAC’s star witness last week in its attempts to clear Mogoba’s name. He was flown to Cape Town for an interview with the Mail & Guardian to explain the circumstances around Mogoba’s testimony at his trial.
Mogoba had merely confirmed in court that Zulu had lived at his house while he was on the run from the police. The PAC had taken this step to dispel rumours that Mogoba’s past security record would prevent him taking up a seat on the Joint Standing Intelligence Committee in Parliament. Even President Nelson Mandela had advised Mogoba to refrain from taking the security check.
This week Zulu changed his story and alleged that Mogoba’s testimony was a betrayal. Mogoba is currently touring the United States and could not be reached for comment.
The new twist in Zulu’s tale is particularly humiliating coming just after De Lille launched into a broadside against the ANC for spreading rumours about Mogoba’s past, and branded ANC leaders as spies, including Minister of Minerals and Energy, Penuell Maduna and Mpumalanga Premier Mathews Phosa. The PAC will now have to explain its own member’s allegation that Mogoba collaborated with the apartheid state.
Zulu had had strong links with the National Intelligence Services, having worked for them when he returned from exile after 1994. “When he was was integrated into the army he worked as an intelligence operative. He was out of his depth so he took a package and left last year,” said Muendane. “Zulu played a prominent role in exile but when he came back he could not fit in anywhere, that is his gripe.”
De Lille and Muendane say that Zulu had stage-managed the character assassination of Mogoba because he supports former ousted PAC leader Makwetu.
“Mogoba was the real hero. He harboured Apla commanders in those dark days. He testified with Zulu’s agreement and all the talk about betrayal is just nonsense,” says Dikang Moseneke. Moseneke was Zulu’s legal representative in the treason trial and is now acting Telkom chair.