Stefaans Brmmer and Ann Eveleth
An extraordinary legal battle reaching to the office of Deputy President Thabo Mbeki is set to reach a climax in the Johannesburg High Court next week when ousted Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s military elite demand continued safe haven in South Africa.
The court hearing follows months of legal wrangling, political indecision and administrative bungling as the state attempted to expel three of Mobutu’s most powerful collaborators from South Africa.
The three are accused of fostering counter- revolution in their home country, now named the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Voluminous legal documents tell of international intrigue, covert activity and government clumsiness.
Mbeki was drawn into the fray when the military men named him a co-respondent, claiming he usurped Minister of Home Affairs Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s powers, interfering with an otherwise amicable relationship. Mbeki and Buthelezi’s offices reject the allegations.
Former Mobutu generals Kpama Baramoto, Mudima Mavua and Ngbale Nzimbi settled in South Africa when Laurent Kabila, now president of Congo, ousted Mobutu. The generals already had strong ties – including businesses and family homes – in South Africa.
Their arrival was clouded by suspicions that they had received illicit support from domestic intelligence operatives. But the court papers suggest their presence in South Africa was supported by regional neighbours who feared the generals would escape the regional security net.
This regional view began to change after Kabila took power, and amid growing reports of mercenary activity by the generals. But Baramoto, Nzimbi and Mavua proved more difficult than anticipated to dislodge from South Africa.
South African police and immigration officials arrested them on December 13 when they allegedly attempted to re-enter South Africa illegally after a trip to Congo. The trip fuelled reports they were plotting to overthrow Kabila.
Subsequent reports have linked them to a growing political and mercenary network stretching to countries as far afield as Angola, Congo (Brazzaville), Cte d’Ivoire, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.
Baramoto’s links with South African mercenary firm Stabilco and its boss, former Executive Outcomes operative Mauritz le Roux, are well known. But sources close to Le Roux this week confirmed a split earlier this year and claimed another South African mercenary outfit had moved into the void.
Raids on the generals’ homes netted more evidence. Buthelezi’s affidavit refers to “stacks of application forms from my department … quotations for arms and ammunition, as well as military personnel … [and] classified government documents” among other items seized.
But a high court judge overturned their detention order on January 14 as “unreasonable and unwarranted”, and released the three men.
On January 15, the day after their release, police and immigration officials went to arrest them under a different clause of the Aliens Control Act. They were not at home and their lawyers obtained an interdict suspending the warrants. Before the matter came to court, Buthelezi withdrew the warrants.
On January 27, officials launched yet another raid in an effort to deport Baramoto, Mavua and Nzimbi. Although intelligence sources are adamant the men were closely observed, they once again escaped.
The generals’ lawyer obtained an urgent interdict restraining the government from arresting or deporting them. On Tuesday he will attempt to have the order extended while the men apply for political refugee status.
Complicating the matter further for Buthelezi, the men claim in their affidavits that he promised them residence permits following a face-to-face meeting with him last year.
They claim Buthelezi reneged on this “under great and improper political pressure” from Mbeki – a claim Buthelezi denied, despite admitting that he initially fell for their story of having fled Zaire penniless and in borrowed clothes.
But the court will have to go beyond these inconsistencies to consider the complex political dilemma facing South Africa: how to balance the desire to rid the country of a potential regional threat and show support for the sovereignty of the new Congo government, while avoiding perceptions that it could be handing asylum-seekers over to an uncertain fate in Congo.
Said a South Africa intelligence official: “It would be embarrassing if they were to be deported and shot on the tarmac on arrival. This is not this kind of image we would like to present as a country.”