Wally Mbhele, Stefaans Brmmer and Carlos Cardoso
The military “disinformation” report handed to President Nelson Mandela in February and the arrest of Robert McBride have backfired on old-guard remnants within the country’s security forces whom the government believes could have been involved in a huge destabilisation campaign against the democratic order.
It appears increasingly likely that Department of Foreign Affairs official McBride, arrested in Mozambique last month, was set up by the old guard to give credence to the military intelligence (MI) “coup” report after Mandela refused to buy it. The report, handed to Mandela personally by South African National Defence Force chief General Georg Meiring on February 5, alleged there was a left-wing plot to topple the government.
Government officials this week said the MI report – which claimed McBride, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Bantu Holomisa and Meiring’s likely successor, Lieutenant General Siphiwe Nyanda, conspired against the government – was a clear disinformation attempt. One, who saw the report, said it was so obviously wrong that only “racist arrogance” could explain why the authors assumed Mandela would take it at face value.
Chief government communicator Joel Netshitenzhe said the government was investigating whether the report, the process it went through and the intention of those who prepared it were “linked to the destabilisation campaign”.
Methods of destabilisation could be economic or related to violence and crime. “It is quite possible you would find those people in MI and other structures of the army, in civilian intelligence agencies, among the police, or perhaps business or elsewhere,” he said, in the most direct statement yet by the government acknowledging the existence of a broad-ranging third force with a politically mischievous agenda.
The Mail & Guardian reported after McBride’s arrest three weeks ago that the former Umkhonto weSizwe guerrilla was on an operation in Maputo for a special intelligence unit established late last year after word filtered out that organised gangs with apartheid links were planning to destabilise the government through crime.
There is feverish speculation that Mandela – who briefed the top brass of the defence force on Thursday – is about to announce the sacking of Meiring as its chief, and the jobs of a number of other securocrats could also be on the line.
Netshitenzhe confirmed a judicial commission of inquiry, chaired by Chief Justice Ismail Mahomed and appointed by Mandela last weekend, found the handling of the report to have been “procedurally flawed”.
Increasing the likelihood that McBride’s arrest – by now clear to have been orchestrated by elements of South Africa’s security forces – was intended to boost the claims of the MI report is an element of coincidence in the cast of characters involved.
A senior National Intelligence Agency (NIA) official investigating the McBride arrest and the MI report this week confirmed he was aware of prior contact between three people central to both matters: informant Vusi Mbatha, police Superintendent Lappies Labuschagne and MI operative PP Pretorius.
Mbatha is the police and military informant arrested by Mozambican police with McBride, who was first unmasked by the M&G two weeks ago. It appears the Mozambicans are using him as the primary witness against McBride.
Significantly, the MI coup report was based on information originating from Mbatha. Mbatha’s MI handler is Pretorius, who was the channel for that information. He was allegedly seen with Mbatha shortly before McBride’s arrest.
At the same time, Mbatha was an informer for Labuschagne, who was appointed last week to the South African police team helping Mozambican police investigate the McBride case. So far police Deputy Commissioner Zolisa Lavisa and Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi have resisted calls for his removal from the case.
But police sources in Mpumalanga, where Labuschagne is based, this week confirmed that Labuschagne and Mbatha had had contact before McBride’s arrest – and also that Labuschagne had boasted about being party to “setting up” McBride in Mozambique.
The following reinforces the theory of a plot connecting the MI report and McBride’s arrest:
* The NIA official confirmed this week that Labuschagne – alleged by Vlakplaas killer Eugene de Kock to have taken part in cross-border assassinations against African National Congress members in the 1980s – is under suspicion in both police and intelligence structures for a history of involvement in gun-running and other cross-border crimes. He said this appeared to have continued after 1994.
Lavisa last week defended Labuschagne’s record, saying he had a “credible professional name”, was “fully conversant with transnational crimes” and has worked extensively with the Mozambican police.
A senior ANC politician this week questioned the decision to keep Labuschagne on the McBride team: “How can you allow someone who was involved in an elaborate trap to follow it up in the form of an investigation?”
* Last Saturday, Mozambique’s Minister of Housing and Public Works, Roberto White, was robbed by three men with police identity cards. Driving to Johannesburg International airport, White and two consular officials were signalled to pull over by the occupants of a vehicle without number plates, but showing those IDs. A Mozambican official told the M&G that White was robbed of his laptop and cellphone and White’s driver was beaten. The assailants told the Mozambicans the attack was in retaliation for McBride’s arrest. South African police have confirmed they are investigating the possibility the attackers were policemen.
While Mozambican officials -who have officially complained to South Africa’s Department of Foreign Affairs – have dismissed the link between the McBride case and last Saturday’s incident, the possibility remains that the attack was calculated to harden Mozambican attitudes against McBride.
* SABC television news this week discovered a South African car following McBride’s wife, Paula McBride, in Mozambique. It appears the car belongs to a businessman involved in trade between Mozambique and South Africa.
* There is widespread suspicion in Mozambique that that country’s police force has been deeply involved in all kinds of crime, from gun-running to car smuggling and drug trafficking. It is common knowledge among drug users that much of the heroin retail business is in the hands of the police. There is also suspicion that apartheid’s third force developed deep links with Mozambique’s security forces.