Mungo Soggot
Professor Andr Thomashausen has accused the probe into Mathole Motshekga of violating the Constitution by banning the Gauteng premier from seeing him. He has also challenged the African National Congress to release tapes of his interview with the commission of inquiry into Motshekga.
The commission recommended that Motshekga sever all ties with Thomashausen, his mentor at Unisa. The commission justified its decision on the basis of Thomashausen’s links with Renamo – he has been publicly associated with the Mozambican rebel movement since the late 1980s.
Thomashausen, who advised Renamo over the 1992 Mozambique peace accord, has been director of Unisa’s Institute of Foreign and Comparative Law since 1994.
He said this week the commission’s “damaging and defamatory” recommendation was particularly bizarre given that he and Motshekga arranged a meeting between the ANC and Renamo in the early 1990s.
Thomashausen also said the chair of the ANC commission, attorney George Negota, told him during his interview that he should stand by Motshekga, and praised him for his contribution to peace in Mozambique.
Thomashausen added: “Negota also said Motshekga’s important and crucial role in establishing communications between the Renamo leadership and the ANC was fully appreciated and acknowledged.”
Thomashausen said the ban also violated the Constitution’s dignity clause. Other lawyers expressed amazement at the ANC’s ban, saying it was obviously a breach of the freedom of association clause.
The commission’s report describes Thomashausen as a “politically dubious personality” and concludes that, contrary to Motshekga’s claims that he and Thomashausen were merely academic colleagues, the two had had a close association which exceeded academic camaraderie.
The report says Motshekga professed ignorance of Thomashausen’s “political activities” when he testified before the commission.
Thomashausen said it was absurd to suggest his Renamo activities were secret, considering the meetings he and Motshekga arranged. He added that senior ANC members have met Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama several time in the past few years.
Thomashausen said he and Motshekga arranged the first meeting between President Nelson Mandela and Dhlakama, on September 3 1992. The meeting fell through, but he said he and Motshekga took Dhlakama to Shell House later the same day to meet ANC official Stanley Mabizela, who is now ambassador to Namibia. Thomashausen said he acted as translator at the meeting.
Thomashausen said Dhlakama met Deputy President Thabo Mbeki the following year for the first time and discussed, among other things, that Thomashausen and other Renamo associates in South Africa be protected from further harassment by the foreign affairs department.
Negota said in the inquiry’s report it had found no evidence that Thomashausen worked for military intelligence. Negota said the commission could not establish whether Motshekga was a spy.
Thomashausen said it appeared the commission had taken the easiest option where the spying allegations were concerned. “It cleared him in its findings but ridiculed him in the recommendations. In the process, somebody must have thought it convenient to make me the scapegoat for the spying allegations. This type of scrambled-eggs approach can only contribute to an already alarming loss of respect for our politicians.”
ANC representative Steyn Speed said there was “an agreed process to look at the recommendations – the top six members [of the ANC] will look in detail at the practical implications of the recommendations”.