Wally Mbhele and Tangeni Amupadhi
The controversial Fivaz report linking disillusioned elements of Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) and the Azanian People’s Army (Apla) to the recent theft of military arms originated from South African policemen assigned to the Robert McBride investigation.
The report claims an organisation called Mkapla (an acronym for MK and Apla) plans to disrupt next year’s election.
It was drawn up by South African policemen on behalf of a disgraced apartheid-era informant, Vusi Mbatha, who is being held with McBride in Mozambique.
Ironically, Mbatha was also the source behind the discredited Meiring report, which alleged a left-wing plot to overthrow the South African government.
President Nelson Mandela appointed a judicial inquiry into its origins which cost the chief of the South African National Defence Force, General Georg Meiring, his job.
The Mail & Guardian has established that after his arrest in Mozambique, Mbatha made two contradictory statements to the local police. It is understood that to date he has made about five statements.
They are all contained in the police docket – including the statement which alleges a plot by Mkapla.
According to a source close to the investigation, Mbatha linked MK and Apla dissidents to the plot after he was interrogated by a team of South African investigators in a Mozambican prison.
The South African detectives were appointed in March by police National Commissioner George Fivaz, after the removal of controversial policeman Assistant Commissioner “Suiker” Britz from the McBride investigation.
He was removed as a result of remarks he made immediately after McBride’s arrest proclaiming him guilty of gun-running.
The new investigating team consisted of Director Errol Seyisi, Britz’s deputy, Superintendent Hein Prinsloo of the illegal firearms unit in Pretoria and Superintendent “Lappies” Labuschagne of the detective unit in Mpumalanga.
The team’s investigation fell under the “overall command” of Deputy National Commissioner Zolisa Lavisa.
Labuschagne has since been removed, after reports in the M&G linking him to the former government’s third-force activities and his alleged role in setting up McBride in Mozambique.
Ironically, it was Lavisa who last week personally submitted the Fivaz report to the chair of the parliamentary portfolio committee on safety and security, Rapu Molekane.
He says the report was handed to him during a joint meeting convened by the parliamentary standing committees on defence, intelligence and safety and security.
“It was not convincing at all. It’s nonsense. Events that came after it was handed to me make the whole report laughable,” says Molekane. He confirmed the source of the report was the police detective branch.
Presidential aide Parks Mankahlana says the report is “outrageous and should not be taken seriously. It was not presented [to Parliament] as the government discourages the abuse of questionable reports with the intention to cast doubt on the standing of public officials.”
Fivaz was at pains this week to explain that the report should not be compared to the discredited Meiring report.
“It is most disturbing that the report is now the basis of wild speculation comparing it to the controversial military intelligence report,” he said.
The report “was not meant for publication. It was a request to Parliament to brief it in a responsible manner.
“We are comfortable with the content of this document as a briefing document. We are talking about an investigation report, not an intelligence report.”
Fivaz added that the report was overtaken by unforeseen developments only hours after it was scheduled to be submitted to Parliament’s safety and security portfolio committee on June 3.
The unforeseen circumstances, according to sources, were the arrests of rightwingers connected to arms theft. The arrests effectively rendered the Fivaz report a fabrication.
It is now understood that Mbatha denies having written the Mkapla statement. He alleges it was written by the police investigators who interviewed him.
In the statement, Mbatha describes his role in 1995 as a military intelligence informer who was recruited by a Marius Korf. He says he was introduced to Korf to gather information on a conspiracy against the African National Congress government.
Mbatha claims he was supposed to infiltrate the Young Lions and the Revolutionary Watchdogs (linked to the ANC and Pan Africanist Congress respectively) and pass on information to Korf’s superior, a Colonel Olckers.
According to Mbatha, at a meeting which took place in 1995 at the PAC headquarters in Johannesburg, the Young Lions and the Revolutionary Watchdogs were merged into an organisation called Mkapla.
Various government officials this week insisted the Fivaz report forms part of a wider right-wing plot to destabilise the country through disinformation.
“They want to suggest that MK and Apla cannot be trusted, or entrusted with the responsibility of defending the country, so that when their conspiracy starts swinging into action, people should blame Apla and MK,” said a source in the Ministry of Defence.