torturer
Howard Barrell
The top National Intelligence Agency (NIA) official suspended from work on allegations that he stole R3-million from the agency is the same man who commanded the African National Congress’s infamous Quatro detention camp in Angola during the days of the worst excesses there.
Sizwe Gabriel Mthembu, suspended from his job as head of the NIA’s surveillance unit last week, was also the man who oversaw the interrogation of Timothy “Chief” Seremane, the brother of Joe Seremane, formerly chief lands commissioner and now a Democratic Party MP.
Timothy Seremane, who used the nom de guerre Kenneth Mahamba in Umkhonto weSizwe, was seen by another former Quatro inmate beaten almost beyond recognition shortly before he was taken away and shot on the orders of an ANC military tribunal. Timothy Seremane never confessed to being a South African government spy, as alleged by his interrogators.
The NIA would not comment on the details of a City Press report that Mthembu allegedly misused R3-million from his unit’s budget, among other things to purchase motor cars subsequently registered in the name of a soccer administrator and the South African Football Association.
Former Quatro inmates who are still alive allege Mthembu was frequently involved in the torture of detainees at the camp. The ANC acknowledged in submissions to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that there were cases in which suspects were severely beaten by its national security and intelligence department, colloquially known as “Nat”, during the movement’s period in exile. But the ANC said – and the TRC found – that this did not accord with ANC policy.
Richard Pillay MP, a DP spokes-man on intelligence, said this week: “The Motsuenyane commission set up by the ANC to investigate abuses within its own ranks in exile recommended in 1993 that people like Mthembu never again be put in positions of public trust. Yet its recommendations were ignored.
“We are relieved that Mthembu has now been removed from his position. Clearly an agency dealing with sensitive matters cannot have this kind of person serving in it.”
Motsuenyane found that Mthembu had “ordered or permitted” the torture of at least one detainee in his care.
Mthembu, who used the nom de guerre Sizwe Mkonto in exile, was Quatro commander from its beginnings in 1979 through to 1982. He was 19 years old at the time of his appointment as commander. In mid-1981 the ANC stumbled across what it alleged was a plot to assassinate a number of its Lusaka-based leaders, and in 1982/83 there was widespread dissatisfaction in Umkhonto weSizwe training camps in Angola. Those accused of involvement often ended up in Quatro.
After his spell at Quatro, Mthembu, who received security and intelligence training in East Germany, was promoted, serving as deputy head of intelligence in Angola from 1984 to 1986. He was subsequently appointed head of intelligence and security in Tanzania between 1986 and 1988 after which he joined the ANC’s cultural ensemble, Amandla. By then he was known among ANC exiles as one of the “panel beaters” – in recognition of the crudity of his methods.
The TRC subpoenaed Mthembu to testify before it in camera as public outrage mounted after 1994 over reports of the treatment meted out to Timothy Seremane. Mthembu’s testimony before the hearing cannot be made public.
Mthembu has not applied for amnesty, according to a TRC official.
n In a separate development, one of two deputy director generals at the NIA, Mike Kennedy, has taken a voluntary severance package and is due to leave the agency at the end of December. Kennedy, formerly an official in the National Intelligence Service, is held in high regard by foreign agencies, according to intelligence insiders.