Stefaans Brmmer
An undeclared intelligence unit based at Luthuli House, the African National Congress national headquarters in Johannesburg, played a key role unearthing the “plot” against President Thabo Mbeki.
The unit, which appears to report directly to Mbeki in his capacity as ANC president, was deployed as early as 1998 to investigate former Mpumulanga premier Mathews Phosa. Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete publicly “outed” Phosa, along with Cyril Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale, as plot ringleaders last month. Within the ANC all three leaders, now businessmen, have long been regarded as Mbeki foes.
The role of the ANC intelligence unit, as well as the extraordinary personal part played in the investigation by police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi, emerged this week from a reconstruction of the origins of the plot allegations.
Mbeki or his lieutenants’ use of a party intelligence structure to investigate the president’s opponents raises difficult constitutional issues.
In an ironic and potentially embarrassing twist, Parliament’s safety and security portfolio committee this week held public hearings on legislation, introduced by the ANC, aimed at curbing private intelligence activity.
The acknowledged key source of information on the “plot” against Mbeki is former ANC Mpumalanga Youth League leader James Nkambule. He has been tarnished by the fact that he is facing fraud and theft charges for his alleged role in the Mpumalanga Parks Board scandal, when state resources were allegedly diverted to the party and individual politicians.
But in 1998 Nkambule was still in good standing and a close associate of Phosa. Nkambule told the Mail & Guardian earlier this week: “I was secretary general of the Youth League in the province; a vote-breeder at conferences. He [Phosa] thought I was intelligent, I was good … We were so close that in some instances I had to mediate in his personal matters.”
But by mid-1998 the relationship soured. Nkambule claims that he was approached by a National Intelligence Agency (NIA) agent in Johannesburg, who showed him documents “proving” that Phosa had collaborated with apartheid-era security structures he was an impimpi or “sell-out”.
The allegations about Phosa were not new, but this time Nkambule took them seriously. He visited Phosa, in hospital after a car accident, and confronted him. “I requested his wife to leave the room … I said, ‘Chief, there is this information; how do you explain this?'”
Nkambule claims Phosa vowed to have him “chucked out of the ANC”. Nkambule says he subsequently contacted ANC headquarters to speak to Smuts Ngonyama, head of the ANC presidency under Mbeki, about Phosa’s activities.
But the M&G has learnt from sources involved in the saga that Nkambule was soon reporting to Tito Maleka, who heads the ANC’s unofficial intelligence unit in Luthuli House. Nkambule would not comment on this.
Maleka is a former Umkhonto weSizwe soldier, arrested in 1975 while on an undercover mission to South Africa. He was tried and jailed on Robben Island, where he came to be trusted by senior ANC leaders.
Maleka was released in 1990, and has served in various capacities in Luthuli House. His present official title appears to be researcher in the ANC’s publicity department, but said one source: “That is only so that he can get a salary.”
Maleka appears to report directly to Mbeki and the ANC presidency several sources have spoken about this. Maleka, in turn, presides over a small group of internal ANC staffers involved in intelligence work, and an occasional network of freelance contributors.
Various private detectives have told the M&G how they had contact with Maleka. One detective, Kevin Trytsman, was last year reported by the M&G confirming his contact with Maleka and describing himself as “an informer to Luthuli House”.
Trytsman was appointed in late 1999 by the Ministry of Environment Affairs and Tourism to investigate corruption in the fishing industry. When the details of his contract were discovered last year, it led to an outcry his company was paid a whopping R558 000 by the ministry for 31 days’ work and the results of his investigation were dubious at best.
At the time, Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Joyce Mabudafhasi justified her signature on Trytsman’s appointment contract by saying she had been told by Maleka, in Luthuli House, to use the private investigator.
The public protector is currently investigating the Trytsman saga. Among the issues the investigation may look at is the role of the ANC’s parallel intelligence structure.
But back to Nkambule: soon after he started reporting to the ANC intelligence unit, Nosiviwe Maphisa Ngcakula, ANC MP and chair of Parliament’s intelligence committee, was delegated by the ANC to investigate “disunity” in Mpumalanga.
The Maphisa commission reported negatively on Phosa’s leadership style the direct reason he was not re-appointed provincial premier after the 1999 elections. Nkambule, by then an open enemy of Phosa’s, was the key anti-Phosa witness during the commission precedings, which have never been made public.
Around October last year Nkambule appears to have been directed by the ANC unit to Selebi. From then on, Nkambule reported to both the ANC unit and the police.
The timing corresponds roughly to what Nkambule has described as a “second rapprochement” by Phosa towards him. Nkambule claims Phosa, wanting to fight his way back to the political mainstream, tried to get various ANC figures, including himself, to make affidavits alleging a “conspiracy” by the ANC’s top leadership to end Phosa’s political career.
Nkambule says he played along with Phosa and his adviser, Pieter Roodtman, to spy on them. On February 10 this year, Nkambule travelled to Pretoria to meet Roodtman, where he was shown several affidavits already made in support of Phosa, and asked to sign one too.
The M&G has been told that Selebi personally met Nkambule at Pretoria station before that meeting and handed him a recording device disguised as a cellphone. Selebi is said to have listened to the conversation between Nkambule and Roodtman, real-time, from police headquarters.
Several of Nkambule’s reports and affidavits to the ANC, to Mbeki and to the police have now surfaced. They contain allegations that Phosa and some associates tried to have Mbeki removed as president by leaking information or disinformation, which apparently included an allegation that Mbeki was involved in the Chris Hani assassination.
Nkambule also made separate allegations of criminal activity by Phosa, including his supposed involvement in arms deals. Phosa has declined to comment on specific charges.
The use of a state resource the police to investigate what appears to many to be an internal ANC power struggle has raised many an eyebrow.
The police, of course, would have been remiss in their duty had they not investigated the criminal allegations against Phosa. But criminal allegations appear to be unconnected to the allegations that Phosa was “plotting” against Mbeki the ends of the “plot” would have been achieved through an information or disinformation campaign.
Selebi’s personal participation in and direction of the Phosa investigation combined with Tshwete’s premature public naming of the “suspects” strongly suggest the investigation was launched, in part at least, for political reasons. It is unusual for the police chief to personally participate in an investigation.
The participation of the ANC intelligence unit reinforces the perception that party and state lines were blurred. Richard Nixon, the United States president forced out of office in the Watergate scandal, made what could be argued to be similar mistakes.
One US history text puts it this way: “Richard M Nixon had a paranoid fear of political enemies. This fear was translated into Nixon’s desire to protect himself from dangerous elements …”
After his election in 1968 Nixon set about using the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the tax affairs of his opponents. But in the early 1970s, he created a unit called the “Plumbers”, a private goon squad at first aimed at plugging leaks to the media.
A second body, the Committee to Re-elect the President (commonly referred to as Creep), was formed to raise campaign funds, including through the extortion of companies some were promised indemnity from prosecution if they donated. The final straw came when some Plumbers, under the direction of Creep, broke into the offices of the opposition Democratic Party in the Watergate complex in Washington DC in 1972. Some of the burglars were arrested, and the rest is history.
Ngonyama said: “I know nothing [of the ANC intelligence unit].”