Jaspreet Kindra
South African Communist Party members suspect a political motive in the theft of confidential documents dealing with the tripartite alliance and Inkatha Freedom Party from the party’s Durban offices at the weekend.
Cash and computers were also stolen in the break-in, which coincided with an SACP central committee meeting at which the party’s KwaZulu-Natal region tried to take communist Cabinet ministers to task for defying the party line over privatisation.
SACP KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary Smiso Nkwanyana said: “Any number of political parties would be interested in the documents, which contained sensitive information. Our worry is that the positions contained in the documents were not necessarily those of the party, but could be viewed as such.”
National spokesperson Mazibuko Jara said: “If it was an ordinary crime, the thieves would have also stolen the cheque book and the SACP jackets, T-shirts and other material.”
The attempts to tackle senior party members, including Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad and Minister of Public Enterprises Jeff Radebe, is believed to have provoked heated debate at the central committee meeting.
However, the ministers appear to have emerged unscathed. Minister of Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi did not attend and Radebe is said to have sat silently throughout the meeting. Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi is said to have talked on “safe” issues, such as the strengthening of the alliance.
The central committee afterwards released a statement saying statements that undermined the bona fides of leading movement personalities “were not helpful”. However, in a partial reference to Radebe’s attack on the SACP before the privatisation strike he said it was “caught between the hammer and sickle” the committee criticised media statements by “SACP and alliance comrades”.