Howard Barrell
Electronic versions of two controversial documents promoting the dissident view of HIV/Aids carry embedded signatures suggesting that they were written on Thabo Mbeki’s computer.
But computer experts have told the Mail & Guardian that this cannot be conclusive proof of authorship.
The presidency on Thursday issued a guarded response to the M&G’s discovery.
One of the documents, entitled Castro Hlongwane, Caravans, Cats, Geese, Foot & Mouth and Statistics, was distributed to senior African National Congress structures in March and early April this year before howls of derision caused the embarrassed party leadership to withdraw it.
The M&G, with other political observers, said at the time they saw strong similarities in style between this document and other public writing by Mbeki on, among other subjects, HIV/Aids.
The other document, which electronic signaturing suggests was written by Mbeki, is a letter in fact signed by Limpopo province premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi. This letter was sent to Professor Malegapuru Makgoba, head of the Medical Research Council, in December 2000.
It has long been suggested by well-placed political sources that the Ramatlhodi letter insultingly critical of Makgoba because of his support for the orthodoxy that HIV does cause Aids and that anti-retrovirals can help combat the syndrome was, in fact, written by Mbeki, Minister in the Office of the President Essop Pahad, and the presidency’s legal adviser Mojanku Gumbi. These well-placed sources suggest Ramatlhodi was then persuaded by the three to be the letter’s sole signatory.
The contents of the Ramatlhodi letter prefigure many of the themes subsequently developed in the “Castro Hlongwane” document.
The recently obtained electronic versions of the two documents are identical in all respects to the hard copies that have been in circulation in the ANC and media circles for a longer period. Both also use a font and type size 14 point Arial that is favoured by Mbeki in his private correspondence.
Signatures of the kind found by the M&G on electronic versions of the two documents are automatically generated when someone originates a document in Microsoft Word. The programme records as a property of the document the identity of the individual and/or company that is the licensee of the software.
In the case of both the “Castro Hlongwane” document and the Ramathlhodi letter, the software records the signature on the electronic versions received by the M&G thus: “Author: Thabo Mbeki” and “Company: Office of the President”.
Computer experts point out, however, that this embedded signature can easily be changed. The M&G tested this and found it was indeed the case. But these experts said that very few computer users would know where to look for the signature.
Presidential spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said on Thursday: “We don’t wish to respond to something that seems to be an intelligence operation which seeks to discredit the president.”
Democratic Alliance spokesperson Nick Clelland said it was “very disturbing that President Mbeki could be linked to both these documents”. He said that it seemed that “Mbeki and the people around him have not changed their view on HIV/Aids” and that the changes in government policy on the pandemic announced on Wednesday had been “forced by the courts”.
Clelland called on Mbeki to state unequivocally whether or not he had written the documents.
The electronic version of the “Castro Hlongwane” document the M&G received was sent to it by an intermediary who had received it from Anita Allen, the vocal Aids dissident and former journalist who has collaborated with Mbeki on HIV/Aids. The intermediary told the M&G he had made no changes to the document. Allen acknowledged that she had an electronic version of the document, but refused to send it directly to the M&G because the newspaper was “promoting only one view on HIV/Aids”.
In the case of the Ramatlhodi letter the M&G has reason to believe there were two intermediaries between the letter’s author and the M&G. These intermediaries were different from those in the case of the “Castro Hlongwane” document.
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