The window that is opened on the political soul of President Thabo Mbeki in his weekly letter published in ANC Today offers an occasionally disturbing view.
In his latest missive Mbeki lashes out at those making allegations about the existence of former apartheid spies in the ranks of the government and the African National Congress — an issue that has resurfaced following the hotly disputed claims made about National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka.
In stating baldly that ”those who are peddling false stories about enemy agents in our ranks will be defeated”, Mbeki comes close to being in contempt of his own judicial commission, a commission that has been appointed precisely to determine the validity of these ”stories”.
Mbeki also issues an undisguised threat against those who dare to make such allegations, warning them: ”In time, all those who feel free to charge others in our ranks with having been agents of apartheid will have to answer for the charges they have made. The masses of our people will not forgive them for what they are trying to do, to undermine our country’s movement forward… ”
Ahead of the commission, therefore, the president has made it clear that only one outcome is politically acceptable to him and that anyone seeking to justify the allegations against Ngcuka will face the wrath of the unforgiving masses.
This is just one example of threat and innuendo that permeates this letter in much the same way as did Mbeki’s by now slightly notorious earlier attack on what he called ”fishers of corrupt men”.
In that letter he argued that those individuals and the media, who continued to probe the government’s controversial arms deal were motivated by a racist view of Africans as inherently corrupt — and by a desire to see the new democratic order fail.
Given that the allegations about Ngcuka were published by a black editor and backed up by two prominent representatives of the liberation struggle, Mac Maharaj and Mo Shaik, it is somewhat surprising that Mbeki points a finger at the same supposedly racist and anti-transformation networks as being behind the controversy around alleged apartheid spies.
Drawing an analogy with the efforts of the colonial powers and the United States to undermine the first black republic of Haiti after African slaves fought for and obtained their independence in 1804, Mbeki states: ”As happened with the liberated African slaves of Haiti, there are some in our country and the rest of the world who do not accept that we can make a success of our project to transform our country into a truly democratic, stable, non-racial and prosperous country.”
Using his trademark phrase ”some in our country” to cast aspersions without being specific, Mbeki suggests that these unnamed forces are actively promoting the failure of the democratic project.
Although his immediate targets are those who have argued that the issue of spies needs to be ventilated, Mbeki casts any criticism against the ANC government as motivated by malice and driven by counter-revolutionaries.
Thus he states: ”They do the best they can to present themselves, as they did to the victorious Haitian Revolution, as the unique representatives of what our own revolution should legitimately seek to achieve … We too have received all manner of advice and prescription about how we should conduct ourselves.”
In a characteristically oblique reference to criticism of government policy on HIV/Aids and Zimbabwe, Mbeki states: ”Among other things this has resulted in some seeking to instruct us what we should do about such issues as the health of our people and our relations with our neighbours…
”Recently, as part of this campaign to instruct us about what we should do, a determined effort is being made to oblige our movement and government to release names of members of the ANC and our government who allegedly served as agents of the secret intelligence services of the apartheid regime.”
Mbeki portrays this as an attempt by ”some in our country” to destroy the national reconciliation brought about by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) process.
He ignores the fact that the TRC premised its indemnification process on full disclosure and that those (like former TRC commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza) who have argued for the spy issue to be reopened believe that such secrets, left hidden, can emerge to pollute our politics.
Instead, the president resorts to veiled threats of counter-exposure, warning those who are pursuing the issue: ”They do not seem to understand that members of the ANC and our government are equally capable of asserting that various South Africans and foreigners … served as agents of the intelligence services of the apartheid regime, and naming these.”
Mbeki implies that only those elected by the South African people to govern them have a legitimate claim to influence policy and, further, he assumes that such an election constitutes an absolute mandate.
But most disturbingly he sets his face absolutely against debate and the consideration of criticisms.
He says: ”Our opponents will oppose us, presenting their case with the greatest eloquence and erudition … These opponents remain our opponents, however much they now pretend to be interested in the integrity and revolutionary purity of our movement and government, and the welfare of the masses of our people. Their task is to use all means at their disposal to oppose and defeat us. As long as we remain liberation fighters, so long will we refuse to be told by others, including these historic opponents and others, what we should think or do.”
Sam Sole is the Mail & Guardian investigative reporter who first broke the news of the Scorpions investigation of Deputy President Jacob Zuma. He recently won the Vodacom award for news reporting in KwaZulu-Natal and is a finalist in the national competition.