The Congress of SA Trade Unions said on Tuesday the discovery of bombs in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature in Ulundi last week justified its call for the arrest of Inkatha Freedom Party member Philip Powell.
”Cosatu in KwaZulu-Natal has finally been vindicated. We have long been calling for explanation as to why Phillip Powell has been allowed to go overseas … [because] he had not disclosed … where other tons of arms and ammunition [were],” Cosatu regional secretary Zet Luzipo said in a statement.
In the past Powell admitted to receiving a consignment of weapons from Vlakplaas police commander Eugene De Kock just before the 1994 general election.
”Does it take the discovery of some of those arms in Ulundi legislature to recall that more than 60 tons of arms were not accounted for?” Luzipo asked.
Last Thursday eight pipe bombs, one M-36 hand grenade and an unidentified bomb were found in one of the legislature’s storerooms.
African National Congress spokesperson Mtholephi Mthimkhulu on Monday said: ”It has always been our concern that there are still four truck-loads of weapons which are unaccounted for after the IFP’s Philip Powell led Scorpions investigators to a cache of three truck-loads at Nquthu in 2000.”
IFP spokesperson Musa Zondi said on Tuesday his party was concerned that the discovery of the arms was part of a dirty tricks campaign and called on the public not to ”jump to hasty conclusions”.
He was emphatic that the find would not detract in any way from the IFP’s annual general conference this weekend. The meeting will be held at a youth camp in Ulundi.
Luzipo said Cosatu feared that the weapons had fallen or would fall into the wrong hands, and they would be used to kill people.
Meanwhile a two-person task team has been set up to investigate the matter. It has been given 14 days to report back to provincial premier S’bu Ndebele.
The task team consists of former Truth and Reconciliation Commission special investigations head Wilson Magadla, and Professor Paulus Zulu from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. – Sapa