/ 17 March 2006

How the ANC backed Majali

The signature of African National Congress presidency head Smuts Ngonyama on a 2001 friendship pact with Saddam Hussein’s Ba'ath party -- beneath that of Oilgate's Sandi Majali -- cements evidence that South Africa's ruling party backed Majali's pledges of political support to the embattled Iraqi regime.

The signature of African National Congress presidency head Smuts Ngonyama on a 2001 friendship pact with Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party — beneath that of Oilgate’s Sandi Majali — cements evidence that South Africa’s ruling party backed Majali’s pledges of political support to the embattled Iraqi regime.

Majali used assurances of ANC solidarity with Iraq to obtain lucrative crude oil allocations from that country. The proceeds of these allocations, the Mail & Guardian showed last year, were intended, in part, to fund the ANC.

The ANC and Majali have sought to play down the extent of their cooperation in Majali’s Iraqi adventures since the M&G revealed in 2004 how Majali, accompanied by ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe and treasurer general Mendi Msimang, had travelled to Baghdad to negotiate for oil.

Ngonyama, who it later transpired had also travelled to Baghdad, this week said the party had given Majali the same support “we give any person”. He maintained that, had Majali traded promises of political support for oil, “that is not in the knowledge of the ANC”.

Document downloads (PDF)

Sept 2001: Majali secret oil proposal cover letter

Sept 20 2001: Majali asks Tabra to facilitate oil deal

Sept 10 2001: Motlanthe endorses Majali

Sept 20 2001: Majali tells Ba’ath official ANC has been briefed

Oct 10 2001: Draft agreement: ANC-Ba’ath

Oct 17 2001: Prepared text: Motlanthe speech

Oct 20 2001: Friendship association protocol signed

March 3 2006: Majali and Imvume reply via a lawyer

March 2006: Ngonyama signatures matched

Majali this week stuck to the same story — clearing the ANC by falling on his own sword. His lawyer, Barry Aaron, said on his behalf: “That [Majali] exaggerated his influence and association with the ANC to the Iraqi authorities cannot be denied. That the ANC countenanced this, cannot be sustained.”

Such denials are buckling under the weight of documentary evidence.

A key element of Majali’s friendship offerings to the Iraqis, in the name of the ANC, was the Iraqi-South African Friendship Association he co-founded with Khalid Tabra, a businessman member of Hussein’s then ruling Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party.

The “top secret” October 2001 protocol formalising the association, revealed by the M&G last year, described an agreement between the two political parties as “the basis for this protocol”.

Majali and Tabra signed the friendship association protocol as principals. But did Majali implicate the ANC without its knowledge? Majali and Tabra’s signatures were supplemented by those of four witnesses who were not named. Last week, the M&G matched one of those signatures to Ngonyama’s.

Ngonyama this week confirmed signing the document, saying he would have attended in Pretoria at the request of Motlanthe or another senior ANC official.

Aaron, on behalf of Majali, denied that Ngonyama’s signature amounted to anything, saying that “to suggest that Ngonyama was doing anything other than merely witnessing Majali’s signature is fanciful and mischievous”.

An unsigned draft of the underlying agreement between the political parties, obtained by the M&G, stated that the friendship association would be “governed and directed by an oversight committee made up of the secretaries general and treasurers general of the respective parties”.

It committed both parties to “use every instrument at their disposal to campaign for the lifting of sanctions on Iraq”. Sanctions, imposed by the United Nations Security Council after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, were the primary reason Iraq sought international support.

Iraq was allowed by the UN to sell crude oil under the oil-for-food programme. The final report last year of the UN’s independent inquiry committee into this programme described Iraq’s “politicisation” of the oil allocation process. As early as 1997, Iraq distinguished between “regular” allocations to established oil companies and “special” allocations to “individuals, organisations, and political parties considered to be ‘friends’ of Iraq or perceived as holding political views supportive of Iraq”.

By the time Majali arrived in Baghdad in December 2000 with Motlanthe, Msimang and Ngonyama to negotiate his first oil contract, the Iraqis’ oil allocations to perceived political supporters was no secret.

Documents from a subsequent round of Majali oil negotiations, in September and October 2001, show how closely linked Majali’s friendship offerings and oil requests were, and how close senior ANC officials were to the process. These documents include:

  • A signed letter from Motlanthe to Tabra dated September 10, the day before Majali left for Baghdad to ask for oil. The letter endorsed Majali as “a designated person to lead the implementation processes arising out of our economic development programmes” and referred to the ANC’s “unequivocal commitment to working closely with the people of Iraq”.
  • Majali’s “top secret” cover letter on his oil trade proposal that month to the Iraqis. In the name of a “South African Business Council for Economic Transformation”, which he headed, he asked for a 25-million-barrel annual oil allocation, saying the council had “the blessing of the South African leadership with its brief being to facilitate and advance economic programmes that are geared towards supporting the ANC’s political programmes sourcing finance to fund such programmes”. The oil request was “an initial measure to foster … political relations”.
  • A letter from Majali to a Ba’ath official dated September 20, after his return to South Africa. It said that Majali had briefed Motlanthe and Msimang and referred to a reciprocal Iraqi visit the following month at which “strategies mobilising support towards the lifting of economic sanctions” would be discussed. (It was during this visit that the friendship association protocol would be signed.)
  • A letter from Majali to Tabra that same day, asking him to “facilitate” an initial 12-million barrels of crude. It emphasised an “effective political programme” against sanctions.

  • The text of a speech prepared for Motlanthe to deliver to the visiting Iraqi delegation in October. It said the ANC had “on numerous occasions reiterated its unwavering commitment to the cause of the Iraqi people”.

It endorsed the friendship association and Majali’s oil request, again describing the latter as a measure to foster political relations.

It is not known if Motlanthe delivered this prepared speech. But the corroborated evidence, including the ANC officials’ travels to Baghdad, Motlanthe’s letter to Tabra and Ngonyama’s signature on the friendship protocol show that Majali largely had the authority of his political principals.