by Musa Xulu

I’ve now read three of Mr Paul Trewhela’s articles wherein he attempts to bring afore the so called “dark side” of Zuma’s exile days/ years. I initially thought that those articles didn’t need to be challenged but after his third vitriol, “The Thami Zulu murder: a war of words”, dated 30 March 2009, this insistence on his part to implicate and make an issue out of a non issue in a matter that relates to the supposed mysterious death of Thami Zulu (real name Muziwakhe Ngwenya), started to concern me.

For those who don’t know him, Mr Trewhela is a frequent writer on Politics Web and was previously writing for Ever Faster News, a UK based online publication. At the risk of being misquoted, I must hasten to clarify that one is by no means suggesting that a death of a senior comrade is a non issue but rather what I am getting at here is that this is a closed matter which was investigated more than 17 years ago by two ad hoc structures of the ANC, namely Stuart (1984) and Skweyiya commissions (1991) with another independent report by Motsuenyane. In all their findings, the movement found no wrong doing on the part of Zuma who headed the applicable security structures, succeeding Joseph Nhlanhla. It was instead Mr Mzwai Piliso, then Head of Intelligence & Security until 1987 who was heavily criticized for the 1984 Quattro, Angola mutiny and was subsequently relieved of duty.

The Motsuenyane enquiry in particular, according to Chapter II Volume IV of the TRC as contained in Polity, “was a public and independent enquiry to which anyone could bring evidence about such abuses, and a significant number of individuals did so. This enquiry is, in fact, recognised in some of the international literature as a truth commission in its own right” it says.

The report goes on to state further that, “the Commission believes that this was an unprecedented step for a liberation movement to take, and that the ANC should be commended for setting a high standard in this regard. It regrets that it did not receive the same level of co-operation from other structures and organisations in the compiling of this report” albeit “much of the detail contained came from the ANC’s own enquiries and submissions to the Commission…” The Skweyiya commission of inquiry’s report was published in 1992 and importantly, it too absolved Zuma of any blame for the fate which befell Mr Ngwenya.

Despite these findings, the article by Paul Trewhela which is hidden with innuendo and serious accusations, ranging from an error in judgement to dereliction of duty to oversee operations under his command and at worst being guilty of human rights violations himself, insists that there is something untoward that Zuma did. Under normal circumstances, any writing of this nature would deserve special attention and praise, but it falls short because of its ulterior motives.

It is for this reason that the contents thereof cannot go unchallenged because Trewhela seems to be barking at the wrong tree. The charges he levels against the president of the ANC are vociferous yet a closer look at them reveals that these accusations are baseless and that he has not done his homework properly. Whilst Paul Trewhela doesn’t directly take a swipe at Zuma but he insinuates that he is guilty by association.

The writer suggests that as the overall head of Intelligence and commander in chief of iMbokodo, he is ultimately responsible and thus should be held accountable for the torture, mal treatment, barbaric and human rights violations of suspected spies that took place in the holding cells under his watchful eye. Mr Trewhela would have us believe that his is the only account which is correct on this matter, to the extent that he is willing to even oppose the account of events from people who were actually part of the security/Intelligence set up of the ANC in exile.

A case in point is Adv Oyama Mabandla (pseudonym Tshepo Sechaba) whom Paul misquotes but correctly identifies as a “reliable information feeder to Professor Stephen Ellis in his book ‘Comrades against Apartheid: The South African Communist Party and the ANC in Exile’”. The former (Adv Mabandla) wrote, on his own volition wherein he responded to an earlier article by Trewhela, that, “as one of only few living people quoted in the article, I distance myself…”. What therefore informs Paul, or convinces him that his account of what happened in those camps (or holding cells as it were), is the solemn truth and that everyone else is wrong or covering up?

Like other people of his ilk namely Patrick Laurence and Jacob Dlamini who subscribe to this view or line of thinking he is adamant and at pains to convince us that the dark side of Zuma should not be ignored. The suggestion from all of them is that Zuma is a gross human rights violator and he is a danger to society as such he is not fit to hold high office. The implication is that South Africans are fast asleep and should be wary of this “fox in a sheep’s skin” in the person of Zuma. The trio see themselves as the Godsend angels who are here to wake us all up to the dangers being posed by Zuma’s rise and rise to the union buildings.

A reference is also made of Dr Pallo Jordan’s torrid time for a few weeks whilst he was in those Nazi type holding cells. Another example is made of how another influential guerilla and MK activist Benjamin Langa, who apparently turned state witness, was shot by Lucky Payi and Sipho Xulu. The latter, according to an account in the application in terms of Section 18 of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, no. 34 of 1995 by Joel George Martins (Applicant AM 64550/97) are said “to have carried the instructions of their commander/s” whom according to archived records in the Dept of Justice is Edward ‘Eddie’ Lawrence. The instigator, according to George Martins, “had been recruited by the Security Police and was handled by a senior security police official at the C.R. Swart Square Police Station in Durban”.

The above revelation clearly, points to the work of the apartheid government which was trying to get comrades to turn against each other. How then do people like Trewhela and Laurence come to the conclusion that Zuma is also responsible for Ben Langa’s death? The duo (Xulu and Payi) who were hanged for their involvement, were in my view being punished by the apartheid government for having eliminated a “friend of the state”, especially because they also bombed a useful apartheid era asset (i.e. police station) which was used for carrying heinous atrocities against our people. As a soldier and/or commander of an armed force in a war situation one should be prepared to die with their boots on and take the truth with them instead of succumbing to tactics which are meant to break you down and thus indiscriminately sell out your comrades.

There are many prime examples of guerillas who were tortured, some to death even but still they never bore all. I was not in exile and so wasn’t Paul (his having been in Britain or 3 year stint in prison or editorial prowess of Freedom Fighter hardly qualifies him as an exile but instead it is luxury). Now the question that is on my mind is, who is feeding him with this clearly false information because the people who were in exile in the ANC camps speak highly of Zuma save for those who flouted policies? Could it be the REC (Returned Exiles Coordinating Committee) which refused to cooperate because I have interacted with numerous MK guerillas since their return from exile and many agree that Zuma is not the animal that he is being made out to be?.

They tell us that he was instead a voice of reason and did the best he could under the circumstances. Their account is that whenever the leadership had failed to tone down the MK soldiers who were boycotting he would be sent to talk to them and he would emerge with a high degree of success at it (i.e. calming them down) without using under handed tactics.

A further testimony to this assertion is the MKMVA’s endorsement of Zuma as their preferred ANC presidential candidate as their conference at Birchwood Hotel, Boksburg leading to the 2007 National Conference. For if Zuma was a monster, the MKMVA would have been the first to denounce his candidacy because this is the organisation which represents the interests of our military veterans some of whom would either have served under him or the tutelage of those who reported directly to him.

There is another distinguished writer, Dr Xolela Mangcu with an added impetus from a reader (N. Mbatha), both of whom have challenged Paul Trewhela’s articles. And like them I also fail to understand the rationale behind these accusations unless of course this is motivated by a desire to disgrace Zuma and make him appear as a “monster who is not fit to hold high office” because of the suggested “gross human rights violations” which supposedly took place during his tenure as Head of Intelligence. For the record, Zuma’s success in curbing or keeping the ANC away from apartheid agents, outwitting and outsmarting their handlers (i.e. the apartheid government) is unparalleled and it is there for all to marvel about.

The apartheid government cannot bring themselves to accept that a self taught individual without any formal education was able to countenance all their attempts to infiltrate the movement considering that they had hired professors to develop strategies. It is my suspicion that for this reason they (through Paul Trewhela) doubt the information to the effect that Zuma didn’t go to a formal school which is why Paul suggests that he is a Soviet graduate. Even after Prof Vladimir Shubin wrote a piece to correct him in his erroneous reading of his book, he still insists on it saying that he “doubts that the publisher and author could have gotten things so horribly wrong, you be the judge...”.

The other question I ask myself is why now? As in why start raising moral questions so many years after these events took place notwithstanding that back in 1993 he once wrote about this subject? I cannot of course rule out the possibility that since the NPA’s case of false corruption charges is falling flat on its face, the latter (i.e. NPA) is trying to cultivate fertile grounds for a new charge sheet to be fabricated in substitution of the former charges which are “expected to be dropped”.

The above scenario was previously put in the public domain as a test wherein the NPA was said to be pursuing those, and by implication in the ANC, who didn’t apply for amnesty. It is common knowledge that Zuma like all other ANC leaders didn’t apply for amnesty because they made a failed attempt at a blanket amnesty. It would seem that the agent provocateurs, the likes of Mr Trewhela didn’t get the desired response hence this attempt to bring this non issue to the fore.

This is a classic case of the saying, “if you repeat lies often enough, it eventually becomes the truth”. I for one am not convinced that Zuma is a monster and unless credible information is brought forward, only then can this stand change but not a smear campaign, please. For my part I have never been known to have any affinity or sympathy for those who spied against the ANC nor those who were suspected to have been spies for that matter hence I won’t entertain any suggestion that the consequential uncovering of their selfish actions (of spying) and the backlash thereto to get information is wrong.

How else was the ANC intelligence department going to get information out of them because the suspects would not have voluntarily given them this information? I am not an intelligence person, but it is my belief that whenever someone is being suspected of being a double agent, they would be followed around for a while first in order to verify the correctness or lack thereof of information which links them to being a spy.

This would be meant to determine as to who do they meet with and why? Who do they call and why? What is being discussed when they meet that can’t be discussed openly? And why does one look for a public phone away from the camps and why the secrecy? Why does one visit “dead spots” and what messages are hidden in those “dead letter drops”? etc. It is also my belief that whilst the ANC was being infiltrated, its counter intelligence unit would also have proactively infiltrated the ranks of the apartheid regime’s security apparatus with a view to get an upstart on what it planned to do against the ANC.

Therefore any information they acted on would have had a high degree of truth as opposed to lies but I accept that in anything there is a margin of error or devious intent or manipulation. Whilst one acknowledges that professional jealousy could at times have been the reason behind false accusations of spying against comrades but if a cadre’s behaviour was beyond reproach, their colleagues would have defended them or the counter intelligence information gathered whilst monitoring their every move would have exonerated them.

Even in the townships, we used to have such instances where comrades and/or innocent people were falsely accused of being state moles but in the end sanity prevailed when those who knew them well refuted those allegations or those who accused them falsely were uncovered as jealous. This proved that despite the adage that, “there is no smoke without fire” someone could have been wrongly accused. If nobody vouched for that individual or victim, then those isolated cases would be classified as casualties of war which is an ugly consequence of a war situation, and one which I don’t condone though. Soldiers don’t always get it right and at times they apply their own discretion which leads to innocent civilians getting killed but we can hardly say that those who command them are therefore guilty now, can we.

Mr Trewhela, please reveal your true intentions with your persistent but false accusations on our esteemed leader?