A war of words has broken out in the press concerning the relation of Jacob Zulu to the murder in exile in Zambia of the Umkhonto weSizwe commander, Thami Zulu, in 1989, following an accusation in a letter to the Sunday Times (22 March) that I had made "false and calumnious imputations" against Zuma.
A letter that I wrote to defend myself against the accusation - which borders on a charge of lying and of slander - did not appear in yesterday's Sunday Times. It is published below.
The accusation that I had made "false and calumnious imputations" against Zuma was sounded a second time last week in a column in Business Day by Dr Xolela Mangcu, executive chairman of the Platform for Public Deliberation at the University of Johannesburg and executive director of the Human Sciences Research Council. Dr Mangcu is the author of To the Brink: The State of Democracy in South Africa ( University of KwaZulu-Natal Press , 2008). His article, dated 26 March, is available here.
The original charge was made by Advocate Oyama Mabandla as a result of an article in the Sunday Times, headed "Zulu proves an albatross around Zuma's neck", which I had written (15 March, see here). Letters criticising my article appeared in the Sunday Times the following week from Mabandla, whom I had quoted in my article, and from Njabuliso Churchill Mbatha (22 March, see here and here).
In my article in the Sunday Times, I reported that Mr Mabandla was the co-author with Professor Stephen Ellis of Comrades against Apartheid: The South African Communist Party and the ANC in Exile (James Currey/Indiana University Press, 1992), having written the book under a pseudonym, "Tsepo Sechaba". I described Mr Mabandla in this article as the "primary source for this book and a former 'member of the ANC intelligence apparatus'." The latter phrase comes from an academic essay on the ANC's security department, iMbokodo, written by Ellis. In the book's Introduction, Ellis described Mabandla as having been a member of the ANC and the SACP who "worked in sensitive positions in the ANC's underground, and had access to highly confidential information...". (p.6)
During the 1980s, Mabandla secretly provided Ellis, then editor of the London-based journal Africa Confidential, with the best quality information available to the general public of human rights abuses in the ANC in exile, including details of the detention by the ANC security department, iMbokodo, for six weeks in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1983 of the Arts and Culture minister, Dr Zweledinga Pallo Jordan.
Subsequently trained in law at Columbia University , Mr Mabandla is now chairman of the Vodacom group in South Africa and was deputy chief executive of South African Airways until 2004.
The war of words involving Mabandla, Mangcu and myself came after the posting on Politicsweb last month of my article, "The dilemma of Albie Sachs: ANC constitutionalism and the death of Thami Zulu", published originally in a banned exile magazine, Searchlight South Africa No.11, in October 1993. (28 February, see here). Politicsweb had previously posted two articles by me on the same subject, "Jacob Zuma, Mbokodo and the death of Thami Zulu" (12 February, see here), and "Jacob Zuma in exile: three unexplored issues" (15 February, see here).
These articles on Politicsweb led to me being subjected to criticism by Vladimir Shubin, the top administrator in the former Soviet Union responsible for the USSR's relations with the SACP and the ANC, writing from Moscow (2 March, see here). My reply to Shubin's charges appeared on Politicsweb, posted the same day (see here).
Shortly after Mabandla's criticism of me in the Sunday Times, a former political editor of Business Day, Jacob Dlamini, took an approach very similar to mine in an article headed "Tell us how comrade Thami Zulu died", in his column in The Weekender (21 March 2009, see here). A further column by Mr Dlamini, "Zuma's fitness to lead is a moral, not legal, question" (28 March 2009 , see here), was published the following week. This came after very strong criticism of me in Business Day by Dr Mangcu, on the grounds of alleged moral failures on my part.
Mangcu had alleged that my article in the Sunday Times represented a "cowboy mentality" and was characterised by "ethical lapses". It was "just one demonstration of how intellectual inconsistency slides into intellectual dishonesty", it amounted to a "rave and rant" and aimed to "substitute the rule of law with cowboy justice". Mr Mangcu further alleged that my article had been tantamount to "swearing" at Jacob Zuma (the phrase "swearing" is repeated three times in one paragraph), and asked: "Is it ethically permissible for us to twist other people's books to give our passions a veneer of respectability?"
I have sent a letter to Business Day, in response to this charge. My unpublished reply to the charge by Oyama Mabandla is printed below. Readers may judge for themselves.
Letter to the Editor,
The Sunday Times.
Oyama Mabandla accuses me of "false and calumnious imputations" in my article, "Zulu proves an albatross around Zuma's neck" (Sunday Times, 15 March).
In my article I wrote that Jacob Zuma has never made a proper accounting for the failure of the ANC Security Department, iMbokodo, in which he was head of intelligence, to make a thoroughgoing investigation into the death by poisoning of the Umkhonto weSizwe commander, Thami Zulu (real name, Muziwakhe Ngwenya), in Lusaka in November 1989, five days after Zulu's release from 17 months' detention by iMbokodo.
Mr Mabandla states that nowhere in the book, Comrades against Apartheid: The South African Communist Party and the ANC in Exile (James Currey, 1992), which he wrote [under the pseudonym Tsepo Sechaba] with Professor Stephen Ellis, is there "a statement or even a suggestion that Jacob Zuma was culpable, responsible or involved in any way with this tragic story."
Let me quote from his book. He and Professor Ellis state:
"Although Thami Zulu was a senior commander in Umkhonto we Sizwe, and prominent in the [Communist] Party, there were those who disliked him. The reasons for this dated back to his appointment to head the Natal underground machinery in 1983.
"Some ANC Zulus disliked his appointment to the post, since Thami Zulu came from Soweto and not from Natal . They would have preferred one of the Natal people to have got the job....
"Today, few in the ANC believe that Thami Zulu really was a spy, but blame his death on the excessive zeal of the ANC's security apparatus. It shocked many that in 1989, five years after the Angola mutiny [within the ANC], the Security department could act with such impunity to hound to death a very senior official without having to give any account of its actions." (p.170. My italics.)
On the previous page, Jacob Zuma is described as ANC "head of Intelligence Operations" in the period after 1986. (p.169)
These are Mr Mabandla's words, not mine.
Following my quotes from Mr Mabandla, I wrote in my article that in the following years, "Zuma made no accounting to the TRC about the detention and death of Zulu, despite references to him in the public domain which indicated his at least formal responsibility as head of ANC counter-intelligence.
"No amnesty was sought or granted."
Later in the article I argued that there had been "no proper moral accounting for this crime."
Contrary to Mr Mabandla, it is neither false nor calumnious to state that Jacob Zuma was responsible for intelligence within iMbokodo at the time of this murder. It is not false or calumnious to state that he carries "at least formal responsibility" for the actions of his department at this time.
Nor is it false or calumnious to state that Zuma "made no accounting to the TRC about the detention and death of Zulu".
As I wrote in my article, the forthcoming President of South Africa did not take the opportunity provided by the TRC to respond to the article, "The question remains: Who killed Thami Zulu?", by Paul Stober, published in the Weekly Mail on 23 October 1992.
In this article, Paul Stober specifically stated that it was "known that Zuma opposed Zulu's appointment as commander of Natal MK operations" and referred to "persistent allegations that [then] assistant ANC secretary-general Zuma was involved" in the detention of Thami Zulu by iMbokodo.
In response to the letter "Old conspiracy theories about Thami Zulu" by Njabuliso Churchill Mbatha (also 22 March), which is also critical of my article, I must reply that more is expected of a Chief Executive of the country than what Mr Zuma has so far provided.
Paul Trewhela
Aylesbury , UK .
15 March 2009
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