RESPONSE BY PAUL TREWHELA TO THE STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL WORKING COMMITTEE OF THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS, 31 MARCH 2009
The National Working Committee of the African National Congress has issued a statement dated 31 March 2009, which concludes as follows:
"The NWC noted with distaste recent articles that have appeared in some newspapers, specifically the Sunday Times and Business Day, attempting to link ANC President Jacob Zuma to the deaths of various ANC members in exile. These articles, which do not even make pretence of producing evidence, should be dismissed with contempt. They are a transparent attempt to besmirch the ANC President.
"The fact is that on three separate occasions these deaths were investigated - in the Skweyiya Commission, the Motsuenyane Commission and South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) - and at no point was there any evidence presented that linked Jacob Zuma directly or indirectly to any of these incidents."
I am, by implication, an object of this criticism by the NWC - although not named by the Committee - since I published an article on the subject in question, headed "Zulu proves an albatross around Zuma's neck", in the Sunday Times (15 March) as well as letters on the same subject printed in Business Day on 18, 20 and 31 March (see here).
My writings on this subject follow the facts of the matter, as follows.
Argument
1. A murder was committed.
2. One or more people put poison - a deadly pesticide, diazinon - into bottles of beer that were consumed by Thami Zulu (born Muziwakhe Ngwenya, in Soweto) while he was an invalid under doctor's supervision in the house of Dr Ralph R Mgijima in Lusaka, Zambia, within 48 hours prior to his death on 16 November 1989. Dr Mgijima was absent from the house while himself a patient in hospital in Lusaka over this period. Dr Mgijima is currently Deputy Chairperson of the Board of the National Health Laboratory Service.
3. There is no evidence that anyone except ANC members had access to Mr Zulu over this time.
4. Mr Zulu had been released from 17 month's detention without trial and interrogation by the ANC's Department of Intelligence and Security (iMbokodo, the grindstone), in a secret prison in Lusaka, only five days before his death.
5. The head of counter-intelligence in iMbokodo in 1988-89 was Jacob Zuma. Detention and interrogation of such a senior military commander in Umkhonto weSizwe as Thami Zulu could not have taken place, over such a long time, without his mandate as head of intelligence.
6. Thami Zulu was reported to have informed Dr Pren Naicker, a member of the ANC in Lusaka delegated by the ANC to care for him following his release by iMbokodo, that he did not wish to be taken to hospital because he was frightened of being killed there. On his return to South Africa following the death of Mr Zulu, Dr Naicker subsequently became head of the Medical Health Service in the South African National Defence Force, as Brigadier General Pren Naicker. General Naicker trained in medicine in the Soviet Union and is the son of Mr Zuma's political mentor in Durban when he was a young man, the late SACP and ANC leader, MP Naicker.
7. Jacob Zuma has made no public accounting for his responsibility as Officer Commanding, Intelligence, ANC Department of Intelligence and Security in 1988-89 for any decision he may or may not have given to his department concerning the detention and interrogation of Thami Zulu. He avoided meeting the parents of Mr Zulu, despite their having made very substantial repeated efforts to talk with him.
8. No information has been placed in the public domain about what steps, if any, were taken by Mr Zuma's department to identify who was responsible for administering the poison that killed Thami Zulu. Mr Zuma, in particular, has made no public statement on this matter, as then officer commanding the relevant department.
9. A commission of inquiry into the circumstances of Thami Zulu's death, appointed by the ANC and consisting of four ANC members in exile, identified poison by means of the pesticide diazinon as a cause, but failed even to attempt to find out who might have administered this poison. This failure of elementary jurisprudence was extraordinary, especially since two members of the commission - Judge Albie Sachs of the Constitutional Court and ZN Jobodwana, senior researcher in the Department of Foreign and Comparative Law at the University of South Africa - had trained in law.
10. When interviewing Mr Sachs as candidate for appointment as Judge to the Constitutional Court on 4 October 1996, the Judicial Services Commission did not ask Mr Sachs why the ANC commission into the death of Thami Zulu - in which he had served as a commissioner - had not pursued this elementary duty of inquiry.
11. Hearings into human rights abuses committed in the ANC in exile - in particular, the Skweyiya Commission (1992) and the Motsuenyane Commission (1993), both appointed by the ANC as a political party, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission - provided no meaningful evidence in their reports in relation to the above questions concerning the death of Thami Zulu.
12. The Report of the Motsuenyane Commission (dated 20 August 1993) discussed the detention and death of Thami Zulu in Chapter 4, "The ANC security apparatus", Section 2, "Weaknesses in the security structures", paragraph 3(a). It found that iMbokodo had held Thami Zulu "without proper trial" and that "he had been poisoned prior to his death." (p.27) The Commission made no attempt to inquire who might have poisoned him. Jacob Zuma appears not to have been consulted.
13. The Motsuenyane Commission did, however, determine that Jacob Zuma "failed adequately to supervise the investigation of [David Ndabakayise] Mbatha's case and to assure its prompt resolution (Lusaka)." This followed testimony to the commission concerning "the Intelligence Department, which Zuma headed," coming from a member of the Security Department, Jacob Sithole, from which the commission concluded that Sithole "thought Zuma ordered the arrest of Mbatha". Mr Mbatha was detained by iMbokodo in Lusaka, at Quatro prison camp in Angola and in a warehouse in the Angolan capital, Luanda, from July 1988 until May 1989.
14. The Motsuenyane Commmission added that "Zuma denied that he had played any role in the detention and imprisonment of Mbatha. Zuma told the Commmission that at the time of Mbatha's arrest, he was himself away from Lusaka on business". It states that "Jacob Zuma could not enlighten the Commission as to the circumstances under which Mbatha came to be detained and imprisoned". (pp. 83-85) There is no evidence that Jacob Zuma gave any account to the Commission concerning Thami Zulu.
15. The question posed by Mr Philemon Ngwenya, the father of Thami Zulu, in evidence to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on 26 July 1996 - "Who killed my son, and why?" - remains unpursued by the ANC. As the ranking officer commanding investigations of this kind within the ANC at the time of Mr Zulu's detention and death, Jacob Zuma has made no public response to Mr Ngwenya's question.
16. It is morally unacceptable for Jacob Zuma, as commanding officer responsible for counter-intelligence in the ANC in 1988-89, to seek election to become President of South Africa without addressing these questions before the electorate.
Conclusion
The statement issued by the NWC of the ANC does not address these points. Instead of responding to my argument with an explanation, however, the NWC replies with abuse (my argument is "dismissed with contempt"). This response by the ANC to argument does not convince.
Click here to sign in to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
