COSATU response to the dropping of charges against the ANC President, Jacob Zuma
The Congress of South African Trade Unions warmly welcomes the decision of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to withdraw all the charges against ANC President Jacob Zuma. COSATU feels vindicated and is obviously thrilled at the outcome.
Our members consistently argued that Jacob Zuma was a victim of political machinations aimed at frustrating his political career. Today these millions of workers and many others will be elated to hear that what they argued all along was the truth. This victory belongs to these ordinary people of our country. It is a victory for democracy and justice - it is a victory for real rule of law and the Constitution.
In this regard we remember Patrick Cokotho, a SACTWU shop steward and delegate to the 8th national congress of COSATU held in 2003, who composed a song with the lyrics that asked a pertinent question to Bulelani Ngcuka - wenzeni uZuma we Ngcuka khawuphendula - wena ulawula ama scorpions - awusitshele ukuthi uZuma wenzeni. Patrick Cokotho died in his sleep in the morning of the day that the 2003 congress was to begin, after getting all delegates to sing his newly composed song.
The NPA never had a chance of securing a guilty verdict - they had no evidence proving beyond reasonable doubt that Jacob Zuma is guilty of any crime.
Even though the NPA decision is based on a consideration of the policy aspects of what militated against conducting a free and fair trial, we have consistently argued that if there was a case against Jacob Zuma he should have been charged way back in 1999/2000 when the NPA started to leak information to the media that he was being investigated.
By failing to charge him, whilst effectively conducting a media trial through systematic leaks to the media, the NPA acted unfairly and grossly prejudiced the ANC President. The fact that the state took so many years to investigate, led many to start asking a basic question - why is the man not being charged so that he may have the opportunity to defend himself in a court of law?
This unfair treatment made workers argue correctly and consistently that justice delayed is justice denied. Regrettably sections of the media and some of the so-called experts ignored the facts and were happy to be used by those pursuing a political agenda.
Despite being ridiculed and lampooned, we tirelessly argued that it was wrong for the former NPA Director (Bulelani Ngcuka) flanked by the then Justice Minister (Penuell Maduna) to effectively declare comrade Jacob Zuma guilty of corruption when he said in 2003 that although there was a "prima facie" case for charging Jacob Zuma, he would not be charged because the case would be unwinnable.
Bulelani Ngcuka should have kept quiet rather than let comrade Jacob Zuma hang in the court of public opinion. COSATU agreed with Judge Chris Nicholson's description of that decision as ‘bizarre', given that a decision had been made to prosecute Schabir Shaik and his corporate entities, and considering that the two were supposed to be in cahoots.
This decision was a total negation of the constitutional imperatives imposed on the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions to prosecute without fear and favour, independently and in a consistent, honest and fair fashion. When these violations of the rights of Jacob Zuma happened, as earlier confirmed by the Public Protector, most of the mainstream media houses and opposition parties simply refused to accept that.
We reacted with anger when the NPA raided his and his lawyers' houses, frantically trying to find evidence two months after it decided to charge him. We argued that in a normal case, investigators investigate, and take their evidence to court. In this case they charged and then investigated, which we interpreted as looking for a political justification for his dismissal. Most of the mainstream media, aided by the so-called experts and the opposition parties, ignored this flagrant injustice.
We nevertheless accompanied him to court in June/July 2006 only to find out that the NPA was not ready to proceed with the trial, six years after the NPA started investigating him. Their excuse was that they now relied on the documents obtained in the raid to Jacob Zuma and his lawyer's premises. As we have said in the paragraph above this was astonishing considering that the NPA decided to charge Jacob Zuma in June 2005 following his dismissal as the Deputy President of the Republic, but could not proceed with the trial because it suddenly depended on the evidence obtained after they have laid the charges.
When Judge Qedusizi Msimang in the Pietermaritzburg High Court struck the case from the roll in September 2006 and correctly criticised the conduct of the NPA, we felt vindicated. Most of the mainstream media and so-called experts however chose to ignore the criticisms Judge Msimang made.
Despite this criticism, the NPA has ever since then, been arguing that their case depends upon the evidence seized in these raids conducted in August 2005, two months after he had been charged and dismissed. Justice does not work that way - you investigate, gather evidence and then approach the courts to secure a conviction. You can't arrest and charge then frantically try to gather evidence. Yet much of the mainstream media during the Shabir Shaik trial, and at the time of comrade Jacob Zuma being dismissed and charged, were telling the nation that the state has enough evidence. This order of things simply deepened our suspicions of a political trial.
The decision to prosecute comrade Jacob Zuma seemed to be selective. The very people defending the NPA decision to lay charges against comrade Jacob Zuma who at the time occupied key government positions opposed COSATU's call for a full judicial inquiry into the arms deal to identify all those who may have been involved in corruption.
Political trial - persecution and not prosecution
Despite years of being dismissed as a lunatic fringe, COSATU, and indeed the majority of our citizens, insisted that Jacob Zuma was the victim of political machinations. However, today's NPA decision is based on evidence, which constitutes incontrovertible proof, recorded on tapes, that the decision to prosecute was taken after blatant attempts to manipulate the NPA's prosecutorial processes in pursuit of a political campaign.
The decision completely vindicates the view taken by COSATU and its allies that Jacob Zuma could never have received a fair trial, indeed that he has been the victim of political machinations to destroy his career and prevent him initially from being the President of the ANC, and then from being the President of the Republic of South Africa.
Even when an independent judge came to the same conclusion that there was political meddling in the case, many in the mainstream media demanded that we, the ordinary workers, should produce proof that there was a political conspiracy. Obviously we did not have such proof. We insisted that political conspiracies are always extremely difficult to prove, as they are by their nature undercover, clandestine activities. Because we had no documented evidence and proof, most mainstream media and so called experts simply dismissed our arguments, without seeking to engage us on why we had come to believe that there was a political conspiracy.
Now we have had the last laugh! We have been vindicated. Evidence now exists that Bulelani Ngcuka and the NPA systematically and over many years committed grave violations of Jacob Zuma's rights to pursue a political agenda.
COSATU's case has been based on the following arguments:
1. It was wrong for the investigators to launch a media trial by leaking information, instead of approaching courts to seek a conviction.
2. It was wrong for the then NPA Director (Bulelani Ngcuka) to convene an off-the-record media briefing with certain black journalists, thereby launching a media trial with the intention of winning public opinion instead of approaching the courts to seek a conviction if he really believed in his information.
3. It was wrong for Zuma to be dismissed as the Deputy President before he had been convicted in a court of law. We saw this as a political justification to satisfy what we have now come to believe to be part of a concerted campaign to deal with an individual.
4. Other developments, including the ‘Special Browse Mole Report' and so-called hoax emails saga and the suspension of Vusi Pikoli, all of which further pointed to the fact that state institutions were being used to fight factional political battles within the ANC and the Alliance.
5. The so-called coincidence of announcing the charging of the ANC President few hours after he was elected simply deepened the sentiment that here we were dealing with a case of persecution of the individual which has nothing to do with the purported pursuance of justice.
Based on the above beliefs, now shared by the majority in our society, we objected to the charges he faced. The charges have formed part of the concerted campaign to persecute and not prosecute. We made this argument, not as an expression of lack of confidence in the judiciary but in defence of the rights of an individual, which we believed had been violated.
Bulelani Ngcuka, Mzi Khumalo and Leonard McCarthy feature prominently in the transcription released by the NPA (see here).
Bulelani Ngcuka is a close friend of Saki Macozoma and Mzi Khumalo. They all have common business interests and act at all times to advance their class interests to accumulate wealth and generate profits. Saki Macozoma featured prominently in the so-called hoax emails. They are today key members and funders of COPE, the party formed after their political agenda could no longer be pursued through the ANC.
In addition, Sipho Ngwema was a spokesperson of Bulelani Ngcuka during his reign of terror in the NPA. He tirelessly justified all his actions and the actions of the NPA. Sipho Ngwema is now a key member and a spokesperson of his political new home, COPE.
The role of the Vusi Pikoli as Head of the NPA, and the manner in which he arrived at the decision to prosecute comrade Jacob Zuma, is equally worrying. Pikoli took a decision to prosecute Jacob Zuma after he was dismissed as the Deputy President of the country. Immediately before all this happened former President Thabo Mbeki and Vusi Pikoli embarked on an international trip together.
Former President Thabo Mbeki and Vusi Pikoli to this day deny that they coordinated their actions. They want us to believe that it was all a coincidence that Zuma was charged soon after he was dismissed following this international trip. Mokotedi Mpshe wants us to believe that it was a sheer coincidence that Jacob Zuma was charged soon after he was elected into the position of the ANC President. Now it has emerged in the tapes that there was no coincidence but a blatant external political interference.
It has now been exposed that the NPA, under Pikoli's leadership, allowed the Head of the Scorpions, Leonard McCarthy, a free rein to prosecute comrade Jacob Zuma, often relying on improper outside forces to inform his prosecutorial decisions. McCarthy together with his cohorts Ngcuka and Mzi Khumalo and possibly others relentlessly pursued comrade Zuma.
Saki Macozoma was a central figure together with Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka in the email saga. We must state that to the best of our information, the previous NEC of the ANC led by Thabo Mbeki, dominated by the likes of Saki Macozoma, dismissed the report of the task team established to investigate the emails on technicalities and not on substance.
Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka who is wife to Bulelani Ngcuka was the beneficiary all the way. Her husband Bulelani Ngcuka was the hunter. She was handed a trophy by President Thabo Mbeki when she was appointed as Deputy President following the dismissal of Jacob Zuma, who had been systematically pursued by her husband. She was put forward, unsuccessfully, as the candidate of the 1996 class project, for the position of national treasurer of the ANC, at the Polokwane Conference. Such politics of the use and manipulations of state institutions, corruption and nepotism began to make South Africa look like a banana republic.
The politics of the 1996 class project
The Federation has written paper upon paper analysing the phenomenon of what we have come to call the 1996 class project. Central to this project was the politics of crass materialism and neo liberal economic policies. Their only way to achieve this was to transform the ANC from within, from a broad-church liberation movement with a bias towards the workers and the poor to a narrow political party that is elite driven, and practices no internal democracy. The delegates at the 52nd national conference held in Polokwane revolted against this and returned the ANC firmly back to its historic roots - mass participation, democracy and biasness towards the interests of workers and the poor. COPE is the response of those driving the 1996 class project, to the rejection of their programme for narrow accumulation.
The role of some in the media and so called experts
COSATU hopes that the media and the so-called experts will learn one lesson from this saga: be independent and objective!
Bulelani Ngcuka sought to convict Jacob Zuma in the court of public opinion. He had no case to pursue. He knew this from the beginning. He was conducting a political trial on behalf of his colleagues, here and outside the borders of our country.
The media was happy to receive information that had been illegally and clandestinely acquired and was happy to publish it. When Bulelani Ngcuka convened an off-the-record briefing with carefully selected black journalists as part of his war to win the public opinion and convict Zuma in the court of public opinion, the media happily attended and used the information they received. None of them asked a question - why are you telling us these things instead of telling them to a Judge?
They never had any regard for the law and human rights and dignity of Jacob Zuma. Instead of being independent and exercising its watchdog role, the media was slowly drawn into factional battles of the ANC and took sides. In the process it lost its credibility in the eyes of many, as it got embedded in factions and acted in their interests, not in the public interest.
The new champions of the rule of law
The so-called Congress of the People is an organisation that claims to have been founded on the basis of the perceived threat to the rule of law and our Constitution. However, the NPA's findings suggests that COPE's key members are the violators of others basic human rights. Bulelani Ngcuka and his friends have used the NPA - a key state institution- to pursue narrow factional battles in the ANC.
The opposition parties, the DA in particular regrettably as well as Archbishop Desmond Tutu sought to pre-empt the findings of the NPA. This was desperate politicking! The DA made their own representations to the NPA in a process where they had no standing. There could be no better example of trying to pressurise an important institution like the NPA, in order to target a political opponent.
This demands vigilance on the part of all South Africans - never again should we allow state institutions to be used for narrow political battles.
The federation has consistently stressed that it never sought to undermine the independence of the judiciary, nor has it argued that the ANC President is above the law. We agreed with Judge Nicholson that if there has been an attack on the independence of the judiciary it has not come from the supporters of Jacob Zuma but from those he accused of manipulating judicial structures for political ends, a view the NPA now would appear to agree with.
While welcoming the NPA's decision, COSATU must emphasise that it remains absolutely opposed to corruption, a cancer which is eating away at the moral and social fabric of society, and will continue to demand that those who are corruptly enriching themselves at the expense of their fellow citizens should be prosecuted and, if found guilty, provided that they have been given a fair trial, punished severely.
Statement issued by COSATU, April 6 2009
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