I am frequently visited by foreign journalists touring South Africa. Usually they have read my last book, South Africa's Brave New World. The Beloved Country Since the End of Apartheid (Allan Lane/Penguin) and ask me questions such as "Why do so many people who haven't read your book say they dislike it?" There isn't a lot I can say to that. Normally I just laugh or shrug. The book has, after all, sold well and more or less by definition the sort of people I hear from are the sort who did like it.
The hostile review which is most quoted at me is one by David Beresford in The Guardian, a curious one in that he simultaneously alleged that my book was just unsubstantiated gossip and at the same time he was annoyed by the fact that I had substantiated so much with a plethora of sources, particularly newspapers and journals.
I don't know Mr Beresford but he is, of course, welcome to his opinions. What he thought particularly fantastic, however, was my suggestion that Robert Mugabe had quite possibly had advance notice of the events of 9/11. This seems to have stuck in other minds and from time to time I find that someone who is annoyed by something else I've written wheels this out in order to show that anyone who said such an absurd thing cannot possibly be believed about anything. So let us have a look at the evidence.
One of the great benefits of the American-led invasion or Iraq in 2003 was Muammar Gaddafi's quick scuttle to safety: he admitted that he had been trying to acquire WMD and essentially sued for peace with the West. Western inspectors found a number of nuclear centrifuges, 23 tons of mustard gas and 1300 tons of precursor chemicals.
He also ceased his support for terrorist groups in Indonesia, the Philippines, the IRA, the Red Army Fraction, the Red Brigades and even his attempts to radicalize Australian Aborigines against the Canberra government. He had, moreover, trained and supported both Charles Taylor and Fode Sankoh as well as Jean-Bedel Bokassa. He had regularly hosted the Colombian guerrillas, FARC, and had put millions of dollars into the pocket of the Austrian ultra-rightist Jorg Halder.
He had also financed Mengistu in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe's Mugabe. In 2011 his former Justice Minister, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, told the Swedish paper Expressen (22 Feb.2011) that Gaddafi had also personally ordered the Lockerbie massacre.
Naturally, he was most active of all in his support of the PLO and terrorist groups in the Middle East. Since he was famously generous with his oil dollars, they all came knocking at his door and he had an unrivalled knowledge of the terrorist networks of the Muslim world. All this changed in 2003 and by 2004 he was meeting Tony Blair, but if we cast our minds back to 2001 we are dealing with the unreformed Gaddafi, the terrorist's friend.
He was also very much Robert Mugabe's friend. Mugabe's programme of violent land seizures, together with his use of mass torture and intimidation to win the 2000 election, had seen Zimbabwe enter a period of extreme diplomatic isolation with only Gaddafi, Thabo Mbeki and a few other extremely flaky Third World leaders willing to have anything to do with him.
Moreover, Gaddafi was willing to give Mugabe oil and money, which made him the most precious ally of all. So Mugabe frequently made the pilgrimage to Tripoli and was so impressed that he gave orders that his palatial new residence in Harare should copy Gaddafi's home in style. Meanwhile, the Libyan presence in Zimbabwe grew apace as Gaddafi acquired farms and businesses and Libyan diplomats and military types proliferated in Harare.
All of which brought Mugabe into closer proximity to the world of Islamic terrorism than he'd ever been before. This did not seem to cause Mugabe any concern - he needed any friends he could get - and anyway he was now on dreadful terms with the US and Britain, the most likely targets of such terrorists. Soon the number of Libyan MIGs and other planes stationed in Zimbabwe far outnumbered the Zimbabwean Air Force.
In fact a key moment had occurred in 1998 when Yasir Arafat, a close friend of Mugabe, had visited Harare bringing with him six members of Islamic Jihad wanted by the Israelis. They stayed in Harare for two weeks.
Arafat seems to have told Gaddafi about this and in September 2000 Gaddafi asked Mugabe to receive Ayman Zawahiri, then No.2 to Osama Bin Laden and today the head of al-Qaeda. This was the first of two visits that Zawahiri was to make to Zimbabwe, apparently with the idea of setting up an al-Qaeda base which would not only be far from the Middle East but far from anywhere the Americans were likely to suspect.
This is not to suggest that Gaddafi ever controlled al-Qaeda. True, the Libyans had trained many of the Taliban and they were particular experts in kamikaze terrorism, but Osama Bin Laden was an independent actor. The key point seems to have been just that Gaddafi was conversant with a huge variety of terrorist organizations and al-Qaeda simply came to him and asked him the favour of an introduction to Mugabe. And this in turn happened because Mugabe had already shown a degree of tolerance towards such folk.
Haroun Fazil, the architect of the al-Qaeda bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in August 1998, which killed 258 and injured over 5,000, flew into Nairobi to carry out these acts on a Zimbabwe passport and from a base inside Zimbabwe. Later, Wanted notices for Hazil were posted all round Harare by the Americans who clearly thought he might have returned there to hide.
Just 18 days after the embassy bombings came the bombing of the Planet Hollywood restaurant in Cape Town, killing one and injuring 27. Again, the main suspect had arrived from a base inside Zimbabwe. Anyone with experience of African politics will surmise that Mugabe would have been well paid for this extraordinary tolerance of Islamic terrorism.
Mugabe's intimacy with Gaddafi led him to be one of a very select few invited to Tripoli in September 2001 to celebrate the 32nd anniversary of Libya's "national revolution". Gaddafi delivered a major address in which he called upon his followers "to support the hero, President Mugabe, since Zimbabwe is a strategic country". None of the other dignitaries invited - for example, Sudan's President Moar Bashir - tolerated a free press but by great good luck Gaddafi's otherwise obscure address was recorded by the Zimbabwe Herald. It is from their account that I quote.
Gaddafi had clearly been excited by the East African bombings and his admiration for al-Qaeda was undisguised - indeed, he had clearly been in touch with them since the bombings. In his speech he happily boasted of Bin Laden's prowess and mocked the failure of the Americans to catch him. All this, remember, on September 1, 2001 - just ten days before 9/11. He continued
"We no longer wage war with the old weapons. Now they can fight you with electrons and viruses. The crazy world powers that have invested huge amounts of money in weapons of mass destruction have found themselves unable to fight the new strain of rebellion. As a simple example, the USA is unable to fight someone called Osama bin Laden. He is a tiny man, weighing no more than 50kg. He only has a Kalashnikov rifle in his hands. He doesn't even wear a military uniform. He wears a jalabiyah and turban and lives in a cavern, eating stale bread. He has driven the USA crazy, more than the former Soviet Union did. Can you imagine that."
This is a passage of electrifying importance. Gaddafi had clearly recently seen Osama, could talk about how he lived and dressed and ate, and he was equally clearly excited about some stroke of unconventional warfare which Osama was about to unleash on America. No doubt Osama had stopped short of telling Gaddafi exactly what was intended but he had, at the very least, sniffed what was in the wind.
This much Gaddafi was willing to say in public. One cannot but wonder how much more he may have told Mugabe in private. After all, by then Libya was very heavily invested in Zimbabwe and Gaddafi knew that an al-Qaeda strike of the sort he was hinting at would have major implications for anyone who, like Mugabe, had sheltered Muslim terrorists.
All this and more I wrote up in the American journal, The National Interest, in Spring 2004. I stand by now entirely what I wrote then (see here - PDF). If Mr Beresford or anyone else wishes to take issue with me about this, I would like them to read that first. I repeat that it is entirely possible that Robert Mugabe had fore-warning of the events of 9/11. Gaddafi clearly knew something and it would be surprising if he didn't tell his friend and collaborator. Today, of course, Gaddafi is dead. But Mugabe is so affected by his friend's death that he now declares that NATO will quite likely repeat its Libyan strike by moving to assassinate Mugabe and bring about regime change in Zimbabwe. Thus the Third World follies, stories of the paranoid, the deluded and the downright mad.
RW Johnson
Further articles by RW Johnson are to be found at www.rwjohnson.co.za
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