On Friday 13 April 2012, I (belatedly) formally graduated with an LLB degree from Rhodes University in response to an invitation to all those who boycotted graduation in the eighties. It was, as always, an august occasion addressed by the honourable Vice Chancellor - Dr Saleem Badat - who, in a hard-hitting speech, wasted no time in wading head-on into the raging Reuel Khoza "putative leaders who cannot lead" debate, giving it more impetus.
This void, so said the VC, "... simply leaves the door wide open for irresponsible and unaccountable leadership, and a culture of impunity, greed and crass materialism in which self-interest, material wealth, profits and performance bonuses become gods."
This is precisely what had for many years been said about ex-President Mbeki's rule.
In a recent (31 March 2012) Politicsweb article penned by one Thula Bopela, challenging the veracity of claims made in Reverend Frank Chikane's new book, Bopela ventures that Chikane has "a tendency of believing that ordinary people have short memories (about Mbeki's legacy) or are just plain stupid." He rounds this off for good measure by asserting that in ex-president Mbeki, Reverend Chikane "served a leader who failed."
In a Daily Dispatch article (24 March 2012), one Lazola Ndamase, a party insider writing about the manner in which then deputy president Zuma was fired by Mbeki on 14 June 2005 says, Mbeki's reasoning hid behind a false statement - that Judge Squires, "made findings against the accused and at the same time pronounced on how these matters relate to our deputy president, the honourable Jacob Zuma." Ndamase disputes that Squires made such a statement and says Reverend Chikane in his book fails to deal with this lie.
In The Star February 27, one Terry Crawford-Browne posits that it is well known that during his supreme rule, "Step on Mbeki's shoes on Monday and you'll be politically dead on Wednesday and the funeral will be on Friday!" ... that, "When he came into office in June 1999, president Thabo Mbeki set about systematically to destroy the system of checks and balances that had been so carefully negotiated and crafted into the constitution... HIV/Aids, Zimbabwe and the arms deal are the three defining issues of the unlamented Mbeki presidency... Robust debate, as a hallmark of ANC policy-making, was buried in the indecent rush for self-enrichment by the new political elite (Mbeki's select few and well-known loyal lieutenants)." All these are the observations of Crawford-Browne.
These lieutenants had free reign to self-enrich, promote crass materialism, create a Xhosa dominated self-centred elite, and ruthlessly set about destroying those with whom they disagreed. They had at their disposal state machinery and ensured that many good South Africans had their reputations tarnished through the use of apartheid Intelligence operatives who continued to employ apartheid-era tactics to which the ANC had itself been previously subjected.
My own lived experience is that the first out and out misuse of Intelligence agencies became evident immediately after the first democratic elections and specifically in late 1994 to the beginning of 1995 in the lead up to the December 1995 ANC conference (which I attended), in Bloemfontein.
The late Peter Mokaba and Mrs Mandela were (from 1993) increasingly becoming the immediate political victims of countless faceless leaks and accusations in a Faustian drama that was to reach its zenith and unfold in the public domain with the then Police Commissioner Fivaz (working with these mis-information churners), raiding Mrs Mandela's home and offices on 4 March 1995 on the strength of a defective search and seizure warrant.
As her legal representative at the time, I personally endured an invasion by the media with journalists from domestic and international agencies swarming my office and life. Whilst the print and television media lapped up the drama, Intelligence operatives disguised among others as journalists had a field day and this of course we realised much later with the damage having been done. These operatives constructed secret Intel files in which they presented lies made to look like the truth by mixing both in words and in documents. In the month of March 1995, we had two office break-ins with files and equipment removed and the Police would neither assist nor investigate.
The newspaper and television reports of the time are replete with the open tensions between Mrs Mandela and then Deputy-President Mbeki. In The Star newspaper of 8 March 1995, Kaizer Nyatsumba wrote that, "The sources say Mandela felt terribly betrayed by the Government she serves in because of the police raid which had severely embarrassed her while she was abroad. Her refusal to meet the deputy president was because he now feigned ignorance of some of the things she now stands accused of."
Ivor Powell, then working as a Weekly Mail reporter, visited our office on at least three different occasions and would remain for long periods at a time. He would subsequently be appointed to the Scorpions where he authored the Browse Mole report.
In an article in Mail & Guardian - July 1 to 7 2011 titled "The sting in a Scorpions tale" based on the history of this operative, the following is stated: "In 2001, then-president Thabo Mbeki optimistically signed into existence the Directorate of Special Operations, a multidisciplinary agency that functioned under the umbrella of the National Prosecuting Authority. Its task: to investigate and prosecute organised crime and corruption. Powell, by then a seasoned investigative journalist, joined the team."
There were others about whom space does not allow me to dwell on. The aftermath was a horrendous and clandestine personal attack, information peddlers, (not the truth) had once more done their brutal deed.
It was some of these recollections that came to mind as I was listening to the honourable VC during graduation that Friday the 13th April 2012 at Rhodes University.
Pops Templeton Mageza is a senior lawyer in private practice and holds a B. Iuris; LLB; LLM - Public law and Dip Competition law. He is an author, publisher and businessman. See www.popsmageza.co.za
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