The masses would not forgive those responsible for charging ANC members with being agents of the apartheid regime.

This was the view expressed two weeks ago by President Thabo Mbeki in his weekly website letter.

"All those who feel free to charge others in our ranks with having been agents of apartheid would have to answer for the charges they have made," Mbeki said.

Although Mbeki did not name the accusers, there is little doubt he was referring to ANC veteran Mac Maharaj and senior Foreign Ministry official Mo Shaik. Both backed allegations that National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka was a spy for the apartheid government.

What is extraordinary about Mbeki's statement is that it marks a potential turning point for the ANC and sets up a divide - essentially one of different political cultures between technocrats and populists.

Whereas Mbeki asserts that the accusers would never be forgiven, those who are doing the accusing would probably say precisely the opposite: the masses would never forgive those who spied for the apartheid regime.

But, in his letter, Mbeki put forward the-once-unthinkable notion that it is no longer relevant, 10 years after the transition to democracy, whether present-day officials were spies for the apartheid regime.

Mbeki said the ANC had decided on a course based on "reconciliation rather than retribution" and had set up the Truth and Reconciliation process to that end.

Mbeki said that despite these actions, there were some who were "fishing in muddy waters" to prove their allegations that various members of the ANC had worked as apartheid spies.

In appointing a judicial inquiry to establish whether the allegations against Ngcuka had in any way undermined the National Prosecuting Authority, Mbeki ensured the main objective of Maharaj and his colleagues - to divert attention from the central issues: whether Deputy President Jacob Zuma had solicited a R500 000 bribe from a French arms company and whether Zuma's relationship with his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was appropriate or not.

Mbeki's dilemma now is how much emphasis to put on the commission's findings in relation to his assertion that it is no longer relevant whether serving officials were spies during the apartheid era.

While the commission's findings could go some way towards restoring confidence in the judicial process, the real test will be whether the Scorpions' prima facie evidence against Zuma - and their continuing investigations in France - result in prosecutions.

But the commission is unlikely to have much impact on the turmoil within the ANC over Maharaj's allegations.

The first round in the internal ANC war has clearly gone to Maharaj and his allies. It is deeply ironic, however, that the first victim of the spy scandal is Penuell Maduna, an Ngcuka ally and the minister responsible for law enforcement and the judicial process.

With acknowledgements to John Battersby and The Star.