Publication: Mail and Guardian Issued: Date: 2005-10-21 Reporter: Sam Sole Reporter: Stefaans Brummer

Axe Hangs Over Spy Chiefs

 

Publication 

Mail and Guardian
Date

2005-10-21

Reporter

 Sam Sole, Stefaans Brummer

Web Link

www.mg.co.za

 

Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils has moved to suspend National Intelligence Agency (NIA) boss Billy Masetlha and two of his most senior managers, as the bitter succession battle in the African National Congress reaches into the highest levels of the country’s security apparatus.

The Mail & Guardian has learned that Masetlha, head of operations Gibson Njenje and counter-intelligence chief Bob Mhlanga received letters from Kasrils on Monday asking them to give reasons why they should not be fired.

Njenje and Mhlanga have been suspended, but the situation regarding Masetlha is more complex. As a director general, his fate is in the hands of President Thabo Mbeki.

Kasrils on Thursday confirmed that the Inspector General of Intelligence was asked to conduct an investigation into allegations of serious misconduct. He added the inquiry related to compliance with the NIA policies governing the conduct of intelligence and “is not motivated by any political considerations other than the need for the minister to ensure that civilian intelligence agencies conduct themselves in terms of the Constitution and the law”.

Kasrils confirmed that two NIA officials had been suspended “pending completion of due process”. He would not comment further until matters were finalised.

The purge comes against a backdrop of the NIA being drawn into the ANC’s vicious factional warfare. A senior intelligence source told the M&G this week the agency regarded the power struggle in the party as the pre-eminent current threat to national security.

Masetlha has previously denied coming under any pressure to take sides. But Kasrils’s move against his departmental chiefs has thrust the political rifts into the open.

The M&G understands the inspector general’s inquiry had been into the lawfulness or otherwise of an NIA investigation into top ANC businessman Saki Macozoma. The inquiry found that the investigation, apparently led by Mhlanga and authorised by Njenje, was not lawful. Masetlha’s role is unclear, but Kasrils is understood to have initiated action against all three officials after receiving the findings.

Macozoma this week confirmed the NIA investigation to the M&G: “It is correct they [NIA members] did survey me. I found out because it was an overt and in-your-face kind of thing.”

Macozoma said that on legal advice he had contacted Kasrils in in late August. “I complained to the minister and he confirmed that it was the NIA that was involved.” Macozoma said he had knowledge of a subsequent internal inquiry, but that he could not comment further until he was officially informed of the outcome.

Details of the NIA investigation of Macozoma remain sketchy, but the former Transnet boss has been one of the figures at the centre of the power struggle in the party.

Murdered mining magnate Brett Kebble had long claimed that Macozoma had presidential ambitions and was part of an “ANC elite” grouping that was plotting to prevent ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma from succeeding Mbeki.

Kebble’s allegations recently resurfaced when police confirmed to the Afrikaans Sunday newspaper Rapport that they had obtained a copy of a controversial documentary which has not yet been broadcast, “the Zuma media trial”, in which Kebble repeated his claims on camera.

Although one source said the NIA investigation of Macozoma was framed as being linked to “alleged fraud or corruption”, another source with strong ties to the NIA said it related directly to Macozoma’s involvement in the succession battle.

“We are talking about a conspiracy in which Saki was plotting with senior political figures about who should go and how that should be done.”

It is understood that the NIA intercepted certain e-mail communications regarded as evidence of this “plot”. Similar allegations against Macozoma emerged in 2003, together with the spying allegations against Bulelani Ngcuka, and were widely seen as emanating from the pro-Zuma camp.

Whether Macozoma was engaged in activities that could be regarded as a threat to national security, or in which the NIA could have had other legitimate interests, is not known. It appears the inspector general inquiry found he was not.

However, it is reliably understood that the NIA had prioritised investigations relating to the power struggle within the ANC, as the agency considered it to be a serious security threat.

The move against the top three at the NIA follows Kasrils’s rebuke of Masetlha last week, following the latter’s attack on the Scorpions at the Khampepe Commission of Inquiry.

The issue of the Scorpions is seen as a litmus test for loyalty to Mbeki. Significantly, Kasrils was the only minister in the security cluster, which includes justice and police, to come out in clear support of the unit’s survival as an independent entity.

At least one of those suspended, Gibson Njenje, had close personal and business ties with Kebble, who, in the wake of his murder, is emerging as one of the key backers of the anti-Mbeki faction within the ANC.

Njenje was formerly a director of a number of Kebble-linked companies, including JCI Gold, Western Areas and Matodzi Resources. Although he has resigned his directorships of these companies, he retains a significant shareholding.

Approached for comment on his suspension, Njenje referred the M&G to his lawyer, Brian Biebuyck, of Sonnenburg Hoffmann Galombik. Biebuyck declined to comment, but a source sympathetic to the men said they were challenging Kasrils’s action. The source said the dispute was “all political”.

Little is known about Bob Mhlanga, though he is understood to have earlier been a counter-intelligence specialist in the ANC, where Njenje served as head of counter intelligence. Mhlanga could not be reached for comment.

Masetlha is regarded as having a foot in both camps ­ his previous position was with the Presidential Support Unit, where he was responsible for supplying the president with intelligence relevant to peace and instability elsewhere in Africa. A source sympathetic to him said, however, that Masetlha was probably now seen as too close to ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe, who, besides veering towards support of Zuma, is also being touted as an alternative candidate for the broad left of the party.

Messages left with Masetlha’s secretary and on his cellphone were unanswered at the time of going to press.

Masetlha and “Bob” ­ an apparent reference to Mhlanga ­ were both labelled as part of an anti-Mbeki faction in the controversial “coup document” that emerged at the time of the Hefer Commission hearings in late 2003. The document, released to opposition MP Patricia de Lille, was seen as *1 the work of former ANC intelligence operative Bheki Jacobs.

It was this document, dismissed as rubbish by NIA at the time, that led to Jacobs’s arrest by a senior police task team. The National Prosecuting Authority later declined to prosecute him.

The source sympathetic to the suspended men said they felt the actions against them dated from the time *2 *3 *4 of the Hefer commission and flowed from a campaign to replace top echelons of NIA with people close to Mbeki. That “campaign” included the removal of Lindiwe Sisulu, regarded as too close to Zuma, and her replacement by Kasrils.

With acknowledgements to Sam Sole, Stefaans Brümmer and the Mail & Guardian.


*1  But was probably not the work of.

*2  Woe: as ye sow, so shall ye reap! (Galatians 6:7). *5

*3  "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind" (Hosea 8:7).*5

*4  "They have sown the wind, and so they shall reap the whirlwind." (Air Vice-Marshall Sir Arthur Harris, 1940) *5

*5  All sources shall be acknowledged.

*5  Did most think that this was the original uttering of Sir Arthur?