“Dear Sir/Madam

“My name is Vukani Mde. I write for the financial daily Business Day. I have been commissioned to do a profile of the ambassador in the light of recent media reports suggesting she had been questioned by the law enforcement authorities in the republic about her role in securing meetings between President Thabo Mbeki and representatives of Thales/Thomson CSF, the French arms multinational. I would like to secure an interview with the ambassador in this regard.

“Could you kindly arrange the above for me at her earliest convenience? Thank you in advance for your co-operation. Regards.”

That was wrong. I’ll never get anywhere with these people talking like that. But the truth is I’ll never get anywhere whichever way I talk. Barbara Masekela does not wish to speak to anyone from the media, period. No one can confirm whether this is because she’s on leave, gone underground, is in the US or still in SA, or even if she really exists.

By Thursday I’ve got my hands on a cellphone number. Of course it’s permanently off, and the voice greeting does not give any clues as to whose number you are through to. There’s no “Hi you’ve reached Barbs. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you”. No such luck. All I get is Veronica, the ubiquitous and sometimes rude MTN lady who always gives you bad news: “The person you have called is not available. Please wait for the tone to leave a message.” Tooot.

I’m not sure it should be this hard to get hold of our chief representative to the most powerful country on the planet. This probably explains our strained relationship with the US, I think. She goes AWOL.

But to be fair, I’m not desperately seeking Barbara Masekela because I have a message to pass on to the Bush administration, or because I’m being unreasonably denied a visa, or have an uncle at Guantanamo Bay. Nothing in Her Excellency’s official duties.

I want her because she’s been getting bad press recently. The Sunday Times, you see, has suggested that she is at the centre of what might well morph into another criminal investigation of the arms deal. The newspaper reported last weekend that she had been questioned ­ twice ­ by the Scorpions about meetings between then deputy president Mbeki and senior executives at Thales/ Thomson CSF.

Masekela, who was then SA’s ambassador to France, appears to have been the go-between for the rendezvous. Considering that the French company is widely suspected of bribery in the developing world *1, and that in SA it is effectively Accused No 2 and 3 in the corruption trial of former deputy president Jacob Zuma, this is not good for Masekela or her boss.

As yet it is difficult to know what kind of inquiry the authorities are conducting. The Sunday Times failed to specify whether the ambassador’s “interview” happened at her home, an alternative place of her choosing, or whether she was hauled “downtown”.

What is clear is that letters between Masekela and the Thales/ Thomson CSF executives and the private diary of Alain Thetard ­ who still has a South African warrant of arrest with his name on it ­ appear to prove that at least four meetings took place between Thales/Thomson CSF, Mbeki, the minister in his office Essop Pahad and, most intriguingly *2, African National Congress (ANC) treasurer Mendi Msimang.

Was this government business, or ANC fundraising? Investigative magazine noseweek seems to think the entire arms deal was nothing but an attempt to raise funds for the ruling party *3; and corvettes, submarines and attack helicopters were all thrown in as extras *4.

This week Mbeki’s office began conceding that they did meet in the late 1990s with Thales/Thomson CSF. But these meetings were unimportant and the contents are long forgotten *5. Still, this is some leap, considering that for months the standard response was silence, then denial, then a failure to “recall” any such meetings. Accountability by enforced stages.

Whatever the explanation for these bizarre events, Masekela is lucky. She is in the US representing the only democracy in the world where public officials can safely ignore public and media questions about their behaviour.

This is SA, where ministers or politicians under fire can just refuse to take calls, hunker down until the storm blows over, and survive until their next opportunity to lift a finger at the constitution.

Moreover, the president seems to be in it with her, whatever “it” turns out to be. She’s safe.

Besides, Masekela is ANC royalty. Mandela, Mbeki, Tambo, Sisulu, Pahad, Masekela.

As untouchable as she is unreachable. She has served the ANC almost all her adult life, except for short stints studying and teaching literature in the US.

She was born in Johannesburg in 1941, the second of four children. Masekela left the country in 1963, going first to Lesotho, then Ghana, then the UK and finally the US, where she was always less famous than her brother, jazz trumpeter “Bra” Hugh Masekela.

Quietly powerful in the ANC, she was once head of its arts and culture department and was Nelson Mandela’s chief of staff between 1990 and 1994.

She has served on the boards of the Nelson Mandela Foundation and Children’s Fund, Standard Bank, the SABC and the International Marketing Council.

With acknowledgements to Vukani Mde and the Business Day.