Smokey Deals 

President Thabo Mbeki had a series of seriously compromising secret meetings with executives of the French arms company that was subsequently awarded a R1.3-billion share in the South African government's controversial arms deal - meetings that today he prefers not to remember.

Thompson-CSF, since renamed Thales International, faces criminal charges for alledgely offering former deputy president Jacob Zuma a R500,000-a-year bribe, inter alia for protection against the formal probe that was being conducted into allegations of corruption related to the arms deal. Both Thales and Zuma go on trial on these charges in the Pietermaritzburg High Court later this month.

Mbeki fired Zuma last year after Judge Hillary Squires found there was a corrupt relationship between the former deputy president and his financial adviser Schabir Shaik. Shaik solicited the R500,000 bribe for Zuma from Thales.

Shaik's Nkobi group - named after a former ANC treasurer - is Thales's local partner in the defence business.

Documents that have emerged from various investigations of the arms deal appear to confirm what has long been rumoured: that Mbeki, too, had secret meetings with the French and other major bidders while he chaired the cabinet committee that oversaw the multi-billion rand arms acquisition process.

When last year Mbeki was asked a formal question in parliament about one such meeting, the reply was that he 'does not recall' such a meeting. Three weeks ago the president's spokesman, Mukoni Ratshitanga, promised us: 'I will come back to you as soon as the people I need your answers from are out of a meeting. I will try my best to answer your questions before your deadline.' Days later, Ratshitanga changed his tune: 'I cannot say anything about your questions. And I am unable to make any comment.'

DOCUMENTS IN OUR possession show that Mbeki met with Thompsons/Thales senior vice-president Bernard de Bollardiere, among others, more than once.

In the documents, Johannesburg businessman Reuel Khoza and then-South African ambassador to France Barbara Masekela (now ambassador to Washington), are named as facilitators and organisers of the meetings.

In a letter dated 18 December 1998, addressed to 'His Excellency Mr Thabo Mbeki', De Bollardiere states that he and his colleagues 'have been very much honoured by the audience you granted to us during your last stay in Paris and we deeply appreciate your advice related to the present situation in South Africa. We understood through a further discussion with Her Excellency Mrs B Masekela that we could possibly meet with you in South Africa beginning of 1999 to enter into further details as far as the implementation of the black empowerment policy of our JV [joint venture] African Defence Systems [ADS] is concerned.'

A senior representative of Thales International hand delivered the letter to Masekela at the South African Embassy in Paris, who received it on behalf of Mbeki.

The story begins with an earlier letter, dated 19 June 1998, in which De Bollardiere tells Alain Thetard (Thompsons/Thales' chief executive in South Africa), that a meeting between Mbeki and Jean-Paul Perrier, head of Thales International, 'must take place on Saturday the 27th or Sunday 28th of June, in Pretoria if possible or even in Cape Town.'

It also says that 'Khoza must press for an appointment with Mbeki. He is keeping us informed.'

Perrier came to South Africa as planned. His programme for 27 June 1998 shows that he had a 'meeting with Mr Thabo Mbeki, Deputy President of the RSA' scheduled for that day - 'details to be given by Mr Thetard.'

A month later Pierre Moynot, chief executive officer of Thales subsidiary African Defence Systems [ADS], recorded on a handwritten note that Mbeki 'is not happy' and that this was one of the reasons why the then-deputy president had 'refused to see Perrier when he was in Paris.'

The cause of Mbeki's unhappiness is not stated. In a two-page business proposal written by De Bollardiere to ambassador Masekela, dated 27 November 1998, the Thales boss pointedly makes the (unlikely) claim that 'the company was able, during the apartheid era, to show its support for the ANC cause in a symbolic manner and this without taking immediate commercial considerations [into account].'

More importantly, he records that 'we had access six months ago to your President T Mbeki [perhaps a reference to Mbeki's presidency of the ANC - he only became president of the country in 1999] and at the time handed him the name of a partner to play the black empowerment role in ADS and to thus be our political guarantee.' This would appear to confirm that a meeting with Mbeki did take place in mid-1998 - at about the time of Perrier's June visit to SA and his then scheduled meeting with the president.

De Bollardiere's business proposal goes on to confirm that 'a contact whom we consider authorised by Mr T Mbeki recently informed Mr J P Perrier in RSA that ADS had met the requirements with regard to black empowerment' and concludes that 'we could receive a clear message from the president on the subject on his trip to Paris.'

AND, INDEED, THREE weeks later, on 18 December 1998 - the same day he wrote that effusive thank you letter to Thabo Mbeki - De Bollardiere wrote another letter to ambassador Masekela in which he thanks her for arranging the meeting with Mbeki while he was in Paris. The letter explicitly confirms that Mbeki met with De Bollardiere, Perrier and Michel Denis (a senior official with Thales International) in Paris on 17 December 1998. At that time the arms deal negotiations were at a very sensitive stage.

In the same letter, De Bollardiere informed Masekela that he was planning to visit South Africa in January or February 1999 to get Mbeki's reaction and also 'to discuss the subject of black empowerment in our ADS JV with him.'

De Bollardiere arrived in South Africa on 9 February 1999. On his itinerary for the next day was listed a 'meeting with Thabo Mbeki, Barbara Masekela, Chippy Shaik and Jayandra Naidoo', at an unnamed hotel at 2pm.

President Mbeki chaired the sub-committee of cabinet ministers responsible for approving the defence acquisition packages. Naidoo was the chief negotiator on behalf of the government and Shamin 'Chippy' Shaik, brother of Schabir Shaik, was the chief of acquisitions.

Masekela refused to answer any of our questions - sent to her in writing - relating to the documents and events referred to in this report. (See box below on her personal relationship with the notoriously corrupt French defence supplier.)

Reuel Khoza confirmed that he did meet Thales representatives, but vehemently denied facilitating a meeting between them and Mbeki.

Khoza said: 'If there was a meeting between Mbeki and Thales officials, I was not part of it at all.'

....AND THE AMBASSADOR

DOCUMENTS IN noseweek's possession suggest that South Africa's most senior diplomat, ambassador to the USA Barbara Masekela, has business links with the French company most prominent in South Africa's arms deal scandal.

Masekela's dealings with Thompson-CSF began while she was ambassador to France from 1995 to 1999. The company has since been renamed Thales International, in a bid to blur it's international reputation for corrupt dealings.

Masekela accompanied Thabo Mbeki to a secret meeting with Thompsons executives (including Bernard de Bollardiere, Thales senior vice president) in Paris on 17 December 1998 - just a week after the formal contract negotiations between Thompsons and the SA Defence Force had begun.

Mbeki was deputy president at the time, but some Thompsons records appear to suggest that they were also negotiating with him as president of the ANC.

A document in our possession, dated 17 May 1999 - scarcely a week before the contract negotiations were successfully concluded - indicates that Masekela 'authorised' Johannesburg businessman Jurgen Kogl to handle all her affairs with the company because 'for ethical reasons, being an ambassador in Paris, it was not possible for her to be in a direct business relationship with a French company.' The document - an encrypted fax - is addressed to Thales boss Jean-Paul Perrier by Alain Thetard, Thales CEO in South Africa at the time.

Thetard reports that Masekela 'wishes to wait for the next elections before defining precisely the terms and conditions of our co-operation.' He adds that 'Barbara suggested that I validate the relationship Jurgen Kogl holds at the highest political level, which I have accepted.' (He also notes that French intelligence have reported that 'Kogl is not as influential as he once was'.)

Thetard recorded four meetings with Masekela and one with Kogl, in his private diary for 1999. Their phone numbers are written on its front page.

The Scorpions have a warrant issued for the arrest *1 of Thetard for his role in the alleged Zuma bribe, after the Frenchman fled South Africa.

In a telephone interview from Washington, Masekela refused to confirm or deny she held shares or some interest in Thales. 'I have no comment to make at the moment. I will come back to you if I think it's necessary.' She didn't.

The issue is particularly sensitive, since Thales is facing corruption charges along with Zuma in the trial scheduled to begin in Pietermaritzburg on 31 July.

Last year, at the trial of Zuma's financial advisor Schabir Shaik, it was revealed that one of Kogl's companies paid R656,000 into a bond account for Zuma's flat - on the same day Shaik met with Thales officials in Mauritius.

Kogl also paid R183,000 to settle Zuma's debt with Mercedes Benz Finance.

Scorpions chief investigator Johan du Plooy later declared in a search warrant application that Kogl was at one stage suspected of being a Thales representative. Du Plooy said the search necessary 'to establish the true nature of the payment; whether the funds can be linked to Thomson/Thales; the relationship between Zuma and Kogl, and if any repayments were made.'

Kogl could not be reached for comment.

With acknowledgement to Noseweek.

But in this case, all of Mbeki, Masekela and Thales need to provide credible denials that these meetings were only a figment of de Bollardiere's imagination, or the NPA and DSO need to act promptly without fear or favour -t's their constitutionally allocated job.