Publication: Sunday Times Issued: Date: 2006-11-26 Reporter: Mondli Makhanya Reporter:

The Road to Nowhere Known Hereabouts as Conspiracy Lane

 

Publication 

Sunday Times

Date

2006-11-26

Reporter

 Mondli Makhanyai

Web Link

www.sundaytimes.co.za

 

With your indulgence, Dear Reader, let me take you take down a road called Conspiracy Lane.

It is a strange road, one that we South Africans love to travel. A road that has no markings, no signs and no end.

I will introduce you to some of those who have made this a famous road. One of them is Tony Yengeni, a convicted fraudster serving a prison sentence in the Western Cape’s Malmesbury prison.

The day the Sunday Times hit the streets in early 2001 with allegations of his involvement in corrupt activity, Yengeni had his defence ready.

He shouted from the rooftops that this was an ugly plot by sinister forces to tarnish his name in order to undermine the ANC and get at President Thabo Mbeki yadda yadda yadda ...

Never mind the fact that he had committed fraud, violated parliamentary ethics and lied to those who questioned him about the massive discount he got on his 4X4.

He was adamant about one thing: he was not the wrongdoer here *1. He was just the victim of a conspiracy.

It was easy for Yengeni to make this convoluted defence about Mbeki being the “real target” of the “campaign”. At the time Mbeki himself was in a tight spot, and anyone who was in trouble was using him as a fig leaf. He had publicly questioned the causal link between HIV and Aids, had formed an alliance with some wacky Aids denialists, and was mouthing off strange things about the disease.

The media were naturally on his back; medical practitioners and mainstream scientists were wondering why the President was dallying with a discredited crew, and he was widely criticised for sabotaging the anti-Aids effort.

Political analysts and observers were scratching their heads as they wondered whether this man ­ without doubt one of the most astute leaders on the world stage ­ would mortgage his legacy to wacky science.

The ANC’s acolyte brigade rallied around Mbeki, describing any questioning of his wisdom as a conspiracy to undermine his visionary leadership, weaken the ANC and disrupt the transformation of South African society.

The President bore no responsibility for the negative publicity he received . The problem was with the conspirators ­ who basically included anyone who thought Aids was a real problem that needed to be dealt with urgently.

When his turn came to come under scrutiny, then Deputy President Jacob Zuma, too, had his conspiracy defence worked out.

At the end of 2002 Zuma, who had generally had positive press, found himself facing allegations of corruption.

When it was revealed that he was under investigation for soliciting a bribe from a French arms company, Zuma latched onto the conspiracy card.

As the investigation unfolded , Zuma and those around him pointed an accusing finger at some undefined force that was trying to derail his political career. As is customary, this force could not be identified.

The conspiracy mantra has been chanted so often by Zuma’s closest supporters that they have turned it into an article of faith.

Then there was Yengeni’s successor, Mbulelo Goniwe, who a few weeks ago was bust for trying get an unwilling young woman into his bed.

When she laid a charge of sexual harassment against him, he turned to the standard conspiracy defence.

There were forces, he said, conducting “a systematic campaign of vilification and character assassination” aimed at preventing him from being elected the ANC’s Eastern Cape provincial secretary. The forces, of course, remained nameless.

And there is our national Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, whose cosy relationship with alleged crime boss Glenn Agliotti has been in the headlines in recent weeks.

Instead of responding to allegations about his inappropriate relationship with the underworld, Selebi, too, has painted a web of conspiracy. At least in his case he identified the key conspirator, as one Paul O’ Sullivan, the man who drew up a damning dossier against him. But Selebi didn’t stop there. He insinuated there was British intelligence involvement in a plot to remove him from his position , based on the fact that his main accuser is a former MI5 operative.

Selebi, however, seems to have roped the highest office in the land into his conspiracy musings.

Mbeki, in a meeting with religious leaders this week, also alluded to O’Sullivan’s MI5 past, supposedly to indicate that this man was undermining our national commissioner at the behest of a foreign government.

As you can see, the people who are fond of Conspiracy Lane are not your average citizens. These are powerful people who should not be afraid of ghosts.

Yet they have turned the construction of conspiracy theory into an art form and are in the process of creating a culture out of it.

This cannot be healthy. It flies in the face of the open society we have been building in the past 13 years. It creates a cover for all manner of wrongdoing, and allows those who refuse to be accountable to point an accusing finger at some mysterious, unseen enemy.

This is a culture we need to kill.

We live in an open society with democratic institutions and a system of checks and balances, one in which we all know it is nigh impossible to conspire in the dark.

With acknowledgement to Mondli Makhanya and Sunday Times. 



*1       He meant to say that he was not the only wrongdoer here.

But he cocked it up for himself when he lied about the discount and the damage thereby committing fraud post facto to getting the discount.

Otherwise he would have been as free as the other two dozen odd of those among us who got cars and discounts from Mickey Woerfel.