Bizarre claims in ‘intelligence report’

THE intelligence report released by suspended Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi on Friday makes bizarre claims of a plot to destabilise South Africa and overthrow the government.

It names the National Endowment for Democracy — a Washington-based private foundation — as a front for the Central Intelligence Agency working to fund powerful individuals, organisations and opposition parties in South Africa with the ultimate aim of overthrowing the government.

Littered with spelling and factual errors, the report — said by Vavi to have been circulated by Cosatu leaders in an effort to discredit him — says the NED:

Engineered the Marikana massacre;

Is behind service-delivery protests and xenophobic violence in South Africa;

ýWorked with the prosecution team in President Jacob Zuma’s corruption case; and

Is planning coups in two other African states.

In one section of the report, the compiler says the Marikana massacre was not going to be stopped by the government because it had been orchestrated by the foundation.

“Yes, the NED had everything to do with the [Marikana] tragedy . . . that project was worked on for almost a year before the shooting.”

It makes similar claims about xenophobic violence and service-delivery protests. Prosectors who worked on Zuma’s corruption trial and former heads of the National Prosecuting Authority are named as having collaborated with the foundation.

Another wild allegation contained in the report is that Mamphela Ramphele’s Agang received R500-million from the foundation.

Civil-society group AfriForum and think-tank the Midrand Group are also said to have received funding.

Expelled ANC Youth League president Julius Malema is said

The report is riddled with spelling and factual errors

to have received R50 000 from Joseph Mathunjwa of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, who is said to be recruiting him.

This is contained in a transcript of a purported conversation between Mathunjwa and Geoff Hill, whom the report names as head of the foundation’s Africa operations.

Jane Riley Jacobsen, the foundation’s director of public affairs, dismissed the claims in the report as absurd.

State security spokesman Brian Dube said the inspectorgeneral of intelligence was investigating the origin of the report.