Zuma rocks ANC boat in murky waters of political conspiracy
Former President Jacob Zuma has revealed, for the first time, he believes foreign intelligence agencies tried to “get rid” of him and named two of his former ministers as suspected apartheid spies.
His revelations, made during his unscripted address to the state capture inquiry on Monday, will undoubtedly be the subject of intense speculation, scepticism and strong denials from those he implicates in the murky plots against him.
But they also provide key insights into the fear and suspicion that has defined Zuma’s political life, and shaped his presidency.
That presidency would suffer an almost fatal blow when Zuma
according to the accounts of SACP leader Solly Mapaila and President Cyril Ramaphosa used a questionable “intelligence report” to remove then finance minister Pravin Gordhan, who he allegedly accused of plotting “economic treason” against SA with foreign governments. Both Mapaila and Ramaphosa dismissed that report as baseless.
Zuma has yet to say publicly whether it played any part in Gordhan’s dismissal, and if he believed its contents. But he is adamant all his legal and political difficulties have been the consequence of an international drive to neutralise him.
“There has been a drive to remove me from the scene, a wish that I should disappear”, he told the Zondo inquiry on Monday. This drive was possibly “the result of my work in the ANC and also because of who I am”.
Zuma claims he was the target of multiple murder plots, involving attempted poisoning and a suicide bomber. One of these alleged attempted murders is the subject of an investigation by the Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), whose former head Shaun Abrahams identified Zuma’s former wife Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma as a suspect in a 2014 plot to kill him.
Ntuli-Zuma stated in an affidavit given to the Hawks that, prior to her being ordered to move out of Zuma’s Nkandla homestead, her then husband asked her whether she had been in contact with a US foreign intelligence group.
She denied any such contact, and has repeatedly appealed to the NPA to either charge her, or confirm that she is no longer a suspect.
While none of the alleged attempts on Zuma’s life have made it to court, it is apparent that the former president is convinced that they were pursued as part of a bigger “plot” to neutralise him politically, and ensure that those “groomed” by foreign intelligence agencies claim leadership of the ANC. Former president Jacob Zuma addresses supporters outside the Zondo commission of inquiry at Parktown in Johannesburg.
Borrowing a phrase repeatedly used by his political nemesis Gordhan, Zuma said he had been “joining the dots” about the plot for more than a decade.
He told the inquiry the conspiracy had started in the early 1990s, when he became part of the ANC team negotiating a peaceful end to apartheid. He was the ANC’s head of intelligence, and says he received an intelligence report that three intelligence agencies had “met to discuss me” and had plotted character assassination.
The reason for this, he stated, was that those behind the plot believed he had “a lot of information”, including the identities of apartheid “spies” within the ranks of the ANC. He said he had been told that those conspiring against him were grooming these “spies” to “the point where they will lead the ANC”.
“Now Zuma has information on these. We don’t know when he will use this information, to stop this plan ... and therefore they took a decision that Zuma must be removed,” he said.
Zuma named former mineral resources minister Ngaoko Ramathlodi as one of those spies, and claimed he had been recruited as a teenager by apartheid authorities. He also suggested former defence minister Siphiwe Nyanda may have been an apartheid collaborator.
Speaking to Business Day on Monday, Mapaila called these accusations “disingenuous, reckless and irresponsible” and questioned why Zuma would have put apartheid spies in his cabinet.
“This will only cause further division within the ANC,” Mapaila said.
Zuma’s plot claims can only draw the battle lines within the ANC even deeper.
Rather than framing his opponents as political rivals, it seems, Zuma is now casting them as treasonous enemies of the democratic state.
I RECEIVED A REPORT THAT THREE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES MET TO DISCUSS ME AND HAD PLOTTED CHARACTER ASSASSINATION