are scant for these 15 years, and maybe for good reason. Zuma's predilection for secrecy might come from the need to conceal his alleged complicity in the deaths of MK cadres Thami Zulu and Cyril Raymond, who were tortured and murdered while in Zuma's care.
Zuma lived for 12 years in Mozambique, where he commanded the training of recruits and plotted armed incursions into South Africa. He was appointed to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC in 1977 and served as its chief representative in Mozambique. In 1987 the ANC called him back to headquarters in Lusaka as head of intelligence and the commander – alongside Joe Nhlanhla – of the dreaded security department. It was known among cadres as the Mbokodo – isiXhosa for “the stone that crushes”.
Life in exile was perilous and lethal. Apartheid spies – known as impimpis – infiltrated the ANC and the movement was subverted by fear and insecurity. Mbokodo attempted to snuff them out, put them on trial and meted out punishment – often execution. Dissent in the ANC's training camps was equally harshly dealt with and brutally quashed.
Mbokodo's headquarters in Lusaka was known as “Green House” and the department held the same meaning for ANC cadres as the Cheka or KGB did to Russian dissidents in the old Soviet Union. It was occupied by a paranoid, violent and ruthless coterie of brutes.
In 1989, Thami Zulu or TZ (his real name was Mzwakhe Ngwenya) was ordered to report to Green House. TZ was a popular MK commander and head of the “Natal machinery”. He stepped up MK attacks in KwaZulu-Natal, but his campaign turned disastrous in 1988 when a Vlakplaas death squad ambushed and killed nine MK infiltrators. There must have been a police spy in ANC ranks who betrayed their operational plans to Vlakplaas.
Zulu's deputy, Cyril Raymond (or Ralph Mgcina), was also summoned to Lusaka. According to the evidence, both men were detained and tortured. Raymond died in detention, reportedly drowning in his own vomit after refusing to sign a confession admitting that he was a spy.
When Thami Zulu's parents heard he was detained, his father, Philemon Ngwenya, travelled to Lusaka to see him. He met Zuma, who denied that Thami was in detention. ANC security personnel eventually brought Thami to Ngwenya's hotel, where they spoke in the presence of guards. Thami said he was in good health and that nothing was wrong.
Although two months of interrogation failed to find any proof of Zulu's collusion with the enemy, Mbokodo recommended that he should be “disciplined for criminal neglect” for the 1988 deaths of his cadres. He spent 14 months on a mattress in a cell.
Ngwenya then received a call from his son, who said he was in a cell and being tortured. He returned to Lusaka, where he waited 18 days in vain to see either Zuma or Thami. He later testified before the TRC: “Mr Zuma would not see me. He spoke to me through this gentleman Sindisiwayo and told me that he would send my son to the hotel, which thing they never did. Why was I not allowed by Mr Zuma to see my son for 18 days? Even under the most cruel regime, apartheid regime, people were allowed visitors.”
ANC president Oliver Tambo eventually ordered Zulu's release. He was in an emaciated condition and died four days later in the house of a friend. Forensic examinations in Zambia and the UK concluded that he was probably poisoned with diazinon, an organic phosphorus pesticide.
Zulu's treatment was reminiscent of the most brutal travesties of justice that apartheid's death squads and security apparatus ever perpetrated. Jacob Zuma has never defended his role in Mbokodo and he failed to turn up for a TRC hearing that might have brought some answers. The commission nonetheless found that Mbokodo had been responsible for “gross violations of human rights . . . against suspected ‘enemy agents' and mutineers”. They found no evidence that Zulu had been a spy.
Philemon Ngwenya agonised with the TRC to find answers about his son's death. Yet the man who held the key to the puzzle couldn't bother to honour his appointment with the bereaved father. Neither did he make any effort to speak to or contact Ngwenya privately.
Why are the deaths of Zulu and Raymond and Zuma's leadership position in Mbokodo so important? The first reason is that Zuma illustrated that, if necessary, he is prepared to trample on the blood and bones of his own to achieve his goals. It is one thing to cuddle babies when the cameras zoom in. It is another to stand up and admit error and wrongdoing – something Zuma has never done. His life has been marked by denial upon denial upon denial.
But there is another reason why this incident is important. The skills and skulduggery Zuma learned as ANC intelligence chief have helped him to endure as president. As the head of intelligence, Zuma became skilled in the art of neutralising traitors and incapacitating opponents. He hasn't lost his touch.
He has promoted obscure, inexperienced and, in some cases, incompetent officials to powerful positions within the security, intelligence and justice portfolios. On merit alone, they would never have achieved such high office. The compromise is unspoken and undocumented: you look after me, and I will look after you.
* * *
When I met Jacob Zuma for the second time, he had been a “kept politician” for more than a decade. He was a financial leech and sycophant who extracted money and favours on a habitual basis from a host of benefactors who included not just his financial adviser and a host of business people, but even Nelson Mandela.
At the basis of his dark journey into patronage was Zuma's inability to handle his financial affairs. Polygamy and serial philandering come at a price, and both the taxpayer and his financial benefactors had to dig deep to sustain his lavish lifestyle and to sponsor the design, construction, expansion and upgrading of his Nkandla homestead.
All indications are that Zuma led a frugal lifestyle as a dedicated ANC cadre but that this changed soon after 1994 when he was appointed as a provincial minister in the KwaZulu-Natal government. When Zuma returned to the country he was – at least in KZN – the local boy made good and was expected to flaunt money and bestow influence to help his impoverished people. He was literally the umuntu omkhulu – the Big Man – and was expected to have a household and lifestyle befitting his status. Zuma had, however, returned from exile with nothing and was – to put it mildly – in a “debt trap”.
Badly in need of cash to sustain his image and ever-increasing household, Zuma turned to an old comrade from the struggle, Schabir Shaik, to give him a series of “interest-free loans”. In return, Zuma would use his influence to allegedly divert business to Shaik. Shaik was one of a band of brothers who had worked for the ANC underground during apartheid and were involved in the covert management of ANC funds. His brother Chippy became the director of arms procurement for the post-apartheid defence force.
Zuma's financial affairs were laid bare in a 2006 forensic report that the auditors KPMG prepared on the instruction of the Scorpions. Running to about five hundred pages, the report was based on tens of thousands of documents Scorpions investigators had seized from Shaik, Zuma and others. After the decision to withdraw charges of corruption against Zuma, the report was buried for several years until the Mail & Guardian dug it up.
The report exposed in the finest detail the financial recklessness of Zuma, which should have raised a host of red flags about his fitness for office. He opened bank accounts left, right and centre (at ABSA, Nedbank, Standard Bank and First National Bank), entered into hire purchase agreements, signed for loans and acquired overdrafts without having the means to repay them. According to the report, Zuma wrote 140 dud cheques with a collective value of R477,766.67 between 1996 and 2003.
Zuma merrily incurred large debts without bothering to consider where the money would come from. There were times when he couldn't even honour the first payment on a purchase because there was no money in the bank. Despite his terrible credit profile, banks bent over backwards to indulge Zuma because of his political clout. In many instances, Zuma didn't even respond to their queries about his overdrawn accounts.
Enter Shaik, Mandela and a host of benefactors. Shaik's payments to Zuma totalled more than R4 million over ten years and ended with his fraud conviction and imprisonment in June 2005. Zuma's accounts were at times so overdrawn that Shaik didn't dare to make deposits. Zuma would collect the money – as little as R700 at a time – in envelopes.
Zuma bought his Nkandla homestead