PIERCING THE SILENCE* ON: THE HATE U GIVE 4 $
In 2013, South African soldiers were deployed as part of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) troops that comprised the United Nations’ Force Intervention Brigade (FIB), which defeated the M23; the other SADC nations that participated were from Tanzania and Malawi. Relations between Rwanda and South Africa have been tenuous because of Rwandan dissidents being in exile in South Africa; individuals formerly allied with the Rwandan President Paul Kagame, such as former Head of Intelligence Patrick Karegeya, who arrived in 2008, and former army Chief of Staff Kayumba Nyamwasa, who followed in 2010. Kagame has been described as a political strongman and criticised for his poor human rights record, the assassination attempt on Nyamwasa in South Africa in June 2010, didn’t help this image.
In July 2013, Karegeya and Nyamwasa were both individually interviewed by Radio France Internationale (RFI), the pair described Kagame as a brutal dictator and claimed to have evidence that connected Kagame with the shooting down of President Habyarimana and Ntaryamira’s plane in 1994. In 2007, French judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere had ordered international arrest warrants be issued for Nyamwasa, along with 8 other Rwandan officials; Kagame being a head of state had immunity under French law, but Bruguiere claimed that “[he] and members of his military staff devised the operation” behind the 1994 plane crash. In 2008, a Spanish judge indicted 40 Rwandan military officers, including Nyamwasa, for genocide and again, Kagame had immunity as a head of state but these charges were for the most part rubbished. So were the French claims but in 2013, 2 former Kagame allies were now claiming he was behind the plane crash that ignited the spree of ethnic cleansing. On New Year's Day 2014, Karegeya would be found dead in his room in Sandton’s Michelangelo Towers Hotel, whether or not they actually had evidence of Kagame’s involvement, they surely paid the price; in March of the same year, Nyamwasa would experience a 3rd assassination attempt. The French would eventually dismiss the case but in the immediate aftermath of Karegeya’s assassination, South Africa responded by expelling 3 Rwandan diplomats and one from Burundi; Rwanda retaliated by expelling 6 South African diplomats.
The icy relations have somewhat thawed under the presidency of Cyril Ramaphosa but are far from amicable; Ramaphosa was in Kigali for the genocide’s 30th anniversary commemoration, the obvious focus of discussion being the conflict in the eastern Congo. Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi called for the withdrawal of the UN forces of MONUSCO [Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en République démocratique du Congo (United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo)], citing their inability to protect civilians. The civilians of eastern Congo have protested against the UN peacekeepers because of their failure to keep them safe, this has led to all UN forces being phased out of the DRC by the end of 2024.The East African Community Regional Force has also been asked to leave, being replaced by the SADC Mission in the DRC (SAMIDRC); Malawi, South Africa and Tanzania, as well aselements of the DRC Armed Forces working with the Congolese Army, the Forces Armees de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC).
Despite being ranked the 33rd strongest military out of 145 countries in 2024, critics have described the South African military as overstretched, underfunded and overaged. The biggest issue facing the military being the misappropriation of funds, corruption being a feature of militaries across the world, carrying through from the apartheid regimes to the post-apartheid governments. In the recent deployments to the DRC, the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) has had to dismiss claims that soldiers had surrendered to the M23 in an article by a “Washington DC Correspondent” for the website National Security News. The article being pro-Rwandan in its reporting of the conflict, describes M23 as a “buffer” between Rwanda and the rebel forces; and claims Rwanda is the “only alternative and credible security force that is able to provide effective military assistance bilaterally against Islamist extremists to other members of the [African] Union (AU).” National Security News would respond by nitpicking the SANDF press statement’s reference to “two (2) soldiers” having surrendered, a claim not made in their article and standing by their reporting. Ramaphosa has extended the deployment of SANDF troops in the DRC, for the period of April 16 to December 20, at the estimated expenditure of R805 million. Troops have also been deployed in Mozambique at the estimated expenditure of R984 million, as well as deployment for SADC Maritime Security of the Southern African coast of the Indian Ocean, costing R35 million.
It's unusual that reporting from such an obscure news outlet would garner so much attention, leading us to ask, who is National Security News? Their “About Us” introduces us to the woman-led team of CEO Katie Frodsham, Intelligence Specialist Isabella Egerton, and Open Source Intelligence Specialist Valeryia Dockrell. These are all employees of ITC Secure, “an advisory-led cyber security services company” owned by C5 Capital, “a specialist venture capital firm that invests in cybersecurity, space, and energy security.” The founder of C5 Capital being South African-born investor André Pienaar, codenamed “Luciano” in the infamous “Spy Tapes” saga, “a private intelligence operative close to Mbeki.” The “Spy Tapes” were an elaborate ploy by fmr Pres. Jacob Zuma against charges of corruption relating to the Arms Deal, claiming there was a political agenda against him, “proven” through transcripts between prosecutors. In 2021, Zuma accused Pienaar of being a CIA agent and handler of then-head of the Scorpions, Leonard McCarthy. Later that same year, the Washington-based investor would dismiss these claims by speaking exclusively with Max Du Preez, chief editor of Afrikaans publication Vrye Weekblad; Pienaar is an investor in thepublication.
In 2003, then-National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Bulelani Ngcuka faced similar allegations while investigating then-Deputy Pres. Zuma. Shabir Shaik, Zuma’s financial advisor, had been charged with being an intermediary for the bribes between French arms manufacturer Thales and Zuma; he’d be found guilty in 2005. The then-Deputy President wasn’t charged because of a lack of evidence but there was a prima-facie case against him. Mo Shaik, brother of Shabir, and Mac Maharaj—Zuma allies—were the sources of the claim that Ngcuka was an apartheid spy, allegations found to be false during the Hefer Commission: set up to question the validity of the claims. The claim was based on an intelligence report by Mo Shaik from 1989,which he shared with Maharaj but Ngcuka’s counsel described the report as having “a flawed conclusion based on incorrect facts.”
Maharaj believed that Ngcuka was acting in abuse of his powers, but this could’ve been based on Maharaj being investigated by the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO), more famously known as the Scorpions, for his links to corruption. As NDPP, Ngcuka was head of the Scorpions, an elite investigations unit modelled on the FBI, and faced a lot of criticism and smear campaigns from the corrupt elements of his own party, the ANC, for the success of the unit. In the aforementioned Vrye Weekblad interview, Pienaar reveals he played a vital role in the founding of the Scorpions while working at Kroll, a financial and risk advisory firm. According to Pienaar, Kroll was asked by VISA to investigate credit card fraud in South Africa, he was sent and had to have a meeting with then-Pres. Mandela, and his Deputy Mbeki, to explain his assignment; it was accepted and VISA was asked to share Pienaar's report with the presidency. Pienaar’s investigation found organised crime was huge in South Africa, claiming Mandela then asked him, “a 26-year-old white Afrikaans kid,” to “find the very best and most experienced law enforcement officers, investigators, prosecutors and intelligence specialists in the world and bring them to South Africa to train”…the future Scorpions. Pienaar claims he was a London-based advisor to the Scorpions until 2004, Ngcuka had been head of the Scorpions during this entire period but Pienaar makes no mention of them during this interview.
Ngcuka has recently released a biography called Bulelani Ngcuka: The Sting in the Tale, authored by Marion Sparg, a former colleague of Ngcuka; having served as CEO of the NPA during his tenure, they’re able to give context to those turbulent years. The biography makes no mention of Pienaar, but fortunately for us he’s been conducting interviews for the release of his Scorpions-Tell-All, Mandela’s Untouchables – The Scorpions and the Fight for Justice in South Africa. In these interviews, the Washington-based investor also makes claims that Zuma and his political party, MK party, are instruments of the Kremlin; having written 2 articles on the subject in National Security News. In one of the articles, Pienaar claims Zuma has a handler in Russia's military intelligence agency, still commonly called the GRU (Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie), pointing to events such as his July 7th speech in Zimbabwe at the Africa Voluntary Carbon Credits Market Forum in 2023. Representing the Belarus African Foreign Trade Association (BAFTA), of which he is a board member, Zuma announced the plan to list 2 million carbon credits on the new exchange to jumpstart the market. Carbon credits are just permission slips for companies to produce Co2 emissions, contributing to global warming, and the market has experienced significant growth. Involving a triad of Western-sanctioned nations, questions were raised around whether or not this was Russian scheming.
“From Zimbabwe, [Zuma] is whisked away by his Russian handlers on a Russian plane for ‘medical treatment’ in Moscow, now claiming he is suddenly feeling unwell again,” Pienaar writes. Zuma had been ordered to return to prison by the constitutional court in November 2022, after ruling his medical parole was “unlawful.” The former president was serving a 15 month prison sentence for contempt of court, failing to appear and testify before the Zondo commission—a public inquiry to investigate allegations of state capture, corruption, and fraud in the public sector during his tenure as president. His arrest, on the 8th of July 2021, ultimately sparked the July unrest but he’d be granted medical parole in September. According to News24 sources, Zuma flew on a commercial flight to Moscow on July 10, accompanied by six VIP Protection Unit officers: a division of the South African Police Service (SAPS) responsible for the static and in-transit protection of the president, deputy president, former presidents etc.
While the likes of the NPA (let alone health and education) have faced budget cuts, the controversial Protection unit, known for their reckless driving and above-the-law behaviour, have had increases in their budget for years; an issue Ramaphosa said he’d supposedly look into in 2018. The disbanding of the Scorpions, by the subjects of their investigations, led to the creation of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI), commonly known as the Hawks. As a unit of the NPA, the Scorpions were at least independent in name, whereas the Hawks are a division of the SAPS, reporting to the Minister of Police, thus being influenced by the executive branch. The Scorpions were able to fund themselves utilising a branch of the NPA known as the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) and the Prevention of Organised Crime Act (POCA); in the dissolution of the Scorpions, proceeds are either paid to victims of crimes or into the Criminal Assets Recovery Account to be distributed to the prosecution and police. Within the SAPS budget, the estimated allocation for Detective Services, the department that includes the Hawks, is R2,2 billion for the 2024/25 fiscal year, the Protection Units department is estimated at R3,93 billion. Along with underfunding investigations into corruption, the appointment of corrupt prosecutors has for years also enabled State Capture.
The Zuma regime also left a stain on the State Security Agency (SSA), the department responsible for intelligence operations; the former president utilised the agency’s resources as a critical tool for State Capture. The recent General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill was meant to fix these issues of malfeasance but falls short, in ways such as the bill still allows for the vetting of persons who have access to critical infrastructure but doesn’t explicitly excuse SABC journalists from the vetting provisions. Along with the bill's failure to address the theft and mismanagement of the secret slush funds, “national security” and “national security threat” remain vague and open to abusive interpretations while being core concepts of the agency’s functions. There’ve been recommendations for the Hawks to be established as a Chapter 9 institution—separate from government and independent from political parties or other interest groups, designed to protect and support democracy—as well as the Inspector-General of Intelligence (IGI), the entity that monitors and reviews the operations of the intelligence services.
In one of the interviews discussing the article, Pienaar describes their amusement at Zuma and fmr Deputy Pres. “Rama-PO-za” seeking medical treatment in Russia, referencing Cold War conspiracies about this being a cover story for meeting with Russian intelligence. Aside from it actually being fmr Deputy Pres. David Mabuza seeking medical treatment in Russia, it becomes fair to assume that as the son of a pastor during apartheid, Pienaar clearly experienced a significant amount of brain rot from the anti-communism campaign of Rooi Gevaar (Red Peril). However, there are conspiratorial merits in the origin of Zuma’s reliance on the Russian healthcare system; the Sunday Times reported that in June 2014, Zuma was hospitalised, 2 months later during a trip to the US he found out he’d been poisoned. In an unexpected trip to Russia in August, the diagnosis was apparently confirmed by Russian doctors. It was alleged that one of Zuma’s wives, Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma was involved in the plot; she moved out of the Nkandla homestead in January 2015. In 2017, Zuma would for the first time publicly speak about the alleged attempts on his life, claiming he was poisoned and almost died because of the decision to join BRICS. There are no reports oF such security breaches and there was no evidence for the NPA to prosecute anyone.
Pienaar claims that the reasoning behind Zuma’s Moscow trip, and the extension of this trip, was “Putin’s Africa Russia Summit on 22-23 July…where Putin and [the head of Gru] Veryanov [brokered] a deal between Ramaphosa and Zuma that will keep Zuma out of prison.” The second Russia-Africa Summit was actually held 27-28 July in St. Petersburg and a media statement by the presidency was released to announce that Ramaphosa had arrived in the Russian port city on the 26th. “The GRU has a secret mission for Zuma that requires him to be out of prison,” writes Pienaar, “the launch of its first wholly-owned political subsidiary, MK, as a political party in South Africa.” Zuma returned to South Africa on the 2nd of August and was granted a remission of his sentence on the 11th. Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Ronald Lamola claimed Zuma was among 9,488 prisoners serving sentences of less than 2 years for non-violent crimes that benefited from the process approved by President Cyril Ramaphosa. There have been questions surrounding the funding of the MK Party, it was understood that the party was registered on 7th of September by Jabulani Khumalo and on the 16th of December, Zuma placed his support behind the party. Internet rumours speculated Iqbal Survé, owner of Independent Media, was the funder but he denied those claims; the controversial businessman has had his own issues with the banks.
It’s interesting the angle Pienaar takes in describing the alliance between Putin and Zuma in his other article for National Security News, writing “it was easy for Putin and Zuma to find each other—they are both Russian trained intelligence officers, who have each become heads of state.” Going further by quoting an alleged Russian intelligence officer that claims “unlike the erudite and British educated Mbeki, Zuma resembles the thugs we know in our neighbourhood.” It’s true that Mbeki was afforded the privileges of being well-learned within formal education, having attended highschool at the acclaimed Lovedale Missionary Institute in the town of Qonce in the Eastern Cape, then furthering their studies in exile at Sussex University in Brighton; completing his Masters in Economics in May 1968. Whereas Zuma, having lost their father at a young age, spent his childhood herding his grandfather's cattle in KwaNxamalala, a village in the rural district of Nkandla, in Zululand. Unable to attend school, he taught himself to read by looking at the work of children who were receiving an education; he and his friends would organise night school by candlelight. In his teens, Zuma moved between Zululand and the suburbs of Durban searching for work; his widowed mother was employed as a domestic worker in Cato Manor. His elder brother was also in Durban, a trade unionist and member of the ANC, which had a significant influence on the teen; Zuma joined the ANC at 17 in 1959.
The resistance organisation would be banned the next year, along with the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), following the Sharpeville Massacre on the 21st of March, 1960. The PAC, an ANC breakaway organisation founded by Africanists in 1959—led by its President Robert Sobukwe, had planned a nationwide non-violent protest against pass laws. Protestors left their pass books at home and handed themselves over to their nearest police station. In Sharpville, a township near Vereeniging in Gauteng, a crowd of about 4,000 residents had descended on the police station in peaceful protest, at 13:40 in the afternoon the police opened fire—a defining moment in the shift from nonviolence to armed struggle. The banning of the organisations meant they were forced underground, and it was during this period that their respective military wings were established. The ANC formed uMkhonto weSizwe [Spear of the Nation (MK)] and the PAC formed Poqo (“pure”, “we stand alone” or “Black alone”), later known as the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA). Zuma was recruited into MK in 1962, participating in sabotage actions in Natal and in 1963, it was planned that 45 recruits, including Zuma, would journey to Zambia for military training. The plan was uncovered by security police and in June the group was arrested near Zeerust, in the Western Transvaal (now North West Province), heading for Botswana.
On the 12th of August, Zuma, age 21, was found guilty of conspiring to overthrow the government and sentenced to 10 years on Robben Island. This would be an important period in terms of Zuma’s political education, being provided with teachers from members of the Rivonia trialists, such as Govan Mbeki (father of Thabo), along with other political leaders. Released in 1973, Zuma’s return to Natal would find them responsible for reestablishing the ANC’s underground; in December 1975, the raiding of many members led to his escape into Swaziland. These circumstances brought the first meeting between Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, the former was being tasked with running ANC operations out of the landlocked nation. This came after Mbeki had spent 9 months at the Lenin Institute in Moscow to study ideological leadership training beginning in February 1969, as one of 3 South Africans enrolled that year, along with 400 other students. During his military training he was amongst a group of about 25 South Africans for a course in advanced guerrilla warfare.
This speaks to a point made by Mbeki’s fellow Lovedale alumni and member of the South African Communist Party (SACP), the late Chris Hani—assassinated in front of his home in Dawn Park, Boksburg on the 10th of April 1993. The remarks are found in a scathing 1969 memorandum to the ANC leadership, signed by 6 other MK members, in the aftermath of the disastrous Wankie Campaign. In a paragraph that mentions Mbeki by name, the memorandum speaks to the nepotism of the organisation, pointing out the “sending of virtually all the sons of the leaders to universities in Europe [as] a sign that these people are being groomed for leadership positions after the MK cadres have overthrown the fascists.” Insisting that there is a value ordained on those vs the rank and file members of the armed wing as “leadership uses its position to promote their kith and kin and put them in positions where they will not be in any physical confrontation with the enemy.” While, conspicuously, slipping out of South Africa for Tanzania within a group of PAC and ANC youth that included Mbeki, Vincent Mahali felt Mbeki was given special treatment as Govan’s son. While the rest of the ANC group would be going to university in the Soviet Union and other Eastern bloc countries, Mbeki spent very little time in Tanzania before departing for Britain through his pre-existing scholarship. Mahali described that the leaders in Dar es Salaam were “[having] their usual three meals a day and none of them even considered that [the students] existed;” complaining how Mbeki avoided the “months and even years of deprivation…that most of us ‘commoners’ would have to go through.”
Zuma would only undergo military training in the Soviet Union in 1978, with his time in exile coming to be associated with the ANC’s notorious internal security services, commonly known as Mbokodo (a stone used for crushing and grinding). The exile atmosphere lent itself to paranoia in the repression of dissenters as they became to be viewed as saboteurs or spies. The arrival of many young people, following the Soweto Uprisings, en masse into the armed struggle had a significant impact on this. Many had been influenced by the Black Consciousness Movement and the ANC leadership felt this brought a security risk. The longer armed struggle lasted—or as some felt, was avoided—the more urgent the need for scapegoats became, whether real or imagined. This culminated in Mbokodo’s numerous human rights violations in military and prison camps—most notably Quadro—these abuses were also found in APLA camps in exile.
The quote, “unlike the erudite and British educated Mbeki, Zuma resembles the thugs we know in our neighbourhood,” is an interesting use of words, particularly the word “thugs,” since that word, particularly in the US, has become a racialised code word. The connotations of the word have developed over the years from the 14th century variations of the Hindi word “thug” or “thuggee” being recorded as meaning thief, swindler, or assassin.