By Moshoeshoe Monare, Jovial Rantao and Christelle Terreblanche
The Democratic Alliance’s parliamentary offices, businessman Cyril Ramaphosa, ANC chief whip Mbulelo Goniwe and the ruling party’s spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama were among 13 targets whose telephones were unlawfully intercepted by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).
The interception was revealed in the report of Inspector-General Zolile Ngcakani after an investigation into hoax emails and the unlawful surveillance of ANC national executive committee member Saki Macozoma and media academic Anton Harber.
The 13 telephone intercept targets were not named in the official report, but intelligence sources said Ramaphosa, Goniwe, Ngonyama and the DA offices were among them.
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| 'The current safeguards are inadequate and flimsy to say the least' |
The bugging was done through an intelligence communications facility – the National Communications Centre – at the time dismissed NIA Director-General Billy Masetlha was acting executive director of the centre.
This was part of Project Avani – an intelligence assignment aimed at monitoring the political climate in the country. But Ngcakani said the legitimate project was hijacked by Masetlha to sow confusion in the ensuing succession battle in the ruling party.
This fight culminated in the ANC being polarised into camps supporting either President Thabo Mbeki or the embattled former deputy president, Jacob Zuma.
Ngcakani said almost 100 emails were created to look as if they were sent and intercepted between February and October last year.
Besides the anti-Zuma “plot” – in which Macozoma was supposed to have exchanged congratulatory messages with former national director of public prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka – the emails also spoke of alleged sexual relations between President Thabo Mbeki and female cabinet ministers, Tony Leon as part of the “white man’s struggle”, and racist communications between Scorpions investigators.
| 'Oh my god, dear lord, wow' |
In his report, Ngcakani found the emails to be part of a conspiracy to mislead NIA agents who were looking into the political situation in the country through Project Avani.
He found the project team tried to validate the emails but was prevented from doing so by Masetlha. On Friday, Masetlha denied all responsibility, saying Ngcakani’s report was totally wrong.
“It is something that, when put to the test, will prove to be quite the opposite. That test will come,” he said, a tacit indication he would fight his dismissal by Mbeki this week.
DA leader Tony Leon said on Saturday it remained to be seen whether Masetlha was a rogue element, or this was sanctioned from above.
“I sincerely hope that the government has nothing to do with this, or this is completely unauthorised, without any higher mandate, (but) that needs to be proved...
“The current safeguards are inadequate and flimsy to say the least. It is now up to the president to take decisive action and not just to repair the damage, but restore people’s faith (and ensure) the constitution is not undermined,” Leon said, adding that the DA was also bugged in 2001.
Ramaphosa, former secretary-general of the ANC and presidential hopeful, laughed it off, but admitted he was shocked.
“Heaven forbid! I never did consider myself (a target). I consider myself a simple, hopefully law-abiding citizen. So I really am shocked, because I mean there should be no reason...
“Oh my god, dear lord, wow,” he exclaimed.
Goniwe, who for many years was a member of the parliamentary intelligence oversight committee, said on Saturday: “If that is true, it is completely out of order to investigate people without any substantive indication that they might be involved in a threat to the state.”
In what the intelligence and security directors-general admitted to be “an embarrassing” episode in the history of espionage, Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi said on Saturday he would pounce on the suspects soon.
“That person who (fabricated the emails) will be charged very soon. (He is) the same individual that was paid for allegedly intercepting emails.
“And thereafter we will charge those who assisted him or worked with him,” Selebi told reporters at a press conference.
Others who attended the briefing were Acting Director-General of NIA, Manala Manzini, Director-General of the SA Secret Service, Hilton Dennis, Director-General of Justice Menzi Simelane, Secretary of Defence January Masilela and SA Defence Force General Godfrey Ngwenya.
The officials at the briefing said they accepted Ngcakani’s report “without reservation”.
“We have been very embarrassed by all the events surrounding the alleged intercepted emails and chat-room conversations,” they said.
“Events around them remind us of the pre-1994 intelligence era.”
Selebi refused to divulge names, but intelligence sources say businessman Muzi Kunene – who was arrested for involvement in the emails and was linked to Masetlha – was the key culprit. He was unavailable for comment.
Selebi denied claims he refused to investigate when initially asked to by ANC Secretary-General Kgalema Motlanthe.
“The police worked on the issue of the emails, but when the inspector-general had been appointed to do this by the minister of intelligence (Ronnie Kasrils), it was shifted to the inspector-general,” he said.
Reliable police sources said Selebi did in fact follow up on Motlanthe’s complaint, but it proved to be a wild goose chase.
- This article was originally published on page 1 of Tribune on March 26, 2006
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