Former President Jacob Zuma has revealed, for the first time, how he believes foreign intelligence agencies tried to “get rid” of him — and named two of his former cabinet 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 speak publicly about if it played any part in Gordhan’s dismissal, and if he genuinely believed its contents. But he is adamant that every single one of his legal and political difficulties has 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.
According to Zuma, this drive for his removal 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 an American 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 claimed leadership of the ANC.
Borrowing a phrase repeatedly used by his political nemesis Gordhan, Zuma said he had been “joining the dots” about the plot against him for over a decade.
He told the inquiry that the conspiracy against him 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 at the time, and claims he received an intelligence report that three intelligence agencies had “met to discuss me” and had plotted to assassinate his character.
The reason for this, he stated, was because 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 that 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,” he said.
Zuma’s plot claims can arguably 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.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.