From rural Nkandla to Robben Island

Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (67) was born on April 12, 1942 in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, to a policeman father and a domestic worker mother. His father died when he was four, which resulted in his mother and siblings moving back to her parental home in Maphumulo, where Zuma began herding cattle instead of attending school. His inability to obtain formal education did not prevent him from teaching himself to read and write. He would often enquire as to what school-going children were learning, as well as attend evening lessons by candlelight. Living conditions in Maphumulo were anything but comfortable. His mother struggled to support their family with her small income, which compelled her to move to Durban in search of better jobs.

It was in Durban that Zuma became actively involved in politics. In 1959, at the age of 17, he joined the African National Congress (ANC). Three years later, he was recruited into the ANC’s military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). His political education, however, began much earlier. The stories of valiant Bambatha Zondi’s revolt against the British in 1906 left a lasting impression on Zuma. He was also influenced by his father’s first son Muthukabongwa Zuma, a trade unionist and ANC member who fought in the Second World War. In 1963, Zuma, then 21 years old, was arrested and imprisoned on Robben Island for ten years, charged with plotting to overthrow the apartheid government. Under the tutelage of Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki and Harry Gwala, in what came to be the Island’s symbolic political school, Zuma’s dedication to the struggle increased tenfold.

Climbing Through The Ranks In Exile

After his release from prison, Zuma became heavily involved in re-establishing the ANC’s banned underground structures. In 1975 he went to Swaziland and Mozambique, spending 12 years helping South African exiles to enter those countries. He was subsequently rewarded with a membership in the ANC’s powerful National Executive Committee in 1977 and, following that, was made the chief representative of the ANC in Mozambique, a position in which he served until 1987. Lusaka, Zambia, home to ANC head office, came next. He was soon appointed chief of the ANC’s feared intelligence department. Indeed, it was a strange foreshadowing of the role spooks would come to play in clearing his name of corruption two decades on.

Zuma, Mbokodo, and the case of Thami Zulu

Zuma’s pre-eminence in the intelligence structures bring up several intriguing questions about his time in exile, which, according to veteran British journalist David Beresford, “says even more about his fitness, or otherwise, to govern” than his involvement in the infamous Arms Deal. The leadership style in exile was often undemocratic, in the sense that senior leaders made decisions which lower-ranking members could not challenge. Dissent was at times punished with brutality, and Sunday Times columnist Fred Khumalo notes there were several mutinies by disgruntled MK soldiers in exile, which were fiercely crushed by the ANC’s national intelligence unit (NAT). This unit - also known as Mbokodo, which means “the grinding stone” in isiXhosa - took severe action against ANC members suspected of being apartheid spies.

A popular method of detecting apartheid spies within the ANC was to make cadres write their autobiographies repeatedly, hoping the enemy agent would eventually fail to stick to his cover story. In one of these autobiographies, written in May 1985 under the pseudonym “Pedro”, Zuma acknowledged his membership of Mbokodo. Although he does not reveal much about his own activities, it is widely known that Mbokodo served disciplinary functions in several detention camps at the time. In 1993, the ANC-appointed Motsuenyane Commission’s inquiry uncovered several gross human rights violations against detainees in these camps. The Skweyiya Commission in 1992 disclosed similar findings. In his book Mbokodo. Inside MK: Mwezi Twala- A Soldiers Story, former MK solider Twala writes an extensive first-hand account of being tortured alongside other mutineers in the Quatro camp based in Angola.

One of the most infamous of such cases is the murder of former ANC commander Muziwakhe Ngwenya, also known as Thami Zulu, in Lusaka in 1989. Mbokodo suspected he was an apartheid spy and detained him for 17 months. After his release, he suffered a mysterious death; forensic evidence showed he was poisoned. According to journalist Paul Trewhela, a former member of the SACP and editor of an MK publication Freedom Fighter, Zuma was the head of counter-intelligence at the time Zulu was murdered. He believes the detention and interrogation of a popular commander such as Zulu could not have taken place without Zuma’s permission. Nevertheless, the Motsuenyane Commission declared there was no evidence suggesting Zuma was directly or indirectly linked to any form of torture or ill-treatment in exile. Zuma never commented on this issue, although investigations of this nature concerned his department.

Dramatic rise in the post-apartheid era

Zuma’s itinerant exile years came to an end when the ANC was unbanned in 1990. He was one of the first leaders to return to South Africa and enter into negotiations with the apartheid government. He was elected chairman of the first Regional Congress of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal and played a crucial role in ending violent clashes between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in the early ‘90s. Following the first democratic election in 1994, Zuma became the MEC for Economic Affairs and Tourism in his native province. His meteoric rise through the ANC ranks continued with a promotion to the party’s national chairmanship in December 1994, and then the deputy presidency in 1997. In 1999, Zuma assumed the role of deputy president of South Africa. Four years on, in 2003, then head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Bulelani Ngcuka, implicated Zuma in the already infamous multibillion-rand arms deal. Ngcuka announced there was “a prima facie” case against Zuma for accepting bribes from one of the arms companies involved. In July 2005 Durban High Court Judge Hilary Squires sentenced Zuma’s financial advisor Schabir Shaik to 15 years imprisonment for multiple counts of corruption and fraud (ed: see our Volume 3 Issue 1 special report on the Arms Deal). It was just the beginning of what would be months and months spent in court before charges against him were dropped earlier this year.

Warning signs for the rule of law

Just a few days after Zuma’s crushing victory over Thabo Mbeki at the ANC’s 52nd National Conference in 2007, making him party president, the NPA decided to reinstate the multiple charges of corruption, fraud and money laundering. His fans were outraged, as they always believed the charges were part of a political conspiracy instigated by Mbeki to prevent their man from becoming the head of the ANC and the country. Zuma pursued the legal route to protect himself and, in September 2008, Judge Chris Nicholson ruled that the charges against him were unlawful on procedural grounds. Before Nicholson’s judgment, Zuma’s most zealous supporters threatened to start widespread violence around the country if the verdict went against him. At the same time, several ANC leaders derisively labelled the judiciary as “counter-revolutionary”. Nicholson’s verdict ultimately led to Mbeki’s ousting from power. When Judge Louis Harms of the Supreme Court of Appeal overturned the Nicholson judgment in January this year, Zuma’s legal team made special representations to the NPA to have the charges dropped. On 6 April 2009, the NPA’s acting head, Mokotedi Mpshe, dropped the charges on the grounds that the former NPA chief Bulelani Ngcuka and former Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy abused their positions of power to collude against Zuma. Recorded tapes of their conversations allegedly revealed their abuse of the process of justice. Zuma’s supporters hailed these revelations and Mpshe’s decision as evidence that the rule of law in South Africa is intact. Ironically, Mpshe’s verdict also raises serious questions about whether the rule of law was compromised in the process of dropping the charges against Zuma.

The first question surrounds the tapes themselves. According to Mpshe, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) confirmed the tapes to be authentic. However, how did such classified state intelligence come into the possession of private individuals? Zuma’s lawyer, Michael Hulley, refused to disclose his sources. As such, Mpshe made the decision to drop the charges without even determining whether Zuma’s lawyers used legal means to obtain those tapes. Secondly, Judge Louis Harms argued that a prosecution is not wrongful merely because it is brought forward through improper practice. There is no proof that Ngcuka or McCarthy fabricated the charges, and it might have been most prudent for the NPA to have continued with the prosecution while at the same time charging Ngcuka and McCarthy for interference.

According to Dr John Akokpari, a political analyst at the University of Cape Town, a Zuma presidency may severely undermine the rule of law. He adds that Zuma’s repeated attacks on the media, Constitutional Court Judges and talk of “reforming the judiciary” are dangerous. Akokpari also believes “the NPA’s decision should not be seen in isolation from the disbandment of the Scorpions, suspension of NPA boss Vusi Pikoli, or the double standard in Schabir Shaik’s controversial medical parole”. These developments are unquestionably warning signs for the South African judiciary.

Saviour of the masses, or unfit to govern?

During his election campaign, Zuma seemed to tell different interest groups what they wanted to hear. Now that he is in power, what will happen to the poor, who, frustrated with Mbeki’s pro-business policies, came out in their numbers to elect him as president? How will he balance his promises to them with the ones made to the business community? Will he resort to undermining the same institutions he once claimed Thabo Mbeki used against him? Or will he work hard to “safeguard the independence and integrity of those institutions tasked with the defence of democracy”, as he pledged in his inauguration speech? Indeed, one wonders whether Zuma is the saviour of the masses, or unfit to govern.

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Saif Islam is a third-year student majoring in Print Production & Media Studies