Gazeti la mtandaoni, Times Live, leo linatuhabarisha juu ya kazi ya waandishi Paul Holden naye Hennie van Vuuren . Inaelekea hawa jamaa wameandika na kuchapisha kitabu: “The Devil in the Detail:...”, yaani “Tazama kwa makini [serekalini yake Mzee hapa Afrika Kusini] ili umuone Shetani” na “...:How the Arms Deal Changed Everything”.
Maoni ya waandishi katika kitabu chao ni kwamba vyombo vya dola sasa vinamilikiwa na watu binafsi waliokaribiana na Raisi wa leo nchini humu, nao wakijumuisha wafanyabiashara kadhaa, wanasiasa na maofisa fulani wa jeshi.
Wote wamepewa ghafla vyeo vya juu na wote, kama kigezo cha kupewa vyeo hivyo wakiwa na historia tu ya ukaribu naye mheshimiwa raisi binafsi bila kuwa na uwezo maalum. Wananchi wa kawaida sisi, kwa maoni ya waandishi, hatunufaiki kadiri siku zinavyosonga mbele; na yote ilitokana na ununuzi wa silaha (Ulaya) uliembatana na madai ya rushwa kwa viongozi wa ngazi za juu nchini. Yaani “vyombo vya dola ya Afrika Kusini vinazidi kugeuzwa1 kama viungo vya maiti anaeliwa na huyo [ibilisi wa wachache wenye kuendesha matakwa yao ya ubinafsi]”.
1 As the dust cleared following Polokwane and Thabo Mbeki's dismissal as president of the party and the country, there was some hope that the intelligence abuses and leaks that emerged from that battle would dissipate. Instead, the intelligence services have remained central to the power structure of the South African state, shepherded by a president who has kept his toe in his original paddling pools.
Soon after Zuma became president, he made it clear that he would draw on his intelligence connections - in particular Vula. As Jeremy Gordin, Zuma's biographer, noted in an intriguing article in June 2009, Zuma appointed a number of Vula stalwarts to key positions in the security cluster and beyond. Prominent Vula and Bible members appointed by Zuma included Siphiwe Nyanda (Zuma's minister of communications until his dismissal, previously chief of the SANDF and alleged recipient of money from Fana Hlongwane), Mo Shaik (currently serving as chief of South Africa's secret services), Nathi Mthethwa (Minister of Police), Pravin Gordhan (Minister of Finance), Raymond Lala (one-time head of SAPS intelligence) and Solly Shoke (current chief of the SANDF). More recently, key Vula operative Mac Maharaj has been appointed presidential spokesman.
It is Mo Shaik's appointment that has raised the most eyebrows. Shaik was prominent in alleging that Bulelani Ngcuka had once operated as an apartheid spy. To do so, he drew on confidential intelligence his unit had gathered during apartheid.
It does not inspire confidence to have an intelligence chief who has been willing to use intelligence resources for political ends - the more so when the intelligence that had been gathered was so full of holes and so easily disproved.
Unsurprisingly, Zuma's presidency has more recently been marked by yet another intelligence leak. In March 2011, the head of Crime Intelligence was arrested and charged with murder, among other offences.
It was alleged that, in 1999, Richard Mdluli had orchestrated the assassination of Oupa Ramogibe, who had married Mdluli's ex-wife. Mdluli, as one would expect, loudly denied the charges, additionally claiming that he was the victim of an elaborate political conspiracy. To prove this, he declassified a "ground coverage intelligence report" focused on the alleged corruption committed by Bheki Cele (chief of police) and for which Crime Intelligence had paid an estimated R200000.
According to the report, there allegedly exists a new clique in the ANC by the name of the Mvela Group, so named in reference to Tokyo Sexwale's Mvelaphanda group of companies. Sexwale is alleged to lead this group, which aims to replace Zuma with Sexwale in 2012. Virtually everyone associated with the ANC - Billy Masetlha being the only exception - has rubbished the report. But it has indicated that the gathering, leaking and distribution of intelligence reports have remained a viable - indeed preferred - means of contesting political decisions in the security cluster.
But the clearest threat to democratic practice posed by the influence of the intelligence services is the Protection of Information Bill. This "Secrecy Bill", still in discussion, replaces an outdated apartheid bill dealing with state secrets and has reportedly been driven by the security cluster. It is clearly unconstitutional.
It provides the means by which state information is classified and protected and the penalties for the publication or distribution of classified material. All material considered to be germane to national security emanating from the state (and, importantly, the private sector) can easily be classified under various levels of secrecy.
National security, meanwhile, is defined so broadly as to be applicable to virtually any document in the possession of the state that might be taken as being "in the national interest". The bill provides limited mechanisms for appealing against the classification of documents and imposes draconian penalties on those found to be distributing, publishing or even possessing classified documents.
No public interest clause has been admitted, meaning that newspapers, whistle-blowers and do-gooders cannot leak a classified document even if it is in the public interest to do so.
The bill drastically broadens the right to classify information and criminalises the very act of holding the government to account through access to information. It is the epitome of an anti-democratic law, and it is difficult to see - barring political interference - how it could possibly pass constitutional muster.
The bill is, however, only the sharpest edge in a process that was first witnessed in the arms deal and gathered steam as its various scandals unfolded: the construction of a Shadow State. A Shadow State can be said to exist when a powerful clique consisting of politicians, intelligence officials, military figures and businessmen combine to retain political power and profiteer from the carcass of the state.
The implications of a Shadow State should be obvious: democratic processes are undermined or completely disregarded; corruption and cronyism are rife, draining vital resources away from development and welfare; criminal prosecutions are pursued only when it suits the Shadow State and certainly not when its members are implicated; civil liberties are suspended as the tentacles of intelligence and corruption strangle individual freedoms; and fundamental human rights are disregarded if they are troublesome or obstructive of the Shadow State project.
In short, it is criminalised state capture on a grand scale. The consequence: penury.
It is a bleak picture, but one that seems to be distressingly apt in describing the state of South Africa's democratic present. Politicians are frequently alleged to be involved in corruption scandals, almost none of which ever result in prosecution, let alone punishment. Intelligence is conducted as the means of protecting petty fiefdoms. The injunction to serve all South Africans is disregarded in the push for political power. The criminal justice system has been remodelled in a manner that suggests that only politically palatable cases are to be prosecuted. Nowhere has this been made clearer than in the destruction of the Scorpions - despite a public report by the Khampepe Commission that recommended the exact opposite - and their replacement by the Hawks.
That the Constitutional Court recently declared that the Hawks are insufficiently independent of political interference confirms what many feared when the Scorpions were sacrificed on the altar of political expediency: political independence, especially when it threatens the Shadow State, is unacceptable.
It was the arms deal that first indicated the existence of an embryonic Shadow State. It was the arms deal that unleashed the web of corruption and mismanagement that compelled once laudable actors into a shameful cover-up. It was the arms deal that birthed the trial of Jacob Zuma and the often scarily anti-democratic political strategy that was designed to prevent it taking place. It was the arms deal that robbed the taxpayer and left the country with arms it cannot afford to operate or maintain. It was the arms deal that destroyed parliament's independence and that of the Chapter 9 institutions. It was the arms deal that took down Thabo Mbeki. It was the arms deal that killed the Scorpions.
The arms deal changed everything.
In the face of such overwhelming scandal, of such threats to democracy, South Africans must now chart a path forward. Perhaps it will be in demanding that some form of justice is finally served either by means of a commission of inquiry or a truth-telling process that grants amnesty to those who agree to full disclosure. Perhaps it will be in deciding to let the arms deal go, to put it to rest in the hope that the political consequences of keeping secrets can somehow be cancelled out.
One thing is clear, however: even if the arms deal scandals are never resolved, never investigated, prosecuted or punished, South Africans should never forget. For if there is one lesson to be learnt from the arms deal, one lesson only, it is this: for the sake of democracy, freedom and justice - never again.
The Devil in the Detail: How the Arms Deal Changed Everything is published by Jonathan Ball. It costs R260 and is available at all good bookstores↩
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