News - South Africa: Lekota gets real taste of terror

By Gaye Davis

Mosiuoa Lekota is convinced he's being spied on - despite denials by the National Intelligence Agency this week that it put a tail on the former defence minister and breakaway rebel.

As Lekota prepared to head for Bloemfontein to address tomorrow's rally of supporters for his planned national convention in two weeks' time, he spoke of a mysterious car which had followed him as he headed to Sandton for his first explosive press conference 10 days ago.

Last Thursday, his bodyguard, Sello Mptyaatona, was kidnapped and robbed by armed men - who delivered a chilling message that Lekota and his former deputy and fellow conventionist, Mluleki George, are treating as a death threat.

'It is clear that whoever kidnapped my bodyguard was busy with an operation that is not legal'[

"Before my bodyguard was kidnapped we were being trailed by mysterious people in a car with false number plates," Lekota said.

"My bodyguard is a police person. He took the [registration] number of that vehicle to the police, and when they checked they found that those number plates … had been tampered with - they found that that make of car could not have had those number plates.

"A day later my bodyguard was kidnapped - and then given a message to convey to me: don't go on with your political activity because you will continue with it in heaven.

"This is concrete evidence. It is clear that whoever kidnapped my bodyguard was busy with an operation that is not legal."

Lekota's bodyguard escaped with his life, unlike Captain Francois Ramashile, the man who helped to protect former president Thabo Mbeki but was shot dead while asleep next to his wife at home in his Pretoria bedroom last month. The shooting took place just three days before Mbeki's recall by the ANC - an action that triggered the cascade of political events that have left South Africans reeling.

'Only those engaged in unlawful activity receive the NIA's attention'

Now the police are saying they are not ruling out the possibility that the father-of-three was assassinated.

Superintendent Vish Naidoo told the Saturday Star: "The investigation is still continuing and it can be confirmed that nothing was taken [from the house]. We don't know the motives and can't rule out anything."

Intelligence Minister Siyabonga Cwele was however clear about Lekota's spying concerns: he has looked into the allegations and found no evidence of any unlawful operation by the National Intelligence Agency.

His spokesperson, Lorna Daniels, this week said while it wasn't policy to confirm or deny NIA operations, "we do think it is important to reassure citizens that we are not concerned with legitimate political activity.

"Only those engaged in unlawful activity receive the NIA's attention," she said. Lekota's activities were "legitimate".

Daniels would not comment on the possibility that Lekota was the target of a private spying operation mounted by people unhappy with his plans to launch a new party that may challenge the ANC at the ballot box.

That initiative was boosted this week when former Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa climbed aboard as convener and "volunteer-in-chief" - although his main job will be to raise funds.

Shilowa's announcement that he was abandoning the ANC unleashed a stream of invective from the union movement he helped build - and fulfilled his prediction at his press conference when he said he expected to be vilified.

Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told the Saturday Star that Shilowa's ambition had seen him change from being "a son of the workers" and an ardent socialist "who wore red socks with pride" to a cigar-smoking wealthy businessman with "disappointed political ambitions".

"No one pushed him from the position of premier - he sidelined himself," Vavi said. "He can only ascend to power [again] if he can bring the poor to vote."

As the ANC's national executive committee deliberated for hours behind closed doors in a specially convened meeting to decide what to do about the rebels in its ranks, NEC member Charlotte Lobe announced that she, too, was joining Lekota.

The same evening, ANC president Jacob Zuma addressed the nation on SABC TV and all the state broadcasters' radio stations, conceding that the ANC was losing leaders but insisting this did not mean it was under threat or that there was a 50-50 split.

Zuma defended the decision by the ANC's national working committee on Monday to summarily suspend Lekota and George, saying no organisation could "just stand by when people use it to undermine it, or even attempt to destroy it".

Announcing its decision to haul Lekota and George before a disciplinary committee, the NEC acknowledged that plans for a party in opposition to the ANC was "a challenge" - and spelt out its plans to contain the threatened revolt, including sending NEC members into the regions to try "to heal whatever divisions may exist and repair whatever hurt may have been done". - Additional reporting by Sheree Bega

• Source Url: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20081018081751210C918738
  
  Posted By: Jan
  AfricanCrisis Webmaster
  Author of: Government by Deception
  
  “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
  (George Orwell)
  
  My all time favourite movie quote is from the Dwarf in Lord of the Rings: "Certainty of death, small chance of success... what are we waiting for?"
  

       

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  Readers' Comments

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  Date Posted: Sunday 19-Oct-2008
  \\\"Terror\\\" is getting back what his evil ANC gave out in the past as well what they do now.
  
  By associating with the ANC, he has brought some \\\"poetic justice\\\" upon himself i.e.
  
  \\\"Live by the sword, die by the sword\\\".
  
  Gairk
  In the EU
  

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  Date Posted: Saturday 18-Oct-2008
  These actions are starting to look like the actions the ANC took way back, when some of the 'spies gooiers' (love that name, so I'm stealing it from zahell.blogspot.com as of now) went against the party and then were tortured and mudered in the Quatro Camp in Angola.
  
  A real 'democratic' (mob rule) Commie Party that ANC is, ain't it? So I don't know about you guys, but I've never seen any 'rainbow' on the horizon since '94 - just heavy thunderclouds.
  
  Spiculum