Maphatsoe confuses CIA with shady organisation ‘ANC’ (2014)

Maphat­soe’s CIA claims shrouded in mys­tery

Business Day, 12 Sep 2014

An­thony But­ler

CON­FU­SION con­tin­ues to sur­round ac­cu­sa­tions re­port­edly hurled at Pub­lic Pro­tec­tor Thuli Madon­sela last week­end by De­fence Deputy Min­is­ter and Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Mil­i­tary Vet­er­ans’ As­so­ci­a­tion chair­man Kebby Maphat­soe.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­port in The Star, Mr Maphat­soe de­scribed Ms Madon­sela as a “plant” by the Cen­tral In­tel­li­gence Agency (CIA), who was bent on cre­at­ing a “pup­pet regime” in SA. Mr Maphat­soe was speak­ing to MK vet­er­ans at the un­veil­ing of a tomb­stone to com­mem­o­rate a for­mer com­bat­ant in Soweto.

“These chapter nine in­sti­tu­tions,” Maphat­soe re­port­edly con­tin­ued, “are now be­ing used against us … If Ad­vo­cate Thuli Madon­sela feels more pow­er­ful and above the con­sti­tu­tion, she should tell the coun­try who her han­dlers are.”

In the days that fol­lowed, The Star’s own­ers ex­plained that “as a re­sult of cost-cut­ting, we no longer de­ploy ac­tual re­porters on the ground”.

“We there­fore do not have any idea if Maphat­soe re­ally said ‘CIA’.”

Mean­while, on Tues­day, the mil­i­tary vet­er­ans’ leader re­tracted his words and apol­o­gised for any of­fence they might have caused. In a fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion, he then ex­plained he had not in fact made any of the re­ported state­ments, a re­trac­tion he later with­drew. Sources close to Mr Maphat­soe then re­vealed that me­dia spec­u­la­tion about a “CIA link” was a red her­ring. “Kebby had in mind an­other sin­is­ter or­gan­i­sa­tion that is bent on world dom­i­na­tion and in­stalling a pup­pet regime: the African Na­tional Congress (ANC),” they said.

The South African Com­mu­nist Party (SACP) quickly came out in sup­port of Mr Maphat­soe’s clar­i­fied po­si­tion. “The ANC is a bour­geois po­lit­i­cal party led by fat-cat cap­i­tal­ists,” an emo­tional SACP leader ex­plained over a glass of red wine. “If it was not for the ef­forts of Cde Rob (Davies, the trade and in­dus­try min­is­ter), we would have a rapidly grow­ing cap­i­tal­ist econ­omy, ris­ing cy­cles of in­vest­ment and em­ploy­ment, and so huge amounts of worker ex­ploita­tion … We only formed an al­liance with the ANC be­cause no­body would vote for us.”

The Na­tional Union of Met­al­work­ers of SA like­wise con­demned at­tempts to link the pub­lic pro­tec­tor to the ANC. “Sec­tions 9 and 11 of the Pub­lic Pro­tec­tor Act state that it is an of­fence to in­sult the pub­lic pro­tec­tor. Any per­son con­victed in terms of the Pub­lic Pro­tec­tor Act is li­able to a fine not ex­ceed­ing R40,000 or to im­pris­on­ment.”

A spokesman for the Congress of Tra­di­tional Lead­ers of SA con­curred.

“The ANC is a shad­owy or­gan­i­sa­tion. El­e­ments within that body are al­ways ped­dling democ­racy and try­ing to im­pose hu­man rights on ru­ral women who don’t want them.”

Sources close to Mr Maphat­soe re­main adamant that Ms Madon­sela has a case to an­swer.

“The ANC was al­ways a prob­lem,” one MK ca­ter­ing corps vet­eran re­vealed. “Com­rade Kebby was an ex­cel­lent chef and looked af­ter ev­ery­one very well in the camps. But these ANC peo­ple were al­ways try­ing to get us in­volved in com­bat. No won­der we had to run away.”

There was a muted re­sponse from Luthuli House this week. Speak­ing through a trans­la­tor, a spokesman in the sec­re­tary-gen­eral’s of­fice, Mr Sum Ting Wong, con­firmed that “yes, the ANC is an ab­so­lutely lousy or­gan­i­sa­tion”. “That’s why we have sent them all to the Chi­nese party school for train­ing while we take over the ten­ders.”

“What is the ANC?”, en­quired a spokesman in the of­fice of the ANC pres­i­dent, who gave his name only as “Vladimir”.

US am­bas­sador to SA Pa­trick Gas­pard, mean­while re­jected “base­less and of­fen­sive ac­cu­sa­tions” link­ing the CIA with the ANC. “The CIA has ini­ti­ated non­con­sen­sual hu­man ex­per­i­ments, en­gaged in ex­tra­or­di­nary ren­di­tion, em­ployed in­hu­mane in­ter­ro­ga­tion tech­niques, and un­der­taken nu­mer­ous as­sas­si­na­tions and other tar­geted killings. But it is still shock­ing that it should be likened to an or­gan­i­sa­tion like the ANC.”

But­ler teaches pol­i­tics at the Univer­sity of Cape Town.