The most recent issue of the Mail & Guardian contains two follow-up articles about the recent Zondo Commission evidence relating to reporters being on the State Security Agency payroll.
The articles refer to approaches made by SSA agents to its reporters, in one case in the foyer of the newspaper’s building!
That’s what happened to me in 1972.
Then:
I had just moved from the Natal Witness and to the Natal Mercury as crime and court reporter.
As such, I liaised with the senior crime reporter, the late Leon Mellet, in the newspaper’s Durban headquarters who was delighted to discover that I spoke a fluent everyday Afrikaans.
In the Pietermaritzburg office, the four reporters were on a mezzanine floor and the secretarial staff on the ground floor.
I was informed that there was someone to see me and a man came up the stairs, flashed a security police card and told me that he had been referred to me by Leon Mellet: “Hy sê jy is goed gesind teenoor die volk”. (He says you are well disposed towards the Afrikaner).
Fortunately my colleagues were not present, but I suggested we go for a walk.
He asked me if I would be prepared to pass on any information I could glean at political, university and church meetings which I might cover.
I replied that I would get back to him and phoned him the next day. I asked for a written guarantee that, if I lost my job as a result of such spying, the SAPS would guarantee me equivalent work at an equivalent salary.
The matter ended there but I informed the editor, Jimmy McMillan, whose response was a mirthless laugh. He suggested that I get in the queue because I was one of many reporters on the paper to have received such approaches.
I then phoned Mellet and bitterly berated him. His response was that the security policeman had ‘abused’ their friendship.
Mellet later outed himself by becoming law and order ministry spokesman with the rank of Brigadier in the National Party government.
Project Wave
Now: All I know about the current debate, the claims and counterclaims over the Project Wave evidence at the Zondo Commission is what is available in online news sites.
Specifically I refer to a paragraph in a Daily Maverick article by Rebecca Davis which, to my knowledge, has not been contested.
And: “All documents related to a project initiated by Amb Moe Shaik which resulted in the funding for the purchase from the founder and editor Raymond Louw, and publisher David Niddrie, of the then-failing online publication Southern African Report by Mopani Media and the appointment of Ms Karima Brown as its editor for South Africa and the inclusion of David Niddrie, Karima Brown, Vukani Mde and Pierre van der Hoven as its shareholders.”
Karima Brown and Vukani Mde were recruited by Iqbal Survé’s Sekunjalo Independent Media (Sekunjalo) in 2013 after they had co-authored an article defending then President Jacob Zuma. A footnote to this article refers to the fact that they are ‘co-editors of SOUTHERN AFRICAN REPORT’, something referred to in the above-mentioned extract. Brown and Mde then co-authored an article overtly threatening their white colleagues, an article which was a portent of the coming purge in which white staff were targeted for persecution as confirmed by former Cape Times political reporter, Dougie Oakes, among others.
The next article they co-authored appeared by cosmic coincidence on the same day that Iqbal Survé chose to settle with former Cape Times editor Alide Dasnois rather than to face cross-examination under oath in the Labour Court about the appalling verbal abuse to which he had uncouthly subjected her.
This article by Brown and Mde was about transformation in the media and appeared prior to transforming themselves out of Survé’s employ and joining an exodus of senior staff unprecedented in South African newspaper history. I recommend Paper Tiger by Alide Dasnois and Chris Whitfield for an understanding of these resignations.
In the interim, the two claimed shareholders in the alleged SSA-funded Southern African Report appeared together in ANC regalia at an ANC rally.
Max du Preez resigned as a columnist from Independent Newspapers in an angry debate with Karima Brown over an article he had written on 30 December 2014 headlined ‘Zuma – SA’s one-man wrecking ball’.
Zuma faction
I suggest that the Nugent and Zondo Commissions have vindicated the article by Du Preez and its headline. Survé has always supported the Zuma faction of the ANC.
This is a developing news story but I’ll supply some additional dots and you can decide for yourself whether they connect in any meaningful way regarding how Sekunjalo is being used in the struggle for the soul of the ANC:
- In March 2012 Colonel Kobus Roelofse of the SAPS Directorate of Priority Crime Investigation deposed an affidavit in which he testified to his belief that the SSA had newsroom staff on its payroll;
- In October 2019 The Citizen published an article quoting the inspector-general of intelligence (IGI), Setlhomamaru Dintwe about the fact that it was investigating the former Sunday Times investigative unit reporters Piet Rampedi and Mzilikazi wa Afrika whose prolonged falsehoods about a ‘Rogue Unit’ at SARS were recently dismissed by a full bench of the North Gauteng High Court as ‘fake news propaganda fiction’;
- Despite the fact that neither reporter has sought to testify before the Nugent and Zondo Commissions to negate concerns about their reporting – see here and here – they were both employed by Survé after they left the Sunday Times, which has apologised for their nefarious journalism that did so much harm and devastated the lives of so many people;
- In his recent book So, for the Record – Behind the Headlines in an Era of State Capture, Anton Harber provides what I believe is incontrovertible empirical evidence that Rampedi colluded with the disgraced former Deputy Commissioner of SARS, Tom Moyane, in his attempt to hijack SARS. Rampedi has not distanced himself from Harber’s claim nor disputed its veracity;
- Survé, whose antipathy towards Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan is constantly reflected in his newspapers (here and here), then took this a step further.
Despite Rampedi being under investigation by the IGI, Survé demoted the editor of the Pretoria News, Val Boje – who has had an impeccable career record – and made Rampedi her successor. Pravin Gordhan was one of Rampedi’s main targets when he was at the Sunday Times. Rampedi will continue to target Gordhan at the Pretoria News.
This echoes Survé’s dismissal of Sunday Independent editor, Wally Mbhele, who was fired after the newspaper exposed how the Jacob Zuma-controlled ANC had gerrymandered its own system to fast-track the appointment of Brian Molefe as an MP.
Nothing changes, it seems, when it comes to spooks suborning reporters – this despite the ANC’s promise in 1994 of a clean break with the past.
Questions in parliament, please.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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