Transcription
We cannot rule out the possibility that all of this is related to the 2027 National Conference of the ANC, where Senzo Mchunu—I’ve heard in this media thing you hear things—people.
It will turn out that some of the allegations refer to what happened in the sporting arena; cases related there too. I will leave it there. Our country is gone. We don’t have the country. These comrades have sold our country to the lowest bidders.
Fam, I just want to give a shout-out to the sponsor of today’s episode, Pace Car Rental. Use promo code SMWX for 10% off your next car rental. And make sure you show Pace some love as they’re showing this channel some love. Now, let’s get into the episode. Spread the fire. Welcome back to SMWX.
And today, once again, I’m extremely excited to be joined by the king of all analysts on SMWX for a special episode to decode General Muanazi’s bombshell revelations, to go Aubrey Machiku to go. We’ve just had a massive uh press briefing from General Zlantan Kuwanazi, the KZN provincial commissioner, where he has made allegations that a criminal syndicate is in at least some control of high reaches of our government. How do you react to Muanazi’s press briefing, and and what are what do you think are some of the most important takeaways?
Well, Shuby, let me do two things. First, you called me the king of analysts, which means the real king of analysts is coming for me. Um, let me start with two stories about analysts. M, before 1994, controversies launches an attack in so and so, and for the first time after many years used RPGs—rocket-propelled grenades—inside the… The Institute of Security Studies was all over the place. TV, radio, newspapers saying that the attack signals a shift in the military strategy of the ANC. Every time I heard them saying this, I fell on the floor laughing. Do you know why? They used RPGs in that in that attack? It is because we ran out of everything. We had to run out of everything. It was our unit, M, that had launched that attack. Our using RPGs had nothing to do with the ANC effecting a shift in its military strategy. We had run out of everything. The only thing we had is a trunk of RPGs.
Wow. That’s why RPGs are used. M, and then Judge Hillary Squires, the Shabir Shake uh corruption case, a few years after Shabir Shake had been convicted. Jquire issues a statement in which he says, “I never said there was a generally corrupt relationship between Shake and Jacob Zuma.” Now I get a call from the late Karima Brown. That is how I come to know about this statement. M, Karima says to me, “Aubrey, didn’t Judge Squire say there was a generally corrupt relationship between Zuma and Shake?” I said, “He did.” So she says, “Yes, he did. We all saw him and heard him on TV saying there was a generally corrupt relationship between Zuma and Shake.” To cut a long story short, he never said that. But we kept on repeating it in our articles. I was a columnist for the Business Day at the time. Karima Brown was the political editor of the Business Day. We kept on saying this thing repeatedly in our columns, in our articles, and in our analysis, whether it’s on radio or TV. What happened when Judge Squires was summarizing the case of the state? He quoted an argument the state—the prosecution—had made in its heads of argument in which the state said, according to them, there was a generally corrupt relationship between Zuma and Shake. Judge Squires never said so; he was quoting from the heads of argument of the prosecution, and of… Of course, that is what we heard, and for a few years we kept on saying Squires said there was a generally corrupt relationship between Zuma and Shake. He never said that.
Why am I telling you these two two stories? I want to issue a health warning when you listen to us. By us, I mean political analysts, political commentators, political reporters, and so on. Do so with a critical ear.
Absolutely. And an open mind. When you watch this episode, listen to what I am saying with an open mind and a critical ear. So what do I think is happening here? About a decade ago, I started talking about what I call the deep state. What is the deep state? The deep state comes into existence when there is a convergence of political, business, criminal, and intelligence interests in pursuit of the common goal of looting the state to make mountains of… Wow. The deep state comes into being when politicians, senior government officials, rogue elements in the state and private sector intelligence sectors, rogue elements in business, big business, small business, business and so on. Criminal syndicates work together in pursuit of a common goal of looting the state to make a lot of money. The thing though, Shuby, is that you almost never end up with a single deep state project. What you almost always end up with are several deep state projects. Deep states. Yes. So what then happens is that the different deep state projects come into competition and conflict with one another, and what happened in South Africa because of our political reality since 1994 of the single-party dominance of the ANC—see conflict between the different deep state projects manifested as factional conflicts in the ruling party. But when I listen to what uh General is saying, this conflict happens in two directions. First of all, conflict at the level of the deep state between different deep state projects manifested as factional conflict in the ANC. In turn, the factional conflict in the ANC manifested as conflict between different deep state projects in the deep state. So it proceeds in those two directions. M m, another thing about the deep state is that it has both national and transnational tentacles, which means you see at times a convergence of interests between deep state projects located in the national domain and those that are located outside the national domain in other countries. Now South Africa is home to several or even many criminal syndicates. The Israeli mafia is here. The Shanghai mafia is here. The Nigerian mafia is here. Criminal syndicates from South America, different parts of Asia and other parts of the world are here, and some of them have succeeded in infiltrating the state. Some of them find themselves being part of deep state projects in this country and outside this country. So the idea—and I will say the idea, I will not say the reality—the idea that some within our state are controlled by criminal syndicates from South Africa and criminal syndicates from outside South Africa is not necessarily farfetched. That is something we do need to look at. But also, to the extent that intelligence is part of the deep state—whether it’s state intelligence services or private sector intelligence network intelligence of foreign countries—has infiltrated our state, including our deep state. And therefore, there was a time when we got the reports that our own intelligence services may have been infiltrated by foreign intelligence services. You can you can take another look at this. Remember that. When you look at political reality and maybe the relationship between political reality and what I call the deep state, you are looking also at hidden hierarchies. And some of the hidden hierarchies are located in the state—that is the police, within the political class, and so on. The thing about hidden hierarchies is that for them to be effective they must be represented in different levels of the state. We also have what we call the deep establishment. Now the deep establishment is not necessarily the deep state but may become a component of the deep state. The deep establishment consists of members of the political class, and they may come from one or more political parties. They come from the economic elites. So some members of the economic elites will be part of a deep establishment. Sections of the media will be part of a deep establishment. Sections of the intelligencia, academics and so on will be part of a deep establishment. Now the deep establishment exists to give direction to the country, but for it to be represented it must be represented in the state, in the deep state sometimes, and sometimes it must be part of a deep establishment manifest in different rises or incarnations.
So if you ask me if what to understand what may be happening, I will say “may” because I don’t want to assume that what was revealed yesterday is the absolute truth. It must be investigated. In my view, if we want to understand what may be happening, first of all, we must accept that there’s no theoretical or analytical framework on its own that explains everything. So my invitation is that we must look at what is happening or may be happening using the analytical framework of state capture. Now, one of the reasons why here is because we in this country embraced a very narrow conception of the theory of state capture. We allowed a political agenda absolutely to tell us which dots to join. The Zondo commission itself allowed itself or allowed the same political agenda to decide for the commission which dots to join. Which means because we were so uncritical in how we adopted this narrow conception or this narrow theory of state capture, we are ill-prepared when it comes to really understanding what is happening in the state. When it comes to understanding the vulnerabilities of the state, when it comes to understanding what is happening at the level of the deep state, the deep establishment, and so on. We must not make the same mistake when it comes to what General Mkonazi is saying. We must be more critical than we were when it came to this narrow conception and theory of state capture, which in some ways was nothing more than a weapon for a particular political agenda and its interests.
One of the reasons why I think it is worth taking General Mkonazi’s allegations seriously is because of how dangerous what he has done is for his career, but even potentially at a at a personal level, when we look at the history of our country. And it seems to me that one of his motivations could have been—if I try to take this internally, I’m going to hit brick walls because I’ve already tried to do that. I’ve tried the parliamentary route. The only way I can uh make progress with this is to take the public into my confidence, maybe even break some rules while I do so so that I can be protected by public support because there’s no other way to divulge this in the normal channels—and that is a… if that interpretation is correct—and as you say, we don’t know at this point—it’s a very brave thing to have done. Well, um, you’re right, we should be worried about his safety. But you may also be right about his tactical approach to this matter—that he’s taking it out there. But he can have an insurance policy against being taken out, and also to the extent that we don’t know what we don’t know. We also don’t know whether he just woke up yesterday and decided he’s calling a press brief press briefing. We don’t know whether he had made attempts to alert the security establishment and the executive to what he thought was happening or to what he knew was happening. We don’t know. But here’s the thing. Going back to our last conversation last week, I I I said last week, when an actor makes a decision, such an actor does not know in advance what forces he is going to unleash and how those forces will unleash on that actor and other actors. Similarly, by taking the step he took today, you can look at what I’m saying in two ways. It seems there has been a campaign to undermine him. Um, there are allegations of extrajudicial killings that those who work under him have engaged in. There is the allegation that he tried to thwart the investigation into a senior correctional services uh official. Now, if that is true, those who made the decision to do that to him did not know in advance what forces they were unleashing and how those forces will affect them, Muanazi and others. But as I say, this applies to Muanazi too. He does not know in advance what forces he is unleashing by doing what he did yesterday. So the possibility is that in the end, both he and his enemies will lose control over this matter, and it may explode in the faces of both Muanazi and his opponents or enemies. But more importantly or worse, it will explode in the face of the country. Precisely because we don’t know what forces have been unleashed by what Muanazi did yesterday. We don’t know how far the damage will go.
Um, I watched you talking to Judge Cameron. And one of the things he says to you… Yeah. is that when he looked at the tub of Bameat, it became clear to him that the rot goes all the way to the top. The question is, how far to the top does it go? For me, that’s the question. And I will repeat something—and I will only repeat it not to lend credence to the allegations made by Muanazi but just to give those who are watching different ways of looking at what may be happening here. And I will repeat this because I wrote about it in an article for News24. I wrote an article in which I expressed expressed unhappiness about the fact that the president had moved the intelligence function to his office, and that made me very unhappy—so unhappy. I called News24 and I said I want to write an article about this. In the article I asked one question, and my question became the headline of the article: “What if the head of state is the primary threat to state and national security?” That’s what I asked.
Sure. And then said, if one day it turns out—and here I’m not talking about uh President Ramaphosa… Sure. But he’s the one who made that decision at that time. Yeah. But I’m not talking about him necessarily. He’s not our first president, and he’s not going to be our last. So I’m making the general point that… right, let’s assume… let’s assume whoever is the head of state turns out to be the primary threat to state and national security. It will mean that if it turns out what General Muanazi said is true, then we are ill-prepared. We’re always ill-prepared to deal with the revelations. M, and one of the reasons we’re ill-prepared is because we took the intelligence function and we put it in the office of the president, and doing that means, amongst other things, we’re imposing a blind spot on the president. There’s there are things the president will not be able to see precisely because he decided to put the intelligence function in his office. So I think the country must revisit the location of the intelligence function. But I think we need a wide and deep inquiry into the allegations that General Muanazi is making. Now I am open to the possibility that next year around March, General Muanazi may receive an Oscar—best actor in a drama involving… Yeah. a provincial commissioner. Best performance of a police commissioner. Exactly. I am open to that uh possibility, but at face value, the least we should do is to investigate each of the allegations he has made. Yeah. Particularly allegations he has made against the police minister.
Now let me add to this part of my argument this way. Yes. I have talked about the deep state, but part of the problem of what I call the deep state has been with us since the liberation struggle. There are networks that came into being during the liberation struggle which are now part of the deep state. Let me just give you an example. So it’s uh 1989. You are part of a unit of uMkhonto we Sizwe. You received instructions and a map to go and retrieve an arms cache on the border with Mozambique or with Botswana. And the instruction came with a promise that a car will be provided for you to travel to that border and retrieve and transport this arms cache back into the country. And the promise says, in the absence of a car, money will be made available for the unit to buy a car. It’s eight months later. Neither the car nor the money has materialized. Now there’s work to be done. The apartheid government has to be defeated by amongst other things or through amongst other things the arms. You become impatient. You decide to go to bra… let’s call him Bra Socks… You decide to go to Bra Socks, a known ragtag… You tell Bra Socks a story—but he knows they’re telling him a story—uh, you ask him either to lend you one of his cars or to give you money to buy a car, and Bra Socks says, “No, take my car,” or he says, “I will get you a car.” He gets you a car. You use that car to go and retrieve that arms arms cache. You come back; you thank you thank him profusely for what he has done. As you’re leaving, Bra Socks says, “Bafana, my boys, anytime you need help, feel free to come to me.” You thank him and you leave. Months go by. You meet Bra Socks, and Bra Socks says, “Bafana, mom, I need your help. The routes you’re using to infiltrate weapons into the country, I need them to infiltrate my goods.” He doesn’t tell you what the goods are, but you’re intelligent enough to know he’s talking about drugs, and then you reach an agreement. You think this is fair, the terms are fair. He will use your routes to infiltrate his goods, and from time to time he will help you when you need help to prosecute the arms struggle. And so you find yourself having become part of the drug trade. M, but later you then realize that look, we can use the same routes for our own benefit. We can engage in gun smuggling and make money. Next thing you have defeated the apartheid regime. You’re now in government, but Bra Socks has not forgotten your relationship, and Bra Socks and others like Bra Socks around the country become part of networks that benefit from infiltrating, through your help, the state, the police, intelligence, and so on. And what started as help from Bra Socks has now become a deep state project. Is what I’m saying farfetched? So there’s a deep history of of criminal liberation networks—first out of necessity, but deeper into democracy out of convenience—that that has characterized our politics, and that is why then one day one of your comrades who was who has ascended to the heights of becoming the heights of the police service and becomes a police commissioner. He’s convicted because he had a nefarious relationship with a couple—a duty couple—of the mafia in South Africa. And what is revealed during the case is that through this relationship with this couple, a size seven pair of shoes was bought for the head of state. All of this started to work during the liberation struggle. And therefore, what I call the deep state owes part of his existence also to relationships and networks that came into being during the struggle.
M, can we get down to the nuts and bolts of this these particular allegations—go against uh Senzo Mchunu and by extension, you know, the government itself and and the president—quite frankly, I must just pause to say I read an article—I’m going to say where I read it—in Daily Maverick, and they do great work as well, but it didn’t mention Cyril Ramaphosa’s name once in this in reporting on this. By the way, I think I’ve never told you that I once did a photo photo shoot that was organized by Daily Maverick because people like Karima Brown and I were declared Mavericks.
Ah, wow. Look at that. So, we’re sitting with not only an eminent person but a maverick. And they mentioned Jacob Zuma’s name many times to say, “Well, we know back in the Zuma era…” And I thought to myself, “We’ve got to stop this at some point.” This attempt to shield some parts of the ANC government… Yeah. And deflect onto Jacob Zuma, who’s not even in the ANC anymore. And and we’ve litigated that to death. But there’s this desire to shield the president. I I and I don’t know why. And I thought to myself, Senzo Mchunu is not by any means in the Zuma camp of the ANC. In fact, he was the candidate for secretary general who ran on the Ramaphosa slate. Yes. And was actually defeated uh narrowly. And let me add to that and say this. At the end of that conference, he calls a lawyer and he says, “We know that… I should be the secretary general of the ANC after this conference.” But then he is he is advised by his comrades not to pursue the matter legally. And when I was asked, “Why do you think he agreed?” I said, “Because I think the losers and the winners reached an agreement that they will allow Ramaphosa to become president as long as there is no legal action on the question of uh the secretary general.” M, now that may or may not be the case. All I’m saying is this: when we look at what may be happening here… Yeah. You may also have to go back to the Nasrec conference. So you have to go to the past, but you also have to go to the future. M, we cannot rule out the possibility that all of this is related to the 2027 National Conference of the ANC, where Senzo Mchunu… I’ve heard… in this media thing, you hear things… people.
Whisper to you that Senzom Kunu's could be a key player there, either as a presidential candidate or someone very high up in one of the slates. Yes. So I mean these revelations are quite serious, as you say, for the past and the future, but they disrupt this idea that there's a—which we've been trying to, yes, disrupt for a long time—that there's a bad faction and there's a good faction and there's a holy faction and there's an evil faction. Yes. This goes right to the heart of that because someone in the holy faction now is suddenly implicated, at the very least. Yes. For the Minister of Police to have been alleged to have stopped a task team that's investigating serious crimes for nefarious reasons because there's pressure on him from some syndicate. I mean, we're a country of serious allegations, but wow, it doesn't get more serious than that.
Yeah, exactly. Before I come to that, just remind me. I want to say something about Mary Deas, the violence monitor, and the role of the media. You know how deeply unhappy I am with the media and the state of the media in this country.
M m, it's why we started and how embedded too many in our media have become.
Absolutely. And that was one thing Kanazi stopped short of. He said the judiciary, police, prosecution agency, politics, but media too. I added that on his behalf. So when you look at the composition of the deep state, you must add the media too.
M, they are journalists, in my view. That is why I think when we look at the composition of the deep state, we must not forget to add the media as part of the components of the deep state because too many journalists and media houses have become embedded. And I would say also editors and owners. I think sometimes the journalists themselves are implicated, and sometimes there's great pressure that's put on them.
Yes. Uh, from above. Do you know why this happens? We talk about echo chambers. There's something about echo chambers we never talk about to the extent that an echo chamber or echo chambers exist. The best weapon is actually not an echo chamber. The creation of an echo chamber is not the best weapon. The imperative is to create something better. What I call an echo system. You need an echo system which consists of more than one echo chamber. So if you look, for instance, at the BBC, you are looking at an echo system. So the BBC must have a worldwide reach. So that through each—through it—a particular perspective, a Western and British perspective is spread all over the world, and therefore through it you create what I call an echo system. So in this country, we have an echo system. In fact, I remember having a meeting with someone from the United Nations who was visiting South Africa. He says to me, Aubrey, there is something I find amazing about this country. He says, when I'm in London, I will pick up the Telegraph. I know what they stand for. I will pick up the Observer or the Guardian, and I know all of them. In this country, there's a pretense of objectivity. So you end up with different voices but the same perspective. And that is how a well-created ecosystem looks like. It functions on the basis of the illusion that the different voices we have in our media represent different perspectives. Whereas this functions on the basis of the different voices propounding the same perspective.
M, and what you're talking about about why there's such a commitment to demonize the former president and a commitment to make sure you do the opposite with regard to the current president. That is why you have that dynamic.
Absolutely. Absolutely. So you were going to come back to the Senzon Kunu issue and um, its implications, let's say, for the police minister, but also I would say—well, let's start there—I mean, this is serious for Senzon Kunu for sure, and he's come out and said, well, there will be a full explanation sooner, but uh, you know, he disputes what's been said. That's so far the reaction we've got. Well, I'm not being cynical, not at all. But in isiZulu we say, meaning whenever you are accused, it stands to reason that you must deny. I'm not saying that's what the minister is doing, but I will say this: one of the things that worries me about what happened yesterday is that right now we find ourselves in a situation where members of the South African Police Service will be investigating other members of the South African Police Service. Members of our intelligence services will find themselves investigating our colleagues. You may even find members of state security investigating members of crime intelligence. Now, in the end, what that may deliver is a highly compromised security establishment in general and a highly compromised security cluster in particular. Now that worries me deeply, and that is why, if it were possible, I would say none of the actors must investigate the allegations. In other words, crime intelligence can't, state security can't, subs can't be part of the investigation. We need something outside all of these actors to investigate the allegations. But at face value, at face value, the allegations against the minister—attempting—let me declare a bias. I like the minister and I like General Muanas. I am of the view that the minister is good, doing a good job, and I'm of the view that General Muanasi is doing a good job. I like both of them. Therefore, in terms of that bias, I am worried about the possible impact on either man. But more importantly, I'm worried about the possible impact, deleterious impact either man may have on the country, particularly state and national security.
What about the president? Because if there's a signature promise that President Ramaphosa has made since the buildup to the Nazareth conference is that he's going to clean up the criminal justice system. Now we sit several years later, uh, eight years later, and we don't have—we don't have any semblance that the rot in the criminal justice system has been cleaned up, and in some ways this scandal that's breaking out now—I mean, must we now declare this fight dead, you know, as far as the president is concerned?
Well, remember I said, the deep state has national as well as transnational tentacles. A perfect example of the deep state and its transnational tentacles is Palapala.
Yeah, absolutely. Which has been buried. Let's just talk frankly at this point.
Yes. Now it has been buried deeper than the—the nuclear weapons of Iran. Well, not nuclear weapons because they don't have nuclear weapons as far as you know.
H, so it's very deeper than what is buried in—in Iran. Now remember, and again I'm not being cynical, to have a criminal justice system which is in the state as described by General Muanas, to have crime intelligence, to have state security, the police service in a state as described by General Guanas may not be a bad thing in relation to the Palapala imbroglio. It's exactly what you need if you have something to hide. If you want to bury Palapala, you need an inept, discredited, ineffective, compromised criminal justice system, intelligence services, crime intelligence, and so on. That's exactly what we need actually. And that is why I will go back to the point I made earlier.
M, I never liked the idea of locating the intelligence function in the office of the president because it means as a country we are ill-prepared for moments like this.
Yeah. When we have to investigate these allegations and it gave an already powerful president, under our constitution—
Exactly. I mean, almost unfettered power, as unfettered as you can get in a constitutional democracy.
Exactly. Now, yeah, sure. Here's another thing. If you look at the allegations—
Yeah. Yeah. General Muanazi talks about the killing of artists.
Yes. In—
Yeah. Yeah. Which is a fascinating aspect of this. Artists, celebrities, what's going on there? What's the importance of these celebrities, artists as he calls them, to this bigger picture? Because I want to keep all my toes—I will only say this: be broadminded in your understanding of what an artist is. Or of what a player is. A player may be a musician; maybe another kind of player. If you broaden your mind when it comes to what an artist is. All I will say is this: be open to the possibility that this nuclear bomb that was thrown by Mukanas yesterday, if it explodes, sports, arts, and culture will be touched. Sports, let me emphasize, sport will be affected. It will turn out that some of the allegations refer to what happened in the sporting arena and cases.
I will leave it there. Cases related there too.
Exactly. I will leave it there.
M, but another thing that worries me a lot. I have said in the past that it is my view that our judiciary is independent, but it is not my view that all judges and magistrates are independent. That's not my view. Muanazi's revelations have to force us to question that. That is why we need a very wide and deep independent investigation.
Sure. Into those allegations, all the allegations that were made by Muanas. Now what I foresee is that the counterattack may already be afoot. It will happen in the media, and it will happen in other places, and it will happen through other means. But we must not make the mistake of thinking this is a battle between good and bad. This may be a battle between bad and bad. Angels with horns and devils with halos.
Exactly. And therefore, we must not make the mistake of idealizing Muanas as an angel and demonizing Shadrach and Senu as demons because it's quite possible that this is a battle between bad and bad. Of course, that leads us to the question, what informed the timing of the press briefing? Yeah. Given the context in which he work—he works, did he receive intelligence that he was about to be arrested, for instance? M, because one of the things he reveals is that in the communication between the two scandals—who somehow seem to be linked to the minister of police—M, one of the things relates to the fact that Misani Kumar, the head of crime intelligence who—who was recently arrested—and Muanas must go down, but also must not forget just over a week ago there were reports that the commissioner of police is about to—and I'd add to that, in a recent speech, Julius Malema—and sometimes Julius Malema gets it right and sometimes—yeah—completely wrong—but he said that he had heard that Senzom Kunu was about to be arrested.
Exactly. So, so now, of course, people will say to us, where there's smoke, there's fire, but this is the age of vaping. And because this is the age of vaping, we must not assume that if there is no smoke, there's no cigarette. But also, it is not always the case that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Of course, those who are part of the echo system will want us to believe that absence of evidence is evidence of absence if they succeed in discrediting the claims that were made by Mukanas yesterday.
M, and another thing for me—um, I like how young people speak. Uh, what we're seeing here and what is coming—the best way of putting it is that—and more is coming.
Sure. The question is at what cost to the country because I suspect that we have not anticipated yet what other parts of the state, the political class and so on, will be affected if these allegations are shown to be true at some point.
Absolutely. And what I desperately want to know at some point because we keep hearing these allegations that things go to the top—
Yes. And let's be honest, that's—that's a euphemism.
Exactly. Where do they go to the top? And who is pulling these strings? Yes. We don't know that sitting here, but we've had a state capture commission. We have revelation after revelation. We've had all this investigation. People in power keep telling us that things go to the top.
Yes. Well, yeah. For me, one of the questions I ask is where is the top?
Absolutely. The top is not always inside the country.
H, the top may be located outside South Africa.
Exactly. Yeah. That's—
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, what does this mean for this GNU government? You know, I look at the DA, for example, and their message is just in disarray because in one they are part of this government and this executive that is now facing this crisis, and yet they are also playing the opposition role of criticizing and calling for an inquiry into their own government. Yes, this comes on the back of this crisis in the GNU that we've already had, given the firing of—yes—Andrew Whitfield. Let me add on top of that another layer for this GNU government. Suddenly, President Ramaphosa proved to us that he can fire members of the executives. So now people will be justified in saying, well, if you were able to act so swiftly on Andrew Whitfield, why can't you act swiftly on uh, an array of different people in the national executive now facing these allegations? So both sides of this GNU partnership, GNU, ANC-DA plus others partnership are—are put in a very difficult position by these revelations.
There's something interesting about the GNU for me. What I foresee—and maybe what I foresee is beginning to happen—what I foresee is a point where the GNU has a higher approval rating than the political parties that are a part of it.
M m. So what I foresee is a point where the GNU has a higher approval rating than the ANC, than the DA, and all the other political parties that have formed it. Now, of course, that problem is more important to the ANC and the DA. Now, in how the DA responds, it is faced with the challenge of making sure that first of all we don't reach a stage where the approval rating of the GNU is higher than that of the DA. And secondly, if we do reach a point where the approval rating of the GNU is higher than that of the DA, the DA must have an answer for that because the perfect position is that in which the—the approval rating of the GNU is higher than that of the ANC but is not higher than that of the DA. That's the perfect position the DA finds itself in. Now look at this. The Minister of Police comes from the ANC.
From the ANC.
Yeah. The Minister in charge of intelligence comes from the ANC.
M, president, deputy president as well. They come from the ANC.
M, now this imbroglio—let's call it the imbroglio—may become useful to the DA in the sense that it may feed to a message the DA has—has already been propounding—the idea that ministers from the DA do better than all other ministers, particularly better than ministers of the ANC. So the DA has an opportunity here to be deliberately reductionist by suggesting that this is a problem we have because the minister of police comes from the ANC, the minister in charge of intelligence comes from the ANC, and so on, in the hope that from this moment onwards the crisis the ANC has to manage is the crisis of the approval rating of the GNU being higher than that of the ANC. That's a crisis the DA would love to see the ANC facing.
M, so if you look at it from the perspective of the ANC, the approval rating of the GNU must not be higher than the approval rating of the ANC because of these matters, otherwise the ANC is going to be taken to the cleaners in the local government election and the 2029 general election. And the DA has in its back pocket this threat of a motion of no confidence as well.
Yes. That they can use to create further destabilization when the time is right.
Yes. Palapala. And we still await that ConCourt judgment, seven months later, on Parliament's vote.
Well, I—I—I think we are at fault. We don't understand the meaning of the word Palapala, or Palapala, Palapala, Palapala, Palapala, Palapala means paralysis. I think—I think that's what it means. I am supposed to come to no other conclusion than the fact that linguistically the synonym of the word Palapala is paralysis. Ever since that day when Arthur Fraser walked into a police station and laid those charges, it—it hasn't been the same. I think we all have to be honest with ourselves on that. But—but also, and that is why I am so underwhelmed both by this narrow conception of state capture and what happened in this commission.
Yeah. Absolutely. I am terribly underwhelmed.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, remember, of course, the commission will have better legal answers than what I'm about to argue.
M m, but I think it's highly problematic that Arthur Fraser—um—was not given an opportunity to testify and rebut some of the allegations that were made against him. I think that's highly problematic.
Absolutely. And until evidence to the contrary is accused, my position is that the commission deliberately prevented Aba Fraser from testifying because of the implications of what he was going to say, some of which will take us not to the idea but possibly the reality of the existence of the deep state and that some of our darlings—media darlings—and so on. It will be proved were actually part of the deep state. In fact, the possibility exists that Fraser would have shown that some members in the media were nefarious in the extreme in how they did their work. You will remember that uh, Moses Kgokong says to the commission that my client, as Arthur Fraser, swore an oath of secrecy that he will not reveal state secrets.
M, but says Kgokong, former members of the intelligence services come here to the commission and they make allegations the effect of which is to suggest that Fraser is not only corrupt but worse—is guilty of treason. Then he says, "My client has decided to waive the oath of secrecy. He will come here and tell what judges did, what members of parliament did and so on."
M, in my view, the commission deliberately prevented Arthur Fraser from going there to testify because they were people who needed to be protected, and these are people known to us as angels in the South African story.
M, there were allegations of media uh, collusion, and then it all kind of went quiet, even at the commission.
Well, I suspect—I don't know—but I suspect, as you say, Arthur Fraser would have gone there to talk about collusion by sections of the media. But I suspect something more dangerous. I suspect Arthur Fraser would have gone there to show that some of their collusion goes back to collusion with the apartheid state. But I don't know. But what I will say again, I'll repeat my warning: even when we look at Arthur Fraser, we must not assume he's an angel.
Sure. Sure. But that I'm the devil does not mean my claims should not be investigated.
Okay. And we can't—those who believe he's now the devil must not take a posture which suggests—
Yeah. We should be dismissive of what he alleges.
Absolutely. And the—the hilarious thing is that at some point these forces that now pit themselves against each other within the ANC were part of the same—part of the same grouping or faction. Once Ramaphosa was Zuma's deputy, and the Mangaung conference was produced by an alliance between these two forces which then diverged in 2017. So to assume that there are devilish and angelic factions negates years and decades of history where these two came together in a political project.
Well, one of the dangers of what is happening now, h, let me give you an example this way. When Moses and I were arrested and were convicted on charges of possession—possession of arms, um, ammunition, and explosives. When we were convicted on those charges, before that we were interrogated by a member of the Special Branch who later became a member of crime intelligence as appointed by Jacob Zuma.
Sure. And who am I talking about? But of course, Luluas denied that he was part of the apartheid Special Branch. But he was. We were interrogated. He was part of a team of Special Branch members. Well, to say they interrogated us is an exaggeration. They made an attempt, quite a poor attempt at interrogating us, until we told them what a black member of the Special Branch is. After that, they allowed us to send them to the shops to buy us lunch. But the point I'm making is that we don't know where this nuclear bomb will land. It may land in the past. And if it lands in the past, it may come with revelations of who actually worked for the apartheid regime and continued post-apartheid to do the work of advancing the interest of the apartheid regime by destroying the ANC and by destroying—our state.
H, the—the—the—the real—the lie that's at the bottom of all the lies is—is that lie which is that there are people who have still—who still operate today and who have operated in the last 30 years who were operating during apartheid. Well, uh, comrade—I'll call him from now on—I'm going to call him Comrade Blaze because of the story he told—how Nelson Mandela called him Blaze.
Yeah. He told you the story of how Mbeki received a list of people in the ANC who were—about spies, and Mandela took the decision that he could not be sure that the list—
Was it authentic? By the way, a few years ago, we can check, by um, files, including files about the people who allegedly were apartheid spies, were declassified.
Now, where I agree with Mandela, and I suspect you should take the position he took today, the files have been declassified, but I have a suspicion that they are highly contaminated. And what happened yesterday opens the country to the possibility that this saga might, might take a turn that takes us to those fires, to the extent that an allegation may emerge that those former apartheid spies are still doing the dirty work of the apartheid state, within the post-apartheid state today. And my own position would be, if those files are declassified—that have been declassified—um, must be dealt with. They must be dealt with with caution, because my suspicion now is that they are highly contaminated. And we must remember that no one in the ANC was an apartheid spy, and everyone in the ANC was an apartheid spy. That's the problem. Mm. And therefore, we must deal with any declassified files that may, um, come to the fore, or to the open, because of the imbroglio, because they may be highly contaminated.
One thing I find interesting is MK's posture, where they've come out in full defense of Muanazi, which is fascinating to me because, as I understand it, Zuma and Muanazi had something of a run-in in around 2012. What do you make of that? Because the MK party, and, and again I want, I want to be clear about this, has been going through some serious internal, uh, disasters. That's, that's the only way to put it: public relations, uh, crisis. But at the same time, underneath that, there is also this, this push, there's a strategic push behind all of that as well that we can't lose sight of. Two reasons I say that: one, when the DA said there's, they might launch a motion of no confidence, MK then said we'll support you, and I thought that's fascinating. Yes. And now again, the MK comes out in support, full support of Muanazi, which I find interesting.
Think of this picture: one of the knights of the round table, one of King Aba's knights—and I'm not talking about Aba, I'm talking about that King Aba—imagine this knight, he jumps on a horse. What does the horse do? It gallops in all directions. That's the MK party at the moment. It is a horse that is galloping in all directions.
But you mentioned 2012, I think. Yes. I have made a threat to you. You did. You did. And it will remain a threat for some time to come. The threat I have made to you is that the day I have an attack of courage, I will talk about, I will write about what really happened in the 2012 National Conference of the ANC, in Mangaung. In Mangaung—this is where Zuma was reelected; Sir Ramaphosa became deputy president of the ANC; Klante was, um, beaten to the post of president. So I'm repeating the threat. But Goko, you can't, you can't do this to us. You can't pull a Zuma at the state capture commission on us. Uh, not only at the state capture commission, prior to Bulungan. Yeah, in the middle of his fight with B, he said, "One day I will talk." Yeah. He still hasn't. What happened? What happened at Mangaung? Um, all I will say about Mangaung is that I saw things, heard things, received credible information while the conference was on. I'm looking at my toes. I'm wondering, will they be safe after this interview? And because of all that, I came to a conclusion. Now, some of the things I saw, I saw them when I was with, with a journalist. I will not mention the journalist's name. Mm. We saw certain things, early hours of the day on which the election took place, which election led to the reelection of Zuma and the election of Ramaphosa as deputy to Zuma. Yeah, there are things we saw with our own eyes. These were not things that were reported to us. We saw them 2:00 a.m. in the morning. We saw these things; what we saw, what I heard, and information that was shared to me, or with me, made me come to the conclusion. And yesterday, when I was listening to General Muanazi, I came to the same conclusion: Our country is gone. We don't have the country. These comrades have sold our country to the lowest bidders. That's the conclusion I came to. But as I say, the day I have an attack of courage, and someone, uh, has shown me where I can get artificial toes, I will talk and write about what really happened at the 2012 Mangaung conference of the ANC.
Did it involve leaders of the ANC, or did it involve journalists? I saw the deep state in action in that conference. I saw two deep state projects colliding at that conference. In fact, that conference could have ended in quite a tragic way if the outcome had been different, because these two deep state projects at that conference would have gone into open warfare, and that open warfare would have affected the country as a whole. But all I want to say for now: we don't have a country. These comrades have sold our country to the lowest bidders.
So interesting, because so much of what's happening, I think, can be traced back to that, that conference. Um, in many ways, South Africa, over the last, well, since then, has been the story of the Zuma and Ramaphosa years. Yes. That, that flowed from the Mangaung consensus. Yeah. But this will stay as a threat. No, that's fine. We respect your toes. Okay. Thank you very much. No, no, no problem.
So Koko, I guess the remaining question is, you know, where things, where things go from here. As you say, there will be some kind of counterattack. There will be an attack on Muanazi. There will be a defense mounted by Muanazi. There will be calls from the public for scrutiny. There will either then be an attempt from the government, from the GNU, from the minister to bury, or there will be some kind of attempt to expose further. And in all of that, there will be quite a, quite a noisy and dangerous few weeks ahead, months, years.
Remember I said the ultimate aim of a deep state project is to engage in an agenda that is in pursuit of looting the state, with the aim of gaining access to mountains of money. Yeah. I also said what tends to happen then is that different deep state projects come into conflict with one another. But I've also said no single theory or analytical framework on its own gives us all the answers, including the deep state. My theory of the deep state, but I would say this, let me end with a piece of advice for the different actors, and I will try to be delicate in my language. Imagine all the different actors sitting at a dinner table; they are eating with their left hand. All of them are eating with the left hand, and the right hand is underneath the table. What are they doing with the right hand? And this is where I say I'll try to be, uh, delicate: They are squeezing each other's marbles. [Laughter] Now my advice is this: They must realize that there's a line they must cross, they must not cross. In other words, when they reach that line, they must calculate carefully whether they are reaching that line or not. Because if they don't stop squeezing, no one will be left standing. Worse, the country will be left crossing its legs in pain.
Well, Goko, we thank you for joining us for yet another fascinating exploration into the travails of this democracy of ours. And we have space for you every week. So your invitation is a standing one. Thank you so much. Like, share, subscribe. Take us to 250,000 subscribers. Comment down below. What are your thoughts on General Muanazi's revelations? Where to from here? How do we ensure we get the truth? We get accountability, and this moment is a moment that we seize as a country rather than another squandered opportunity. Look forward to hearing from you down below. And keep it locked as always on SMWX. Protect Goko's toes, protect my toes, and protect this channel. Oh yeah. Yeah. None.