TRC Final Report

Volume 2

Chapter 4

Subsection 16

140 Mr Gabriel Paki Moshoeu [JB0074/03NW] was executed by firing squad in Angola in 1982 and is listed by the ANC in its first submission under the heading, “Executed By Order Of Our Military Tribunal”, as well as under, “Agents Executed On Order Of Tribunals” (Confidential Appendix). The Motsuenyane Commission records that the execution was related to “disturbances in the ANC Camp”.

141 Andrew Masondo, who was Political Commissar of MK at the time, told the Commission that he had been a member of the Review Committee of the court martial that had sentenced Gabriel Moshoeu to death. Masondo’s account is that Moshoeu’s execution was based on information that Moshoeu ”joined the enemy” while in combat with MK in Zimbabwe:

Moshoeu's brother was in the front, he was in Zimbabwe with a group of MK chaps who were fighting, side by side with the ZIPRA chaps. In the course of that battle, he vanished and his other colleagues were looking for him. He comes up later, he can't explain his disappearance. They investigate, they find out that he had had contact with the enemy … When he got to Angola he was court martialled and sentenced to death.

142 Gabriel Mthembu testified that he was not personally involved in investigating Gabriel Moshoeu’s case. He said he –

had to exercise supervision over investigation of all these broad issues; but I also had superiors over me like Masondo, Mzwandile Philiso and other officers;

I think my immediate superiors, were regional headquarters at that time, that would be Captain Lentsoe, (Regional Chief of Security, Angola) Joseph Vooki (Regional Chief of Personnel, Angola – deceased); Alfred [Wana] Regional Chief of Security before Captain Lentsoe).

143 According to Mr Gordon Moshoeu, Gabriel Moshoeu was “tried by a kangaroo court” which comprised Andrew Masondo, Joe Modise and Mzwai Piliso. Mthembu confirmed that these individuals made up the tribunal, but denied that it was a ‘kangaroo court’. He testified that:

There was overwhelming incriminating information and evidence against Gabriel Moshoeu and it was on that understanding, on the strength of such information and evidence that he was locked up at 32. He might have been beaten in the process of investigation when people were trying to get him to confess given the overwhelming nature of evidence against him.

144 General Masondo was asked to respond to the Motsuenyane Commission’s recommendation that there be an apology made to the people who were wronged. He said:

People who it was found that they were enemy agents, we executed them, I wouldn't make an apology. We were at war. If it can be proved that they were executed wrongly, I would be stupid not to say I apologise. But once people were threatening, the people who killed some of our comrades, I can't be apologetic that they were executed, then I wouldn’t be doing justice to those comrades who died.

145 Mr Derrick Boitlhomo Lobelo (MK name Vusi Mayekiso) [JB00186/03NW] was executed by the ANC in Luanda, Angola in 1982. He went into exile in 1976 and was a member of MK and ANC. His name appears in the ANC First Submission under the heading, “Executed By Order Of Our Military Tribunal”, as well as in the Confidential Appendix submitted by the ANC. An unnamed witness who testified to the Motsuenyane Commission alleged that Lobelo was killed by camp warders in 1981, because he was “cheeky” or obstinate. According to the ANC, Lobelo was recruited to work for security forces “whilst he was working for the Bophuthatswana Admin” in 1972.

Deaths in/after detention

146 Mr Muziwakhe Ngwenya, aka Thami Zulu or ‘TZ’ [JB00459/01GTSOW], an office-bearer in Angola MK structures between 1980 and 1983 and thereafter in Natal, died in November 1989 at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, a few days after his release from detention by the ANC. A medical report dated 1 November 1989 and submitted to the Commission by the ANC indicates that he was diagnosed HIV positive as well as suffering from tuberculosis. The report notes, however, that “his death was brought about by poisoning which must have been taken in within a day or at most two days prior to his death”.

147 If Ngwenya (Thami Zulu) was poisoned, argued the ANC, the South African security forces could have been the only ones responsible for the poisoning – either because he was an agent who needed to be silenced before he gave the game away or because they wished to discredit the ANC by making it appear responsible for the killing.

148 Former CCB Intelligence Officer, Christo Nel, told the Commission at a section 29 hearing that he:

… learnt about the whole debate around TZ from Henri van der Westhuizen. He had much more intimate knowledge about the suspicions around TZ and the later alleged poisoning of him or the killing of him which I don’t know. I don’t want to speculate. Henri said there was maybe a project to make [it] look like an agent and therefore he was killed by MK

149 A Commission was set up in 1989 to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Ngwenya (Thami Zulu). It noted that:

Dr Ralph Mgijima, head of the ANC Health Department and a long-time personal friend of TZ, described in vivid terms how TZ was brought to his house … TZ told him that his condition had deteriorated drastically while he had been kept in an isolation cell lying all day on a mattress on the floor. TZ was angry at the way he had been treated, but never alleged that any violence had been used against him.⁵

150 Medical practitioners who conducted a post mortem and those who conducted further tests on blood samples reached contradictory conclusions. However, although one group of medical practitioners came up with negative results when testing for traces of diazinon or another pesticide, they conceded that the chemical could easily have dissolved in the quantity of alcohol found in Ngwenya’s (Thami Zulu) blood and that, with time, the chemical decomposes.

151 At the ‘recall hearing’ in May 1997, the ANC responded to this incident as follows. Mr Thabo Mbeki said:

Thami Zulu was … recalled … from Swaziland to Lusaka because we were sustaining high losses of cadres who were coming down that route into the country, getting intercepted, getting killed, getting captured … Investigations into the extremely high casualty rate within the MK structures under his command were accepted as constituting sufficient grounds for his recall. Within the context of international military norms commanders under similar circumstances have been subjected to far worse treatment. When he was in Lusaka, Thami Zulu was not confined to a detention centre; he spent most of his time in residences although separated from the rest of the ANC community. At no time was he tortured or subjected to any undue pressure. When he was released he was ill. Independent pathologists found that he had contracted the HIV virus and was suffering from Aids-related complex and possibly pulmonary TB.

However Thami Zulu died of poisoning after his release and to this day it is a matter of conjecture as to who administered this poison and why this was done. Our own security department has reason to believe that an agent or agents of the regime was responsible.

152 Conclusive evidence that Ngwenya (Thami Zulu) was a South African security police agent has not emerged. The Commission was unable to make a conclusive finding in this matter.