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Strategies & Market Trends : Africa and its Issues- Why Have We Ignored Africa? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (909)	3/18/2008 5:19:09 PM
From: Stephen O	Respond to of 1267

(ANS) A Calling to Account That Mbeki Could Not Escape [column] 2008-03-18 07:28 (New York) Johannesburg, Mar 18, 2008 (Business Day/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki, and many of his cabinet ministers who were intimately linked to SA's controversial multibillion-rand arms procurement, must be very worried indeed. The ominous noises emanating from the African National Congress (ANC), coupled with calls from the opposition for Mbeki to come clean over his own role in the arms deal saga, are only likely to get louder, despite an earlier three-agency probe, which found no flaws in government's primary contracts. In fact, if the mood in the ANC is anything to go by, Mbeki, like some of his African counterparts, could well find himself at the wrong end of a corruption probe after he departs from office next year. The fate of former Zambian president Frederick Chiluba shows that former presidents are not off limits to political opponents out to settle scores. This prospect is not farfetched given the corridor talk in Luthuli House. As one ANC national executive committee (NEC) member pointed out, Jacob Zuma on trial is going to be an ugly time , all the more so because it has the potential to drag the entire executive into the dock. Coupled with ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa's efforts to introduce corporate governance into the ANC's finances, the rose-tinted glasses through which Africa's oldest liberation movement have been viewed for so long will finally be removed. Prior to the ANC's leadership fracas, many of Mbeki's detractors went around saying that any attempt to recharge Zuma with corruption was likely to drag the ANC and Mbeki down with him. That is why this weekend's call by ANC NEC members -- "Thabo must take us into his confidence; did he or did he not take a bribe from the Germans? The ANC needs to know." -- hardly comes as a surprise. No doubt Mbeki's enemies in the ANC know that revenge is a dish best served cold. While the call from the ANC for Mbeki to "take the party into his confidence" is no doubt informed by an element of malice, given the fallout over Zuma's own legal woes, there are nonetheless legitimate questions Mbeki has yet to answer. These include whether he refused to assist the Scorpions in the arms deal investigation and whether he met arms company Thint in Paris in 1998, when he was deputy president of SA and chairman of cabinet's subcommittee dealing with the arms deal. Mbeki will also not be able to escape questions about whether he indeed did take a bribe from the Germans. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) will also come under increasing pressure to look into Mbeki's role, especially given that he faces the real possibility of being called as a witness at Zuma's corruption trial. The NPA will also be tested for the courage to investigate a sitting president, with its detractors keen to compare the treatment of Mbeki to Zuma . As one Zuma supporter said before the ANC president was recharged: "What Andrew Feinstein and Terry Crawford-Browne revealed about the arms deal will be a picnic compared to what will happen when Zuma calls Mbeki, Alec Erwin, Trevor Manuel and Penuell Maduna to the stand." Trying to unpack the objectives behind the ANC's decision to put Mbeki on the spot also reveals interesting dynamics at play within the ruling party. First, the objective could well be to try to expose the fact that the NPA has been selective in its anticorruption efforts by cherry-picking who in the state and party they go after. This explanation will enjoy currency among those in the ruling party who hold the view that state organs have been used to go after political opponents. A second theory is that Mbeki's enemies in the party are trying to hold the president to ransom, using his alleged links in the arms deal as a bargaining chip to pressure him into agreeing to some sort of arms deal amnesty. Whatever the reasoning, the whole sorry business is nothing but the sad story of a principled party whose morals failed it at its moment of truth. The next few months will show just how much the ANC has lost its moral compass. Brown is political editor. by Karima Brown