Political assasinations and the "party"

**curious george** · 17-09-2017, 20:12

The party being the "victim" and blame game:

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Ne...70916#cxrecs_s

**curious george** · 24-09-2017, 14:15

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Ne...ghter-20170923

Amcu member shot and killed in front of 6-year-old daughter

Iavan Pijoos

Wonderkop – The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) says one of its members at the Lonmin mine in Wonderkop, North West, was shot and killed in front of his six-year-old daughter.

AMCU president Joseph Mathunjwa said in a statement on Saturday, Mvelisi Biyela, a health and safety office bearer at Lonmin, was gunned down outside his house on Friday.

Mathunjwa said the death of Biyela left them "shaken", but they would not be intimidated.

"Those that think their cowardice can defeat this mighty union built on the spirit of many that have paid the ultimate price, spilt their blood, left us with just their bones must think again."

Over the last months more than five leaders have been killed.
On September 12, an AMCU branch treasurer was gunned down outside the Impala Platinum mine in Rustenburg.

READ: Senior Amcu official gunned down in Rustenburg

Mathunjwa said a war had been declared against AMCU.

"We will not fight with bullets, guns and anonymous hitmen but with mass action. We will fight with a much greater weapon, the unity of AMCU, the unity of mineworkers and the unity of the working class," he said.

The trade union leader said he would not fold his arms and watch his members being killed, their wives left as widows and their children grow-up in single parent families without a father.

“Our members will not be slaughtered like flies. We will fight back and we will fight hard.”

On Tuesday, AMCU is expected to hold a press conference to announce a campaign of rolling mass actioin.

* cosatu?

**curious george** · 24-09-2017, 14:40

Prob very apt on "Heritage Day":

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Ne...r-own-20170924

Pieter-Louis Myburgh and Leanne George

Johannesburg – The dramatic abduction of a spy with ties to President Jacob Zuma by fellow spooks is the latest in a string of incidents that shows the country’s intelligence agencies are being abused for political purposes.

Following an investigation by News24 and Rapport, we can today reveal that senior police officers and State Security Agency (SSA) officials were forced to rush to the Wierdabrug police station in an attempt to rescue a spy who had been hijacked and abducted by his own colleagues at the SSA.

The agent, Yekani Monde Gadini, 47, is connected to a rogue unit in the SSA, the Special Operations Unit, which is understood to drive political operations for Zuma.

ALSO READ: EXCLUSIVE: Department of Labour deregisters 'bogus union' linked to Zuma

This unit is allegedly responsible for countless counter-intelligence campaigns against anybody who threatened the interests of Zuma and his friends, the Guptas.
Some of the victims of this campaign include former minister of finance Pravin Gordhan, Johann van Loggerenberg and Ivan Pillay, formerly top officials at SARS, as well as Anwa Dramat, the former head of the Hawks, and Shadrack Sibiya, the former head of the Hawks in Gauteng.

They cannot be identified because they are not permitted to speak to the media.
According to these sources, Gadini was stuffed into the boot of the Volkswagen Polo he was driving in July, 2014, shortly after he met with senior officials from SARS. Gadini, himself a former employee of SARS, was allegedly working for the SSA before 2014.

According to the source, his alleged kidnappers thought he was in possession of documents related to scheming between SSA agents and tobacco bosses, as well as other suspicious SSA projects.

Zuma's legal adviser

Gadini’s wife, Bonisiwe Makhene-Gadini, is one of Jacob Zuma’s legal advisers. It is understood that she contacted the police when she heard of the incident.
According to police sources, Makhene-Gadini and Riah Phiyega, the former head of police, are good friends.

Phiyega, Makhene-Gadini and Simon Ntombela, the former head of the SSA’s domestic branch, all met at the Wierdabrug police station.

Members of the Hawks’ Tactical Operations Management in Gauteng – at that stage still under the leadership of Sibiya – were deployed to try and locate Gadini.
It is understood that they encountered Gadini and his kidnappers and Gadini was released.
But then Gadini and his wife, as well as Phiyega and Ntombela, had to try and explain what was happening, and keep the truth from Sibiya, who was, at that stage, a target of a counter-intelligence campaign.

Rapport and News24 were able to determine that a police docket is still open, but that nothing has come of the investigation.

In January 2015, Sibiya was suspended from the police because of his alleged involvement in the "rendition" of Zimbabwean nationals in 2010.

According to a subsequent Hawks corruption investigation into former crime intelligence head Richard Mdluli, this story was planted in the media by crime intelligence operatives loyal to Mdluli.

According to sources, Gadini was responsible for arranging meetings with senior members of SARS and Makhene-Gadini made sure that information about Zuma’s enemies reached his hears.
Rogue projects

Rapport has previously reported that Gadini’s cellphone number was the contact number on a fake trade union's registration documents. This union was allegedly set up on instruction of Zuma, in order to destabilise competing unions.
In response to a telephonic request for comment Gadini said: "No, no, no, no. I don’t know what you’re talking about!"

He did not respond to requests for comment that were sent via SMS and email. Makhene-Gadini did not answer her cellphone.

Phiyega, Ntombela and Sibiya also could not be reached for comment.
Brian Dube, the SSA’s spokesperson, said the police would have to comment because the matter was a police investigation.

But in a statement on Friday night, Dube said that continuing references in the media to a rogue unit in the SSA is concerning.

He said that the inspector-general of intelligence found that there was no evidence of any member of the SSA acting illegally or trying to destabilise SARS.

The SSA does not have a rogue structure, Dube said.

The police did not respond to a request for comment.

**curious george** · 24-09-2017, 19:38

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Ne...-down-20170923

**curious george** · 25-09-2017, 20:28

https://mg.co.za/article/2017-09-22-...-party-faction

Key ANC leaders were assassinated as part of a rival faction’s “grand plan” for the “political takeover” of the eThekwini region, including the Durban metro and its R40‑billion budget, according to a bombshell claim made by the South African Communist Party this week.
The plan, “influenced by financial interests and national politics”, allegedly saw the ANC’s eThekwini regional secretary, S’bu Sibiya, gunned down in his Inanda home in 2011 on the orders of opponents in his own party.

The claims were made on Thursday by SACP KwaZulu-Natal secretary Themba Mthembu while giving evidence at the Moerane commission into political killings in the province.
Mthembu, the province’s agriculture MEC, said the “takeover” of eThekwini was aimed at securing control of its budget, with the business interests behind the party faction targeting key transport and housing contracts in the region.

“These killings were seen as a precursor to a real build-up towards a fierce contestation of the eThekwini ANC region. The rest is history,” Mthembu said. “Understanding the eThekwini power struggle helps to understand the national power struggle in the ANC, which is strongly believed to have a direct link. Divorcing these battles and power dynamics from the ongoing political killings would be naive.

“The belief among many structures on the ground is that any faction that heads eThekwini metro is also likely to have an influence on national politics and the national leadership.”
The SACP’s provincial chairperson, James Nxumalo, who sat next to Mthembu during his evidence to the commission, was ousted as eThekwini mayor in December 2015 after a series of heavily contested elective conferences.

Nxumalo’s area, Intshanga, has been decimated by the murder of several ANC and SACP members since the conference.

Mthembu said Nxumalo’s political rival in the area, Boy Shozi, backed current ANC chairperson and eThe-kwini mayor Zandile Gumede and made certain that Nxumalo’s supporters were refused ANC membership. This was aimed at ensuring the ANC’s ward candidate would be one of Shozi’s supporters, he claimed.

Nxumalo’s supporters then consolidated themselves into the local SACP branch.
Several members of Shozi’s family have been arrested in connection with two of the murders in the area and are out on bail.

Mthembu said it was a “pity” that the Moerane commission was only considering killings after 2011, because a probe into the murder of Sibiya and several others ahead of this “grand plan in preparation of a political takeover of the metro” would provide an “appropriate explanation” for the current spate of murders.

Mthembu detailed a series of attacks on Nxumalo’s supporters after they had nominated one of his relatives, Malombo Nxumalo, as an SACP/independent candidate in last year’s municipal elections. He won the ward, with the attacks continuing after the election.
Nxumalo’s supporters were also targeted at KwaNdengezi, near Pinetown, where two councillors and a hitman have been jailed for the 2014 killing of Abahlali baseMjo-ndolo chairperson Thuli Ndlovu. One of the councillors is facing further murder charges relating to the death of another Nxumalo supporter in the area, Mobeni Khwela, a month later.

The SACP’s Mthembu said councillor selection methods and criteria needed to be reviewed to end manipulation and corruption, as did the existing tender system, which created competition over resources.

Policing needed to be depoliticised and specialised units focused on dealing with political killings should be set up to ensure that killers and those they worked for were brought to book, he added.

Former ANC KwaZulu-Natal premier Senzo Mchunu on Wednesday painted a detailed picture of how state and party resources were abused to influence the outcome of ANC leadership contests.

Mchunu lost the provincial leadership race to current chair Sihle Zikalala in 2015, but the conference outcome has been declared unlawful by the high court in Pietermaritzburg. Mchunu’s supporters had gone to court to seek the order, and the fate of the party’s unlawful provincial executive committee will be decided by a special ANC national executive committee meeting on Friday.

Mchunu described the manipulation of provincial elective and membership processes in the ANC as “a complicated rot”, saying that it took place at “various levels” from branch upwards. Council seats had become sought after by “influential people” with business interests who believed that it was “our turn to eat”.

Candidates chosen by branches through ANC processes were removed from the party lists and branch membership lists were rigged to ensure that the dominant faction got the result it wanted, he claimed.

Mchunu said security companies and “bouncers” were being used to force activists out of branch meetings, the venues and times of which would be changed to ensure only members of one faction made it to elective meetings. People would use their “assumed powers” to declare meetings with a quorum as valid and to close down those that reached a quorum but delivered the “wrong” outcome, he charged.

Mchunu also told the commission that he had been named as a suspect in the killing of his bodyguard, Xolani Nkosi, who was found dead in his car in July 2015, months ahead of the provincial conference.

Mchunu said he had hired a private investigator, who had traced Nkosi’s cellphone and identified a suspect in Jozini within two days of the bodyguard’s murder. But the Hawks had not followed up on the evidence and instead he had been informed that he was a suspect in the killing. Afraid that the investigation had become “poisoned”, he had called then police minister Nathi Mthethwa for assistance — but the case remained unresolved.

Mchunu called on the commission to recommend setting up a permanent investigative unit, with a legal component, to reinvestigate the unsolved political killings. This, he said, would help to achieve the only result that would satisfy the “grieving” families — the conviction of the killers and those who had paid them.

Mchunu said the failure of the police, the Hawks and the intelligence services to deal with political murders should also be probed if the culture of impunity is to be broken.
Earlier in the week, Nqaba Mkhwanazi, an ANC ward councillor from Phongola in Zululand, told the commission that more than 4 000 fraudulent ANC memberships had been discovered in Nongoma. The fraud had been reported to ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe.
Mkhwanazi claimed an ANC Youth League grouping in the region was behind the fraudulent memberships, all of which bore fake FNB bank stamps, “to have more numbers when elections come”.

“Even though fake membership has no impact on political killings, it has an impact on the election of leaders and contributes to faction agendas,” he said.

Mkhwanazi told the commission his friend and colleague, Mbhekiseni “Pat” Khumalo, who was shot dead at his home in December, had been “imposed” on residents in his ward for a second term. People in the ward had promised to force a by-election to remove him because some leaders were opposed to his re-election.

Mkhwanazi said he believed the opposing faction in the party was behind Khumalo’s death. He said that when councillors were deployed there were “strings attached” and that Khumalo had refused to be “remote-controlled”.

**curious george** · 02-10-2017, 17:43

http://www.news24.com/southafrica/ne...n-kzn-20171002

Durban - A former African National Congress councillor and long-time activist near Richards Bay, north of Durban, has been gunned down.

Bongani Reginald Msomi, 52, was shot dead at a Maskandi music event in Mtubatuba in the early hours of Sunday morning, police said on Monday.

It is alleged that the assailant shot Msomi execution style.

READ: Political killings could plunge KZN municipalities into state of ungovernability - Cogta MEC

He died instantly at the scene.

Police spokesperson Colonel Thembeka Mbhele said they could not immediately confirm the motive for his murder.

"We are at the early stages of investigation and cannot confirm anything at this point. We are, however, appealing to the community to come forward with any information they may have on this incident."

Msomi was an ANC councillor from 2011 to 2015. He was ousted as a councillor in the 2016 local government elections.

Locals said he had become more visible at ANC events in recent months.
Several leaders from the ANC's regional office could not immediately be reached for comment.

**curious george** · 03-10-2017, 15:06

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Ne...egion-20171003

Mxolisi Mngadi

Related Links

Durban - An African National Congress official from Bulwer in the Harry Gwala District on the southern KwaZulu-Natal has been shot dead.

Nkosinathi Ngcobo, an employee at the Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma Municipality, was shot dead by unknown assailants at about 20:30 on Monday night, police said on Tuesday.
Ngcobo, a former ANC branch chairperson, was employed as a clerk responsible for the councillors in the municipality, according to SABC.

"It is alleged that last night at 20:30, a 45-year-old man was driving his Toyota Corolla at Hlanganani area when a grey VW Polo with three male occupants opened fire at him. He was certified dead at the scene," said Captain Nqobile Gwala.

A case of murder was opened however the motive for the killing was still unknown, she said.

READ: Increasing factions in ANC KZN will lead to rise in political killings, Moerane Commission hears

Moerane Commission

Ngcobo is the fifth ANC official to be killed in the Harry Gwala region this year.
His death follows that of former ANCYL secretary general Sindiso Magaqa who died in hospital in September after his shooting on July 13.

In April, Harry Gwala ANC region deputy secretary and Umzimkhulu municipality speaker Khaya Thobela was shot dead.

In May, former Umzimkhulu councillor and branch leader Khaya Mgcwaba was gunned down.

READ: Greed, competition among reasons for KZN political killings, commission hears

Later that month, Mduduzi Tshibase‚ a teacher and Umzimkhulu councillor, was killed at his home in Umzimkhulu.

Two female Umzimkhulu councillors who were with Magaqa on the day he was shot survived the shooting.

ANC KZN spokesperson Mdumiseni Ntuli couldn't confirm whether Ngcobo's murder was politically motivated.

"I cannot confirm the motive but its true comrade Nathi (short for Nkosinathi) was shot dead last night," he said via an SMS.

Political analysts who have testified at the Moerane Commission - which is looking into political killings in KwaZulu-Natal - said most political killings were related to competition over political positions.

In October 2016, KwaZulu-Natal Premier Willies Mchunu announced that he was setting up the commission to investigate underlying causes into a spate of political killings in the province.