24 January 2005
Six senior ZANU-PF members including a Member of Parliament were accused of taking part in the spy ring that was allegedly providing the South African government with information on the party’s affairs. Phillip Chiyangwa, a provincial ZANU-PF chairperson and former Zimbabwe consul-general in South Africa, was arrested in December 2005 on charges of selling state secrets.
The state-run Herald in Zimbabwe reported Chiyangwa received US10 000 a month to pass on information to South Africa. Four other party officials were held in Zimbabwe for violating the Official Secrets Act – Godfrey Dzvairo, newly appointed Zimbabwe’s ambassador to Mozambique, ZANU-PF’s director for external affairs Itai Marchi, top security officer Kenny Karidza, and banker Tendai Matambandazo.
The sixth person allegedly connected to the affair, Zimbabwean diplomat Erasmus Moyo, reportedly escaped while being moved from Geneva to Harare. Maroleng said South Africa would undoubtedly try and retrieve their spy but under current conditions it would prove very difficult. “The South African
position is severely undermined by this development,” said Maroleng adding it would mean that the hard core led by Mugabe would now view South Africa with increasing suspicion. The South African Department of Intelligence declined to comment on the matter.
Zimbabwean intelligence sources said Dzvairo, who was based in South Africa since 1994, had been under surveillance for more than a decade. ”We had no tangible evidence to prove that he was involved in any dirty work, hence his appointment in November last year as ambassador to Mozambique.”
But they had nonetheless bugged Dzvairo’s telephone and took interest in his conversations with former Metropolitan Bank of Zimbabwe company secretary Tendayi Matambanadzo, with whom he had studied law at the University of Zimbabwe in the 1980s.
The banker’s phone was also tapped. He is a relative of the wife of Zanu-PF Mashonaland West provincial chairperson and central committee member Philip Chiyangwa, whom he brought on board the spy ring. Chiyangwa in turn recruited Zanu-PF director of external affairs Itayi Marchi — often tasked with taking minutes at Politburo meetings — and party security officer Kenneth Karidza.
Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) monitored the activities of the men who had frequent meetings at a four-star hotel in Victoria Falls during November and December last year. On one occasion, sources said, ”They booked a room that they did not use for three days. On the fourth day they regrouped and all their conversations were recorded.”
Analyst believed South Africa’s President, Thabo Mbeki, had launched a high-level spying operation against President Mugabe.
“It shows that Mbeki has very bad relations with Mugabe,” said Gail Wannenburg, a researcher for the South African Institute for International Affairs.
“It shows that Mbeki is thinking that he cannot trust what Mugabe says to him. So far Mbeki has been outmanoeuvred by Mugabe. Mbeki expected some concessions from Mugabe in terms of election reforms, something that he could take to SADC [the Southern African Development Community, a regional body of 14 countries] as superficially acceptable improvements. But Mugabe has not done that.”
Constitutional law lecturer Dr Lovemore Madhuku said he wasn’t shocked Mbeki was spying on Mugabe. ”He was quietly studying the inner workings of ZANU-PF, its policies and politics. It has always been Mbeki’s intention to replace Mugabe without replacing ZANU-PF. That explains why his intelligence was rooted in ZANU-PF not government.”
The suspects were prosecuted, convicted and jailed between five and seven years. Chiyangwa was released.
Zimbabwe Today In History, Dandaro Online
