Gauteng RET President Zuma Support Group: Judge Zondo is behaving towards Minister Gordahn like an instructed servant

The Gauteng RET President Zuma Support Group is perturbed by the public megaphone-style of propaganda politics that Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, the Chair of the Commission of Enquiry into State Capture, has adopted towards President Jacob Zuma.

Judge Zondo: Is he a real Judge or a political hitman masked with a graduation gown?

Judge Zondo has never seen it fit before to address arrangements for witnesses who are to appear in front of his Commission through media conferences, but he saw it fit to select (in fact the correct word is target) President Zuma for such special, disrespectful, treatment.

In fact this is actually the second time that Judge Zondo has seen fit to do so, as he had also previously addressed the matter of President Zuma giving evidence before the Commission when the work of the Commission commenced.

There are several other witnesses where there have been for various reasons delays in them appearing before the Commission, but the Commission’s engagements with them have been, and continue to be, through direct confidential personal contact.

Among those the most notable example is Minister Pravin Gordahn who is to appear before the Commission for cross-examination, but who has not done so to the point where it is appearing that he is defiant and arrogant in being unavailable.

The Minister seems to regard himself to be in a special category of super-citizen that is not answerable to anyone - unlike the rest of us as South African citizens. Not even to a Commission that he agitated for, and evidently intended to use as a political attack-tool in his factional political maneuveres against those whom he has so vindictively defined as his political adversaries.

Despite such disdainful conduct towards the Commission; Judge Zondo has not seen it fit to address Gordahn’s persistent absence at the Commission through a media conference, nor threaten to subpoena him, but continues to respond personally to the Minister with the utmost subservient deference and respect.

The question arises who is really calling the shots with regards to the work of the Commission? One could come to the conclusion that the Commission, and it’s presiding Chair, is behaving towards Minister Gordahn like an instructed servant.

In holding yesterday’s media conference Judge Zondo came up with the flimsiest of excuses, namely that he had enquiries from the media about President Zuma’s future appearance, and that he wanted to address those. The question arises since when do questions from the media set the agenda of the work of the Commission?

The Gauteng RET President Zuma Support Group had done our homework, and established that several media houses have sent questions to the Commission enquiring about the future appearance of Minister Gordahn before it, but these queries have not garnered Judge Zondo to rush into holding media conference.

We are also aware that other witnesses who are to appear before the Commission have indicated their availability to do so with immediate effect, among those Lucky Montana (who had written two letters to the Commission to that effect), but the Commission does not seem to be in a rush at all to call them.

There are other persons such as Brian Molefe and Arthur Fraser who have literally pleaded to appear before the Commission, but whom the Comission has not seen necessary for them to be called to appear.

In the case of Molefe, he has actually provided the Commission with a thirty page affidavit, but he was not called by the Commission to appear before it during the critical enquiry into Eskom.

We are convinced that the reason for this extraordinary step, to ignore an absolutely crucial witness with regards to Eskom, is because of those who are implicated in the said affidavit by Molefe. The only rush, and urgency, to get a very specific witness before it, seems to be singularly reserved for President Zuma.

Evidently the Commission has specific persons that it is targeting and the appearance of witnesses before the Commission are not equal-opportunity moments. It is evident that the prime target that the Commission and its Chair have in their crosshairs, and are literally hunting down; is President Zuma.

The last letter from the Commission enquiring about President Zuma’s availability to appear before it was received by his legal representatives only late last week. Even before they were granted a decent period of time to reply, Judge Zondo saw it fit to call his hasty media conference.

It must also be noted that when President Zuma was ill and went for medical treatment in Cuba, and could not attend the Commission, Judge Zondo made a big hullybaloo about how he needed to interview President Zuma’s medical team in order to convince himself that he is being told the truth.

After having gained the media propaganda mileage of having cast such a disrespectful aspersion on President Zuma, he never bothered to pursue the said meeting with President Zuma’s doctors. The only conclusion to be drawn is that he actually never doubted the veracity of President Zuma’s illness, which anyhow was a matter of well-reported public record, but only intended to cause harm to the persona of President Zuma.

Right from the beginning of the formation of the Commission of Enquiry into State Capture there have been persistent and legitimate questions about the true purpose of the work of the Commission, and whether the Commission was really intended to get to the bottom of the issue of state capture.

These questions arose because of the extremely narrow, and historically limited, definition of state capture in its mandate, which were derived from the ‘State of Capture’ report by the former Public Protector, Advocate Thuli Madonsela.

Legitimate concerns were raised that state capture is a historically much broader and deeper issue that goes back many decades - actually centuries - to the colonial formation of South Africa and the subjugation and exploitation of our black (specifically African) indigenous population.

The serious question arises whether the deeply flawed mandate of the Commission was an error, or whether it was intentional because its real task was never actually to investigate state capture, but to target certain political and economic ideological positions that challenges the continuing control of the South African economy by White Monopoly Capital (WMC), and to specifically target those persons who are the main proponents of the need for Radical Economic Transformation (RET), and thus advance the implementation of the Second Phase of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR).

It is common knowledge that President Zuma is the most prominent exponent of Radical Economic Transformation, and we maintain that he is being targeted so viciously and publicly exactly for that reason.

In the light of the conduct by Judge Zondo, with regards to the inappropriate media conference that he held, credence is given to the serious question whether the targeting of the proponents of Radical Economic Transformation, and those who want to effect the fundamental economic transformation and black empowerment of the South African economy, is indeed not the true mandate of the Commission?

With his extraordinary conduct at yesterday’s media conference Judge Zondo has strengthened the credence of this view. He has certainly not done his own integrity, nor the legitimacy of the Commission of Enquiry into State Capture, any favours.

Issued by the Gauteng RET President Zuma Support Group

For further information contact Carl Niehaus on 082 796 2626; Sibusiso Hadebe on 082 719 5372; or Mabel Rweqana on 071 763-8942