Mandela defends alleged plotters

Mbeki

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Former South African President Nelson Mandela has defended three prominent black businessmen accused of plotting to oust his successor, Thabo Mbeki.

The three -- Cyril Ramaphosa, Tokyo Sexwale and Mathews Phosa -- hold or have held top positions in the African National Congress (ANC).

They have denied allegations that they were plotting to oust Mbeki from the leadership of the ANC, after Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete said on Tuesday that a former ANC official had produced evidence of a plot.

AUDIO Smuts Ngonyama, ANC Spokesman: Mbeki is well respected 760k/70 sec. AIFF or WAV sound     MESSAGE BOARD Reforms in South Africa

Praising their contribution to the liberation struggle, Mandela said: "Until there is evidence to substantiate the allegations I will always regard them in high esteem.

"Let us not prejudge the issue," he said.

Ramaphosa was the ANC's top negotiator with the former white-minority government in the dying days of apartheid and was once seen as a potential rival to Mbeki for the position of Mandela's deputy.

"Cyril Ramaphosa led our negotiating team. It is him who is really responsible for the settlement that led to a democratic South Africa," Mandela said.

"Tokyo Sexwale was with me (in prison) on Robben Island and he is a comrade I respect very highly as well as Mathews Phosa."

Sexwale is now deputy chairman of Trans Hex, South Africa's second largest diamond producer by way of value, while Ramaphosa is chairman of media and telecommunications group Johnnic Holdings Ltd.

Phosa, whose political career collapsed in 1999 after he was identified as a potential successor to Mbeki, told the BBC: "It's 101 percent political in my view. I think it's crazy ... at the end of the day we want the evidence."

Tshwete claimed police were investigating the plot, which has been linked to a whispering campaign holding Mbeki responsible for the 1993 assassination of popular South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani.

Mbeki, meanwhile, has denied his government is in crisis.

"Whatever is being reported, there is no crisis, certainly not in the ANC. There is no crisis either for government or for the ANC or anything," Mbeki told reporters in Johannesburg.

"It might sound very dramatic, but it is not a matter that I particularly worry about," he said.

But Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which along with the Communist Party forms a tripartite ruling alliance with the ANC, warned Mbeki not to use police to fight his political battles.

"We are sounding a warning that nobody should be tempted to settle a score of a purely political and democratic nature within the structures of the ANC and the alliance by involving the might of the state," he told state-run radio on Thursday.

Mbeki has been the subject of international scorn for his questioning of the link between HIV and AIDS when over 20 percent of the adult population in South Africa is estimated to be HIV positive.

His muted response to political violence and an illegal land-grab in neighbouring Zimbabwe, orchestrated by President Robert Mugabe, has been criticised as timid and cited as a reason behind a sharp depreciation in the rand last year.

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African National Congress
Nelson Mandela
Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)!
Thabo Mbeki

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