PART 2 OF 3: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SOUTH AFRICA'S

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PRETORIA 000953

C O R R E C T E D C O P Y //ADDING SENSITIVE CAPTION//

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KDEM PGOV PREL SF
SUBJECT: PART 2 OF 3: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SOUTH AFRICA'S
NEW PRESIDENT

PRETORIA 00000953 001.4 OF 002


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Summary
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1. (SBU) This is the second of three messages that aim to
reveal a comprehensive background picture of JACOB Zuma, the
President of the ruling African National Congress party
(ANC),who was inaugurated as the fourth post-apartheid
president of South Africa. The first message was released
before ZUMA was inaugurated, and the last two will be
released following his ascendancy. End Summary.

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Building the ANC Underground
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2. (SBU) In the early 1960s, the non-violent resistance
strategy of the ANC was reconsidered. It was becoming
increasingly evident that the apartheid regime was
disinclined to negotiate a new social and political structure
and was prepared to respond with overwhelming violence to any
perceived challenge. The ANC and other anti-apartheid groups
revoked the long-standing policy on non-violent resistance
and the armed wing of the ANC -- Umkonto wa Sizwe ("Spear of
the Nation," aka MK) -- was established to fight apartheid.
Zuma joined MK in 1962 and in 1963 was arrested and jailed
while on his way into self-imposed exile for military
training.


3. (SBU) We presume that in the months preceding Zuma's
release from Robben Island after ten years imprisonment, he
discussed with other ANC inmates a role for himself on the
outside within the ANC. Though we do not know the substance
of such discussions, upon his release, he almost immediately
became involved in mobilizing the internal resistance to
apartheid. Between 1973 and 1975, ZUMA was instrumental in
re-establishing the ANC's moribund underground operations in
Natal. This activity included working with the ANC in exile
and with MK military to engage in disruptions inside South
Africa. Integral to this leadership was making contact with
various internal supporters and groups, establishing cells
and rules of engagement, tracking the police state's
capabilities and responses, as well as training. As a
testing ground for building leadership and negotiating
skills, ZUMA could not have found a better job.

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Exile and Insider Status
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4. (SBU) In 1975, ZUMA fled into exile, living for the next
12 years mostly in Swaziland and Mozambique. As an up and
coming leader of the ANC in exile, he traveled throughout the
subcontinent, coordinating activities with the movement and
its allies. In the context of the Cold War, the ANC
gravitated to the Non-aligned Movement and other
anti-colonial players that supported African independence and
wars of liberation: i.e., the USSR, Cuba, East Germany,
Bulgaria, China, Libya, the Palestine Liberation
Organization, etc. In Swaziland and Mozambique, he
frequently returned to South Africa and continued with his
operational demands. He also mentored thousands of young
people, many of whom fled increasingly harsh conditions
following the 1976 Soweto Uprising against Bantu Education.
However, the primary focus of his work in this period was
leading ANC underground structures inside South Africa


5. (SBU) ZUMA occupied a number of crucial leadership roles
in the ANC. By 1977, he was made a member of the ANC's
Qin the ANC. By 1977, he was made a member of the ANC's
National Executive Council (NEC) and became the Deputy Chief
Representative of the ANC in Mozambique, and later, the Chief
ANC Representative to this country -- one of the few ANC
leaders to remain active in Mozambique after the GOM and the
SAG signed the Nkomati Accords. International pressure to
make the apartheid regime a pariah nation was gaining
momentum, raising the profile of the ANC in multilateral fora.

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Senior ANC Leader in the Cold War
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6. (SBU) The Cold War alliance between the ANC, the
Non-Aligned Movement, and the Soviet bloc was close and deep.

PRETORIA 00000953 002.4 OF 002


These relationships informed the ANC's world view of who
their friends were -- and were not. The USSR and its allies
provided the ANC and other African liberation movements with
training, weapons, and diplomatic and political support. The
East German (GDP) Intelligence Department (Stasi) routinely
trained ANC and MC intelligence, security, and military
personnel. The USSR offered military and security training
in Angola as well as inside Russia -- three months for
fighters, ten months for commanders. This training was posed
in the context of training of Marxist theory and the goals of
the communist/socialist revolution. As a member of the
SACP's Central Committee, in 1978, ZUMA received three months
of military training in the USSR. In his SACP bio, using the
code name Pedro, ZUMA says he studied Marxism/Leninism and
standard training included Marxist thought structures.


7. (SBU) ZUMA worked for the ANC in several African
countries and rose rapidly through the movement's ranks.
From the mid-1980s, he served on the ANC's Political/Military
Council out of Lusaka. In February 1984, one of the most
disturbing crises inside the ANC movement occurred -- the Pro
Democracy Mutiny by 90 percent of the ANC's young South
African troops against the brutality and authoritarian rules
and methods of the ANC's feared Department of Intelligence
and Security (aka, the NAT),of which ZUMA was a member. In
1985, ZUMA was a delegate to the ANC's Conference in Kabwa,
Zambia -- the last ANC party conference held in exile before
the party was un-banned in 1990. The NAT leaders during the
Quatro Mutiny were relieved of office, and the Kabwa
conference replaced them with ZUMA and his colleagues Joe
Nhlanhla and Sizakele Sigxashe. It was around this time that
he made his first entry to the biography he wrote for the
SACP, which he completed in 1989 at the ANC's Quatro Camp in
Angola.


8. (SBU) ZUMA was forced to end all underground and military
operations from Mozambique in 1987, as the SAG President P.W.
Botha pressured the GOM to expel all ANC elements. He moved
to the ANC headquarters in exile in Lusaka, Zambia. It was
during this period that he worked with his isiXhosa comrade
and rival Thabo Mbeki and others on the international agenda
of the ANC. In Lusaka, ZUMA became Head of the ANC's
Underground Structures and in 1987 was elevated to be Chief
of the Intelligence Department (aka, iMbokodo, "The
Grindstone),where he oversaw ANC covert and
counter-intelligence activities. Here too, ZUMA never public
discusses what happened on his watch as Intelligence Chief,
in Quatro or any other ANC operational area.


9. (SBU) In 1990, SAG President F. W. De Klerk released
Mandela from Robben Island, un-banned the ANC and other
political parties, and initiated negotiations with the goal
of ending apartheid and replacing it with a democratic
system. ZUMA was one of the first ANC leaders to return from
exile, and he played a significant role in events leading up
to the creation of new South Africa.

End Part Two
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