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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 
 
 
------- 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶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. 
 
---------------------------- 
Building the ANC Underground 
---------------------------- 
 
¶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. 
 
------------------------ 
Exile and Insider Status 
------------------------ 
 
¶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. 
 
--------------------------------- 
Senior ANC Leader in the Cold War 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶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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