Are we really to believe that a member of South Africa’s parliament lured 17 South African men to Russia with the promise of training and employment in the security industry, which turned out to be a scam that resulted in them being used as mercenary cannon fodder for Russia’s war in Ukraine?
Well, we could, given that the MP in question is the MK Party’s Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, daughter of former president Jacob Zuma.
The delightful Ms Zuma-Sambudla has form for nefarious acts that range from the cunning to the cretinous, with a decided bias toward the latter. She is currently on trial, accused of posting tweets that helped incite the July 2021 unrest after the arrest of her father for contempt of court, riots that led to the deaths of 354 people.
And Zuma-Sambudla sure does love Russian President Vladimir Putin, as she keeps braying about on social media. (Sample tweet: “I am a proud South African but I identify as a Russian. #IStandWithRussia!”)
A report by the UK-based Centre for Information Resilience identified her as a super-influencer in South Africa for a pro-Russia social media campaign, and she was an early adopter and passionate spreader of the #IStandWithRussia and #IStandWithPutin hashtags. She parrots Moscow’s anti-West propaganda at every opportunity and makes much of the relationship between Zuma and Putin. She is entirely on the side of Russia in the war with Ukraine, apparently able to effortlessly reconcile Russia’s invasion of a country with its claim to be a noncolonising power.
DA leader John Steenhuisen has gone so far as to tell the Financial Times in an interview that he believes that the MK Party is funded by Russia, though his proof (the party apparently had “gazebos and branded clothing”) seems a little tenuous.
Meanwhile, Nkosazana Bonganini Zuma-Mncube, stepsister of Zuma-Sambudla, said in a statement: “These men were lured to Russia under false pretences and handed to a Russian mercenary group to fight in the Ukraine war without their knowledge or consent. Among these 17 men are eight of my family members.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office said it “received distress calls for assistance to return home from 17 South African men, ages 20 to 39, who are trapped in the war-torn Donbas”. News24 journalists contacted some of the men, who, along with their families, alleged that apart from Zuma-Sambudla, “a woman named Siphokazi Xuma-Zuma and a man named Blessing Khoza were responsible for sending them to Russia”.
News24 also reported the testimony of one of the trapped men, “also a relative of the former president”.
After we signed them, we did our training and found out that everyone is talking about we are going to war
— An alleged victim
He said: “They took us as if we were going for [military] training. After that, everything changed, and then we were brought to war, a war zone.” He added that the men were left confused when vague “contracts” were given to them upon their arrival in Russia. He alleged that it was Zuma-Sambudla and Khoza who convinced them to sign the contracts even though they did not understand them.
“When we declined to sign the papers, because there was no translation at that time, Blessing Khoza and Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla came to convince us that we must sign these papers. [They] said that these papers were for training [and] that the Russians are playing with our minds,” he said. “After we signed them, we did our training and found out that everyone is talking about we are going to war.”
If true, this is quite the betrayal of family members. I doubt any of us would be surprised to learn that Zuma-Sambudla was happy to sign away her South African loyalty to Russia. After all, selling off bits of South Africa is pretty much her family business at this point. Her father’s contribution to state capture springs to mind.
But the idea that you can just sell your family members to die as Russian cannon meat, to use their lovely expression, is horrifying. And it’s worth reminding ourselves that the Russians describe their waves of suicidal infantry attacks, specifically when referring to poorly trained conscripts being thrown into heavy fighting in Ukraine, as “meat assaults”. Hashtag I Love Putin indeed.
Daily Maverick notes that penalties for contravening South Africa’s anti-mercenary legislation and its laws against human trafficking include fines, imprisonment or both. The penalties can be severe — “a potential fine of up to R100m and/or imprisonment for up to life for the primary offence of trafficking”.
Given the unsuccessful attempts to bring Zuma-Sambudla’s father to justice, I won’t be putting money on any sort of swift retribution for her own alleged (always alleged) crimes. But one hopes that this will give her more fervent supporters pause.
The scammers who do the grunt work for the big industrial scam industry are often themselves victims of human trafficking and forced labour, working in compounds across Southeast Asia.
The term pig butchers, according to the London Review of Books, describes online scams in which scammers pretend to develop a relationship with their target over weeks or months, “fattening them up” by building trust and emotional investment. Once you’ve got the victim’s confidence, you get them to invest in a scheme such as crypto. Ultimately, the victim loses their money.
There are also fish butchers, “who are tasked with luring internet shoppers into submitting prewritten reviews on spoof websites before entrapping them into pyramidal cryptocurrency investments. Or bird butchers, ordered to post fake ads — bird nets — on dating websites or shopping platforms and lure victims into sending them money.”
So what kind of butcher is Zuma-Sambudla, accused of luring her own family members into a scam that threatens their very lives? Or perhaps the Zumas are more like battery farmers, happy to cosy up to an authoritarian regime that is the very antithesis of our constitutional democracy and offer up their fellow South Africans as part of whatever weird deal they have with that regime.
If you can send off South Africans to die as unwitting mercenaries in an unjust war, it really does make it clear that you feel nothing but contempt for the people you claim to represent.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.