would beg. After we had passed through customs, I took the teddy
bear back saying, “Thank you very much, have a good day,” before
disappearing into the airport crowd. It was an exciting and dangerous
life.’^2I showed the piece to one Free State politician who had spent a
considerable amount of time with Magashule in the 1980 s. His
unequivocal assessment of the teddy-bear story was that it was
‘bullshit’. ‘I was with Ace the whole time during those years, and I can
guarantee that it did not happen,’ he told me.
A second source, who also spent time with Magashule during the
1980 s, agreed. ‘It is true that Ace worked with money for struggle
operations, but that thing is not true,’ this source said. ‘It simply did
not work like that.’
Several other ANC stalwarts and former MK operatives agreed that
Magashule’s teddy-bear tale sounded outlandish. ANC veteran Khulu
Mbatha, who wrote Unmasked: Why the ANC Failed to Govern, said
it was highly unlikely that an underground operative would have used
such tactics to bring money into the country. ‘There was nothing like
that in those days,’ Mbatha told me. ‘Even if this were an actual MK
method of transporting money, a real MK operative would not dare to
disclose this.’
Another former MK operative, who served in one of the government’s
intelligence agencies after 1994 , called Magashule’s story ‘unrealistic’
and ‘bizarre’, telling me, ‘This is not how an MK operative would have
gone about it.’
Magashule’s interview for the ANC Oral History Project included
further details about his alleged cloak-and-dagger activities: ‘Well, we