From IOL

Tim Cumming's 2004 holiday in Zimbabwe

South Africans tell of nightmare in Zim

April 02 2004

By Helen Bamford

Seven members of a South African expedition on the Zambezi river were arrested in Zimbabwe this week and spent two terrifying nights being interrogated by police on suspicion of terrorism.

They were released only on Friday after intervention by a Cape Town law firm which was contacted by one of the nine expedition members. He had smuggled a cellphone in his shoe after they were arrested by Zimbabwean police at Mana Pools and taken about 250km to Karoi.

The river expedition sponsored by Old Mutual, was supposed to be a safari adventure of a lifetime, plus a bid to bring attention to the devastating effects of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.

Moult told her the group had been deprived of food and water The seven taken to Karoi were Old Mutual executives Andrew Weinberg and Brent Wiltshire, entrepreneur William George, commercial attorney Bob Groeneveld, company director Mark di Nicola, neurosurgeon Patrick Semple and graphic designer Athol Moult.

All the men are from Cape Town, with the exception of Di Nicola, who is based in Johannesburg.

Di Botha of Cape Town, a friend of three of the expedition members, said she spoke by phone to one of them, Athol Moult, moments after the group had been released on Friday.

Moult told her the group had been deprived of food and water and had been separated and interrogated individually.

Botha said Moult had told her the police believed they were either part of, or had escaped from, the suspected mercenary group led by Simon Mann, who were arrested in Zimbabwe last month and were said to be planning a coup in Equatorial Guinea.

'It wasn't much fun being interrogated at 4am' At one stage police indicated they wanted to take the seven men to Harare to continue the interrogation.

Botha said one of the arrested men, Groeneveld, of the law firm Fairbridge, Arderne, Lawton Inc, had smuggled the cellphone in his shoe and phoned Old Mutual in Cape Town, which had contacted the law firm.

The firm then apparently sent a lawyer to represent the seven men - the two other expedition members had been left at their three motorised inflatable boats under armed guard.

They were Old Mutual executive Tim Cumming and company director Simon Espley.

The seven men were released from the police station in Karoi only once the lawyer presented a letter from the SA Department of Health, confirming that the expedition had been sanctioned.

Botha said Moult told her that once they had been released, their guards changed their attitude completely.

"They were told 'please come back to Zimbabwe, it's so good to have visitors'."

Lynne Semple, whose husband Patrick is an associate professor of neurosurgery at Groote Schuur Hospital, said she was extremely worried about the men. They had gone to a lot of trouble before the trip to make sure all their paperwork and permits were in order.

"I spoke very briefly to my husband but he told me it wasn't much fun being interrogated at 4am."

But she said he had indicated he was keen to finish the trip.

In a statement, Old Mutual said the men had been detained by Zimbabwean police as a result of a misunderstanding about their permits.

Chief communication officer of Old Mutual, Stephen Bowey, said they were working with the SA High Commission in Harare, which was in constant contact with the Zimbabwean authorities in an effort to resolve the matter speedily.

Bowey said the team obtained permits from the Parks Board in Kariba to enter the protected area of Mana Pools, but there had been a dispute about the validity of the permits, as no motorised transport was permitted in Mana Pools.

Moneyweb

Old Mutual's Zimbabwe nightmare

By: Jackie Cameron

Posted: 2004/04/05 Mon 13:00 | © Moneyweb 1997-2004

Old Mutual director Tim Cumming says he will return to Zimbabwe for a holiday - despite a harrowing ordeal at the hands of Zimbabwean police and intelligence officials who suspected him and eight others of being international terrorists. Cumming, chairman of Old Mutual Properties and former head of Old Mutual Asset Managers, is among of a group of South Africans on a fundraising journey along the length of the Zambezi River.

The Old Mutual Zambezi Wakka expedition aimed at highlighting the fight against malaria took a nasty turn late last week when Zimbabwean police detained seven of the nine for questioning.

Cumming and Simon Espley, director of a Cape Town financial "engineering" company, were held under police guard along with their boating and camping equipment at Mana Pools in the north of Zimbabwe.

Andrew Weinberg and Brent Wiltshire, both of Old Mutual Properties, entrepreneur William George, attorney Bob Groeneveld, Beige Holdings director Mark Di Nicola, Groote Schuur Hospital neurosurgeon Patrick Semple and photographer Athol Moult were taken into police custody. The seven were interrogated for at least 24 hours and deprived of sleep, food and water. Speaking to Moneyweb on satellite phone from Mozambique on Monday where the group were recovering in the tranquillity of a remote part of Lake Cahora Bassa, Cumming described the ordeal as "unfortunate" and "nasty".

"It's appalling this should happen. There was a long list of basic rights that were abused, however no-one was physically harmed," Cumming said. He told how his colleagues were "interrogated through the night and deprived of sleep".

"It was like a roller coaster ride. They would be interrogated, given the impression that everything was OK and feel elated - only to be interrogated again by a whole new interrogation team."

The line of questioning made it clear to the group that Zimbabwean authorities thought there was far more to the journey than nine guys on an adventure, said Cumming. The intelligence officers appeared to be probing a link to a suspected mercenary group arrested in Zimbabwe last month and said to be planning a coup in Equatorial Guinea. Also worrying, said Cumming, was that it had not been initially clear where his colleagues were being taken. The group managed to enlist the help of a Harare lawyer through SMS contact with others before their cell phones were confiscated. An Old Mutual team was formed to help resolve the issue and officials from the Zimbabwean ministry of health were called in to help vouch for the group.

Cumming said the drama began when Parks Board officials questioned the validity of their permits as motorised boats are not permitted in the wildlife-rich Mana Pools area.

"Initially we thought we would have to pay a fine or paddle out.but it became clear that it wasn't just an issue of permits. They took our passports. Later, a police inspector arrived saying they wanted us to go down to the police station."

As the nine and all their equipment could not fit into one police van, the group were separated, with Cumming and Espley left to fend off monkeys and hyenas while a police guard kept watch overnight.

"We were free to move around but we were worried about our colleagues. The level of questioning was quite intimidating, but everyone was resolute. No-one cracked," said Cumming.

The next day, once the confusion had been cleared and the group was re-united, the officials "were very apologetic" and urged the men to "come back" to Zimbabwe.

"I will personally go back. The people here are like in Zambia - very hospitable and anxious for your business," said Cumming.

"Under the circumstances at the moment, Zimbabwe is very sensitive with a number of alleged mercenaries. Then here was another bunch of nine guys with short hair cuts, physically strong and with three inflatable boats," he added.

The group will be back in South Africa in about 10 days time.

By: Alec Hogg

Posted: 2004/04/05 Mon 21:00 | © Moneyweb 1997-2004

MONEYWEB: Wayne McCurrie might know him as a director of Old Mutual, you might know him as the chairman of Old Mutual Properties, but some Zimbabweans think he’s an international terrorist. Old Mutual director Tim Cumming joins us now from Mozambique. Tim, you were on a fund-raiser and you and colleagues of yours, nine of you in total, spent some time with the Zimbabwe police being interrogated as being terrorists. What happened? TIM CUMMING: Yes, evening, Alec. Yes, we actually weren’t quite sure what we were being held for initially, but it was obvious with the benefit of hindsight and as things developed, it was clear that what started out as an apparent dispute over whether we had the right permits to be travelling down the Zambezi River on the Zimbabwean side quickly turned into the authorities being suspicious of our intentions and requiring us to – two of us had to remain in camp under police custody, whilst the seven others had to go into Chirundu for what was initially a fairly straightforward interrogation, and then turned into something of a nightmare for the seven guys involved, where it was clear, even though they weren’t laying charges, that they were being interrogated on suspicion of something covert, which couldn’t be further from the point because we were on an expedition to raise money to help fund malaria projects in the region – to help the people and not to do anything to destabilise them.

MONEYWEB: Tim, Old Mutual is a big name in Zimbabwe. Surely, just by saying that you’re from that company and the expedition you’re on is Old Mutual-backed – did that not hold any weight with the police?

TIM CUMMING: Certainly every time it was mentioned from my side, everyone knew about Old Mutual, but it didn’t seem to cut any ice. One can only surmise what it was that led them just to look past that and continue to press on for other information. Possibly it was that there is a line of command that goes all the way up, and no one wanted to make a decision and everyone was just told to keep interrogating. The information I had received more recently was that, given the fact that – I’m not sure but I think – the mercenaries or alleged mercenaries who were detained in that aircraft I believe are still in Zimbabwe, and I think the Zimbabwean authorities were afraid that someone might come and do something to release them. I’m sure they were on high alert for …

MONEYWEB: Did you have any weapons with you?

TIM CUMMING: No, no, no. The biggest weapon we might have is a fishing knife. We had no weapons and no need for weapons. So there was nothing. If you searched through our bags and looked through everything, there was absolutely nothing besides a couple of cell phones and normal camping kit.

MONEYWEB: And those cell phones – did they not come in useful? Could you not phone perhaps the South African High Commissioner in Zimbabwe, perhaps people back home, other Old Mutual people?

TIM CUMMING: Absolutely. We had two lines of communication, and there were some crossed wires, because I was back in camp under guard whilst the others guys were in the police station 100 kilometres away, and I could use the satellite phone that I’m talking to you on now to speak to our head of legal, Koos Stassen at Old Mutual, and he got the ball rolling. But the guys also were able to send SMSs from their cell phones, via their wives, to get information out to the High Commission and to media to get things rolling from that side once things seemed to hot up. But the cell phones were confiscated at about 10 o’clock the night they were arrested, and so I was the only one left with communications to the outside.

MONEYWEB: You said a “nightmare” for the seven guys who were arrested – amongst them a photographer, an attorney, a neurosurgeon from Grootte Schuur, a director of Beige, a couple of colleagues of yours from Old Mutual Properties – what do you mean by a nightmare?

TIM CUMMING: Well, I don’t know, I can’t speak for them – the nightmare was simply because they didn’t get to sleep all night. They were kept up through a roller-coaster of interrogation which, I think, is quite a standard approach where someone interrogates you, you think it’s all settled, they say it’s fine, you’re about to go, and then they stick you under the next string of interrogation with a new bunch of guys, and it starts all over again. There was no physical abuse or harm besides sleep deprivation and lack of food or water – but it was for 24 hours. But it is clearly very anxious when you are detained, you are not charged, you’re not allowed to contact your embassy, you have things confiscated, no one tells you why you are there, and you are just being pushed into a corner psychologically and mentally. I think for them it was 24 hours, for many people it’s a whole lot longer. They came through it with flying colours. I think as a team they worked very well, and stuck to their guns and I think they’re very relieved to be past it. Is it a nightmare? I’m sure they’ll get over it, but it wasn’ t a pleasant experience that anyone would wish on probably their worst enemies.

MONEYWEB: What kind of questions were they being asked?

TIM CUMMING: There were questions like what’s your favourite whiskey, or what’s your favourite pub, and what’s your name, and who are your best friends, to where did you receive military training and are you a member of the special services and do you have tattoos on your body of any sort. So it was a whole range of things and, I would imagine, I’m no expert on interrogation techniques, but that’s what they do, they just keep asking the same questions over and over again until they find something maybe that they can get a handle on and twist it. And there was nothing because we have nothing.

MONEYWEB: Tim, doesn’t this concern you though? You are a director of Old Mutual, Old Mutual has substantial assets in Zimbabwe. This does not seem to be the practice of a civilised police force?

TIM CUMMING: Yes, look, to be fair I must admit it was out of the hands of the police after a very short while. All of the encounters that I had and most of the guys had with the police were very civil and amicable. It was when other forms of intelligence – and I don’t know who they were, if they were CID, military intelligence, whoever they were, then things became a little more hairy. What I can say is that, having realised that they made a mistake, and it was a big mistake, even the CID, and they were very apologetic and contrite, whether that cuts ice with the guys who had to undergo some of the worst aspects that I didn’t have to – that’s up to them. But from an Old Mutual perspective I wouldn’t want to suggest that that kind of experience is something that is common or frequent. Clearly, people need to be cautious of where they are going in countries that do have some form of security alert. We thought we had those permissions, and it’s unfortunate that this happened. As a company, I’m talking personally but also from an Old Mutual perspective, we have to look for the positives and remember from a company point of view there are hundreds and thousands of customers and clients out there who are good, dependable citizens relying on us to deliver them a service.

MONEYWEB: But isn’t it sending a message to you? We’ve had on this programme on numerous occasions Zimbabwean businessmen saying to us things are out of control in Zimbabwe. They are pleading with us in South Africa to do something about it. Now you get a fund-raising trip to raise money for malaria research, of which Zimbabwe is going to be one of the beneficiaries, and you’re going through Gestapo-type tactics for 24 hours. What more has to be done before people like yourselves, Old Mutual for one – it’s a big powerful company – will say hey, no more?

TIM CUMMING: Look, Old Mutual is very committed to the countries where it has customers. If it has problems with regulations and authorities, it will deal with those as best as possible. Quite simply, if you’re just talking from a financial point of view, the very worst time to be selling a business or trying to exit a business is when things are in some kind of a trough. That’s the time to be able to look forward and see if you can see some light at the end of the tunnel, and work out how you’re going to come through. Maybe that’s a little bit over-optimistic, and that’s my style, but clearly there are problems that Zimbabwe has to work through. It’s an issue for those citizens. From a company point of view, my colleagues from the Zimbabwean part of Old Mutual deal with the authorities on a regular basis, and have a good relationship and understanding. And I hope and I’m sure, I don’t know when, things will get better.

MONEYWEB: Tim Cumming, a director of Old Mutual. Just makes one remember some wonderful sayings, amongst them “Evil thrives when good men do nothing” . I wonder if we aren’t going through something here that one day we’ll look back on and say well, we should have known what happened in Germany 1933 to ‘39 – good men did nothing.

IOL

At the mercy of Mugabe's secret police

April 17 2004 at 10:11AM

By Douglas Carew

The South African tourists who endured a day of hell in Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe's secret police interrogated them as suspected mercenaries, have given a gripping account of their ordeal. The official line from the Zimbabwean government is that the tourists, mainly from Cape Town, were held for questioning because they did not have permits to operate motorised rubberducks in the environmentally sensitive Mana Pools National Park. But two of the tourists told the Weekend Argus that it was clear that they were held on suspicion of being on a mission to rescue 67 men arrested in Zimbabwe last month on charges they were mercenaries plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea. 'We were held on suspicion of being mercenaries'

The nine South African tourists were on a 2 400km trip along the length of the Zambezi River from its source in Zambia to its mouth in Mozambique when they were rounded up by Zimbabwean National Parks employees armed with AK-47s on Wednesday, March 31. The following day, two of the team were left to look after the boats and equipment while the remaining seven were taken away and subjected to repeated rounds of interrogations and human rights abuses by various officials, including members of the secret police. The trip was essentially an adventure holiday for the tourists but it was also meant to raise funds to combat malaria in Zimbabwe. The tourists arrived back in Cape Town on Sunday, April 11 and the official line from Old Mutual, one of the trip's sponsors, was that the team had suffered a "minor setback when they were detained by police for a short period in Zimbabwe". But a Weekend Argus interview with one of the tourists uncovered far more disturbing details of how seven of them had endured hours of interrogations by armed men who denied them their basic human rights. One of them, Cape Town lawyer Bob Groeneveld, now safely back with his wife and three young children in Hout Bay, made it clear that all their permits had been in order. 'They looked exactly the way bad guys do in the movies'

Expedition leader Andrew Weinberg confirmed that the interrogations had nothing to do with permits for motorised boats. "We were held on suspicion of being mercenaries," Weinberg said.

The trip started in Zambia and turned into a holiday from hell when the team neared the Mana Pools in north-east Zimbabwe. "An hour before we reached the pools we were approached by two barefooted National Parks guys who appeared out of the bushes. They carried AK-47s and asked to see our permits. We showed them and they said fine," Groeneveld said.

But when the team got about 100m from the campsite at the pools, they were met by a boat carrying four National Parks men with AK-47s. "They asked us to follow them in and we didn't think too much about it."

Again they were asked to show their permits and one of the National Parks employees said he would have to contact his superiors but the phone lines were down. The following day five men arrived including one "in a big uniform with lots of badges".

"He was the local chief of police and said we had to go to Chirundu (on the Zambian border) for interviews."

The team initially said no, but in the end agreed that seven of them would accompany the police chief and two members would remain and look after the equipment.

"Then 17 more guys with AKs arrived and at that point we realised things did not look rosy. One of the guys in our team had a digital camera and I told him to take photos of all our permits so that if they disappeared we would have proof that we had them."

The seven were made to sit on the floor of a truck for the three-hour trip. "At about 6pm the questioning started. I asked if we could phone the South African Embassy and an attorney but they said 'no'."

At one point an interrogator slapped Groeneveld on the back and said there was no need to worry because the National Parks officials had made a mistake. "They said they would arrange transport back to our gear. We waited an hour and nothing happened. Then we were told there would be more interviews at Karoi (a town two hours away on the road to Harare)."

At no stage were the seven told why they were being held. "When we asked they would just shrug their shoulders."

The seven were then told that the secret police were coming to fetch them. "It was about 9pm now and things were escalating. They did not know that we had cellphones so I phoned a colleague in Cape Town (at the law firm Fairbridge Arderne and Lawton) and told her that I thought we were being held on suspicion of being mercenaries."

The police then confiscated the cellphones, except for one that Athol Moult slipped into the side of his shoe. At 10.15pm three men in black trenchcoats arrived. "They looked exactly the way bad guys do in the movies." The seven were packed into the back of a Land Rover for a two-hour journey to Karoi in the rain. "We were dressed in shorts and T-shirts and froze our b*lls off."

At Karoi they were herded into a room. "They then took us out, two at a time, to a room for questioning. Then they took four of us, loaded us on the back of a bakkie with about 13 guys in trench coats and drove off. This was two in the morning and we got no explanations." Groeneveld expected the worst. "I quietly said a few prayers and made my peace."

The bakkie stopped outside a building with three interrogation rooms. "We were taken in one at a time and questioned by five guys."

At every place of interrogation they had seen posters detailing the rights of prisoners, but when Groeneveld stopped to read a poster he was told: "That doesn't apply to you. Don't read it."

There were several rounds of interrogations and at one point an interrogator said: "This is s**t. I should be in bed with my wife."

At 4am a second group of interrogators arrived. "We endured another series of questions, especially about any military training. When and how did you serve? Your favourite weapon? That kind of crap."

At 5am the seven were told that everything was OK and they would be released at 6am. "It was all smiles."

Again nothing happened. "The next thing military intelligence guys arrived from Harare. An evil bunch. I asked if they suspected us of being mercenaries and they said 'yes'."

The interrogations continued and by 10am the seven still had no indication that anyone in the outside world had any idea where they were. "We were told we could be held for 30 days and not to worry because we only had 29 to go."

Then a young farmer walked into the police station and Groeneveld managed to slip him a business card. "I asked him to tell my firm to get us an attorney." Groeneveld also decided to risk using Moult's cellphone. He made the 30m walk to the toilet under armed guard and then tried to SMS the law firm. He was unable to send the SMS and decided to turn the phone off. "This guy with an AK-47 was standing right outside the toilet door and I figured the worst thing that could happen was for the phone to ring." Another farmer arrived, took one look at the state of the seven lying on the floor of the police station and went to buy them Cokes and pies. "He was a real life-saver."

Groeneveld also managed to slip a business card to this farmer. Then four more interrogators arrived from Harare and the questioning started again. "These guys would circle you for three or four minutes, not saying anything. Then they would ask your name and give you the evil eye again for several minutes."

In the meantime the two farmers had both called the law firm and a Zimbabwean attorney arrived at 1pm and told the seven that the firm had launched an application in an Harare court to have them released. At 2pm there was a call from authorities in Harare to release the men. "But the police chief just kicked our attorney out of his office and out of the police station. And there we sat."

About 90 minutes later the attorney returned to say the South African High Commissioner had been denied permission to leave Harare to visit the seven. Everything changed at 3.30pm when an official fax came through informing the police chief to release them. "He gave us this long speech saying it was all a misunderstanding. He hoped we would visit again and that there were no hard feelings."

The men were also asked to pay an admission of guilt fine for not having permits for their motorised rubber ducks. "We said forget it. We had been through seven rounds of questioning and we had done everything by the book. The police chief said 'if you don't want to sign that's fine' and handed us back our passports and cellphones."

The seven were packed onto the back of a bakkie and taken to their camp at the pools where they arrived at 9pm and were re-united with the two remaining team members.

"We went to the National Parks warden and said we would be leaving the next morning. We asked him if he wanted us to paddle out of the pools but he said 'no problem, just go'. All that s**t about motorised boats was just that - s**t."

The nine men set off at 6.30am and ultimately finished their expedition at the mouth of the Zambezi about 250km north of Beira. They flew to Johannesburg and then back home to their families in Cape Town on Sunday.

Groeneveld put the Zimbabwean authorities' heavy-handed approach down to fears that people would try to rescue the alleged mercenaries. "I guess tourists in Zimbabwe do look suspicious, because who the hell would go on a holiday there now."

.. This article was originally published on page 5 of The Cape Argus on April 17, 2004