Tutu wants SA arms deal inquiry

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for a judicial inquiry into a controversial 1999 arms deal.

Jacob Zuma, leader of the governing ANC party, currently faces corruption charges related to the $4.8bn purchase.

If acquitted, Mr Zuma is almost certain to succeed Thabo Mbeki as South African president after elections in 2009.

Archbishop Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, said South Africa's real enemies were not military, but poverty, disease and homelessness.

"We need to do something about the arms deal," he said during a guest lecture at the University of the Western Cape, commemorating the late anti-apartheid activist and Justice Minister Dullah Omar.

"To buy sophisticated machines we did not need... would be laughable if it was not so serious"
Archbishop Tutu

ANC and the arms deal

"We owe it to those who paid a heavy price for our freedom, we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our future that a thorough independent judicial inquiry happens as a matter of urgency," the archbishop said.

The 1999 deal was the first major arms purchase by the ANC government, after the lifting of an arms embargo imposed during apartheid.

Charges

Mr Zuma's former financial advisor, Schabir Shaik, is serving a 15-year jail sentence on charges that included soliciting bribes in connection with the arms purchases.

A corruption case against Mr Zuma collapsed in 2006, but he is expected to go on trial again later this year after prosecutors say they have new evidence against him.

At the time of the arms purchase, Mr Zuma was a provincial ANC leader.

In another case connected to the arms deal, Tony Yengeni, a member of the ANC's national executive and a former MP, was jailed for fraud in 2006 but released after five months.

"To buy sophisticated machines we did not need, for which we did not have the trained personnel, would be laughable if it was not so serious," Archbishop Tutu said.

He also criticised the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation as being "sycophantic" and "an echo of His Master's Voice".

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