ANC vindicated as CIA admits to controlling Scorpions, inventing Aids

DURBAN. The U.S.'s Central Intelligence Agency has admitted to allegations levelled against it by ANC supporters in KwaZulu-Natal, conceding that it is controlling the Scorpions crime-busting unit and that it invented Aids. It added that it had been "totally outwitted" by the ANC cadres who made the allegations at public hearings over the fate of the Scorpions.

The hearings, currently being held nationwide to give South African citizens a say in whether or not the Scorpions should be disbanded, are called 'Why We Are Disbanding The Scorpions', and the ANC says the Durban sessions have been exceptionally well attended.

It denied that the turnout was directly proportional to the quantity of free finger snacks available at each venue.

The controversy erupted this week when delegates were widely quoted in the national media as calling for the dismantling of the Scorpions on the grounds that the elite investigative unit was being controlled by the CIA, and that the American spy agency had also invented Aids to decimate Africa.

They said that the accusations were based on "extensive evidence" gleaned from pamphlets ordered off the Internet, as well as the testimony of local teenager Tampax Balindlela who had been visited in a dream by a talking frog who had told her of the CIA's involvement.

Experts had expected the CIA to rubbish the claims, but this morning the Washington-based agency conceded that both allegations were true.

"We don't know how these simple people uncovered the truth, but they did," CIA director Theodore Machiavelli told journalists this morning.

He grudgingly praised the KwaZulu-Natal ANC's members for their "incredible ability to join dots, even when those dots weren't on the same page, or weren't even dots to start with."

"Many people would stop and think: why would the CIA want to control the Scorpions? Surely we've got more pressing issues to address than a grubby power struggle between two grubby factions struggling for control of a grubby little country that has no strategic interest to the United States?

"Likewise many would ask why, if we wanted to decimate Africa, we would invent a disease like Aids, which is difficult to transmit and takes years to kill its victims.

"Why wouldn't we just put contraceptives in the water supply, or release an airborne strain of Ebola into the air-conditioners at OR Tambo International?"

But, he added, the ANC's supporters had "looked beyond logic, probed beyond facts, searched beyond common-sense, and used organs other than their brains" to unearth the truth.

Asked why the CIA had invested so much time and effort in destroying South Africa's institutions, Machiavelli said that it was because the agency was "just plain evil".

Meanwhile the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal has welcomed the admission, and has called for Tampax Balindlela to be given an honorary degree in the Humanities and a lifetime supply of ANC-themed peak caps.