Parliament has secretly been training security staff in what witnesses describe as hand-to-hand combat moves to thwart unruly behaviour by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) when President Jacob Zuma answers parliamentary questions on Thursday. So wary are parliamentary officers of a repeat of the violence of November and February that a secret project, informally dubbed Operation EFF, has been implemented.Parliament's head of security, Zelda Holtzman, and her deputy, Motlatsi Mokgatla, were opposed to the special training and the recruitment of special staff, internal documents show. They were suspended on Thursday - ostensibly because of a break-in at EFF leader Julius Malema's office.Holtzman and Mokgatla were sidelined by parliamentary secretary Gengezi Mgidlana, an ally of National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete, who favours Deon van der Spuy, the institution's manager for access and assets. Known as an Mgidlana confidant , Van der Spuy was made responsible for "an exercise at a strategic level to improve parliamentary security".A July 17 memo from Mgidlana to Van der Spuy states: "Your recent experience in working on security on the 2015 state of the nation has put you in a unique position to support the secretary to parliament in this assignment."As a result of the appointment, the top-secret exercise began this week with parliamentary staff being ferried to a site in Belhar, on the Cape Flats, for special training. There, they have engaged in apparent hand-to-hand combat training and crowd-control techniques.The secret plan was carried out even before senior members of parliament finalised procedures to be followed if the EFF threatened to disrupt Thursday's proceedings.full_story_image_hleft1Parliament has become a site of intense tension and a struggle for control, particularly with the irregular use of police officers as part of its protection services.On Tuesday, Mgidlana's deputy, Baby Tyawa, stormed out of a meeting - chaired by Holtzman - with security officials.On Wednesday, at another security meeting lasting more than three hours, Holtzman made it clear that "driving duties are not part of protection duties".This was in reference to Mgidlana using parliamentary staff to ferry him and his family around, often in a vehicle fitted with a blue light.According to minutes of Wednesday's meeting - classified as restricted - "some protection services staff were approached by Mr Van der Spuy to be assigned to the special group for the chamber"."Furthermore, transport for non-protection service staff was booked using protection services budget".Holtzman and Mokgatla raised several concerns, including:The exclusion of parliamentary staff and the secrecy of the recruitment process;The selection process, which excluded certain well-trained protection staff; andThe exclusion of Holtzman and Mokgatla from the process.Both were suspended the following day...