South Africa’s judicial probe into state seize and corruption, the Zondo Commission, has concluded that the State Security Agency was integral to the seize of the state by corrupt parts. These included former president Jacob Zuma’s mates, the Gupta family.
The agency has been unstable for a while. Previous investigations have made findings to enhance the efficiency of civilian intelligence. Yet issues regarding poor efficiency and politicisation persist. They escalated throughout Zuma’s tenure.
The fee’s hearings had been exceptional for an establishment that had change into used to operating secretly. Spies testified intimately, and in public, about what had gone unsuitable on the agency throughout the Zuma period (May 2014 to February 2018). Some did so at great personal risk.
I’ve researched intelligence and surveillance, and served on the High Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency. In my view, the Zondo report is a globally important instance of radical transparency round intelligence abuses. But it lacks the detailed findings and suggestions to allow speedy prosecutions. It additionally fails to handle the broader threats to democracy posed by unaccountable intelligence.
Covert operations
The fee heard proof pointing to fraud, corruption and abuse of taxpayers’ cash on the agency. It additionally heard how the Guptas benefited from these abuses. The agency shielded them from investigations that indicated they had been a nationwide safety menace.
The most vital advice is that regulation enforcement businesses ought to additional examine whether or not individuals implicated within the report dedicated crimes.
The fee expressed specific concern about covert intelligence tasks that seemed to be “special purpose vehicles to siphon funds”. It made particular reference to 3 individuals who needs to be investigated additional.
The first is former director-general Arthur Fraser, for his involvement within the Principal Agent Network. This was a covert intelligence assortment entity exterior the State Security Agency. It has been controversial for over a decade after investigations pointed to the abuse of funds.
The second individual is former deputy director-general of counter-intelligence Thulani Dlomo. He was chargeable for the Chief Directorate Special Operations, a covert construction which the report says ran irregular tasks and operations that would effectively have been illegal.
The most vital of those was Project Mayibuye, a set of operations designed to counter threats to state authority.
In observe, they and others sought to defend Zuma from a rising refrain of criticism of his misrule.
The fee found that the undertaking destabilised opposition events and benefited the Zuma faction within the ruling African National Congress.
The third individual is the previous minister of state safety, David Mahlobo. The fee discovered that he grew to become concerned in operational matters as a substitute of confining himself to government oversight. It additionally discovered that his dealing with of large amounts of cash, ostensibly to fund operations, wanted additional investigation.
According to the fee, Mahlobo’s predecessor, Siyabonga Cwele, did the identical by stopping an investigation into the Guptas and their affect on Zuma’s administration.
The fee concluded, based mostly on overwhelming proof, that Zuma and Cwele didn’t need the investigation to proceed. Had it continued, it may have prevented at the very least a few of the actions that led to the seize of the state by the Guptas and the lack of billions in public cash by way of corruption.
Recipe for abuse
The fee additionally addressed a few of the deeper components that predisposed the State Security Agency to abuse.
One of those was the amalgamation of the home intelligence department, the National Intelligence Agency, with the international department, the South African Secret Service, into a brand new entity, the State Security Agency, in 2009.
The fee discovered that the amalgamation had disastrous penalties, because it allowed many of the abuses it examined to occur. The two entities had been merged when it comes to a presidential proclamation. Yet the structure requires intelligence companies to be established by way of laws. This meant that till legislation was launched in 2013, the safety agency operated and not using a clear legal basis.
It was extremely centralised, permitting a super-director-general to regulate all actions. This made abuse simpler for an appointee with corrupt intentions. The agency was additionally based mostly on a state safety doctrine, quite than a people-centred doctrine.
This doctrinal shift prioritised the safety of the state from criticism, and the president extra particularly, quite than the safety of society.
Ministerial political overreach into operational issues heightened the potential for abuse.
The fee additionally discovered that the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence, the Inspector General of Intelligence and the Auditor General had did not train correct oversight. This meant the exterior checks and balances on the State Security Agency had been weak to non-existent.
Weighing the Zondo report
The battle for extra accountable intelligence has been strengthened by way of the Zondo report’s publicity of abuses. But most of the findings and suggestions are imprecise and normal. The fee may have been extra particular about upgrading the Inspector General’s independence, as an example. Likwewise the Auditor General’s capability to audit the agency.
The fee may even have made extra of the proof offered to it. And it may have been extra categorical about when it thought criminality had occurred. At instances, the report does little greater than restate the suggestions of earlier enquiries.
These embrace an investigation into the Principal Agent Network programme in 2009, offering prima facie proof of criminality.
Another is the report of the 2018 High Level Review Panel, which confirmed that the agency had been politicised and repurposed to learn Zuma.
An important hole within the Zondo report pertains to the infiltration and surveillance of civil society, and the agency’s broader menace to democracy.
Little is manufactured from the truth that, in keeping with a lately 2017 declassified performance report, the agency claimed to have infiltrated Greenpeace Africa, the Right2Know Campaign, commerce unions and different civil society organs.
The spies masqueraded as activists. They reported again to the agency on supporter strengths, fundamental actors, ideology, assist buildings and agendas.
The report’s creator, a safety agency member, boasted about these and different accomplishments, corresponding to infiltrating the social media networks of the Western Cape #feesmustfall scholar motion.
Looking forward
In the preparations to research and prosecute wrongdoers chargeable for the abuses by the State Security Agency, its infiltration of civil society should not be allowed to fall below the radar. It should obtain as a lot consideration as all of the instances of grand corruption which might be going to maintain the National Prosecuting Authority busy.
Otherwise, the social forces that would probably carry deeper and extra significant adjustments to society could stay targets of state spying, as has been the case elsewhere.
Jane Duncan, Professor, Department of Communication and Media, University of Johannesburg
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