State security files obtained by the Mail & Guardian under the new Bill of Rights are empty or inaccurate — suggesting police have hidden or destroyed the information they collected during the 1980s. By Weekly Mail Reporter
THE Mail & Guardian’s campaign to have the government release security information collected in the 1980s has revealed … empty files.
For the first time, police have released a security file, only to reveal that it has almost no information in it, and what it has is mostly wrong.
The police are either hiding the information they collected in the past – – including information about individuals who are now leading members of the government — or they have destroyed the files.
The Mail & Guardian asked the ministers of Safety and Security and Defence for certain files in terms of the constitutional right to state information. We asked for:
* Files on the newspaper itself * Files on co-editor Anton Harber * Files on the assassinated Swapo leader, Anton Lubowski * Files on the ministers themselves, Sydney Mufamadi and Joe Modise.
The newspaper instructed lawyers to take court action if the files were not delivered.
Section 23 of the new Bill of Rights entitles one to any information held by the government or any of its organs insofar as this information is required for the exercise or protection of his or her rights.
This week, Safety and Security Minister Mufamadi said the police had no file on the Weekly Mail & Guardian. This is despite the fact that during the 1980s the security police opened scores of dockets and conducted dozens of investigations into the paper. The editors appeared repeatedly in court to answer charges that arose from security police investigations.
The newspaper was closed for a month in 1988 on the basis of information collected by, among others, the police and military intelligence. Now they say this information does not exist.
They did deliver a file on co-editor Harber, but it was scanty and filled with errors.
Mufamadi declined to give further files, saying “police files in principle remain confidential in the public interest and in the interest of the particular individuals”.
But government sources have revealed that attempts by members of the new government to see their own files have been frustrated because the files are empty. There is a strong suspicion in government circles that the files have been destroyed or hidden.
Modise has not yet supplied any military intelligence files, but has delayed the matter by asking for further information. The Mail & Guardian has supplied this and is awaiting his response.
Modise declined to supply the file on Lubowski on the grounds that the matter is “sub judice”. This has been strongly contested by the newspaper’s lawyers since there is currently no case in progress, and this should not anyway override the constitutional right to information.
The Mail & Guardian is consulting lawyers to see if the matter can be pursued further in terms of the constitution. “This demonstrates that the constitutional right to information has no teeth as it stands. This points to the need for a Freedom of Information Act,” one legal adviser said.
“If one does not establish rules for preserving this information and mechanisms for supplying it to those who are entitled to it, then the constitutional right is meaningless,” he said.
But the lack of police files is likely to heighten fears that the authorities systematically destroyed files before handing over power to the new government, destroying much valuable information and making it impossible to trace much of what happened in the past.
If this is so, it will severely hamper the work of the Truth Commission, due to begin sitting in October.