Agents of the previous government’s National Intelligence Service have been displaying an unusual interest in the RDP, report Drew Forrest and Wiseman Khuzwayo
THE National Intelligence Service (NIS) has taken it upon itself to police the reconstruction and development programme — provoking an angry response from President Nelson Mandela’s office and the office of RDP Minister Jay Naidoo.
The Weekly Mail & Guardian knows of two cases where NIS agents have approached individuals, claiming to be acting on behalf of the RDP. In one case, the intelligence agency interviewed a senior official of the Pretoria branch of the South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco).
NIS comprises the intelligence agents of the previous, white-dominated government. It has yet to be integrated into the new, legitimate structures of the National Intelligence Community (NIC), which will include members of the ANC’s department of intelligence and security (DIS).
Questioned this week about the NIS’s role in respect of the RDP, its spokesman, Willem Theron, confirmed their interest in backing up the government policy: “The NIS and a future intelligence agency’s role is to provide the government with intelligence on any matter related to security and stability.
“The successful implementation of the RDP is seen as a key element of ensuring social and political stability, and as such the NIS is instrumental in providing the government of national unity with timely intelligence on any aspect threatening the government’s programmes, including the RDP.” He declined to give specifics.
This has provoked an immediate response, with experts and politicians pointing out that it is the NIS’s role to protect the security of the state, not to ensure the smooth-running of government policy; the NIS is charged with watching those who break the law, not those who oppose government policy.
Military consultant Jakkie Cilliers, director of the Institute for Defence Policy, expressed concern that actions taken in the name of the RDP may just be duplicating the “total onslaught strategy” of the apartheid era.
“Justifying intelligence activities in this way follows the tradition of the previous national strategy. It can easily become an excuse to justify budgetary expenses.”
Approached for comment, Mandela’s spokesman, Joel Netshitenzhe, said Mandela would request a report from the NIS. He added: “It is the firm view of the president that the government is totally opposed to attempts by any agency to snoop on citizens who are not involved in unconstitutional or illegal activity.”
And Fred Oberholzer, spokesman for Naidoo, strongly distanced the minister from any activities undertaken by NIS in defence of the RDP. “We have never requested the NIS to collect any information on our behalf nor have we asked them to speak on our behalf,” he said.
Pending legislation, the NIS has yet to be integrated into the new National Intelligence Community, which will take on more than 900 ANC intelligence agents. It and other intelligence services are unchanged since the apartheid era.
Sanco’s Pretoria secretary, Jackie Masemola, said that in June, two NIS agents — Peter Small and a Myburgh — had approached him, saying they were co-operating with Naidoo’s office on the RDP.
Masemola said the agents claimed they were interested in security matters in the townships as an aspect of RDP implementation, and wanted to have formal meetings with him. They also expressed a particular interest in the reaction of Sanco’s constituency to the petrol price increase.
The request was discussed by Sanco’s Pretoria executive on June 29. The minutes of the meeting note the executive agreed that “these meetings (between NIS and Masemola) should continue to ascertain their (the NIS) role in the RDP”.
Masemola said this was not a green light for him to establish formal contact with the NIS agents. Sanco had approached Naidoo’s office to verify the NIS claim and was still awaiting a response. In addition, the general council of Sanco had discussed the matter and had recommended caution in dealing with the NIS.
In another incident, the housing co-ordinator of the non-governmental organisation Planact, lawyer Carien Engelbrecht, said she had been interviewed by an NIS agent after giving a speech early this month at a high- level housing conference which alluded to illegal immigrants living in the Johannesburg inner city.
A member of the Planact management committee had been present at the interview.
Engelbrecht said a certain Greta Bezuidenhout, an NIS section head operating from an office in Braamfontein, had told her the intelligence agency “was investigating issues which threatened the attainment of the RDP”, including illegal immigration.
Bezuidenhout had asked for the source of Planact’s statistics on immigrants and had offered to share information “in the interests of the RDP”. She had also implied that her information-gathering exercise had the backing of PWV Safety and Security minister Jesse Duarte.
Last week Duarte vehemently denied this, saying she would follow up the issue with the NIS.
“The questions related to existing or potential clients,” Engelbrecht said. “It was very creepy and we didn’t co-operate.”
It has also been learnt that the secretary of Sanco’s Northern Cape region has been suspended for, among other things, holding secret meetings with NIS agents on Sanco premises. The nature of these dealings could not be established.