Accusations of leaks to the police and links to an army propaganda unit are at the centre of a row at the SABC, write Mark Gevisser and Stefaans Brummer
SABC television faces a fresh internal controversy over spying in the newsroom — and the revelation that the new acting editor of Agenda was the commanding officer of the army’s civilian force propaganda unit while an executive producer at the SABC.
Producer Jacques Pauw has presented his superiors with strong evidence that one of his colleagues leaked his notes for an Agenda documentary on the red mercury scandal, screened on Thursday night, to the police.
According to Pauw, a senior investigating officer on the Stoffberg case showed him a file from the National Intelligence Service filled with notes that could only have come from his desk in the Agenda newsroom. Two of Pauw’s colleagues witnessed the interaction and saw the file.
In a memo written on December 5 last year to Agenda editor Ameen Akhalwaya, Pauw wrote that the incident “raised serious questions about the integrity and trustworthiness of my colleagues. I do not want to point a finger at any person, but it is known that certain staff members at Agenda have had a long-standing relationship with the security forces.”
Ironically, Akhalwaya has just been replaced by Nico van Burick, the newly-appointed acting executive editor of Agenda. Van Burick admitted this week to having been the commanding officer of the army’s civilian force propaganda unit, Saltie (Suid Afrikaanse Leer Troepe Informasie Eenheid), between 1987 and 1992; the unit’s primary function was to produce the army newspaper, Uniform.
During these years he was concurrently a journalist at the SABC. Previously, in 1979 and 1980, he had been editor of Uniform while serving in the permanent force.
He claimed this week that he has no current relationship with the military, and that he has no knowledge of the Pauw incident.
There is no evidence that Van Burick works for any state intelligence agency or that he had anything to do with the stealing of Pauw’s notes.
“But,” notes one Agenda staffer, “it is alarming that, even now after the elections, a man with an undisputed record as a senior propagandist for apartheid and an officer in a unit under the command of army intelligence can become the head of South Africa’s most important news information programme.”
Allegations were made in the Vrye Weekblad in 1992 by former SADF propaganda agent Nico Basson that some journalists who served in Saltie were recruited into the intelligence services of the army, as spies and disseminators of propaganda within the media they worked in.
Van Burick acknowledged this week that Saltie did fall under the command of army intelligence, but stated categorically that “this was an administrative relationship, and there was no way that myself or any other member of Saltie was involved in cloak and dagger activity or spying.
“What we did was the normal propaganda work that you find in any setup of that kind, be it an army newspaper or a corporate newsletter. All journalists were given the option of joining Saltie for their camp obligations, and we had people from all political persuasions; many of them joined up simply to avoid going to the infantry.” Indeed, Pauw himself was a member of the unit after completing his military service, until he became a conscientious objector.
In his memo to Akhalwaya, Pauw claims that, during his investigations into the alleged murder in July 1994 of armaments dealer Dirk Stoffberg, a senior policeman, Lieutenant Leonard Knipe, presented him with a thick file that contained printouts of notes from the hard drive of Pauw’s laptop computer, transcriptions of recorded interviews and handwritten notes, and copies of documents in Pauw’s possession.
The memo states that two colleagues, researcher Anna-Maria Lombard and cameraman Jan de Klerk, witnessed the incident. “When we met the police officer, he handed us a thick yellow file. The file contained all my notes, transcriptions of research interviews and tape recordings and documents I had made and found during our first investigation into Stoffberg.
“When I asked the police officer where the file had come from, he said from the National Intelligence Service. Lombard and De Klerk were present and saw the file as well … there can be little doubt that the notes and documentation … must have been stolen and photocopied from my desk at Agenda.”
Both Television News Production’s acting editor-in-chief Bob Kearsley and SABC chief executive Zwelakhe Sisulu were engaged in meetings with the Independent Broadcasting Authority and were unavailable for comment yesterday morning.