Stefaans Brummer
THE all-pervasive influence of South Africa’s securocrat chiefs in the mid-1980s — through an intricate web of covert propaganda projects — has been revealed in a classified State Security Council document released by former spy Craig Williamson.
The 1984 document audits “strategic communication” (stratcom) projects run by the police, the military and the Department of Foreign Affairs under the supervision of the State Security Council.
The police oversaw projects such as The Aida Parker Newsletter. The rightwing newsletter was not started by the police, but the document says police “are currently using it and much success is being achieved with propaganda against the ANC”.
The Department of Foreign Affairs ran a number of overseas projects, including a West German news service aimed at “countering … negative reporting on South Africa”.
Among the South African Defence Force projects were:
* Project Guano, intended “to build the image of the security services among all population groups”;
* Project Elevate, to give support to Malawi’s President Kamuzu Banda;
* Project Santa, which co-ordinated military help to the government of Swaziland;
* Project Seeppot (soap pot), intended to influence the media and create front organisations to boost security aims;
* Project Whale, which tried to build the image of Unita leader Jonas Savimbi;
* Project Drama, to build the image of the Zipra opposition in Zimbabwe;
* Project Balalaika, to harm the morale of Cuban troops in Angola.
* Project Lake, to raise suspicion in Zimbabwe about the government of Robert Mugabe and “inculcate dissatisfaction with the system of government”.
* Project Zodiac, to “use the reverend Ndabaninge Sithole and his party to sow dissatisfaction with the Zimbabwe government”.
* Project Bisen, to raise suspicion internationally about the Lesotho government of Chief Leabua Jonathan and damage his authority among the people of Lesotho.
* A large number of “church and cultural” projects, aimed at countering the influence of liberation theology, discrediting cultural enemies of the apartheid state or building “moderate” values. “Africa” churches were, for example, “influenced by means of front organisations such as Geopende Deure (Opened Doors)” in an operation called Project Anvil, while “revolutionary theology” in the Catholic Church was countered by a front organisation called Total Family Planning.
These propaganda projects — known in security parlance as “stratcoms” — were aimed to influence attitudes and events in all spheres of South African life, influence international opinion, and damage the “enemies” of South Africa. Almost 2 000 SADF members, in addition to numerous employees of other government departments, were at the time working on stratcom projects, and the budget ran into tens of millions of rands.
Front organisations, covert propaganda and the media were extensively used, and years after the “Infogate” scandal, covert support was still being given to publications to influence opinion, the document reveals.
Authored by South Africa’s top 12 security brokers – including then-chief of the SADF General Constand Viljoen, National Intelligence head Dr Niel Barnard, Foreign Affairs director-general J van Dalsen and police commissioner General Johan Coetzee – the document was the result of a study which aimed to improve inter- departmental co-operation in the implementation of stratcom projects.
The authors call strategic communication “one of the state’s mightiest weapons in recent years”.
The document says the police were “currently involved on covert territory in a wide range of stategic communication actions intended to fight the enemies of the RSA on all terrains”. Police projects included:
* The Security Forces Support Committee: It was started to counter the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee and the Black Sash and was “run” by the police in co- operation with the SADF.
* The Aida Parker Newsletter: The document says although the right-wing newsletter was not started by police, police “are currently using it and much success is being achieved with propaganda against the ANC”. The SADF, according to the document, also gave “inputs”.
* Industry International: This was a newsletter, about to be launched at the time, which would have been run from London.
* SABC – Target Terrorism: The document says this was a programme initiated by the police and police played “a leading role in providing information to the SABC”.
* A range of covert projects against the United Democratic Front, the student bodies Nusas and Cosas, the Azanian Peoples’ Organisation, the SA Council of Churches, trade unions and community organisations, “mainly with the aim of … impeding their organisational capacity”.
The Department of Foreign Affairs ran a number of projects to “improve” South Africa’s image abroad. They included:
* Radar: This was a Paris-based organisation headed by one Leon Delbecque, “mainly focused, by means of psychological warfare, to boost South Africa’s case in Europe and the European Parliament, and to counter propaganda actions originating from the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity”.
* A West-German news service, headed by one Jo(umlaut)rg Wilhelmy, aimed at “nautralising or countering the extremely negative reporting on South Africa” in the German-speaking countries of Western Europe.
* Projects to invite and sponsor opinion formers, decision makers and experts to South Africa. While Foreign Affairs sponsored the trips, the guests often did not know the true origin of the invitation or sponsorship, as these were chanelled through other organisations.
* Three projects on the sponsoring, acquisition and distribution of “expert” publications, locally and overseas, “on subjects that can boost the case of South Africa, without the state being linked” to the publications.
* Agreements with the German PR firm Hennenhoffer to invite top foreigners to South Africa and the French PR firm Aderi to “improve South Africa’s image overseas”.
* A yearly contribution to the Institute for Strategic Studies to “boost issues affecting South Africa internationally” by means of conferences and publications.
* Financial help to the Southern African Forum.
The SADF made by far the greatest contribution to stratcom projects, and was allocated hard propaganda – “the co-ordinated management of propaganda, counter- propaganda and information supply, aiming to influence opinions, feelings, attitudes and actions of neutrals, allies and enemies” – inside South Africa.
Significantly, other government departments and “institutions such as the SABC” could be “tasked to give the necessary support to the SADF in terms of, for example, personnel, technical support, etc”.
SADF projects were divided into the categories of “information operations”, “motivation” and “psychological operations”. Information operations included:
* Projects with codenames like Alborak, Tadpole, Girasol and Becket, all intended to “create climate” for defined purposes such as military co-operation with homeland governments, or to start a Southern African Military Treaty Organisation. Project Guano’s – perhaps appropriately-named – aim was “to build the image of the security services among all population groups”.
Motivational operations included:
* Overt projects named Harmonic, Dipole, Honey Ant, Weefspoel, Watent and Bates, with the aim of influencing categories of people like school headmasters, youth and womens’ groups.
* Project Elevate, which gave support to Malawi’s President H Kamuzu Banda.
* Project Tsafoon, which had to influence whites in the old South West Africa positively as regarded their future there.
* Project Canteen, which was aimed at hiding South Africa’s involvement in building a military base in Gabon.
* Project Santa, which co-ordinated military help to the government of Swaziland.
* Project Arianne, which used a Moroccan newspaper to build South Africa’s image as an African power”.
* Project Flask, intended to boost South Africa’s image as “reliable negotiator” in Iraq.
* Project Layer, which co-ordinated and propagated military co-operation between South Africa and Israel.
Psychological operations included:
* Project Seeppot (soap pot), intended to influence the media and create front organisations to boost security aims by means of newsletters, magazines etc.
* Project Diver, which intended to influence television and film organisations.
* Project Babushka, which used student front organisations to counter Nusas, the Black Students Society and “other radical organisations such as the UDF”.
* Project Weiveld, which aimed, nationally and internationally, to “psychologically disrupt” the ANC and organisations including SACOS, the UDF, Cosas and Azapo.
* Project Breakwater, which aimed to “psychologically disrupt” Swapo.
* Project Destitute/Yam, which tried to boost the image of Angolan rebel movement Unita.
* Project Whale, which tried to build the image of Unita leader Jonas Savimbi.
* Project Capsize, which aimed to boost the image of the BCP-opposition in Lesotho.
* Project Drama, to build the image of the ZPRA- opposition in Zimbabwe.
* Project Detach, to sow dissatisfaction with the MPLA- government in Angola.
* Project Balalaika, to harm the morale of Cuban troops in Angola.
* Project Lake, to raise suspicion in Zimbabwe about the government of Robert Mugabe and “inculcate dissatisfaction with the system of government”.
* Project Zodiac, to “use the reverend Ndabaninge Sithole and his party to sow dissatisfaction with the Zimbabwe government”.
* Project Bisen, to raise suspicion internationally about the Lesotho government of Chief Leabua Jonathan and damage his authority among the people of Lesotho.
* A large number of “church and cultural” projects, aimed at countering the influence of liberation theology, discrediting cultural enemies of the apartheid state or building “moderate” values. “Africa” churches were, for example, “influenced by means of front organisations such as Geopende Deure (Opened Doors)” in an operation called Project Anvil, while “revolutionary theology” in the Catholic Church was countered by a front organisation called Total Family Planning.
Project Serato tried to discredit Bishop Desmond Tutu and Alan Boesak nationally and internationally and “counter their influence”, while Project Wanmeul’s aim was “to use the Zion Christian Church for anti-revolutionary activities”.
Project Wolga’s aim was to “use an inter-denominational organisation” to boost the “moderate theological ethical views that exist in the Reformed Churches”.
A number of “supporting service” projects were also run by the SADF, with aims like training selected members of all government departments in propaganda techniques, to train leaders of resistance movements in neighbouring states and selected politicians and others in “public administration of a state founded on democracy and a free market economic system”, or to “train and place” selected leaders in specifically targeted communities.
Supporting services also included the management of high- powered radio transmitters to transmit propaganda and block “enemy propaganda”.
The 12-man committee, in its findings, suggested that greater co-ordination could be achieved by establishing a committee, chaired by the Prime Minister (then PW Botha) and including the ministers of Foreign Affairs, Law and Order and Defence, as well as the head of National Intelligence, the commissioner of police, the director- general of Foreign Affairs, the chief of the SADF and the secretary of the State Security Council, to meet at least twice a year to evaluate terrains of strategic communication.
A working group, consisting of the security bosses but excluding their political bosses, were to meet more often to evaluate projects and propose new projects.
The scale of Strategic Communication becomes apparent in the large numbers of government employees who were involved in it. It appears from the document that a State Security Council directive of 1980 envisaged a Strategic Communication personnel complement of 2 651, of which the SADF in 1984 was providing 1 931.
A budgetary addendum to the document shows that the costs of a planned expansion of the programme alone would be R53-million.