Stefaans Brummer
UNIVERSITY of Pretoria student leaders this week accused the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) of bias against the ANC-aligned South African Students’ Congress (Sasco) during an invesigation into campus
NIA agents visited a number of university campuses last month to gather information for a report to Cabinet’s intelligence and security committee on the wave of student unrest. The NIA this year succeeded the old National Intelligence Service.
University of Pretoria Student Representative Council chair Jacob van Garderen said he and another student leader had been visited by an NIA agent on May 11. “She (the agent) said that Cabinet was worried about violence and instability on campuses, and that it was suspected there was a force behind it, especially among left-wing organisations on campus.”
Van Garderen said he was “concerned” about the agent implying that there was a hidden agenda behind the activism of Sasco. “What (Sasco is involved with) on our campus are genuinely contentious issues, and I don’t think their leaders are being used unwittingly.”
An NIA representative said the approaches to student leaders had been overt. “It is just another source of information for the government.”