FRIDAY, 5.30PM
The treasury under the former National Party government made more than R50-million in taxpayer’s money available to South Africa’s State Security Council in 1984 to fund its first five-year plan to undertake covert operations, the Eastern Cape’s Daily Dispatch reported on Friday.
A list of the covert operations is contained in a secret draft report compiled by a study group comprising representatives of the State Security Council secretariat, top defence force and police generals, the head of the national intelligence services and foreign affairs officials.
The report was handed to the newspaper on Thursday, and it was given to thwe truth commission some time ago.
According to the report, high-profile people took part in the study to:
* discredit well-known anti-apartheid opponents, including TRC co-chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu;
* supply the SABC with propaganda material.
The study group included then SA Defence Force chief General Constand Viljoen, now Freedom Front leader, then NIS chief Niel Barnard, now director-general of the Western Cape provincial government, Hans van Dalsen of Foreign Affairs and former police commissioner General Johann Coetzee.
At the time it was felt by the group that too many projects had been implemented across a wide front and that there had been a shortage of funds as well as a lack of expenditure authorisation from foreign affairs. It is clear from the report that SA’s security, military and intelligence organisations had been involved in a multitude of covert propaganda projects, funded by taxpayers, to infiltrate organisations and companies in South Africa and overseas, the newspaper reported.
It added it was also apparent that the security apparatus of the then government had used taxpayers’ money to enlist and pay defence force personnel and civil servants to assist with covert operations. According to the report, taxpayers’ money was also spent on various projects to infiltrate overseas public relations firms and to sponsor conferences and seminars attended by foreign visitors — without the knowledge of the visitor and in many cases even the host organisation. The treasury had, according to the report made R50-million available of which the SADF had already made available R10 million at the time. The group also recommended that a full-time staff of 2 651 members be appointed from within the SADF and other state departments, the newspaper said.