OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 8.45am.
PEOPLE should debate the matter of whether or not the military should use journalists as informants, because the issue is complex, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Thursday.
He said claims that Defence Intelligence is trying to recruit journalists as spies are “still under investigation.” “The SANDF has never taken a decision that journalists must be recruited, nor has it taken a decision that they must not be recruited,” Lekota said.
“The SA National Defence Force has not taken any decision either way on the matter,” the minister said, adding, “maybe I should ask Cabinet first and open a discussion on this matter, or even on the floor of Parliament.”
He said he was trying to establish whether there is any substance to claims by the SA National Editors Forum that Defence Intelligence had tried to recruit a senior journalist as a source of information.
“In return for comments and analysis, DI offered to provide tip-offs for stories as well as improved access to the official intelligence community,” Sanef said in a statement released earlier on Wednesday.
Lekota said the intelligence community would use anyone able to provide information and that he did not have details on how the intelligence community operates.
“If, for instance, you are going to deploy SANDF members in any area, I would think it is a hopeless intelligence that would not pick on any source that might provide information making it possible for you to protect SANDF members.”
Sanef said the Defence Intelligence agent claimed that he had already recruited a number of journalists who had agreed to participate.
Sanef said such clandestine methods of gathering information were reminiscent of strategies adopted by the security police under the apartheid government and called on the governnment to desist with such practices.