South Africa’s intelligence services will ensure that ”mad rightwingers” threatening the peace will regret the day they were born, Intelligence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said on Friday.
”They might do well to check our credentials with (vigilante group) Pagad,” she said at the unveiling of a wall of remembrance at the National Intelligence Agency’s (NIA) headquarters at Rietvlei outside Pretoria.
Sisulu’s warning came hours after police began a nationwide swoop on alleged rightwingers plotting to topple the government.
The operation, which continued through Friday, yielded several arrests by noon. Eighteen rightwingers are currently into custody, having been arrested over the past two months on treason and sabotage charges.
Sisulu said the country’s intelligence services would spy ”for as long as there are bullies, and liars and madmen” in the world.
”For as long as mad rightwingers threaten our peace, we will shall ensure that they rue the day they were born.”
Her reference to Pagad (People Against Gangsterism and Drugs) was an apparent reminder of the successes of the intelligence community to help end a string of bombing attacks in Cape Town by members of the vigilante group.
The wall of remembrance outside the NIA headquarters was unveiled by President Thabo Mbeki, who also lighted a flame at the wall for fallen intelligence officials.
Deputy President Jacob Zuma also attended the ceremony. So far, 200 names are engraved in gold on the wall, among them 12 members who died while on active duty. The others died while in the service of NIA, which officially came into being in 1995.
NIA replaced the old National Intelligence (NI) organisation from the apartheid era.
Sisulu said there would in time be a third category of names in the wall — those who gave outstanding service to the intelligence community and the country.
It was envisaged that the wall would eventually be three times its current size.
Sisulu lauded the role intelligence services from opposite sides played before 1994 to pave the way for the constitutional negotiations that resulted in the current political dispensation.
”We showed the world what was possible when intelligence services were used as an instrument for good. We thank all of you here present that have chartered this path for us and allowed us to bask in its glory.”
Retired NI director-general Mike Louw represented the intelligence services of the old order at the event. Former Intelligence Minister Joe Nhlanhla also attended, in a wheelchair. He stepped down after suffering a stroke in July 2000.
Sisulu said November 29 would in future be set aside to celebrate and recognise the work of the intelligence community.
”Their successes (are) unknown and unacknowledged … and unsung. Such is the world the services inhabit, a very unnatural world.”
The occasion included a rendition of the Last Post and Reveille by a lone trumpeter. After Mbeki and Zuma each laid a wreath at the wall, the president took the salute from the national ceremonial guard.
Dignitaries then moved inside the headquarters for a closed ceremony where Mbeki conferred merit awards on a number of individuals, including Nhlanhla. – Sapa