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Who will trust our spies now?

LOOKING ABROAD: Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
LOOKING ABROAD: Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

THE recent Al Jazeera disclosure of leaked intelligence documents from the South African State Security Agency (SSA), has dominated international news.

Revelations include information on plots to assassinate Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, chair of the African Union Commission, to controversial cooperation with Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service.

The Israeli angle has been particularly puzzling to the general public considering how the South African government has aligned itself politically, morally and financially with the Palestinian cause.

In 2009, South Africa amalgamated its five intelligence services into the SSA in the hope of better intelligence coordination.

One challenge is the danger of now having "group think", and only one version of reality being presented to decision-makers.

A further perception is it is now easier for political elites to subvert intelligence resources for political gain by controlling the top.

Perhaps one of the most damaging disclosures affecting public confidence has been the leak of the secret 2009 National Intelligence Agency report of critical cyber security vulnerabilities in the South African intelligence community. A cyber hack can therefore be seen as one of the possible sources of the leak.

Articles by Al Jazeera based on leaked SSA documents relating to Israeli activities seemed to dominate the headlines.

Israeli bashing was definitely in vogue. One of the most dramatic disclosures included a Mossad report seeming to contradict Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu's 2012 presentation to the United Nations that Iran was within months of nuclear weapons capability.

This is particularly relevant to the international geopolitics of western efforts to negotiate a deal with Iran on restricting nuclear weapon technology development and Netanyahu's briefing to the US congress, with analysts saying "why should anyone believe him now?".

Most concerning for the public has perhaps been the fact that the SSA has been seen to be cooperating with intelligence agencies across the international political divide with requests to investigate NGOs such as Greenpeace, and the presence of Tamil Tiger terrorist training camps in South Africa.

Perceptions of an SSA out of control and not toeing the political line were exacerbated by those in the media spotlight such as radio talk show hosts, who seemed to hype this up as listeners expressed outrage.

Certainly the most critical impact, apart from public confidence, is how this will affect our spies' ability to do their work.

Picture this, a seedy downtown restaurant and Mr X of the SSA is trying to recruit a member of a radical organisation. This person is on the fringes of a terrorist cell. Recruiting him as an informer could avert a terrorist bomb plot. As Mr X makes his pitch, the potential informer asks: "Can you keep a secret? You are asking me to trust you with my life." It all goes downhill from there.

This illustrates the point that the intelligence community is like the commercial service industry - it lives by its reputation. Lose that and nobody wants to share their secrets with you.

The implications for South Africa therefore go far beyond the political and diplomatic level. There will be a negative effect on our security and intelligence capability.

Specifically the SSA's ability to effectively share and ask for critical information on areas of concern from other member states will be compromised.

The international intelligence community is by and large a professional network of member states' intelligence agencies that have a responsibility to monitor, evaluate and mitigate against state security threats, and include a wide array of other focus areas .

These leaks not only compromise SSA agents at our embassies operating under diplomatic cover, but also the intelligence networks of contacts, informants and information resources that have been built up over years.

Despite the redacting of names of agents in the reports published by Al Jazeera, the fact remains that analysis of reports can often indicate which station (embassy) they come from and from there it is easy to identify possible SSA agents, compromising their ability to work.

The greatest danger perhaps would be in the inability of SSA to find and plug the leak, resulting in a new impetus to the "secrecy" bill that would criminalise possession or distribution of state classified information - even public interest information on corruption.

This would make whistleblowing on state corruption an almost impossible task.

As public confidence in the guardians of our state wanes, the question arises: is it not time to have better control, oversight and transparency, including through the parliamentary joint intelligence oversight committee?

One thing is however highly probable; it will get worse before it gets better.

  • Roux is senior researcher and training coordinator in the Training for Peace Programme at the Institute for Security Studies

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