Red Ronnie's faith in the holy trinity

Patrick Laurence talks to Ronnie Kasrils about the state of readiness of South Africa's intelligence services.

Summary - The terror attack on London on 7 July poses a challenge to intelligence services throughout the world, South Africa’s not excepted. So, too, do the earlier assaults by aerial pirates on New York on 11 September 2001 and by underground bombers on Madrid on 11 March 2004.

The question intelligence services have to confront in the context of these attacks is whether they are alert and competent enough to succeed in thwarting would-be assailants similarly intent on destabilising the countries and demoralising the populations intelligence chiefs are sworn to protect.

South Africa can seek refuge from anxiety in the justified deduction that it is not a frontline target, having neither incurred the bitter wrath that Bin-Laden and like-minded Muslim fundamentalists feel for the United States nor supported in word and deed the US-led invasion of Iraq.

But South Africa needs to take account of the devastating car-bomb attacks on the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, in which 225 people were killed, the overwhelming majority of them Africans who had no quarrel with either the United States or al-Qaeda.

South Africa’s Intelligence Services Minister Ronnie Kasrils addresses the question of “international terrorism” in his 2005 budget speech. “We do not discern any imminent threat,” he says in the speech. He prudently attaches a rider, however: “Since no country can claim immunity from [the terrorist] scourge, we remain vigilant.”

His list of intelligence service successes includes, inter alia, “exposure of a network involved in nuclear proliferation”. This almost certainly refers to the arrest in September last year of three men alleged to have been in possession of machinery that could be used for enriching uranium, which is, of course, an indispensable component in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

Enriched uranium is the common factor in the allegations against the men and the concern of newly installed NIA director-general Billy Masethla about the disappearance of “weapons of mass destruction” from a nuclear enrichment programme run in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), when it was ruled by Mobutu Sese Seko4.

Masethla’s fear that the missing weapons-grade uranium from the DRC/Zaire might have found its way into the hands of terrorists, or criminals prepared to sell it to the highest bidder, raises the terrifying prospect that the next attack might involve the use of small but awesomely powerful nuclear devices.

Kasrils, judging from his budget speeches in 2004 and 2005 and from his responses to questions posed by Focus, relies strongly on two maxims to counter terrorism.8 The first is what he describes as the “holy trinity” of intelligence services: efficient collection of “quality information”, detached and incisive “evaluation and analysis” of the information, and “timely” presentation of the information to government decision-makers. The second is co-operation and sharing of knowledge with intelligence services around the world.

Kasrils argues in favour of what he labels political intelligence and economic intelligence. Political intelligence is defined by the NIA as the monitoring of developments that may threaten South Africa’s stability. Kasrils defines economic intelligence as the identification of economic opportunities for South African entrepreneurs. Swart is sceptical on both counts: he fears that political intelligence could open the way for surveillance of opposition political leaders by the NIA and that economic intelligence may be skewed in favour of companies headed by ANC notables.

Kasrils, a graduate of the Odessa Military College in the former Soviet Union and of a specialist course in intelligence at the same institution, is a former chief of intelligence in the ANC underground army, Umkhonto we Sizwe. In reply to a question about the relevance of his experience as the MK’s chief of intelligence to his present position as Minister of Intelligence Services, he states that it has “obviously” provided him with “useful experience”.

One hopes that he has learned valuable lessons from the deficiencies as well as the strengths of the ANC intelligence department, ANC counter-intelligence operatives having failed to prevent the recruitment of several prominent members of its leadership corps by agents of the previous South African government.

The terror attack on London on 7 July, in which at least 52 people were killed, poses a challenge to intelligence services throughout the world, South Africa’s not excepted. So, too, do the earlier assaults by aerial pirates on New York on 11 September 2001 and by underground bombers on Madrid on 11 March 2004, in which 2 752 and 191 people lost their lives respectively.

The record so far is not auspicious, considering the failure of two of the most resourceful and best-funded intelligence services in the world — those of the United States (CIA) and Britain (MI5) — to foil the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks. The failure of Spanish intelligence agents to anticipate and prevent the 11/3 attack on Madrid’s transport system adds to the psychological discomfort generated by the apparent ability of fanatical extremists to strike at will, particularly those linked to, or inspired by, Osama Bin-Laden’s al-Qaeda.

South Africa, of course, can seek refuge from anxiety in the justified deduction that it is not a frontline target, having neither incurred the bitter wrath that Bin-Laden and like-minded Muslim fundamentalists feel for the United States nor supported in word and deed the US-led invasion of Iraq.

But South Africa needs to take account of the devastating car-bomb attacks on the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, in which 213 and 12 people were killed, the overwhelming majority of them Africans who had no quarrel with either the United States or al-Qaeda1. A corollary flows from that: short of severing diplomatic ties with the United States — which would be to cower before the threats of fanatical bigots — African states cannot assume they are politically immune to attacks by al-Qaeda or any of its off-shoots.

His list of intelligence service successes includes:

“Capture of mercenaries” plotting to overthrow the Equatorial Guinea government.

“Deportation of international terrorists” skulking in South Africa, a reference that applies to Khalfam Khamis Mohamed who was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the Nairobi bombing after he was extradited from South Africa for trial in the United States.

“Disruption of urban terror activities”, a catch-all phrase that almost certainly includes the success achieved by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), acting in concert with the South African Police Services and Directorate of Special Operations alias The Scorpions, in halting urban terror attacks in which vigilantes of People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) were implicated.

“Exposure of (the operations in South Africa) of a network involved in nuclear proliferation”.

The last of these items deserves expanded attention as it almost certainly refers to the headline-making arrest in September last year of three men suspected of contravening the Nuclear Energy Act and the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Act. The trio, one of whom, Johan Meyer, has turned state witness, are alleged to have been in possession of machinery that could be used for enriching uranium, which is, of course, an indispensable component in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

The two men against whom Meyer is expected to testify when the trial proper starts are engineering firm directors Daniel Geiges and Gerhard Wisser. Investigators are scrutinising the intriguing and potentially significant possibility of a link between them and Abdul Khan, a former head of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme. Khan is alleged to be devoting his skills and energy to obtaining nuclear components for “rogue states” intent on producing their own nuclear weapons in defiance of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.3

Enriched uranium is the common factor in the allegations against Geiges and Wisser and the concern of newly installed NIA director-general Billy Masethla about the disappearance of “weapons of mass destruction” from a nuclear enrichment programme run in Zaire when it was ruled by Mobutu Sese Seko4. Zaire is known today as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), having been so renamed after the fall of Mobutu in 1997.

Whether there is a politically relevant connection between the two events, or whether there is merely a coincidental similarity between them, is as yet unclear. But, whatever the explanation, Masethla’s concern about the unaccounted for disappearance of weapons-grade uranium from the DRC should not be peremptorily dismissed, given his high status in South Africa’s intelligence community.

His fear that the missing weapons-grade uranium from the DRC/Zaire might have found its way into the hands of terrorists, or criminals prepared to sell it to the highest bidder, assumes an ominous focus in the context of the 7/7 attack on London. It raises the terrifying prospect that the next attack might involve the use of small but awesomely powerful nuclear devices.

Paul Swart, a member of the joint parliamentary committee on intelligence, and spokesperson for South Africa’s opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) on intelligence matters, believes there is a need for informed debate on the issues raised by Masethla during an interview with the Sunday Times. So far, however, Masethla seems to be a lone voice on the potential threat posed by the missing uranium. Perhaps the stock-phrase responses to Masethla’s disquiet by the Belgium secret service and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have discouraged public discussion.5

As the former colonial ruler of the Congo, Belgium has an interest in developments there, while the IAEA has a mandate to keep track of all nuclear power projects, particularly where the line between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons is blurred. In Belgium’s case the apparent nonchalance on the missing enriched uranium may, however, be prompted by a desire to distance itself from Mobutu’s regime which, though seen for years by Western conservatives as an important ally in the Cold War, acquired the status of a kleptocracy or a system of government pervaded by thieves.

To refocus on Kasrils’ list of successes by South Africa in neutralising potentially perilous developments, a central point needs to be made: past successes by counter-intelligence agents against conspirators planning major terror strikes are no guarantee of future successes. As The Economist notes in an editorial on the London bombings, London-based intelligence operatives claimed to have “thwarted quite a number of attacks in recent years,” including one involving the use of “deadly poisons,”6 yet they were apparently taken by surprise on 7 July.

While vigilance is, as Kasrils observes, manifestly necessary, it does not guarantee immunity against major terror strikes: intelligence services in the United States knew that Bin-Laden was planning a major assault on the “Great Satan”, as he refers to the United States, but they did not know when, where or how7. In retrospect it is clear that the hijacking of airliners for use in massive aerial kamikaze assaults on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon was not considered to be a serious possibility.

Kasrils, judging from his budget speeches in 2004 and 2005 and from his responses to questions posed by Focus, relies strongly on two maxims to counter terrorism.8 The first is what he describes as the “holy trinity” of intelligence services. The second is co-operation and sharing of knowledge with intelligence services around the world.

The constituent parts of the “holy trinity” that guides South African intelligence operatives are, firstly, efficient collection of “quality information”, secondly, detached and incisive “evaluation and analysis” of the information, and, thirdly, “timely” presentation of the information to government decision-makers9. The crux of intelligence is foreknowledge, Kasrils expatiates. He illustrates his point by referring to the assassination of Julius Caesar. Reporting the murder of Caesar is not intelligence. Information that Brutus and Cassius are conspiring to assassinate him is. As Kasrils puts it: “Anticipation must be our holy grail.”10

On the second maxim Kasrils quotes Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzales with approval. Gonzales believes that if the leading intelligence services pooled their information on terrorism they would have 95 per cent of the picture. He adds a corollary: the strongly held intelligence maxim about restricting information to those who need to know should be replaced as far as practicable by a dictum that stresses the need to share information.11

Given the importance attached to the anticipation of terror threats and the continuous collection of information to facilitate early detection and appropriate counter-action, the amount of revenue devoted to the South Africa’s intelligence service appears to be minute. As Kasrils notes for the financial year 2004-2005, it constitutes hardly more than 0,5 per cent of the total government budget. Considering that South African intelligence has two major components — the NIA (which operates within South Africa’s borders and South African Secret Service (SASS), which operates beyond them — that seems minuscule. But, as Kasrils observes, the trend is upward, the allocation having doubled over the past four years.12

DA intelligence spokesperson Swart thinks it is adequate, however. He stresses that South Africa’s long-term security depends on the efficient delivery of social services as much — if not more — as it does on the skills of intelligence agents in the collection of information and the detailed analysis and creative synthesis of it. He praises Kasrils – with whom he appears to enjoy a friendly relationship within the paradigm of South Africa’s adversarial political system — for striving to devote an increased share of the budget to intelligence operational work, even though it may mean having to cut down on the large percentage absorbed by the salary bill of ministry personnel and NIA and SASS agents and their auxiliaries.

Kasrils is a high-ranking member of the South African Communist Party (SACP). He is not, however, a South African equivalent of Lavrenti Beria, the much feared and utterly ruthless chief of the Soviet Union’s security service, NKVD, under the dictatorial Joseph Stalin. His speeches contain not infrequent commitments to using his power to uphold the constitution and, with it, the bill of rights. There have been no serious charges of abuse of power against him by his political opponents. He appears to enjoy cordial relations with Swart and, more interestingly, with Neil Barnard, the head of the National Intelligence Service under the previous government. It should be noted en passant that Barnard played a vital role in preparing the way for the settlement negotiations of 1990 to 1993 that led to the democratisation of South Africa. Kasrils and Barnard are known to exchange views from time to time, one recent manifestation of fraternal relations between the two spy chiefs being the presence of Barnard as a guest at a luncheon in parliament after Kasrils’ 2005 budget speech.

While the NIA keeps a watchful eye on political developments, as it did during the recent upsurge of protest in black townships across the country, its primary purpose is to ensure that, to quote Kasrils, “public safety is not threatened”. It does not, Kasrils emphasises, take sides in factional disputes within political parties or in rivalries between political parties.13

Kasrils, however, argues in favour of what he labels political intelligence and economic intelligence. Political intelligence is defined by the NIA as the monitoring of developments that may threaten South Africa’s stability.14 Kasrils defines economic intelligence as the identification of economic opportunities for South African entrepreneurs.15 Swart is sceptical on both counts: he fears that political intelligence could open the way for surveillance of opposition political leaders by the NIA and that economic intelligence may be skewed in favour of companies headed by ANC notables. On the last point Swart specifically mentions Mvelaphanda Holdings headed by former ANC provincial premier Tokyo Sexwale, whose recent recruits include immediate past NIA director-general Vusi Mavimbela.16

But it is important to record that the exchanges between Kasrils and Swart, whether spoken or written, are characterised by mutual respect and are free of personal rancour. It would be hard to image Hendrik van den Bergh, the head of the dreaded Bureau for State Security under the previous white-controlled government, engaging with his political foes in a similarly rational and restrained manner.

Kasrils, aged 67, a graduate of the Odessa Military College in the former Soviet Union and of a specialist course in intelligence at the same institution, is a former chief of intelligence in the African National Congress underground army, Umkhonto we Sizwe. He describes himself as the MK intelligence chief in an exchange with Focus. In reply to a question about the relevance of his experience as the MK’s chief of intelligence to his present position as Minister of Intelligence Services, he states that it has “obviously” provided him with “useful experience”.

That is undoubtedly so. But one hopes that he has learned valuable lessons from the deficiencies as well as the strengths of the ANC intelligence department, ANC counter-intelligence operatives having failed to prevent the recruitment of several prominent members of the ANC leadership corps by agents of the previous South African government during the armed struggle against apartheid.

Two of the most prominent ANC leaders who were indubitably ensnared by the ancient regime’s department of military intelligence are:

Solly Smith, alias Samuel Khanyile, the ANC’s chief representative in London and, significantly, a member of the directorate of the ANC’s security department, Imbokodo (which means, roughly, the stone-that-crushes); and,

Francis Meli, the editor of the ANC journal, Sechaba whose dedication to communism was so great that he assume a nom de guerre derived from the initials of the Marxist Engels Lenin Institute (i.e. Meli) in Russia.

The ensnarement of the two ANC leaders is instructive: a foreign agent, driven by monetary considerations, Major Kojo Boakeye-Djan, a Ghanaian, suborned them, exploiting in classic fashion, their susceptibility to, or, less charitably, craving for, alcohol.17 But according to Patricia de Lille, leader of the Independent Democrats, Smith and Meli are the proverbial tip of the iceberg. She is on record as charging in parliament that eight senior ANC leaders, including the man who became the first minister of intelligence in the post-apartheid ANC government, Joe Nhlanhla, were suborned into becoming covert agents of the apartheid government.

South Africans had better pray that De Lille is either completely off-course or that Kasrils has acquired greater efficiency in the skills of counter-intelligence or, better still, that De Lille is misinformed on ANC men who were lured across the line and Kasrils is strategically positioned to prevent future crossings.

Endotes
1. 1998 US Embassy Bombings, Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia.
2. 2005 budget address entitled, Meeting the challenges of the 21st Century.
3. Mail &Guardian online: Nuclear weapons case transferred to Pretoria, 18 May 2005.
4. Sunday Times, 6 February 2005: SA fear of Congo nukes.
5. Ibid
6. The Economist, 9-15 July 2005.
7. Sunday Independent, 10 July 2004: Al-Qaeda’s strength is that it is a mindset not an organisation.
8. Focus question and answer interview with Kasrils, 19 May 2005.
9 Budget speech, delivered on 17 May 2005.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. 2004 budget speech, Reviewing national security after 10 years of democracy.
13. Reply to a parliamentary question on 9 March 2005 published on intelligence service website.
14. NIA Annual Report, 2002-2003.
15. 2005 budget speech.
16. Letter to The Star, 31 May 2005.
17. State Informers in the ANC London Office, Searchlight South Africa, June 1995.