The past week has seen much speculation and excitement about the establishment of a permanent “Scorpions-like” entity to fight endemic organised crime and corruption.
In order to assess whether such a concept is appropriate to the South African situation we have to deal with two myths concerning fusion centres in general, and the supposedly successful Directorate of Special Operations (DSO, aka Scorpions) experience in particular.
The decision by the ANC NEC to support the establishment of an independent entity like the now-defunct Scorpions, and the statement by Justice Minister Ronald Lamola that the existing fusion capability dealing with Covid-related corruption must “grow organically” into a permanent structure are interesting and potentially well-intended moves.
They must, however, be approached with a critical and analytic eye in respect of the foundations for the arguments made in support of such an entity, and the reality of constituting a fusion centre from the embers of the slashed and burned ruins of the South African law enforcement and intelligence community.
Before we get caught up in the euphoria of yet another entity that will most surely, definitively and finally deliver the death knell to corruption and organised crime, let us consider a few factors that are critical to the success or failure of such an entity.
At this point, a bit of history might be useful.
The establishment of the DSO grew out of a decision in the mid-1990s to create an interim directorate in the NPA to investigate high level organised crime (the Investigative Directorate on Organised Crime – IDOC) due to the lack of credibility, capability and competence in the then-existing police investigative capabilities such as the local detective branches or the SA Police Service (SAPS) National Crime Investigation Service.
IDOC was specifically established to deal with organised crime in the context of novel legislation that made membership of a criminal organisation an offence – similar to the old racketeering legislation to be found in the US. Its modus operandi was that of an ad hoc, hybrid capability operating as an investigative-intelligence-prosecutorial triad.
Out of a circumstantial necessity to establish IDOC grew a political project to establish the Scorpions as a permanent capability, ie, to shift the balance of law-enforcement power from the SAPS to the Department of Justice.
The concept of fusion centres has a long history in US counter-terrorism, and a more recent one in IDOC and the Scorpions.
In this case the overwhelming weight of the effort was conducted by the intelligence capabilities outside the Scorpions, with the latter essentially being provided with ready-made cases, significant evidence and witnesses. Their task was simply to take matters to court, a task they performed with excellence.
In order to assess whether such a concept is appropriate to the South African situation, we have to deal with two myths concerning fusion centres in general, and the supposedly successful DSO experience in particular.
The success of US fusion centres, both in law enforcement and military or CIA targeting of high-value targets, lies in the fact that there exist separate and capable entities in the military, intelligence and investigative domains, but that the outcomes of their silo-centric efforts are less than the sum of their parts, ie, the fundamental problem is neither competence nor capability, but working at cross purposes.
The fusion model therefore optimises the joint capability of the respective institutions, ensures rational application of effort and resources, and produces effective and impactful targeting. It therefore achieves the intended effect of fusion, which is to integrate and achieve an impact that cannot be achieved when they function independently.
IDOC and the Scorpions posited as their most impressive achievement the neutralisation of the urban terror campaign and infrastructure linked to the organisation People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The neutralisation of Pagad urban terrorism is therefore presented as the outcome of a fusion-type operation, and a model to be replicated elsewhere.
While IDOC and the Scorpions were involved in the prosecution of the urban terror cases, their role was limited to prosecution, and their investigative capabilities played no central role in any of the investigations leading to the successful prosecution of Pagad members.
In this case the overwhelming weight of the effort was conducted by the intelligence capabilities outside the Scorpions, with the latter essentially being provided with ready-made cases, significant evidence and witnesses. Their task was simply to take matters to court, a task they performed with excellence.
The point in the last paragraph is that even this huge success bore no relation to the concept, let alone the reality of a fusion operation.
In fact, its success was probably made possible by the extreme compartmentalisation and secrecy practised by the intelligence capabilities working on urban terrorism.
Which brings me to the next point – capability.
Corruption in South Africa is not unconnected to the political economy of the country, to transnational organised crime and to the deterioration of the ANC into a political entity sans politics.
In respect of the urban terror investigations, Crime Intelligence and the then-National Intelligence Agency had developed deep and substantial intelligence capability to cover the threat, had capable leadership engaged in managing the operational and strategic elements of the effort, and had a camaraderie in collaboration that was unprecedented until then, and potentially unsurpassed hitherto.
These elements constitute some of the essential foundations for a successful operation against corruption, organised crime or any other serious national security threat.
Over the last 10 years the national security and intelligence capability of the country have been eroded, misdirected and neutered. What is left are a number of shells that consist of more or less equal parts corrupt, incompetent, and committed but compliance-centric civil servants.
With this kind of material, one cannot build a fusion capability worth its salt, and definitely not one to decisively and speedily root out the corruption that has become endemic to our state and private sector.
As the maxim goes, mixing shit with shit does not produce ice-cream.
How to produce the ice-cream then?
The first ingredient is strategic clarity, something rarely achieved in a rush of the sort we are now witnessing in the face of a concerted assault on the ANC and president’s credentials after the exposure of what appears to be extensive Covid-related corruption.
Corruption in South Africa is not unconnected to the political economy of the country, to transnational organised crime and to the deterioration of the ANC into a political entity sans politics.
Our efforts to defeat it must therefore be part of a broader strategic conversation on dealing with our politics, political economy, and national security.
In the short term, any fusion capability to combat corruption cannot be a fusion of existing institutions, but must instead be a fusion of individuals with the right combination of skills and experience, provided with the necessary financial, technical and material capabilities, and operating independently of the compromised extant security capabilities.
Such a conversation, meant to be initiated as part of the process to develop a national security strategy cannot be held in small rooms by “experts” of varying degrees of competence, but must take place in the broader society, thereby legitimising the outcome, while building a state-society resilience that is a prerequisite for combating corruption.
If the saying that “culture eats strategy for breakfast” is true, we require a decisive shift in institutional culture amongst the national security community, away from one of indecision, compliance as the primary driver of (in)action, and an acceptance of mediocrity in aims or performance.
This culture needs to be replaced by one of intelligent boldness and unity in purpose.
The Red Army Field Manual produced during the titanic and existential struggle against Nazism speaks to such an approach:
“The readiness to take responsibility upon oneself for a daring decision and to carry it out to the end in a persistent manner is the basis of the action of all commanders in battle. Bold and intelligent daring should always characterise the commander and his subordinates. Reproach is deserved not by the one who in his zeal to destroy the enemy does not reach his goal, but rather by the one who, fearing responsibility, remains inactive and does not deploy at the proper moment all the forces and means for winning victory.”
If the fusion centre becomes yet another on the long list of entities led by mundane and small-aim bureaucrats, our children will be burdened with a level of corruption that not even the boldest among us will be able to reverse.
In the short term, any fusion capability to combat corruption cannot be a fusion of existing institutions, but must instead be a fusion of individuals with the right combination of skills and experience, provided with the necessary financial, technical and material capabilities, and operating independently of the compromised extant security capabilities.
Such an entity cannot operate in the limelight, synchronising its activities with the media establishment as was the case with the Scorpions. The successes in the urban terror operations were due to diligent work carried out in the shadows, and brought to a decisive culmination at a time and choosing of its leaders, with no warning to either the perpetrators or any sympathisers they might have had inside the police or intelligence community.
In order to simply survive and then be effective a fusion capability has to be insulated from:
- The ANC and its internecine factionalist politics. Its leaders cannot, as has become the culture, report to Luthuli House when they have sworn loyalty to the republic and its Constitution;
- The existing security agencies, most of whom will make active attempts to influence, control or disrupt the activities of such a capability; and
- Political heads of departments, most of whom seem to be in a perennial process to maximise their own influence, resources and stature in a zero-sum game against each other.
A reversion to acting in haste, without sufficient deliberation, and building upon the empty shells that litter our law enforcement landscape, and entrusting this critical task to the mundane bureaucrats who prioritise form over substance will produce only further cycles of disappointment and despair, and embolden those who have turned to emptying out the state both of its finances and its purpose. DM
David Africa is a national security and geopolitical analyst with a specific interest in African security. He directs the African Centre for Security and Intelligence Praxis (ACSIP), a think and do-tank committed to developing South African national security capability. He writes in his personal capacity.
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