According to folklore, a cautionary tale is told in order to warn the listener of a danger. It consists of three essential parts: first, a taboo or prohibition is stated, then the tale itself is told or divulged by someone who disregarded the warning and performed the forbidden act. And finally, the violator comes to an unpleasant fate, which is frequently related in expansive and grisly detail. Or at least so the narrative goes.

Who knows what the final outcome of this cautionary tale and sordid affair will be, but one thing is certain: we have too many people in our intelligence community who clearly know absolutely nothing about intelligence.

Hadebe Hadebe was correct when he stated at the Zondo Commission that “intelligence includes covert human intelligence, direct surveillance, communications data, intrusive surveillance, bulk personal data, equipment interference, etc, all available for reckless public discussion”.

He continued: “Lapses in oversight and maladministration at SSA (State Security Agency) and similar bodies remain the responsibility of Parliament. It is, therefore, a huge mistake to either make public the nature of information that appears in the 2018 high-level review report, or what is currently being presented at the Zondo Commission. The underlying principle is that intelligence operations should never be on public display.”

I could not agree more. However, when one faction in the ANC made commitments to the voters (citizens) that it would clean up and rid us of corruption wherever it rears its ugly head, then we are faced with a very different prospect.

If indeed our intelligence services had only concerned themselves with what Hadebe described as “the intelligence community works with all structures of state, including the police, defence and other institutions to ensure the material and immaterial safeguarding of national interests. These interests can be security, political, economic and more.” If indeed they fulfilled this mandate, we would not have had to expose their infidelities.

After all, the difference between power and influence is that power (which is what Zuma used) is the capacity to get others to act based on positional authority that is exercised over others, often leading to resentment. Whereas influence (which is what Ramaphosa wants to do) is the ability to modify how a person develops, behaves, or thinks based on relationships and persuasion, often leading to respect.

When it comes to the SSA, the naiveté of the “senior officials” in the SSA is matched by people like Sydney Mufamadi: he thinks in “developed democracies” the intelligence communities of those countries are “accountable and transparent” – I mean, the British have massive arms deal corruption blocked from the public, manipulate the media, intervene in foreign countries’ elections (think of Bell Pottinger) – or just read Edward Snowden.

The concept of “human security” in our outdated white paper is highly problematic because it stems from the height of the neo-liberal doctrine at the time: individualism in the extreme. The problem is really that it had no strategic mission because the ANC is confused (ideologically and strategically), therefore the government is confused, and therefore the state is confused. 

In this vacuum, the state tries to run the government and the government tries to run the state (they interfere instead of governing and directing strategically).

We know that intelligence reform has happened in many countries: Russia is a good example, China is a good example, and the US, after the scandals of the CIA in Latin America in the 1980s.

Most agencies have completely reformed their services because of 4IR: we have just imitated the old system of the Boers (path-dependency). In the late 1970s or early 1980s there was the Information Scandal which cost BJ Vorster his premiership (BOSS infiltrated and bribed the press, and so on). Then Niel Barnard was appointed to reform the place. So, it can be done.

The doctrines the ANC used in the 1980s, which were highly successful, were the following (but they are all discarded as the place is not led or managed properly):

• Strategic mission-driven;
• Asymmetric doctrines;
• Indirect modes; and
• Outside-in approach.

That means: work from your current and future context (the threats and opportunities and vulnerabilities – allies, friends, competitors, adversaries and enemies, and so on) and then use that plus your grand strategy to design a national security strategy around which the intelligence strategy is designed. The structure of the organisation must then follow and fit the strategy (not vice versa). 

The agency does not seem to rely on what is supposed to be its foundations: intelligence ethics and intelligence tradecraft.

The 4IR necessitates the overhaul of the entire national security architecture of the country, anyway. And then it requires a sustained process of capability development and the development of intelligence effectiveness – the issue of democratic accountability in intelligence is complex for a simple reason: always operate permanently in stealth mode. As a friend of mine said, “The last time I checked, this was still a clandestine service, not?”

It operates permanently in stealth mode because other agencies permanently have surveillance on us and we do the same because your job is to steal or deduce the secrets of others – secrets are intelligence that others don’t want you to have. It is important for the public to understand this.

A complete and comprehensive restructuring/reorganisation of the capability of our security architecture is needed now.

Our context is one of antagonistic competition and rivalry between the US and China. Our eastern flank and rim is a major and central area of contention and contestation. And of so many more geostrategic considerations. Instead, we quibble over secret funds and party political leanings.

Hence, we need to traverse very dangerous terrain amid our only and primary national security priority: develop a new economy that is black-led, inclusive and ready for the 4IR world.

We need to refocus the debate on these serious matters instead of quibbling – that is not to say that anti-democrats and corrupt thieves mustn’t be bloody locked up fast, no matter who they are.

The private sector uses intrusive surveillance on its customers without consent on a mass and permanent scale: this must be stopped as they are neither transparent nor accountable.

The problem of intrusive surveillance by the private sector is in fact a much bigger threat because there are almost no mechanisms in place to make it transparent or accountable.

The South African oligarchs all have vast private intelligence businesses and they spy on their competitors and the state. For example, the Bell Pottinger British interference in democratic elections here and elsewhere in Africa poses a very serious threat to democracy. The legislation is outdated, the white paper is outdated, the architecture is outdated and the ANC is asleep and has no intellectual ideas left.

We have had the Potgieter Commission, Mathews/Ginwala Commission, O’Regan/Pikoli Commission and the Mufamadi Commission – all for what?

I make bold to say that we no longer have a strategic intelligence capability and we don’t know how to build such capability or how to manage it. The calibre of the people on the farm is such that they don’t know what is expected of them. Many are not even intelligence operatives.

So, when talking about the broadening and widening of security in the interest of the state, not general interests, Thabo Mbeki was correct in widening the mandate to include political and economic intelligence. Only a misunderstanding suggests this is a problem.

Throughout all this saga, one must wonder who could the scriptwriter be? Who indeed is the kingpin in this little drama? I mean, Agent Y in a coma, numerous operations we are told of like Project Wave, Project Tin Roof, Project Justice, Project Academia, and the setting up of the Central Directorate for Special Operations, reminiscent of the apartheid-era Directorate for Covert Collections.

When ANC comrades, myself included, were desperately angling and campaigning for Zuma and his ilk to lose at Nasrec (2017), we weren’t even aware of half of this shit going on. All the more reason why that victory was so very important to us all and why the loss for Zuma then was so devastating.

But a cautionary note: we will see the character assassination attempts on Shamila Batohi and Hermione Cronjé at the NPA in the coming months.

The secretary-general of the ANC will have to step aside, but his new office in Sandton will be waiting for him to continue the necessary political work in the ANC if the 2022 ANC elective conference is to be won.

Political killings will increase over the next few months, I’m afraid. And because the Ramaphosa team has successfully managed to close the taps of the state coffers to abuse and corruption, the Ace Magashule group is desperate for any funds. Hence the showdown at SAPS Crime Intelligence and getting rid of the head there, whose job it was to keep unwanted hands out of the secret fund. They have now succeeded in removing him and yet we see no decisive action from the minister nor the commander-in-chief, the president.

A complete and comprehensive restructuring/reorganisation of the capability of our security architecture is needed now.

As to how one dislodges the embedded interests in the services of, for example, the elites currently there, I will leave to the more qualified among us.

South Africa needs to strengthen its oversight mechanisms in Parliament by making sure that the committees for these issues are properly resourced and placed ahead of Scopa in terms of seniority.

I do hope you can observe that the unintentional consequence of this whole saga, Mr President, is an opportunity for you – a massive one at that.

Now, just do the right thing already. DM