The Rise and Fall of South Africa’s Intelligence Community during Apartheid

Abstract

The author explores the context that contributed to the evolution of the South African Intelligence Community (SAIC) from political police to an independent security state during the apartheid, nondemocratic regime (1961–1994). It also assesses the circumstances that led to the demise of authoritarian rule and the reform of the intelligence apparatus. It finds that such factors as the security landscape, changes in leadership, and enabling legislation assisted the SAIC’s consolidation of power as political police, morphing it into an independent security state during that period. Subsequently, leadership, liberalization measures, scandals, and inquiries contributed to the demise of the apartheid intelligence apparatus and the slow emergence of a democratically inclined SAIC.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 William Blum, West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Political Memoir (New York: Soft Skull Press, 2001), p. 190; Glen Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” Connections, Vol. 20, No. 1 (2021), p. 63; Jessica Piombo, “Civil-Military Relations in an Emergin Democracy: South Africa,” in Routledge Handbook of Civil–Military Relations, edited by Thomas C. Bruneau and Florina C. Matei (Routledge, 2012).

2 Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” pp. 62 and 63.

3 The nondemocratic, essential security state of South Africa was constructed iteratively as the country faced different levels of threat through various eras: the perceived threats from the European nations and their colonial legacies—most notably a “landwards invasion” and the continuous vulnerability to and risk of “an internal uprising”—in the 1960s; economic crisis, increasing international isolation, in the 1970s; and the overall antiapartheid resistance and struggle throughout the 1990s. Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 62; Abel Esterhuyse, “The South African Threat Agenda: Between Political Agendas, Perceptions and Contradictions,” Security and Peace, Vol. 34, No. 3 (2016), pp. 191–197; Kevin A. O’Brien, The South African Intelligence Services: From Apartheid to Democracy, 1948–2005 (Routledge, 2010), p. 41; C. Alden, Apartheid’s Last Stand: The Rise and Fall of the South African Security State (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996), p. 192. The national security threat was based on a perception: “A perceived campaign by foreign (especially communist) countries and South African left-wing movements against the Nationalist government and its policies, believed to be aimed at weakening South Africa through offensives in the military, economic, psychological, social, political, and cultural spheres.” Dictionary of South African English, https://dsae.co.za/entry/total-onslaught/e07268. With the threat perception affecting all spheres of society, it became known as the “total onslaught.”

4 The Soweto uprising (or Soweto riots), which started on 16 June 1976, included several successive demonstrations and protests by some 20,000 black students from schools in Soweto. The demonstrators protested the mandatory teaching in Afrikaans in black schools. The protests resulted in over 170 dead students. Michael Gallager, “The Birth and Death of Apartheid,” BBC, 17 June 2002; “State of Emergency Imposed throughout South Africa; More than 1,000 Rounded Up,” New York Times, 13 June 1986, https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/13/world/state-of-emergency-imposed-throughout-south-africa-more-than-1000-rounded-up.html as well as “State of Emergency in the Mid-1980’s,” https://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/multimedia.php?kid=163-582-8

5 “State of Emergency in the Mid-1980’s.”

6 The SAIC was born with the establishment of the Military Intelligence (MI) function. After independence in 1961, and under the guidance of B. J. Vorster, the Bureau for State Security grew in prominence at the expense of the two other primary Intelligence Community members, the MI and the Security Police (part of the South African Police Service). These organizations and their mandates were enacted in (among other pieces of legislation) the Security Intelligence and State Security Council Act No. 64 of 1972, repealed by the National Strategic Intelligence Act No. 39 of 1994; Kenneth W. Grundy, “The Rise of the South African Security Establishment: An Essay on the Changing Locus of State Power,” The South African Institute of International Affairs, August 1983, pp. 11–16. Also see BOSS, https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/bureau-state-security-boss (accessed 7 April 2023). Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 66 and Glen Segell, “Who Rules South Africa? The Infogate Scandal,” The Institute for European and American Studies. Research Paper 174 (2018), p. 14; Thomas C. Bruneau and Florina C. Matei, “Intelligence in the Developing Democracies: The Quest for Transparency and Effectiveness,” in The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, edited by Loch K. Johnson (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 757–773, at p. 760. Also see, Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 62.

7 Republic of South Africa, Establishment of a New Department of State—Bureau for State Security. Government Notice No. 808 (16 May 1969), pp. s1–2.

8 Segell, “Who Rules South Africa?,” p. 8.

9 “Apartheid was a political system with the legislated white rule only by descendants of European settlers and the subjugation of all indigenous non-white people, who did not have the right to elect or be elected” (Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 63). The national security threat was based on a perception: “A perceived campaign by foreign (especially communist) countries and South African left-wing movements against the Nationalist government and its policies, believed to be aimed at weakening South Africa through offensives in the military, economic, psychological, social, political, and cultural spheres.” “State of Emergency in the Mid-1980’s.” Alden, Apartheid‘s Last Stand, p. 192; Dictionary of South African English.

10 The political driving force behind this strategy was P. W. Botha.

11 Paraphrased from Die Volksblad (Bloemfontein), 7 December 1978, by Petrus F.B. Jansen van Rensburg, p. 57.

12 Grundy, “The Rise of the South African Security Establishment,” p. 4. Also see Coleman, “Covert Operations,” outlining several techniques that have been implemented systematically after the Vorster period.

13 Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 65.

14 Coleman, “Covert Operations”; Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 69; Jansen van Rensburg, in Die Volksblad (Bloemfontein), p. 57.

15 Coleman, “Covert Operations”; O’Brien, The South African Intelligence Services, p. 38.

16 Coleman, “Covert Operations”; Jansen van Rensburg, in Die Volksblad (Bloemfontein); O’Brien, The South African Intelligence Services. Also see RSA: TRC Report, Vol. 1 (Parow: CTP Book Printers, 1998); Eugene De Kock, A Long Night’s Damage: Working for the Apartheid State (Saxonwold: Contra Press, 1998); New African, Third Force Exposed, No. 294 (London: IC Publication, 1992); Jacque Paauw, In the Heart of the Whore: The Story of Apartheid’s Death Squads (Halfway House, South Africa: Southern Book Publishers, 1991); G. Hugo and S. Snel, Military Intelligence and the Counter Revolutionary War in the Eastern Cape (Cape Town: UMAC, 1998); Peter Stiff, Warfare by other Means: South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s (Alberton: Galago Publishing, 2001).

17 P. W. Botha was the minister of defence during the B. J. Vorster tenure as prime minster and later state president. Botha replaced Vorster as state president after the Infogate scandal discussed later in the article and due to his close association with the defense community and Department of Military Intelligence (DMI). He led the rise of DMI as the premier intelligence organization in South Africa at the cost of BOSS. Petrus F.B. Jansen van Rensburg, “Covert Action as an Option in National Security Policy: A Comparison between the USA and South Africa (1961–2003),” (master’s degree, University of Pretoria), https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/25269/00dissertation.pdf;sequence=1, pp. 77–100. Also see Coleman, “Covert Operations.”

18 Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 62.

19 Bruneau and Matei, “Intelligence in the Developing Democracies”; Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 62; Esterhuyse, “The South African Threat Agenda,” p. 191; O’Brien, The South African Intelligence Services, p. 41.

20 Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 68.

21 Rooi gevaar is an Afrikaans phrase that means “Red danger,” or “Red peril” (in other words, “communist danger”), which the apartheid regime used during the Cold War to justify the banning of the main antiapartheid movements—the South African Communist Party and the ANC. “‘Rooi Gevaar’: 100 Years of the South African Communist Party,” News24, 31 July 2021, https://www.news24.com/news24/analysis/dirk-kotze-100-years-on-the-successes-and-challenges-of-the-south-african-communist-party-20210731; Ian Taylor, Stuck in Middle GEAR: South Africa’s Post-Apartheid Foreign Relations (Praeger Publications, 2001); Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 69.

22 CoI, christened with the name of the chairperson of such a commission. Examples of these are CoIs labeled Potgieter, Erasmus, Coetzee, Rabe, Steyn, Harmse, and Goldstone. The role of CoI was typically to investigate people or organizational behavior within the context of national security and then make remedial recommendations. These recommendations frequently lead to changes that simply mean leadership and practices that have been ongoing would be changed to introduce the new leadership and practices from a certain point in time. Commissions of Inquiry are addressed by various authors. Notable are O’Brien, The South African Intelligence Services and Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services.” One of the first CoIs was the Commission to Inquire into Certain Intelligence Aspects of State Security activated in 1969 by then Prime Minister B. J. Vorster and christened the Potgieter Commission (1969). Its investigative mandate (lasting 17 months) included reviewing MI and BOSS boundary management issues and intelligence collection mandates. In effect, it identified whether MI or BOSS was the premier intelligence collection agency—resulting in MI mandate discontinuities and initiated BOSS (collection) mandate continuity. The Potgieter CoI was the precursor to the establishment of the SSC in 1972, which became the architect of the South African national security strategy, which became known later as the Total Strategy. “Vorster Appoints a Commission of Inquiry,” South African History Online, https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/vorster-appoints-commission-inquiry; Jansen van Rensburg, “Covert Action as an Option in National Security Policy,” pp. 61–63; Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 65; O’Brien, The South African Intelligence Services, pp. 28–29. The Potgieter CoI spearheaded the enactment of the Security Intelligence and State Security Council Act of 1972 (SSC Act 1972). It instituted a SSC that reported to the Cabinet, serving as the national center for operational security. “The BOSS head van den Bergh, who was a close ally of the Prime Minister, was favored by the Act giving him greater power beyond just overseeing a ‘coordinating service.’ It enabled him to influence all aspects of South Africa’s policy on subversion, counterespionage, and political and economic espionage”—a key mechanism to centralize authority in support of the establishment of a security state. Republic of South Africa, Security Intelligence and State Security Council Act, No. 64., 1972; Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 66; Jansen van Rensburg, “Covert Action as an Option in National Security Policy,” p. 63.

23 Jansen van Rensburg, “Covert Action as an Option in National Security Policy,” p. 63. Also see Segell, “Who Rules South Africa?”; O’Brien, The South African Intelligence Services, p. 246.

24 Segell, “Who Rules South Africa?” p. 15.

25 Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” pp. 62 and 67.

26 Ibid., pp. 67–68.

27 William J. Daugherty, Executive Secrets: Covert Action and the Presidency (University Press of Kentucky, 2006), pp. 72–81 and 85–89; Mark M. Lowenthal, Intelligence—From Secrets to Policy, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2008), Chapter 8.

28 Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 67.

29 See Daugherty, Executive Secrets; Lowenthal, Intelligence.

30 Coleman, “Covert Operations”; Jansen Van Rensburg, “Covert Action as an Option in National Security Policy”; and several other authors.

31 Vorster was pro-BOSS and deeply invested in strengthening the civilian SAIC component. P. W. Botha, the former minister of defence and a strong sponsor of military intelligence, as the leading intelligence capability of South Africa, replaced Vorster in 1978 after Vorster’s appointment as RSA president. This shuffle of portfolios, and based on Botha’s predispositions toward military intelligence, resulted in close scrutiny of the BOSS capability, revealing the state funding misappropriation. Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” pp. 67–68.

32 Ibid., p .68.

33 Coleman, “Covert Operations.”

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 BOSS, https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/bureau-state-security-boss; and Coleman, “Covert Operations.”

38 Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 69.

39 “Report on the Rabie Report: An Examination of Security Legislation in South Africa,” https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstreams/a937742f-e634-4ae6-8436-26a458d11117/download; “Marais Viljoen, President of South Africa” (n.d.), Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marais-Viljoen; Jansen van Rensburg, “Covert Action as an Option in National Security Policy,”pp. 58 and 63; SABS Truth Commission, https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/reports/volume1/chapter13/subsection46.htm

40 Jansen van Rensburg, “Covert Action as an Option in National Security Policy,” pp. 58 and 63–64.

41 Republic of South Africa, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report (TRC), Vol. 5 (Parow: CTP Book Printers, 1998), p. 264; Jansen van Rensburg, “Covert Action as an Option in National Security Policy,” p. 63.

42 Jansen van Rensburg, “Covert Action as an Option in National Security Policy,” p. 64.

43 Republic of South Africa, Commission of Inquiry into Certain Alleged Murders (Pretoria:

Government Printer 109, 1990); Jansen van Rensburg, “Covert Action as an Option in National Security Policy,” pp. 79–81.

44 O’Brien, The South African Intelligence Services.

45 Ibid., p. 52.

46 “The CCB operated in 8 active regions. Those outside South Africa included Swaziland, Lesotho, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, South Africa and Europe.” Coleman, “Covert Operations.”

47 Ibid., pp. 187–189 and other pages; “The National Peace Accord and Its Structures,” The O’Malley Archives, https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv03275/05lv03294/06lv03321.htm

48 For example, Hein Kiessling states that the real Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) budget remains top secret and thus not open to public scrutiny (“ISI Has a Budget of $300–400 Million, 4,000 Employees,” Deccan Herald, 8 August 2012, https://www.deccanherald.com/national/isi-has-a-budget-of-300-400-million-4000-employees-261960.html). This is confirmed by a U.S. Department of State report that states that the Pakistani “intelligence budget was [still] not subject to adequate civilian oversight” (U.S. Department of State, 2022 Fiscal Transparency Report: Pakistan, https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-fiscal-transparency-report/pakistan). The U.S. Department of State report states about Afghanistan that “the budgets of the Taliban’s so-called ‘military’ and ‘intelligence services’ were not made public,” https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-fiscal-transparency-report/afghanistan. Similarly, the report states about the Democratic Republic of the Congo that the “[c]ivilian oversight of military and intelligence budgets was insufficient,” https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-fiscal-transparency-report/democratic-republic-of-the-congo

49 Chris Spies, “South Africa’s National Peace Accord: Its Structures and Functions,” Conciliation Resources, https://www.c-r.org/accord/public-participation/south-africas-national-peace-accord-its-structures-and-functions

50 Ibid.

51 “The National Peace Accord and Its Structures.”

52 Ibid., p. 70.

53 O’Brien, The South African Intelligence Services, p. 172.

54 Ibid.

55 Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 70.

56 “F.W. de Klerk, President of South Africa,” Britannica (n.d.), https://www.britannica.com/biography/F-W-de-Klerk

57 Election Resources on the Internet: Republic of South Africa General Election Results Lookup. April 26–29, 1994 General Election Results—Republic of South Africa Totals: National Assembly, http://electionresources.org/za/provinces.php?election=1994, p. 23.

58 “The National Peace Accord and Its Structures.”

59 Timothy D. Sisk, “South Africa’s National Peace Accord,” Peace & Change: A Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1994), pp. 50–70. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0130.1994.tb00598.x in Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p. 70; South African Government, “National Strategic Intelligence Act 39 of 1994,” Section 3, https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/act39of1994.pdf; Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” p .68.

60 “Intelligence White Paper,” South African Government, para. 6.2, https://www.gov.za/documents/intelligence-white-paper (accessed 15 June 2022).

61 Ibid., para. 5.1.

62 Ibid., para. 7.4.

63 Ibid.

64 Shaun McCarthy, “South Africa’s Intelligence Reformation,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1996), pp. 63–71.

65 “Intelligence White Paper,” Appendix A.

66 McCarthy, “South Africa’s Intelligence Reformation,” p. 63 and “Intelligence White Paper,” Appendix B.

67 South African Government, The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/ SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf

68 South African Government, “Intelligence Services Oversight Act 40 of 1994,” https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/act40of1994.pdf. Also see Segell, “Infogate Influences on Reforms of South Africa’s Intelligence Services,” pp. 71–72.

69 For details on challenges to intelligence democratization in South Africa, see Kenneth R. Dombroski, “Transforming Intelligence in South Africa,” in Reforming Intelligence: Obstacles to Democratic Control and Effectiveness, edited by Thomas C. Bruneau and Steven C. Boraz (University of Texas Press, 2006); Sandy Africa and Dimpho Deleglise, “South Africa: Civilian Intelligence Services Caught between the Party and the State,” in The Handbook of African Intelligence Cultures, edited by Ryan Shaffer (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023).

70 Africa and Deleglise, “South Africa,” pp. 623–624.

Additional information

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Dries Putter

Dries Putter obtained his Ph.D. in Military Sciences from Stellenbosch University, supplemented by a M.Mil. (cum laude). He has a 35-year military career that includes the Military Attaché Programme and the Security and Defence Studies Program. He is the Chair for Security and Africa Studies and Senior Lecturer at Stellenbosch University. He is a member of the National Security Hub of the University of Canberra and Researcher for the Africa Research Institute, Obuda University, in Hungary. The author can be contacted at [email protected].