Johannesburg - The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) has vowed to approach the inspector-general of intelligence about allegations that state intelligence officers were spying on their senior officials and attempting to recruit their members as spies.
The union also wants the intelligence ombud to investigate the origins of a mysterious dossier that emerged this week, purporting to be from disgruntled union members, and claiming that the union’s leadership was working with foreign intelligence networks to plot “regime change” in South Africa.
The union, which was recently expelled from Cosatu for rejecting the tripartite alliance with the ANC, could test the full extent of any security establishment interference.
Numsa deputy general secretary Karl Cloete said they had prepared a dossier to submit to the inspector-general.
It included affidavits from its members who said they had been approached by intelligence officers to spy on Numsa and United Front activities in Port Elizabeth and Ekurhuleni.
The United Front is a Numsa political platform to merge workplace and community struggles.
It will also demand that the inspectorate ascertain whether there has been any surveillance of Numsa officials and allies. This includes any interception of voice or electronic messages from Numsa officials.
Cloete said Numsa and its allies were being attacked for taking part in legal political activity consistent with the right to freely associate with political parties and movements of their choice.
They also believe that state security agencies were not complying with the country’s constitution and laws and would seek an urgent meeting with State Security Minister David Mahlobo to discuss the issue. The union demanded that union and political work not be criminalised.
“War has been declared against us, and that war is no different from how the Nationalist (apartheid) government operated,” said Cloete.
He said the SA Human Rights Commission should “do its job” and hold public hearings on possible abuses of the rights to privacy, freedom of association and security by intelligence operatives and state securocrats.
Wits academic Professor Noor Nieftagodien said the space for critical engagement as a teacher and scholar was narrowing.
“The break-in to (University of Johannesburg professor) Peter Alexander’s office indicates an attack on critical engagement by academics,” Nieftagodien said.
“We are rapidly moving into a situation where people like me will be labelled as regime-change plotters.”
Nieftagodien is named as one of Numsa’s co-conspirators in the mystery document. Another academic named in the document, Patrick Bond, of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, recently had his office broken into and ransacked.
Cloete said the wording used in the document was similar to a statement issued at the weekend by the SACP.
SACP spokesman Alex Mashilo responded: “If they don’t want to be accused of a regime-change agenda, we suggest… that they watch their demagogic tongues.”
The Star