By Steven Friedman
If people who work for the government tell us our safety depends on us not knowing what they do, we might suspect they wanted to cover up wrongdoing. Unless, it seems, they work for state security agencies. South Africa’s media are awash with shock at “bombshell” revelations about the country’s security services at the hearings of the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture.
Testimony shows that the State Security Agency (SSA), meant to provide the government with intelligence on domestic and foreign threats, was used to fight factional battles in the ANC, and to engage in corrupt activity. The agency, the evidence suggests, served former president Jacob Zuma and his allies, not the country.
The revelations are of far less interest than the reaction of the media and the national debate to them. This is not because the case against the security services is trivial. It is anything but – it shows that they did little to safeguard the country and much to protect a political faction, and to funnel public money into private purposes.
But these allegations are not new. The furore over them shows how unprepared South Africa’s politicians, media and citizen organisations – which shape the national debate – are to deal with the threats posed by its security establishment.
The core of the evidence was the testimony of Sydney Mufamadi, an academic and former cabinet minister. It was damning, but should have taken no one by surprise. It was given because he chaired a panel which investigated the security agencies at the request of President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Mufamadi’s panel reported in December 2018 and its report was released by Ramaphosa in March 2019. It is a public document, available on the internet. There were some media reports on it when it was released, but it did not cause much of a stir.
The factionalism of the security services has been evident for at least a decade. So why have media treated the contents of a two-year-old report, which confirmed older suspicions, as a “bombshell”?
One reason may be that most of the country’s reporters do not read anything longer than a media release, ensuring that government reports are ignored unless their contents are revealed at a press conference. Another is that the media – and citizen organisations which take part in the national debate – do not see the security services as a threat to democracy.
The fact that the Mufamadi report was largely ignored when it appeared suggests that the debate has no great enthusiasm for holding spies to account because it remains convinced that they need to hide what they do to protect the people. None of this is backed by a shred of evidence – security agencies are in the business of exaggerating both the threats to the country and their importance in thwarting them. But, since the default position of many journalists and campaigners is to believe the spies, loud voices will again insist that they be allowed to keep their secrets.
Democracy’s health depends partly on ignoring those voices.
At very least, oversight bodies need to know exactly what they are doing, how and why. This information, stripped of references to people and operations where Parliament thinks this is needed, must be available to all citizens. If that does not happen, citizens’ rights will be eroded, as they allow spies to prey on them while they claim to protect them.
* Steven Friedman is Professor of Political Studies at the University of Johannesburg.
** The views expressed here are not those of Independent Media.
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