The last thing any South African expected to hear or read on a Tuesday afternoon was this: “There is a potential risk of a coup d’état.” Well, that’s precisely what Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, told the public on Tuesday afternoon during a media briefing on the redacted version of SA’s national security strategy for 2024-28.
This national security strategy defines a coup as a key threat and attempt by armed forces of the state to violently overthrow the constitutional order. Yikes.
While she didn’t mention who the parties involved were or indeed how they were found out, she reassured South Africans that they are safe… for now.
I’ve always known, like any other citizen, that South Africa has problems. Massive ones. But the least of my worries? A coup. There’s a running joke that the South African National Defence Force is full of obese soldiers who wouldn’t be able to defend us should a neighbouring country invade. We made jokes and were outraged about their heavy-handedness against citizens when they were deployed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2020 to help with keeping people safely at home during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Of course, we know this isn’t true since we saw capable soldiers fighting and dying in the Southern African Development Community mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
So, it’s not impossible, given what we know now, to imagine some in the military planning something like a coup. But how did the spooks know about the coup plans, and how have South African intelligence efforts fared over the last few years? Let’s take a look.
South Africa’s intelligence through the years
Like everything in this country, we can’t talk about the National Intelligence in South Africa without discussing Apartheid. Intelligence efforts in South Africa date back to the 1930s, with the South African Police Services Special Branch. Over the years, it had numerous iterations, from the Bureau of State Security in the late 60s to the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) in the 90s.
Alongside the NIA was the South African Security Service (SASS), which was formed in 1994 following South Africa’s first multiracial democratic elections. Why are they important? Well, while the NIA focused on domestic intelligence efforts, SASS looked outwards and guarded South Africa against international espionage efforts.
But then came Jacob Zuma. Under his presidency in 2009, the NIA and SASS were officially incorporated into the newly formed State Security Agency (SSA), much to the dismay of opposition parties and legal experts across the country. Through the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill, Zuma pushed for this restructuring, stating that it was part of the “new security dispensation,” aimed at centralising intelligence under a single entity with domestic and foreign branches, overseen by the then newly created Ministry of State Security. But people were worried that Zuma would use the agency to target his political rivals.
Woes within the SSA
Almost immediately, the SSA was plagued with problems. At the 2015 State of the Nation Address, a cellphone signal jammer was used within the parliament by the SSA, only revealed when journalists complained about signal scrambling.
Then Minister of State Security, David Mahlobo, released a statement claiming that there had been a threat against then-President Zuma and then-Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. “The [SSA] was responsible for the threat and risk assessment and supporting the SANDF’s efforts to enforce the airspace security. The airspace security plan was also properly approved to supply security measures against low-speed, low-energy threats as well as the drones with minimal disruption to commercial aviation and related aspects,” said Mahlobo.
It didn’t end there. Nearly one month later, one of the most significant and embarrassing scandals the SSA has ever experienced occurred: the leak of the so-called Spy Cables—a massive intelligence leak published by Al Jazeera and The Guardian in 2015. The spy cables involved hundreds of files that revealed Zuma-era dealings with numerous other intelligence agencies worldwide, including Israel’s Mossad.
It wasn’t until 2018, when Ramaphosa became president, that the mess within the SSA was uncovered and began to be repaired.
Reforms or regress? You be the judge
In June 2018, Ramaphosa established the High-Level Review Panel into the State Security Agency to investigate matters related to the mess within the SSA.
The Panel identified five reasons the SSA was in disarray:
🔹The politicisation of the agency, with the Panel saying that the factionalism within the ANC contributed to this
🔹A shift from when the agency was established in 2009, from the prescripts of the Constitution, the White Paper on Intelligence, to a narrow state security focus
🔹 The amalgamation of the NIA and SASS into the SSA did not achieve its purpose and was acting contrary to the existing policy
🔹There was a lot of secrecy within the agency, which stifled efforts to ensure accountability
🔹The SSA had been used as what the Panel calls a “cash cow” for many within and even outside the agency.
Among their recommendations was the establishment of a National Security Strategy, which will serve as the overarching document for reassessing and redefining the concepts, values, policies, practices, and architecture involved in South Africa’s approach to security.
The Panel also recommended that the SSA be split up again. In March last year, MPs voted to pass the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Act, which will effectively see the SSA split into two. Ramaphosa signed the act into law earlier this year, and so the process has begun.
As South Africans, we should be glad that we now have an SSA that works and lawmakers who want to protect South Africa’s spooks while holding them accountable.
We’re safe from coups for the time being, according to the minister. So, no rogue soldiers will be bursting through your kitchen door demanding you vote for their general. At least not for now. More work needs to be done to ensure that we have an intelligence community that rivals the best in the world. We need spies who love us.
Tshego is a writer and law student from Pretoria. A keen follower of social media trends, his interests include high fantasy media, politics, science, talk radio, reading and listening to music.
He is also probably one of the only people left who still play Pokemon Go.
Ntshaveni says we dodged a coup. Are our spies finally doing their job?
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The last thing any South African expected to hear or read on a Tuesday afternoon was this: “There is a potential risk of a coup d’état.” Well, that’s precisely what Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, told the public on Tuesday afternoon during a media briefing on the redacted version of SA’s national security strategy for 2024-28.
This national security strategy defines a coup as a key threat and attempt by armed forces of the state to violently overthrow the constitutional order. Yikes.
While she didn’t mention who the parties involved were or indeed how they were found out, she reassured South Africans that they are safe… for now.
I’ve always known, like any other citizen, that South Africa has problems. Massive ones. But the least of my worries? A coup. There’s a running joke that the South African National Defence Force is full of obese soldiers who wouldn’t be able to defend us should a neighbouring country invade. We made jokes and were outraged about their heavy-handedness against citizens when they were deployed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2020 to help with keeping people safely at home during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Of course, we know this isn’t true since we saw capable soldiers fighting and dying in the Southern African Development Community mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
So, it’s not impossible, given what we know now, to imagine some in the military planning something like a coup. But how did the spooks know about the coup plans, and how have South African intelligence efforts fared over the last few years? Let’s take a look.
South Africa’s intelligence through the years
Like everything in this country, we can’t talk about the National Intelligence in South Africa without discussing Apartheid. Intelligence efforts in South Africa date back to the 1930s, with the South African Police Services Special Branch. Over the years, it had numerous iterations, from the Bureau of State Security in the late 60s to the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) in the 90s.
Alongside the NIA was the South African Security Service (SASS), which was formed in 1994 following South Africa’s first multiracial democratic elections. Why are they important? Well, while the NIA focused on domestic intelligence efforts, SASS looked outwards and guarded South Africa against international espionage efforts.
But then came Jacob Zuma. Under his presidency in 2009, the NIA and SASS were officially incorporated into the newly formed State Security Agency (SSA), much to the dismay of opposition parties and legal experts across the country. Through the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill, Zuma pushed for this restructuring, stating that it was part of the “new security dispensation,” aimed at centralising intelligence under a single entity with domestic and foreign branches, overseen by the then newly created Ministry of State Security. But people were worried that Zuma would use the agency to target his political rivals.
Woes within the SSA
Almost immediately, the SSA was plagued with problems. At the 2015 State of the Nation Address, a cellphone signal jammer was used within the parliament by the SSA, only revealed when journalists complained about signal scrambling.
Then Minister of State Security, David Mahlobo, released a statement claiming that there had been a threat against then-President Zuma and then-Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. “The [SSA] was responsible for the threat and risk assessment and supporting the SANDF’s efforts to enforce the airspace security. The airspace security plan was also properly approved to supply security measures against low-speed, low-energy threats as well as the drones with minimal disruption to commercial aviation and related aspects,” said Mahlobo.
It didn’t end there. Nearly one month later, one of the most significant and embarrassing scandals the SSA has ever experienced occurred: the leak of the so-called Spy Cables—a massive intelligence leak published by Al Jazeera and The Guardian in 2015. The spy cables involved hundreds of files that revealed Zuma-era dealings with numerous other intelligence agencies worldwide, including Israel’s Mossad.
It wasn’t until 2018, when Ramaphosa became president, that the mess within the SSA was uncovered and began to be repaired.
Reforms or regress? You be the judge
In June 2018, Ramaphosa established the High-Level Review Panel into the State Security Agency to investigate matters related to the mess within the SSA.
The Panel identified five reasons the SSA was in disarray:
🔹The politicisation of the agency, with the Panel saying that the factionalism within the ANC contributed to this
🔹A shift from when the agency was established in 2009, from the prescripts of the Constitution, the White Paper on Intelligence, to a narrow state security focus
🔹 The amalgamation of the NIA and SASS into the SSA did not achieve its purpose and was acting contrary to the existing policy
🔹There was a lot of secrecy within the agency, which stifled efforts to ensure accountability
🔹The SSA had been used as what the Panel calls a “cash cow” for many within and even outside the agency.
Among their recommendations was the establishment of a National Security Strategy, which will serve as the overarching document for reassessing and redefining the concepts, values, policies, practices, and architecture involved in South Africa’s approach to security.
The Panel also recommended that the SSA be split up again. In March last year, MPs voted to pass the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Act, which will effectively see the SSA split into two. Ramaphosa signed the act into law earlier this year, and so the process has begun.
As South Africans, we should be glad that we now have an SSA that works and lawmakers who want to protect South Africa’s spooks while holding them accountable.
We’re safe from coups for the time being, according to the minister. So, no rogue soldiers will be bursting through your kitchen door demanding you vote for their general. At least not for now. More work needs to be done to ensure that we have an intelligence community that rivals the best in the world. We need spies who love us.
Tshego Mphahlele
Tshego is a writer and law student from Pretoria. A keen follower of social media trends, his interests include high fantasy media, politics, science, talk radio, reading and listening to music.
He is also probably one of the only people left who still play Pokemon Go.
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