‘DIS complainants are afraid of own shadows’

Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration minister, Kabo Morwaeng says the majority of people who complain about the Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) are mostly afraid their own shadows.

Morwaeng said the complainants are usually a small number of people who make loud noise adding that such noise is heard because the majority of people who do not have a problem with the DIS are silent.

While typically people who are afraid of their own shadows are very timorous and frightened of everything, the DIS has in the past been accused of human rights abuses, particularly random detentions with minimal oversight. In the recent past, some prominent figures like former president Ian Khama, former spy Chief Isaac Kgosi and Specially Elected Member of Parliament (MP) Unity Dow have complained about DIS harassment and lack of oversight.

Morwaeng conversely says some of the complaints raised against the DIS are meant to tarnish the organisation’s image while other reasons are caused by lack of knowledge. Responding to a question in Parliament this week, Morwaeng dismissed Gaborone North legislator Mpho Balopi’s assertions that a lot of people are complaining about the DIS. “It’s only a few people. Batswana in general are not complaining about the DIS,” he said. Accusing the DIS of harassment, Khama fled the country to South Africa late last year and he has since delayed his return in what has been deemed as self-exile.

Khama has disclosed that he was aware of the DIS’s intention to arrest and consequently allegedly make him ‘disappear’ once in custody. Before he left, Khama had been accused by the DIS of threatening national security. He is alleged to be hiding weapons in some of his properties.

Another grievance not so long ago involved Dow who at the time was responding to the State of the Nation Address (SONA). Dow expressed fear that the DIS has derailed from its core functions and therefore, must be subjected to a commission of inquiry and look into its policies, regulations, activities with a view to examining the reasons for the failings of the current accountability mechanisms. She also said Botswana was approaching a deep pit.

Dow indicated that the law that came into effect on April 1, 2008 created a creature (DIS) and the same creature formed by the government has led to the latter failing to deliver good governance.

Another person who has complained about the DIS harassment is its former director-general, Kgosi, who has been tussling with the agency in the courts of law for years since he was dismissed by President Mokgweetsi Masisi in 2018.

Kgosi went even further after his dramatic January 2019 Sir Seretse Khama International Airport arrest. He accused the DIS amongst others of arresting him in full view of the public in order to embarrass him.

But Morwaeng now reckons that where security organs are involved, there are mostly complaints about harassment.

Morwaeng said the three arms of government are governed by the rule of law therefore, there is no arm of government that is operating on its own, DIS included. “An organ like DIS is operating within the law and just like the police, they are restricted by these laws. They are limited by the law,” he said.

The debate about the DIS operating above the law got heated last year when Dow blatantly told the nation that the DIS is cloaked in mystery.

She said at the time that for Batswana, the DIS is often regarded as the definitive spy organisation whose powers and capabilities are almost limitless.

But Morwaeng also maintains that the operations and actions of the state security organ are not tarnishing the image of the government. The MP for Molepolole South was responding to a question about the operation of the DIS and whether he considered some of its actions to be tarnishing the government image.

DIS has alongside other state organs like the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) and Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) suffered a major humiliation and reputational damage last year in cases involving the highly publicised and controversial case of Welheminah ‘Butterfly’ Maswabi.

As a result, the State was attributed for the toils of the citizens and the untold horrors the prosecution mounts on them. “Citizens must never be terrified of their own government and those who exercise public power must do so honestly,” Gaborone High Court’s Justice Zein Kebonang emphasised when he finally ordered the former DIS agent, ‘Butterfly’ be discharged and acquitted on all counts last year.

But currently, Morwaeng said if a Motswana feels that the DIS is somehow involved and operating above the law, complainants should take their grievance to the right committee and the complaint should reach the Tribunal. He also said instead of complaining, people should learn to read the law and understand how some organs like DIS operate.

Former cabinet minister, Balopi has since suggested that it is important to have a comprehensive communication strategy to allay fears and reemphasise the role of the DIS. He said most people do not understand the main role of the DIS.

“The public has always viewed the DIS as a monster; we feared it and that became a self-fulfilling prophesy. We speak about it in whispers; we expect that they are listening to us as we converse on what should be private phones. Good governance is about transparency and there is absolutely little, if anything transparent, about the DIS,” Dow highlighted in her speech last year.

In a previous interview, the DIS told Mmegi that the directorate notes the criticism from members of the public but it should be understood that the directorate would always be scrutinised in this way regardless of the sitting President or director-general.

The DIS indicated that the feedback plays an important role in the discourse at the core of how the directorate should be continually transformed and is duly noted.

When the current director-general Brigadier Peter Magosi took over from Kgosi in 2018, he promised the organisation’s Act would undergo review to root out any elements that may have impeded it from fully delivering on its mandate. He said that was in line with giving the DIS a facelift and bringing Batswana closer to the critical security organ.