Spy versus spy: murky world of espionage down on the Farm
In SA’s shadowy intelligence agencies, all might not be what it seems
In the 2003 movie The Recruit, Al Pacino recruits Colin Farrell to find a sleeper agent. In what follows, as happens in spy movies, nothing is as it seems.
This is what is so fascinating, even scary, about the world of spies. The idea that the newspaper in your hands may not even be a newspaper. Doubt is the leitmotif in every attempt to pursue the truth. People who appear obtuse and undesirable may be acting so in pursuit of a broader societal good. And some who sound holy might be masking crookedness.
So it was when President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed Ayanda Dlodlo minister of intelligence. Those who knew her as Jacob Zuma’s loyal parliamentary counsel wondered whether
Ramaphosa was naively playing into his predecessor’s hands, or if Dlodlo’s relationship with Zuma was not what it seemed.
As with much in a world of smoke and mirrors, the truth is often unknown and secrets are high currency in search of a meaning.
Pacino, who plays an instructor at an intelligence training academy, shares what must be the guiding light for spies: “We believe in good and evil, and we choose good. We believe in right and wrong, and we choose right. Our cause is just. Our enemies ... everywhere. They’re all around us. Some scary stuff out there.”
When the acting director-general of the State Security Agency (SSA), Loyiso Jafta, appeared before Raymond Zondo, chair of the state capture commission, was he a patriot, was he acting in selfinterest because, reportedly, his contract with the agency had lapsed, or did he genuinely want to reveal what was in the interests of the country?
The back story is that Jafta and Mahlodi Muofhe were, until recently, the two big boys at the Farm, the unofficial name of Musanda, the SSA’s headquarters.
The appointment in July last year of Robert McBride as the head of the SSA Secret Service, the foreign wing, set a cat among pigeons.
With Muofhe head of the SSA domestic branch, the question became unavoidable at the top echelons of the agency: what would become of Jafta?
Sources say his contract lapsed towards the end of last year and, as he enthralled the nation with his anticorruption exploits (some would say holy tales), he was on a month-to-month employment contract.
His substantive position is a deputy director-general at the National Communication Centre, before the Zuma administration seconded him to correctional services from where he moved to the SSA HQ as the super-DG.
Did Ramaphosa de-select Jafta in favour of
McBride? If so, what caused the change of heart about Jafta? One source says: “Jafta is not this hero that you guys saw on TV.”
First, how does the head of the country’s intelligence services go to a commission to depose an affidavit that the minister of intelligence knows nothing about?
“What does it say about the relationships at the top of our intelligence structures?” asked a well-placed source. It is understood that Muofhe’s own qualifications quagmire has its roots at the Farm.
It’s not as simple as it looks, even when there is no doubt that Muofhe has the qualifications for his job. The instigators wanted to embarrass him. They knew that doubt, in the spy world, is a key.
Muofhe last week wrote a strongly worded letter to the inspector-general of intelligence, Setlhomamaru Dintwe, effectively accusing him of soiling his (Muofhe’s) reputation in public while dragging his feet in dealing with the actual investigation.
Dintwe says he means no harm. Why interrogate Muofhe when the basis of the complaint has not been established? he asks. But that seems to be contradicted by the unseemly rush to confirm the existence of the investigation whose basis he questions. Either way, Muofhe is miffed that Dintwe, who should know better, has sullied his reputation but has not had the decency to afford him a minute in the investigation that has lasted over three months.
Dintwe just survived a bruising battle with Arthur Fraser, another former SSA DG — a battle which led to Fraser being reassigned to head prisons after stripping Dintwe of his security clearance.
As the top structure of the SSA is rattled, with Jafta shunted aside, questions remain about whether the stability for the creation of “a professional national intelligence capability for SA that will respect and uphold the constitution, and the relevant legal prescripts” is still in the offing. The SSA has always been dogged by scandals.
The hoax e-mail saga remains fresh in the minds of many. The principal agent network, established by Fraser and former DG Manala Manzini, still haunts the SSA. More recent forays into attempts to suborn the judiciary and payment of R20m to an offshoot of Independent Newspapers, African News Agency, thrust what is supposed to be an unseen force for good onto the centre stage of South African discourse.
Ramaphosa had appointed Sydney Mufamadi to head a review, which found “that there has been a serious politicisation and factionalisation of the intelligence community over the past decade or more, based on factions in the ruling party, resulting in an almost complete disregard for the constitution, policy, legislation and other prescripts, and turning our civilian intelligence community into a private resource to serve the political and personal interests”.
This, in part, relates to claims made to Mufamadi’s panel, repeated at the Zondo commission, that former ministers, among them David Mahlobo, received wads of cash, ostensibly for Zuma.
Mufamadi said Mahlobo was given R2.4m a month, which increased to R4.5m a month.
Was the money received by Zuma? There is no evidence. Only Mahlobo knows. Why was Mahlobo not sanctioned or held accountable? What it boils down to is whether the agent who testified about Mahlobo receiving the funds has evidence that indeed Mahlobo did receive them.
In this world, nothing is as it seems. Zuma could be as shocked as we all are. But what are the chances?
The substantive finding by Mufamadi’s panel is that the SSA is a law unto itself, that its leadership enriched itself and violated laws and regulations.
To upend this calamity, the grandstanding and the backstabbing at the top of the SSA needs to give way to conscientious pursuit of the nation’s interests, guided by only the constitution and other laws.
There must be a dispassionate pursuit of the spies who have stolen and/or broken the law. Anything short of that is a blight on our constitutional predicate of the rule of law.
It may be true that nothing is as it seems, but, surely, the SSA ought to be what it was established to be. An institution of people who know the difference between right and wrong — who still choose right. An institution of people who must stop the needless fissures at the top and focus on the service the constitution enjoins this important structure to provide to our nation. Even in the spy world, where doubt is the leitmotif, is that too much to ask?