News that he was spied on saddens Greenpeace boss
South Korea wanted details on Naidoo from SA spy agency
GREENPEACE executive director Kumi Naidoo expressed sadness yesterday that his own democratic government had possibly invaded his privacy by spying on him and giving the information to foreign states.
Naidoo was named in one of the spy cables that news network Al Jazeera released this week.
The cable related to a foreign agency’s requests to the South African Secret Service Agency for information.
More specifically, South Korea wanted details on Naidoo before the G20 summit in 2010 in South Korea.
The cable says the South Koreans considered him a “dangerous person”.
Yesterday, Naidoo said his first reaction was not surprise, but rather sadness, hurt and deep disappointment.
He believes the South Koreans made the request because of Greenpeace’s anti-nuclear stance at a time when the country was trying to push its nuclear technology to South Africa, India and Turkey, among other countries.
Naidoo said he had visited South Korea many times and spoken at meetings with heads of state.
He had visited the Asian country twice since 2010. But it was not South Korea’s stance that worried him; rather, Naidoo’s hurt stemmed from his own government engaging in surveillance against him.
He said the people who had fought against apartheid had a vision of a participatory democracy in which citizens could take part and engage in public life, not one in which resources were spent spying on civic organisations.
Asked if there was any incident he looked back on that made him wonder whether he was under surveillance, he said he could recall a time in 2011.
Naidoo had flown from Paris to Durban to take part in the climate negotiations.
His bag did not arrive in Joburg, and when he went to enquire at Air France, the woman behind the counter said his bag had been registered on the system as having arrived.
Inside were walkie-talkies for the delegates to speak to each other at the conference and 25 Struggle T-shirts he had kept from the 1980s that had personal significance for him.
Naidoo said that if the government wanted information from him on what he thought, all it had to do was follow him on Twitter and Facebook, or call him and ask.
He said the cables did not indicate whether South Korea’s request was approved or denied.
Naidoo has since written to the Minister of Intelligence David Mahlobo, expressing concern and asking the government if he is the subject of surveillance and monitoring.
The Legal Resources Centre has agreed to represent him to seek further information from the government, and he will also be sending an open letter to the Presidency, outlining his concerns about the spying and about the energy crises in South Africa.
Naidoo said he believed Greenpeace had come under scrutiny because it had opinions on the energy crisis and the nuclear stance the country was taking.
He said it believed nuclear energy was too expensive and too dangerous, and provided too little, too late.
Naidoo said the country could not wait 15 years for a new nuclear plant to be built when there were solutions to meet the energy needs in renewable energy (such as wind as solar), which were quicker, safer and far more cost-effective to build than nuclear energy. He also said renewable energy had the potential to create many jobs.
THE STATE Security Agency (SSA) is now hunting for South Africa’s Edward Snowden, the person who leaked scores of its top secret documents to Al Jazeera. They are revealing a fascinating underworld of dealings between governments, often contradicting public diplomatic relations.
Israel acquiring stolen South African anti-tank missile technology; efforts to stop an SA-Iran arms deal; Mossad and the SSA apparently collaborating to counter Iran-backed terrorism and nuclear proliferation; al-Qaeda suicide bomb plots against a Cape Town Jewish centre. And much more.
State Security Minister David Mahlobo has of course condemned the leaks as a blow to national security and diplomatic relations. But the DA and free-expression activists have welcomed them as a necessary antidote to the accumulation and evident abuse of power by intelligence agencies.
It’s not an easy debate. Countries do need secret services and such leaks may compromise the trust and co-operation between secret services that are needed to fight common enemies such as terrorism and nuclear proliferation.
But secret services also need to be kept in check to prevent abuse and this is one way of doing it.
Some observers have warned that the government might take the leaks as justification to sign into law the suspended and draconian Protection of State Information Bill (the Secrecy Bill). That would be the worst possible reaction to this episode. Perhaps it was precisely that looming clampdown on the public’s right to know that motivated this leak. And would it make sense to jail editors for up to 25 years for publishing what all internet users and the rest of the world is reading?
Despite the titillation, the leaks have so far not been all that embarrassing. They have mostly “exposed” a secret service more or less doing what it should – supping with the devil if necessary to protect us from threats.
But it’s the hints that the SSA has been spying on domestic political opponents of the government that could be damaging. And no appeal to national interest could possibly justify that.