All security agencies are on high alert

Threat analyses daily to ensure safety at ANC conference

SECURITY agencies are leaving nothing to chance in ensuring the safety of the ANC’s much-anticipated national elective conference after the jailing of two rightwing white supremacists for plotting to kill party leaders in 2012.

Joburg metro police spokesperson Wayne Minnaar said they would work jointly with their counterparts in Ekurhuleni and Tshwane as well as the SAPS to ensure the safety of leaders, delegates and other guests. “Hundreds of officers will be deployed.”

There were also fears of rowdy elements who might want to sabotage the conference.

At the ANC’s last conference in Mangaung five years ago, four men were arrested for plotting to kill President Jacob Zuma and other senior leaders during the gathering in order to spark the Boerevolk, right-wing Afrikaners seeking an independent homeland, into action.

Johan Prinsloo was sentenced to eight years for high treason and possession of ammunition along with his co-accused Mark Trollip, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy.

They were members of the Federal Freedom Party, which is demanding a separate state for Afrikaners.

Another man arrested for the plot, Martin Keevy, was declared mentally unfit to stand trial and charges against him were withdrawn, while charges against the fourth suspect Hein Boonzaaier, the party’s leader at the time, were dropped due to insufficient evidence.

State Security Agency spokesperson Brian Dube said the national joint operational and intelligence structure (NATjoints) was co-ordinating security, as the conference was a national event.

He referred further enquiries to the police, whose spokes- person Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo, said because the conference was a major event, security would be tight.

Naidoo declined to reveal details of NATJOINTS operations for the conference.

Gareth Newham, head of the Institute for Security Studies’ governance, crime and justice division, said in the 2012 incident intelligence services were well aware of the plot, arrested the individuals and the network involved before they could achieve anything.

“I would imagine that the amount of security that has been established and set up around the conference and particularly the leaders, both the president and those contesting positions, there will be resources allocated to it.”

He said security agencies were doing daily threat analyses and should they pick up anything, they would be able to neutralise any threat. “I think the security around the conference will be incredibly tight, I think they have been planning it for some time already.

“It’s not likely that you will see something like that (2012 plot) happening. I would be very surprised if something did happen.”

According to Newham, there was always the risk of a lone wolf, where an individual who has not planned acts with others, acts alone but this was highly unlikely.

“We have not seen that phenomenon really happening in South Africa,” he said.

Newham said everybody would want the conference to go smoothly and without problems, so that there is finality to the leadership crisis in the ANC.

“They are the governing party, so what happens there will have a big influence on the government and the rest of the country. If it goes off smoothly, it will not only be in the interests of the ANC, but in the interests of the country,” he said.