National Intelligence Service (South Africa)

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The National Intelligence Service , abbreviated NIS ( afrikaans : Nasionale Intelligensiediens ) was a South African intelligence service during apartheid with central coordinating tasks at the head of the state administration. The authority existed from 1980 to 1994 and was subordinate to the office of the President . The headquarters of the NIS was in Pretoria in the Concilium Building on Skinner Street (now Nana Sita Street ).

General

The NIS coordinated several security services and was integrated into the State Security Council (SSC). As part of its tasks, there was close cooperation with the Military Intelligence Service (German: Military Intelligence Service ) and the Security Branch of the Police (German, for example: Security Police).

At the head of the intelligence service stood a director-general (German: general director).

The information collected by the NIS was evaluated in a weekly internal working session and then passed on to the relevant government agencies in a processed form. The South African Prime Minister asked NIS staff to advise him on individual issues.

history

Historical aspects since the formation of the NIS

The NIS developed from an interim solution , the Department of National Security (DONS), after the previous secret service BOSS and its head Hendrik van den Bergh had become involved in the Muldergate scandal and a reorganization of the secret service structures turned out to be a political requirement. The structural reform of the intelligence services in what was then South Africa was directed by Hendrik Jacobus Coetsee after he was appointed Vice Minister for Defense and National Security on October 12, 1978.

The NIS was the target of public criticism in 1981 by its agent Martin Dolinchek, who had unauthorized participation in the coup ( Seychelles Coup ) in the Seychelles under the leadership of Mike Hoare , the target of public criticism. The acts of aggression against the government of the Seychelles took place with technical support from the South African Defense Force (SADF). The opposition leader in the South African parliament, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert ( PFP ), then called for the resignation of the armed forces chief Constand Viljoen and the NIS chief Niel Barnard .

In September 1983, NIS Director General Niel Barnard sought government support to expand the intelligence service. In his opinion, the agency should no longer lag behind similar services in the world.

NIS intelligence activities in South African universities in the early 1980s attracted public protest. In 1983, representatives of the student councils at the Universities of Witwatersrand , Rhodes , Cape Town and Natal asked their university management to require all new students to sign a declaration that they were not working for the NIS, the security police or the military intelligence service. These protests were connected to the revelations about Craig Williamson (IUEF) and Karl Edwards (IUEF).

African states played an important role in establishing international contacts for the NIS. In the course of the 1980s, the NIS had established good relationships with numerous heads of state in these countries, as South Africa was concerned with overcoming its international diplomatic isolation. The NIS achieved its greatest successes in these efforts in Egypt , Kenya , Nigeria , Zambia and Uganda . The NIS took over existing contacts of the institutional predecessor BOSS in Zaire , Malawi and in Rhodesia / Zimbabwe . The South African secret service had a permanently manned office in Zaire. There were also good working contacts with the Central Intelligence Organization (CIO) in Rhodesia, whose boss Ken Flower was the most important point of contact. These working relationships continued after the country gained independence (April 18, 1980) with the Zimbabwe Central Intelligence Organization (ZCIO). In 1983 the NIS opened an office in Lomé , the capital of Togo , through which close relations with President Gnassingbé Eyadéma developed. The NIS helped set up an intelligence training center in Togo. At that time South Africa's activities in this region were closely monitored by the French secret service.

A few years later a liaison office was set up in Lagos , Nigeria. Through the Nigerian secret service chief Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, the NIS developed contacts to the then President Ibrahim Babangida , but these did not develop satisfactorily. Nigeria was already an important supporter of the ANC on the African continent.

A special relationship arose from the contacts with Zambia. There, in the mid-1980s, the NIS managed to establish continuous contact with President Kenneth Kaunda and with employees of the Zambia Security Intelligence Service (ZISS). Kaunda was inclined to these talks, as he saw peaceful development in southern Africa as one of his political goals. South Africa, however, was interested in a variety of educational results because the ANC had one of its headquarters in Lusaka and in the west of the country used the SWAPO regions as important retreats.

The NIS also maintained close intelligence contacts with several European countries. For example, met in the early 1980s, the then Federal Intelligence Service boss Klaus Kinkel during an official visit to Prime Minister Pieter Willem Botha , of him in the Verwoerd Building received in Cape Town. In the course of this visit there were conversations with NIS boss Barnard. This means that no new territory has been broken between the two states. The BND had provided extensive support for staff training at the predecessor institution of the NIS ( Bureau for State Security ) in the area of personal protection tasks. Younger employees of the NIS later participated in these established cooperative relationships. In this way, the West German intelligence agents gained sensitive information from Africa and in return the South Africans received valuable instructions about Eastern Bloc countries and especially about GDR activities that were relevant to them. ANC intelligence agents had received training from the East German Ministry for State Security . As a result, South Africa was interested in knowledge of the scope and nature of this personnel development. According to Neil Barnard, there had been good cooperation between the NIS and the BND in the area of counter-espionage .

The NIS also had very good relations with Italy , with SISMI and with the domestic intelligence service SISDE .

Following an address given by NIS Director General Barnard on December 16, 1986 on the occasion of the Day of the Vow gathering at the Blood River Memorial in Natal , a controversial debate erupted in the South African parliament. It was alleged that Barnard had banned journalists from reporting on his speech on the Day of the Vow . To defuse the situation, President Botha had printed copies of the criticized speech distributed. In it Barnard had several organizations, u. a. the South African Council of Churches and the South African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC) accused that "using the cloak of religious piety hides the fact that they are part of the" revolutionary attack "" on South Africa. Barnard said in this context that the country has been exposed to an even greater risk of attack since 1984 than was said to have been the case at the Battle of the Blood River .

In August 1988 the South African government set up a commission under the direction of Judge Louis Harms ( Harms Commission ) to investigate alleged cross-border "irregularities" ( Commission of Inquiry into Certain Alleged Across-Border Irregularities ). Details were published the following year. In March 1989, reports of an NIS agent group at a South African construction company ( JALC ) received significant political attention. Three directors of construction company JALC Holdings had admitted that they had worked for the NIS abroad. The company's development projects abroad were used to perform intelligence tasks under the guise of entrepreneurial activities. The states affected by these activities were Botswana , Lesotho and Mauritius , as well as the homelands of Bophuthatswana , Ciskei and Transkei . The focus of the judicial investigation was on corruption incidents in the form of unauthorized diamond trading , covert military operations and bribes to influence the distribution of gaming licenses between Lentin , a subsidiary of JALC , Sun International and the Ciskei administration. An SADF defense officer was also involved in these operations . The cases were heard in the East London District Court in 1990 . Years later, other connections became apparent in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission . The activities in the Ciskei were related to Operation Cats , which aimed to overthrow the governments in the Ciskei and Transkei.
The close connection between private companies and state security structures was one of the aims pursued in the National Security Management System (in the SSC ) led by President Pieter Willem Botha .

The Mozambican civil war resulted in intelligence contacts between South Africa and the Soviet Union . South African support for the Renamo rebels, especially by the military (SADF), thwarted the results and goals of the bilateral Nkomati Agreement between South Africa and Mozambique. The military support created a conflict between the SADF and the NIS, which became a topic of conversation between NIS chief Barnard and SADF high commander Constand Viljoen . In connection with the ongoing military complications in South Africa and Mozambique, the first meeting of South African representatives from the NIS and the Foreign Ministry with Soviet interlocutors under the direction of the USSR ambassador in Vienna took place in August 1984 . Two Soviet geologists captured by the Renamo revealed a decisive aspect. The talks on this were to be continued at the intelligence service level, for which the government in Moscow only gave its approval in October 1987. May 17, 1988 is considered to be the beginning of the talks between the KGB and the NIS. As a result of these consultations, the list of topics for discussion between the two countries expanded.

Activities of the NIS from 1989 in the course of the transition from apartheid to democracy

5 July 1989 President Pieter Willem Botha received in Tuynhuys , the presidential office in Cape Town , Nelson Mandela . This meeting was one of the highlights of the then secret series of consultations that NIS boss Barnard had prepared and led together with Justice Minister Coetsee. Willie Willemse, the Commissioner of Prisons at the time, was the fifth person to talk to. Mandela's journey from Victor Verster Prison near Paarl to Cape Town was accompanied by the NIS chief in his company car.

One day after the successful election (September 14, 1989) of Frederik Willem de Klerk as President, the management of the NIS in the SSC presented a position paper that contained suggestions on how the results of the Mandela talks that had taken place so far should be dealt with in future. In it, the NIS pleaded for an expansion of the discussion contacts in order to be able to better assess the current opinions of the executives in the ANC and in the organizations associated with it. That was stated in Resolution No. 23 of 1989 laid down by the SSC. One result of the coordinated approach was a meeting between Mike Louw, Vice President of the NIS, together with the NIS Chief of Operations Maritz Spaarwater and Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma from the ANC, which took place in Lucerne on September 12, 1989 after approval by the ANC leadership .

The National Security Management System (NSMS) including its JMCs was dissolved by President de Klerk in 1989. At the same time, the role of the State Security Council (SSC) was reduced from an overpowering security policy control center of the state presidents to that of a common cabinet committee.

Period of the transitional government around 1993

The change of the country from apartheid to a democratic republic also brought about a politically desired change in the intelligence service structures. It found its way into the legislative process to abolish the apartheid legal system, along with many other aspects of society as a whole. The draft law for the Transitional Executive Council Act was presented to the South African Parliament in September 1993; one of the most important steps towards the country's transitional constitution. Chapter 8 (paragraph 1, letter g) provided for the formation of a subcouncil on intelligence . In Chapter 20 it was stipulated that the subcommittee should set up a Joint Co-ordinating Intelligence Committee , composed of the heads of all services (including those of the opposition groups) or representatives appointed by them. The tasks of this body consisted of a. in developing constitutionally relevant principles for future intelligence activities and a related Code of Conduct under the new democratic conditions from a monitoring process. Regulations relating to the intelligence services were then also found in Articles 198, 199 and 210 of the transitional constitution.

The following special laws shaped the democratic transition of the previous security service structures:

  • Intelligence Services Act ( Act 38/1994 )
  • National Strategic Intelligence Act ( Act 39/1994 )
  • Intelligence Services Control Act ( Act 40/1994 )

Dissolution of the NIS

The dissolution of the National Intelligence Service took place at the end of December 31, 1994 with simultaneous continuation of the tasks by two new intelligence services, as a result of which the responsibilities were separated into an internal and external sphere of activity.

NIS structures

Transition between BOSS and NIS

The NIS emerged from the Department of National Security (DONS). The structures of DONS and NIS were similar in this transition period.

The departments of the Department of National Security were:

  • Division A: dealt with subversion activities among white South Africans, political parties, the press, churches, students, academics, writers, diplomats, domestic and foreign opposition groups, sports organizations,
  • Division B: dealt with subversion activities among black South Africans, including groups of the Black Consciousness Movement , black education activists, as well as the ANC and PAC ,
  • Division C: dealt with subversion activities among Coloreds and Indians , in the Homelands and in South West Africa ,
  • Division D: dealt with economic and political analyzes in African countries,
  • Division F: dealt with economic and political analyzes in African countries,
  • Division G: dealt with military assessments in cooperation with the SADF Secret Service ( Director of Military Intelligence , MI).

Consultations from Simon's Town

The restructuring of the intelligence service structures required coordination and coordination among the institutions in South Africa previously involved in such activities. This included determining the position of the main threats classified as hostile to the country. To clarify future intelligence tasks and how to distinguish them from one another, a multi-day meeting of high-ranking representatives, the Rationalization Committee , took place in the house of the Admiralty on the naval base in Simon's Town . In addition to NIS head Niel Barnard, the head of the NIS administration André Knoetze and the head of the NIS legal department Cobus Scholtz were also represented. The intelligence service tasks of the military ( SADF ) represented Pieter W. van der Westhuizen as MI chief, and that of the police ( SAP ) Dirk Coetzee as chief of the security police ( security branch ). The foreign ministry's interests in these matters were protected by the head of the information department, Brand Fourie. The Prime Minister's office sent a member of staff, SADF Lieutenant General André van Deventer, to observe the talks. Other senior employees were involved in these discussions.

These multi-day talks were later referred to as the Simon's Town Consultations. During this conference the positions discussed were influenced by two different basic theses. The “political and revolutionary attack” on South Africa from neighboring countries was defined by the military and the police as a military challenge and a strategy based on this was presented by John Huyser, the SADF's chief of staff for planning. Accordingly, the African states south of the equator should be taken under the direct influence of South Africa. The NIS took a different position on this question and viewed South Africa's military engagement on the territory of other African countries as “shadow boxing”, since it was merely a military response to political problems. Brief preventive foreign operations by the military to stop attacks in Germany, however, were approved by the NIS. A law of 1972, the Security Intelligence and State Security Council Act ( Act No. 64/1972) and the report of the Potgieter Commission on which it is based (RP 102/1971) served as the starting point for the discussion about the new scope of duties of the national security structure. The one-man commission of inquiry, named after Judge Potgieter (of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court ), was set up in 1969 by the then Prime Minister. In the course of his investigations, Judge Potgieter came to the conclusion that all intelligence requirements for national security should be brought together in a state agency and placed under the direction of a Secretary for Security Intelligence .

The results of the consultations in Simon's Town emerged in tough negotiations on the areas of competence and consisted of the following points:

  • The provision of intelligence services is a shared responsibility. It is coordinated in the Security Planning Department in the Prime Minister's Office.
  • Obtaining relevant security information is the separate responsibility of the respective intelligence services.
  • The NIS is primarily responsible for secretly collecting government-related information within the country.
  • The NIS is primarily responsible for the secret investigation of non-military security information beyond the South African external borders.
  • SAP's security department would be responsible for secretly collecting domestic security information that is considered non-governmental.
  • The SADF, through the Military Intelligence (MI), would be primarily responsible for the secret collection of militarily relevant information domestically as well as beyond the borders of South Africa.
  • The Ministry of Foreign Affairs deals exclusively with openly accessible information from diplomatic work, which is to be coordinated with the activities of the intelligence services.
  • A coordinating institution for the management of all safety information must be set up.

Conflicts in establishing the NIS

With regard to the last point of the consultation results, the Co-ordinating Intelligence Committee (CIC, Afrikaans : KIK) was created and placed under the leadership of the NIS chief. The intention of SADF and SAP to push the NIS into the role of a pure research institute failed, but its intended function as the dominant intelligence service was watered down. MI head Pieter W. van der Westhuizen tried to subsequently negate the results of the five-day consultation with his own position paper, in which the delimitation of the field of activity from the NIS was not mentioned at all. Its arguments were presented to Prime Minister Pieter Willem Botha and Ministers Magnus Malan (Defense), Pik Botha (Foreign Affairs ) and Louis Le Grange (Law and Order / Police). In a completely contrary way to the results of Simon's Town, it was shown that the redistribution of the intelligence service functions would mean that the “national information service” could no longer exist in its previous form. Prime Minister Botha, however, confirmed the well-documented results from Simon's Town. The MI chief reappeared in June 1981 with a contrary position paper, which was entitled Functional Division of Responsibilities of the Intelligence Community (original title in Afrikaans) and repeatedly questioned the function of the NIS. Finally, on June 22, 1981, all the ministers concerned approved the minutes of the Simon's Town consultations.

General directors of the DONS / NIS

Training of employees

The NIS operated its own training center for its employees in Rietvlei near Pretoria . The National Intelligence Academy , which opened here in October 1985, offered high-level courses for employees from South Africa and from intelligence services from friendly African countries.

Successor institutions

The institutional successor to the NIS in 1994 were the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) for domestic reconnaissance, the first director-general of which was Sizakele Sigxashe , and the South African Secret Service (SASS) for foreign activities under the direction of Mike Louw . Employees of DIS , BIIS , TIS and VNIS were included in these start-ups . The new authorities were incorporated into the State Security Agency, which was founded in 2009 .

literature

  • Niël Barnard, Tobie Wiese: Secret Revolution. Memoirs of a Spy Boss . Table Mountain, Cape Town 2015. ISBN 978-0-624-07457-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, p. 52
  2. ^ SAIRR : Race Relations Survey 1984 . Johannesburg 1985, p. 772
  3. ^ SAIRR: Race Relations Survey 1983 . 1984, p. 544
  4. ^ SAIRR: Race Relations Survey 1984 . 1985, p. 772
  5. ^ A b SAIRR: Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1980 . 1981, p. 276
  6. ↑ Shelag Gastrow: Who's who in South Africans Politics, Number 5 . Ravan Press, Johannesburg 1995, p. 33 ISBN 0-86975-458-0
  7. ^ SAIRR: Race Relations Survey 1982 . 1983, pp. 232-233
  8. ^ SAIRR: Race Relations Survey 1983 . 1984, pp. 544-545
  9. ^ A b Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, pp. 119–125
  10. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, pp. 127–128
  11. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, pp. 117–118
  12. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, pp. 85–86
  13. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, p. 88
  14. ^ SAIRR: Race Relations Survey 1987/88 . 1988, p. 545
  15. ^ SAIRR: Race Relations Survey 1989/90 . 1990, pp. 144, 484-485, 519-520
  16. ^ Truth and Reconciliation Commission : Military policy: destabilization through Operation Katzen . Documentation from subsection 20 . at www.sabctrc.saha.org.za (English)
  17. ↑ Jeff Peires: The Implosion of Transkei and Ciskei . University of the Witwatersrand, African Studies Institute, 1992 (African Studies Seminar Paper), online at www.wiredspace.wits.ac.za, PDF document p. 23
  18. ↑ Annette Seegers: South Africa's National Security Management System, 1972–90 . In: The Journal of Modern African Studies, Volume 29, Issue 2, June 1991, pp. 253-273
  19. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, pp. 90–91
  20. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, images between pp. 160 and 161
  21. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, pp. 234–235
  22. ↑ Nelson Mandela : Confessions . Piper Verlag , Munich 2010, p. 312, ISBN 978-3-492-05416-4
  23. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, pp. 217-218
  24. ↑ Nelson Mandela: Confessions . 2010 p. 251
  25. ^ A b Sandy Africa, Siyabulela Mlombile: Transforming the Intelligence Services: Some Reflections on the South African Experiance . on www.law.harvard.edu (English)
  26. ^ SAIRR: Race Relations Survey 1993/1994 . 1994, p. 507
  27. ↑ Republic of South Africa: Transitional Executive Council Act, 1993 (No. 151 of 1993) - G 15184 . on www.saflii.org (English)
  28. ^ SAIRR: South Africa Survey 1995/96 . Johannesburg 1996, p. 90
  29. ^ SAIRR: Race Relations Survey 1980 . Pp. 276-277
  30. ^ Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, Report, Volume 2: The Co-ordinating Intelligence Committee (CIC / KIK) . Report of October 29, 1998, online at www.justice.gov.za, PDF document pp. 317–318 (English)
  31. ↑ National Library of Australia : bibliographic evidence: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into matters relating to the Security of the State (English) and worldcat
  32. ^ SAIRR: A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1972 . 1973, p. 69
  33. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, pp. 44–48
  34. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, pp. 50–51
  35. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, p. 51
  36. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, pp. 53–55
  37. ^ SAIRR: Race Relations Survey 1980 . 1981, p. 277
  38. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, p. 64
  39. ^ Republic of South Africa: Intelligence Services Act 1994, Act 38 of 1994 . at www.fas.org (English)
  40. ↑ Sandy Africa & Johnny Kwadjo et al .: Changing Intelligence Dynamics in Africa . African Security Sector Network, 2009, ISBN 0-7400-2763-X , pp. 76-77 online