South African Bureau for State Security

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The South African Bureau for State Security , afrikaans : Buro vir Staatsveiligheid (BSV) (German translation: "South African Bureau for State Security"), abbreviated BOSS , was a South African intelligence service during the apartheid period . It was founded in 1969 on a legal basis, with the Public Service Amendment Act ( Act No. 86/1969 ) and financially supported on the basis of the Security Services Special Account Act ( Act No. 81/1969 ). Its purpose was to merge the activities of the security branch (security department) of SAP and the military reconnaissance (MI) in the armed forces while maintaining both structures. The agency began its work on May 1, 1969.

The first assignment of duties resulted from the General Law Amendment Act ( Act No. 101/1969 ), also called "BOSS BILL", which was passed in the same year . This legislation led to changes in the provisions of the Official Secrets Act of 1956 and its amendment of 1965. As a result, actions by persons who appeared to endanger state security were defined as relevant areas of action for BOSS. The handling of information was the focus of these provisions. The press was particularly affected.

The agency received its comprehensive assignment of tasks with the Security Intelligence and State Security Council Act ( Act No. 64/1972 ), which was further specified in 1978 with the Bureau for State Security Act ( Act No. 104/1978 ). The government transformed BOSS into the Department of National Security (DONS).

Work and powers

The BOSS's fields of activity were both in South Africa itself and abroad. He was responsible for counter-espionage as well as for combating the opposition. This also included the murder of opponents of apartheid. The official announcement for the establishment of this service under the direct responsibility of the Prime Minister appeared in the government gazette on May 16, 1969. Its tasks were described as follows:

  • “(1) to investigate everything that affects the state security, to weigh up and evaluate the information obtained and, if necessary, to inform and advise the government, as well as the interested ministries and other authorities concerned;
  • (2) to take on other functions and responsibilities as they can be determined on a case-by-case basis. "

On June 4, 1969, the government issued an addendum to the Official Secrets Act containing section 10 , which allowed publication of any security matter to be fined up to rand 1,500 , imprisonment for up to 7 years, or both. Any matter that might be related to the security of the country and that is dealt with by the South African Bureau of State Security was defined as a security matter . In section 29 , the Prime Minister was authorized one of his appointed officials or any minister, the evidence to prevent and use of documents in court proceedings or prohibit when these are detrimental to the interests of the State or public safety in whose opinion ". "

history

The starting point for the gradually developing field of activity of the Bureau for State Security was a visit by South African police employees in London to the special branch of the British police in 1947 . As a result of this visit, the Security Branch of the South African Police was established. After Prime Minister Balthazar Johannes Vorster founded a cabinet committee for defense in the 1960s , which he headed himself, the decision was made in this group to create a central intelligence organization. It should collect information for the police and the military. General Van den Bergh , who had just been appointed Commissioner of Police at the time, was also entrusted with this special task. He was directly subordinate to the Prime Minister in relation to his delegated leadership of the Security Police.

General van den Bergh stayed in April 1968 - which was initially kept secret - together with a high-ranking security officer in London to find out about the African National Congress and its exile headquarters there. He later negotiated with Portuguese and Rhodesian police representatives in Lisbon in order to hold talks with them in order to prepare measures to combat the resistance movements in southern Africa.

BOSS played an active role in several African countries to link South African interests with the politics of some regimes. This always happened in an area of ​​conflict with the majority of the OAU member states, which were opposed to a cooperative dialogue with South Africa. Some states with a positive attitude towards the dialogue became politically unstable and governments were overthrown ( Ghana : 1972 Kofi Abrefa Busia and Madagascar : 1972 Philibert Tsiranana ). These events largely ended support for South Africa's policy of dialogue among African governments. In order to prevent a similar end of the Hastings Kamuzu Banda government in Malawi and its promotion of cooperation with South Africa, BOSS developed a long-term cooperation with the Bandas government apparatus. Intelligence officers trained their Malawian colleagues in techniques for repression of the population. According to New African magazine from 1979, the Malawian government provided "facilities for South African spies and subversion maneuvers against progressive African countries". Malawi has granted BOSS employees its own diplomatic passports and options for action from its missions abroad .

In the course of its existence, BOSS has played an increasingly coordinating leadership role within the intelligence service structures of South Africa. In everyday life, this created conflicts of competence with the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) of the armed forces, the security police and occasionally with the Foreign Ministry. The armed forces' dependence on the information power at BOSS aroused displeasure with the then Defense Minister Pieter Willem Botha . When he took over the role of Prime Minister in 1978, he initiated closer cooperation between DMI and BOSS u. a. through a spatial consolidation in the Alphen Building not far from the Concilium Building in Pretoria .

In 1980 the service was formally terminated after a scandal ( Muldergate affair ), in which it was ostensibly about the purchase of the newspaper The Citizen . The South African and apartheid-critical newspaper Rand Daily Mail opened the revelations in 1978. At the core of the criticism, however, was South Africa's secret diplomacy as part of its detente policy (“détente” policy), with the information minister Cornelius Petrus Mulder in his ministry, together with the state secretary Eschel Rhoodie , having created a parallel foreign policy structure, which was largely made up of BOSS staff at home and abroad. These circumstances came to the public through published research by The Observer newspaper and New African magazine .

The intelligence service tasks were continued for a short time by a ministerial organizational unit with the abbreviation DONS ( Department of National Security ), which was set up temporarily in 1979. The finally realigned successor agency was called the National Intelligence Service , and the political scientist Niel Barnard took over the management.

Perception in the international public

  • Der Spiegel named the BOSS in an article in 1971 as "South Africa's Big Brother "
  • Nelson Mandela wrote in his memoir that a BOSS agent tried to convince him to flee Robben Island in 1969 . The escape was supposed to succeed, only to then murder him on the mainland in a fictitious arrest.
  • Jean Ziegler wrote in the Swiss weekly magazine Die Weltwoche that the BOSS had tried several times to assassinate Zimbabwe's head of state Robert Mugabe because of his support for the African National Congress .
  • In the 1970s, according to research by Der Spiegel, BOSS agents in Great Britain are said to have collected incriminating material against politicians critical of South Africa ( Labor and Liberal Party). Among other things, it is entangled in the alleged homosexual affair of Liberal boss Jeremy Thorpe .

literature

further reading

Individual evidence

  1. ^ SAIRR : A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1969 . Chapter Bureau for State Security . Johannesburg 1970, p. 34
  2. ↑ Nelson Mandela Center of Memory: 1969, Public Service Amendment Act . on www.nelsonmandela.org (English)
  3. ↑ a b Niël Barnard , Tobie Wiese: Secret Revolution. Memoirs of a Spy Boss . Tafelberg, Cape Town, 2015. p. 36 ISBN 978-0-624-07457-1
  4. ^ A b SAIRR: A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1969 . Chapter General Law Amendment Act, No. 101 of 1969 ("BOSS BILL") Johannesburg 1970, pp. 34-35
  5. ↑ Kevin A. O'Brien: The South African intelligence services: from apartheid to democracy, 1948-2005 . Taylor & Francis, 2011, p. 74
  6. ^ South African Institute of Race Relations: A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa, 1972. University of California Press, p. 70; Short description of the law (English)
  7. ^ CJ Jacobs: Military Intelligence in South Africa IV Modern history (1945-2004) . ( Memento from July 11, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  8. ↑ Amin Aboufazeli: South Africa's nuclear weapons program . (Diploma thesis, University of Vienna, 2008), p. 37 (PDF; 1.3 MB)
  9. ↑ Portraits of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission . (English; PDF), accessed on January 15, 2016
  10. ↑ a b Albie Sachs , Hilda Bernstein , 1976, p. 50
  11. ^ A b South African History Online: The South African Bureau of State Security (BOSS) is established . on www.sahistory.org.za (English)
  12. ↑ Albie Sachs, Hilda Bernstein, 1976, p. 56
  13. ↑ cited in Meinardus, 1981, p. 84 after New African, year 1979, No. 12, p. 39
  14. ^ Ronald Meinardus: The Africa policy of the Republic of South Africa . (ISSA - Scientific Series. 15). Bonn 1981, pp. 83-84 ISBN 3-921614-50-3
  15. ↑ Barnard: Secret Revolution . 2015, p. 37
  16. ^ South African History Online: The Information Scandal . on www.sahistory.org.za (English)
  17. ^ Ronald Meinardus: The Africa policy of the Republic of South Africa . 1981, pp. 81-82
  18. ↑ Niel Barnard : Secret Revolution. Memoirs of a Spy Boss . Tafelberg, 2015, pp. 29-30 ISBN 9780624074571
  19. ↑ Trapped in Hell's Courtyard . In: Der Spiegel . No. 43 , 1971, p. 170 ( online ).
  20. ↑ Nelson Mandela: The leader is a shepherd . In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 1994, pp. 118 ff . ( online ).
  21. ↑ Jean Ziegler: Crash of a Hero. In: Die Weltwoche 27/2008 (July 2nd, 2008)
  22. ↑ Boss spotted. Does the South African secret service want to destroy British politicians with scandal stories? In: Der Spiegel . No. 22 , 1976, p. 113 ( online ).