Spooks+under+SACP+bed,+Karima+Brown+and+Vukani+Mde,+Weekender

Business Day Weekender, Johannesburg, 12 May 2007
=SACP’s spooks under the bed=


 * Karima Brown and Vukani Mde**

THE South African Communist Party (SACP) is about to lodge a formal complaint with SA’s security minister following months of alleged tailing and intimidation of party boss Blade Nzimande and other senior officials by unidentified agents.

While the party has stopped short of pointing directly to state security structures, the complaint will raise the demands on Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula and, particularly, Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils, whose agents were accused this week of attempting to interfere with union officials involved in the ongoing wage dispute with the government.

Both Nqakula and Kasrils are longstanding SACP seniors who serve on the powerful politburo, which has taken the decision to go public with the revelations.

Kasrils already has a frosty relationship with some factions in the party, and the possible involvement of state agents in tailing party leaders, if it is proved, could cost him his position at the SACP congress in July.

The SACP’s decision to go public with its concerns may also lend credence to allegations by some factions in the tripartite alliance that state security and justice institutions have been used in the bitter African National Congress (ANC) presidential succession war.

The National Intelligence Agency (NIA) already has a credibility crisis following a botched attempt to spy on ANC businessman Saki Macozoma. Former NIA boss Billy Masetlha is facing criminal charges for his alleged role in fabricating evidence against Macozoma and other ANC and government high-ups.

The SACP’s allegations received backing from a retired senior intelligence officer who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The officer said NIA interference in party-political matters could be traced back to 1996, when the White Paper on Intelligence was first drafted.

“While there was always an understanding that the NIA should act in a nonpartisan way, guided by its code of conduct, social movements were infiltrated as part of monitoring ‘social instability’,” the source said. Many in the NIA were not convinced social movements and other “ultra-left groups” were a threat to national security, the source said.

The monitoring of social movements appears to have led the NIA inexorably to the disastrous Project Avani, in which it spied on communities who took to the streets to protest against poor service delivery. Avani was allegedly expanded to look at the ANC succession, and eventually led to the botched Macozoma surveillance.

Former Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) vice-president Joe Nkosi last year also resigned in disgrace after he was caught allegedly trying to recruit Nzimande’s bodyguards to spy on the SACP boss. Senior sources in the unions and the ruling alliance told The Weekender they had become “used to” NIA infiltration of their meetings and other activities.

They did not go public with their allegations, but jacked up security around senior leaders.

The decision to go public came after a recent heated politburo meeting where it was revealed Nzimande, and his household, had been under surveillance over a period of months.

SACP national organiser Solly Mapaila has apparently also come under close watch, and was attacked twice last year. In one incident, a group of men attacked him in a sham hijacking, but left his car and valuables after robbing him of his SACP laptop and various party documents.

Mapaila reported the incidents to the police, but no arrests have been made. It is understood he now receives police protection.

However, the party became most concerned when the South African Police Service security detail protecting Nzimande began to suspect that his movements were being tracked. “For some months now the VIP protection detail has picked up strange behaviour around his person and his house,” said party deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin.

Attempts to run checks on the licence plates of the cars watching Nzimande had drawn a blank, party sources said.

Cronin would not speculate about the source of the surveillance on Nzimande and the attacks on Mapaila.

“We can’t say it’s state agents. There’s no evidence for that. If it’s in any way linked to the state then it’s very concerning,” he said.

Kasrils did not respond to calls for comment.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/weekender/article.aspx?ID=BD4A460201**

699 words