T Mbeki: Intelligence Services Day

23 November 2006

Chairpersons, Mr Chief Mosokare and Ms Sandy Africa,
Minister of Intelligence, Ronnie Kasrils,
Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, Manala Manzini,
Director-General of the South African Secret Service, Tim Dennis,
National Co-ordinator of the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee,
Barry Gilder,
Inspector-General of Intelligence, Zola Ngcakani,
Principal of South African National Academy of intelligence (SANAI), Mr
Mphakama Mbete,
Members of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence,
Members of the intelligences services,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Thank you very much for inviting me to this important day for the
intelligence community, the Intelligence Services Day.

Today by laying a wreath at the sacred Juperana Granite Memorial Wall we pay
solemn tribute to those who have passed on in the course of their duties and I
am confident that all of us draw strength from the fact that the work we do
quietly and away from the public glare ensures that South Africa remains
united, our democracy is deepened and conditions for the creation of a
prosperous future become more entrenched.

It is with this confidence in the work that our intelligence services are
doing that we are also grateful to honour with medals and awards those
officers, women and men, who have served our country with distinction.

The words of the Chinese master Sage Sun Tzu, who lived more than 2 000
years ago, are still apt today when we talk about the work of intelligence
officers. I am certain you will find what he said in his famous work, "The Art
of War" very interesting indeed. He wrote:

"What makes the enlightened rulers and good generals to conquer the enemy at
every move and achieve extraordinary success is foreknowledge. Foreknowledge
cannot be elicited from ghosts and spirits. It cannot be inferred from
comparison of previous events or from the calculations of the heavens but must
be obtained from people who have knowledge of the enemy's situation."

"Now there are five different sorts of secret agents to be employed. These
are native, inside, doubled, expendable and living. Living agents are those who
return with information. We select men who are clever, talented, wise and able
to gain access to those of the enemy who are intimate with the sovereign and
members of the nobility. Thus they are able to observe the enemy's movements
and to learn of his doings and his plans. Having learned the true state of
affairs, they return and tell us."

"He who is not sage and wise, humane and just cannot use secret agents. And
he who is not delicate and subtle cannot get the truth out of them. The first
essential is to estimate the character of the spy to determine if he is
sincere, truthful and really intelligent. Among agents there are some whose
only interest is in acquiring wealth without obtaining the true situation of
the enemy and only meet my requirements with empty words. In such a case I must
be deep and subtle. Then I can assess the truth or falsity of the spy's
statements and discriminate between what is substantial and what is not."

"It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct espionage
against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them instructions and care for
them. Thus doubled agents are recruited and used. It is by means of the doubled
agent that native and inside agents can be recruited and employed."

"This is because the doubled agent knows those of his countrymen who are
covetous as well as those officials who have been remiss in office. These we
can tempt into our service. Secret operations are essential in war, upon them
the army relies to make its every move. An army without secret agents is
exactly like a man without eyes or ears."

Clearly the enemy in our situation are those who seek to undermine our
Constitution, those whose actions deliberately seek to weaken our democracy and
intentionally strive to make it difficult to create sooner rather than later a
non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa.

In addition, those who do crime and engage in acts of corruption intent to
live off the proceeds of illegal activities proscribed by law, help to
cultivate a general climate of illegality and disrespect for our constitutional
order and its people centred objectives that objectively serves to undermine
the democratic order.

I am certain that all the esteemed members of our intelligence services
present here today know that especially after the end of the Cold War, many of
the principal intelligence services that have a global reach turned their
attention to the challenge of organised crime with special reference to the
trade in narcotics and the attendant crime of global money laundering.

A fundamental reason for this is that practice had shown that so lucrative
had the trade in drugs become, that the drug dealers were generating profits
enabling them:

* to establish well equipped private armies, in some cases too powerful to
be contained and destroyed by legitimate national security organs
* to operate across the boundaries of many countries and continents free from
the limitations of respect for jurisdictions that may impede the operations of
national law enforcement authorities
* to corrupt non-governmental institutions that all law governed societies need
such as the auditing profession as well as corporate managers
* most significantly to buy out members of organs of state institutions such as
the police, customs and immigration personnel, judicial officers, elected
representatives and people serving within the executive wing of government.

These situations in our country cannot but be categorised as constituting a
grave and immediate threat and danger to our constitutional and legal order and
a deliberate construction of obstacles to the achievement of the objective of a
democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa, all of which
constitute the very heart and meaning of the democratic order.

Similarly, acts of corruption within the public sector inevitably compromise
the efforts of the government to meet its obligations to the masses of the poor
people who most need the support and assistance of the democratic State.

Accordingly, I am certain that all of us as intelligence officers understand
the importance of the work we are doing to ensure that South Africa continues
on the path towards a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous
future.

Equally, I am certain that all of us recognise the importance of the reality
that we live in a globalising world which requires that we position ourselves
correctly, relative both to the African continent and the rest of the world. In
this regard we must also continue to strive to do our best to contribute what
we can to the task to build a better world as well as advance our national
interests.

As we work to improve national and social cohesion in our country, indeed we
should not ignore our own legacy bequeathed to us by those African leaders of
old who also knew very well the value of accurate information.

I refer here specifically to the 19th Century Morena Moshoeshoe of the
Basotho who dedicated his life's mission to the creation of a new nation out of
a fragmented society, a nation which would be at peace with itself, its
neighbours and the world.

While Morena Moshoeshoe's accomplishments are many, his extraordinary
analytical prowess based on effective intelligence gathering ultimately led to
what has generally been regarded as his 'wise' and 'enlightened' decisions in
support of his life's mission.

The intelligence gathered was both covert and open. It was drawn from his
scouts who represented the early intelligence units of the time. It was
elicited from his people who attended his community gatherings or lipitso,
where public engagement on policy was encouraged. It was gained from foreign
missionaries who kept him abreast of developments in distant lands.

As Professor Njabulo Ndebele tells us:

"Morena Moshoeshoe seems to have been a great listener. He seems to have
networked actively across the spectrum of society. He seems to have kept a
close eye on the world beyond Lesotho, forming strong friendships and
alliances, weighing his options constantly. He had tons of data before him
before he could propose the unexpected."
(Ndebele Njabulo, Inaugural King Moshoeshoe Lecture, University of the Free
State, 25 May 2006)

I am certain that Morena Moshoeshoe's intelligence officers had a strict
code of conduct that ensured their success. Similarly, your own 'five
principles for intelligence professionals', encapsulate important elements of
your work. These as you know say:

* we are not above the law
* we are accountable to the duly elected and duly appointed civilian
authority
* we accept the principle of political non-partisanship
* we owe our loyalty to the Constitution, the citizens of our country and the
State
* we strive to maintain high standards of proficiency in the performance of our
functions.

In this context as policymakers we look to you, our intelligence services,
to render useful, accurate and relevant information to enable us to take
decisions that would help our country to move forward.

As we do our important work and gather the foreknowledge which as Sun Tzu
said, cannot be elicited from ghosts, spirits or from the calculations of the
heavens, we have to ensure that we adhere to these principles and refrain from
engaging in illegal activities because as we know nobody is above the law
irrespective of whether you thought that your actions were necessary to enable
'the enlightened rulers and good generals to conquer the enemy.'

We should continue to do our work diligently, honestly, sensitively and
honourably always guided by the prescriptions of the supreme law of the land,
the Constitution.

Again as I said in my address to the Intelligence Services Day function last
year, South Africa requires effective, professional, vigilant and accountable
intelligence services that can meet the complex security challenges of the 21st
century.

Chairpersons, I am pleased with the wide ranging breakthroughs made by our
intelligence community and I urge you to consolidate and build on these
achievements. In so doing you should adhere to the basics and ensure that you
intensify the implementation of the 10 point programme adopted in 2004, to
build up your necessary professional and technical capacity by focusing
specifically on enhancing your core business, which is intelligence gathering,
and forewarning all of us of any dangers on the horizon.

Among others this will require further progress in your undertaking to
realign your budget spending ratios away from the rising remunerations account,
in favour of operational expenditure and capital investment needs. I am indeed
very pleased to learn that you are making headway in this regard.

Indeed while we will guarantee the requisite budgetary and operational
resources to enable you to perform optimally we require you to obtain the
maximum, cost-effective value from the public funds allocated through well run
services based on discipline, hard work and high standards.

This will necessitate the further development of your initiatives directed
towards strengthening the main pillars of the intelligence cycle. This is what
your Minister has termed the 'holy trinity' of your work namely, the focused
collection of quality information; its sophisticated evaluation and analysis;
and its timely presentation to policymakers.

Given that we live in an environment where the policymaker is bombarded with
information, objective and credible analysis must occupy its pride of place at
the very heart of the intelligence cycle in driving your collection priorities,
both at the operational and strategic levels.

This will require the further strengthening of your international and local
partnerships. Good intelligence as you are aware is dependent on co-ordination
at home not only to minimise wasteful duplication and unnecessary rivalry, but
also to ensure successful operations and integrated intelligence products.

It is also dependent on mutually beneficial and reciprocal international
partnerships, where you have to work with other countries on issues of common
interest on a truly co-operative and practical basis.

Further we recognise the need for ongoing training programmes and effective
management so that your talents, potential and excellence are nurtured; hence
the various training programmes focusing on a whole range of areas including
the upgrading of technical skills and capacity.

All of us are aware that your job is not an easy one. You are expected to
work under very difficult conditions, often at considerable personal risk. We
appreciate that in exceptional circumstances things can and do go wrong.
Accordingly where genuine mistakes occur in the legitimate course of upholding
and defending our nation's security we will not abandon you.

It is important therefore that the values underpinning the effective,
professional, vigilant and accountable intelligence services that we require,
which your ongoing programme seeks to address must be constantly reinforced and
in the process infuse the totality of your institutional ethos.

I am happy that under the able leadership provided by the heads of services
who deserve special mention, you all pulled together in putting your full
weight behind the wide ranging initiatives aimed at averting the reoccurrence
of abuses committed by a few in your name.

My confidence arises from the regular reports and vastly improved
intelligence products that I have received from your Minister, who has shared
your ongoing progress with me.

Once more thank you for inviting me and congratulations for the good work
you are doing, keeping in mind what Sun Tzu said two millennia ago that "an
army without secret agents is exactly like a man without eyes or ears."

I wish the intelligence community a very happy Intelligence Services Day and
new successes in the period ahead. May I also wish you a Merry Christmas and a
Happy New Year!

Thank you!

Issued by: The Presidency
23 November 2006
Source: The Presidency (http://www.thepresidency.gov.za)