State Security Council

The State Security Council (SSC) was formed in South Africa in 1972 to advise the government on the country's national policy and strategy concerning security, its implementation and determining security priorities. Its role changed through the prime ministership's of John Vorster and PW Botha (later State President), being little used during the formers and during the latter’s, controlling all aspects of South African public's lives by becoming the Cabinet. During those years he would implement a Total National Strategy, Total Counter-revolutionary Strategy and finally in the mid-eighties, established the National Security Management System (NSMS). After FW de Klerk's rise to the role of State President, the Cabinet would eventually regain control of the management of the country. After the 1994 elections a committee called National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee was formed to advise the South African president on security and intelligence as well as its implementation.

Early origins

In 5 September 1969, Prime Minister John Vorster formed a commission led by Justice H.J. Potgieter to establish the guidelines and mission for intelligence gathering by the Military Intelligence (later DMI) and the Bureau for State Security (BOSS). The Commission to Inquire into Certain Intelligence Aspects of State Security, known better as the Potgieter Commission would investigate the clashes between the two organisations over who had primary responsibility for intelligence gathering in South Africa. As the BOSS head Hendrik van den Bergh was a close ally of the Prime Minister, it was seen by Military Intelligence as a foregone conclusion that BOSS would achieve favour. The Potgieter Commission reported back on the 2 February 1972 and the results were subsequently used to enact the Security Intelligence and State Security Council Act 64 of 1972 on 24 May 1972. Part of this act established the formation of the State Security Council under the control of the cabinet and established it as the government's national centre for operational security.

Council membership

The Act called for the following persons to be members of the State Security Council:

• Prime Minister
• Minister of Defence
• Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Minister of Justice
• Minster of Police
• Chief of the Defence Force
• Chief of the South African Police
• Director-General of Bureau for State Security (BOSS) (later National Intelligence Service (NIS))
• Secretary of Foreign Affairs
• Secretary of Justice

and anyone one else required to aid the discussions.

Secretariat

Established in 1979, these are the three secretaries of the State Security Council:

• Lt Gen A.J. van Deventer (1979 – 1985)
• Lt Gen Pieter Van der Westhuizen (1985 – 1988)
• Lt Gen Charles Lloyd (1988 – 1990)

Deputy secretary for most of the 1980s was Major-General J.F van Rensburg.

PW Botha years and the SSC

The State Security Council (SSC) presided over the National Security Management System (NSMS) of President P W Botha's National Party Government in South Africa. Its function was to advise the government on formulating and executing national security policy. Botha himself chaired the SSC, which was served by a secretariat of 100 full-time staff seconded from other government departments. The SSC had four divisions:

• Strategy Planning Branch (Strategy Branch)
• Strategic Communications (Stratkom)
• National Intelligence Interpretation Branch, (NIIB) and
• Administration Branch

Strategy Branch

The Strategy Planning Branch developed the national governments strategy which was done through a Total Planning Cell made up of thirteen interdepartmental committees that would develop Total Strategies; security, economic, social and constitutional to counter the Total Onslaught.

Stratkom

The Strategic Communication branch developed strategies and policies for combating the “Total Onslaught” by organisations opposed to South African government and were developed in conjunction with the Strategy and the National Intelligence Interpretation Branches. One of its aims was to discredit anti-apartheid organisations, neutralise anti-apartheid propaganda against the South African government and promote a positive image of the anti-communist organisations operating in Southern Africa. This was done by way of two means, one using the Bureau of Information to overtly sell the message of the South African government departments and secondly, covertly sell the South African governments message to the country or world through organisations not officially aligned to it. A second aim would be develop strategies such as assassination, attacks, economic sabotage, character assassination and front companies against anti-apartheid organisations. By 1984, it was said that this branch consisted of around 2650 people of which 1930 were members of the SADF.

National Intelligence Interpretation Branch (NIIB)

The purpose of this branch was co-ordinate the gathering of intelligence by the different South African intelligence and security organisations such as National Intelligence Service (NIS), Directorate Military Intelligence (DMI), Security Branch and Foreign Affairs intelligence committee. Its second purpose was to interpret all national security and intelligence gathered by the above bodies and provide a national intelligence brief to the South African government. The NIIB would come into existence on 1 January 1982 and the NIS would provide most of the analysts for this branch.

Administration Branch

As its name implies, this branch supplied the administrative staff required to assist the secretariat.

Joint Management Centres

Below the SSC was a network of regional, district and local committees or Joint Management Centres (JMCs) which reported on the activities and location of political activists so as to form an overall security profile, thus enabling decisions on security action to be taken. Such action included assassination of people opposed to the apartheid government's policies, and the widespread use of abduction, arson, sabotage and torture. The SSC put pressure on the security forces to "engage robustly" against persons and organisations opposed to the government.

The Joint Management Centres had two main roles. One, to obtain intelligence in the areas of the country they operated especially the activities of the African National Congress (ANC), Pan-African Congress (PAC) and later in the mid-eighties, the United Democratic Front (UDF) but essentially any organisation the SSC thought acted against the interests of the state. Its secondary role, that was neglected to due to the overriding interests of the security and intelligence brief, was the implementation of the executive strategy and policy to improve the socio-economic and political affairs in the regions controlled by the JMC which were the three of the four pillars of the governments Total Strategy. These roles could be defined as through military control, bring stability to the townships, restoring the role of the state in those communities which would legitimise the states role and finally in the long term anticipating and controlling future resistance through the implementation of political, social and economic reform.

Structure

There were twelve JMC's based in each province and capital city which replicated the SADF command regions, and with the exception of the Western Cape and Witwatersrand, under the command of a SADF Brigadier while the two former were under the command of a South African Police (SAP) Divisional Commander. There were also five external JMC's, Walvis Bay, Namibia Command, Southern Command (five Black Homelands), Northern Command (Frontline States) and Angola. The internal JMC'c were broken down into further three levels. There were sixty Sub-JMC's under the control of a SAP district commander and roughly covered the country's police districts. Mini-JMC's with 450 in total which covered the South African magisterial districts and represented by a local SAP commander. Last level of control of South African society was through Local Management Centres (LMC) which would be based in city and towns. Information would move back and forth from the lowest levels to the JMC, then SSC, its working committee and finally the cabinets and prime minister or state president.

The following seven components made up each Joint Management Centres and were replicated to a large extent in the lower levels of the Sub and Mini JMC's and was itself similar to the State Security Council's structure:

• Executive Committee – this was made up by the head of individual JMC and the committee heads listed below
• Secretariat – administration of the JMC
• Security Committee (SECCOM/VEIKOM) – main aim was to plan, monitor and co-ordinate the security forces. The operational role was under the command of a SAP commander through a Joint Operations Centre. Members of this committee included the SAP, SADF, NIS, Security Police, Railway Police, Civil defence, Commandos and state and provincial officials
• Joint Intelligence Committee (JICOM/GIKOM) – main aim was to provide daily intelligence to the other committees. The operational role was under the command of an Army Intelligence commander through a Joint Intelligence Centre. Members of this committee included the Directorate Military Intelligence (DMI), NIS, Security Police, Prisons Service, Kitskonstabels, private security firms and provincial, regional and local affairs
• Communication Committee (COMCOM/KOMKOM) – main aim was to compile and disseminate propaganda in their area of JMC. Members of this committee consisted of the SAP, SADF and Bureau of Information
• Constitutional, Economic and Welfare Committee – main aim was to implement the National Welfare Management strategy of the government. Members included civil servants from housing, finance, constitutional affairs and pensions
• Liaison Committee – communication with the public sector

FW De Klerk years and the SSC

In a statement on the death of former president P W Botha in 2006, his successor, F W de Klerk, said:

Personally, my relationship with P W Botha was often strained. I did not like his overbearing leadership style and was opposed to the intrusion of the State Security Council system into virtually every facet of government. After I became leader of the National Party in February 1989 I did my best to ensure that P W Botha would be able to end his term as president with full dignity and decorum. Unfortunately, this was not to be.

In August 2007, de Klerk was challenged to say what he knew about the atrocities carried out at the behest of the SSC. The Guardian quoted de Klerk as replying that although he was a member of the cabinet it was not briefed "on clandestine operations involving murders, assassinations or the like – all of which were evidently carried out strictly on a 'need to know' basis". The same newspaper report alleged that, in his last months as president in 1994, de Klerk ordered the wholesale shredding and incineration of tons of documents, microfilm and computer tapes that dealt with matters such as the chain of command in covert operations.

TRC Investigation into the SSC

In a 1998 report on the former South African government and its security forces, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) castigated South Africa's last hard-line apartheid president P W Botha and held him responsible for gross human rights violations, including all violence sanctioned by the State Security Council. The report said:

By virtue of his position as head of state and chairperson of the State Security Council (SSC), Botha contributed to and facilitated a climate in which ... gross violations of human rights did occur, and as such is accountable for such violations.

The TRC also found that the SSC had contributed to the prevailing culture of impunity by failing to recommend that action be taken against those members of the security forces who were involved in gross human rights violations.

SSC and Samora Machel

In 1996, the TRC conducted a special investigation into the 1986 aircrash in which president Samora Machel of Mozambique was killed. The investigation was unable to prove an allegation that South Africa was behind the Mozambican Tupolev Tu-134 air disaster, but the TRC stated in its report:

South Africa's State Security Council (SSC) minutes from January 1984 indicate that the Mozambican working group, including General Jac Buchner and Major Craig Williamson, discussed how to help RENAMO overthrow the FRELIMO government of Mozambique.

Further reading

• O'Brien, Kevin A. (2011). The South African Intelligence Services: From Apartheid to Democracy, 1948-2005 (eBook). Studies in Intelligence Series. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-203-84061-0.
• Sanders, James (2006). Apartheid's Friends. The Rise and Fall of South Africa's Secret Services. Great Britain: John Murray(Publishers). ISBN 978-0719566752.

See also

• South African Bureau of State Security (1969 to 1980)
• National Intelligence Service (South Africa) (1980 to 1994)
• Civil Cooperation Bureau
• State-sponsored terrorism