|
|
South Africa: Bill to Tell Apartheid-Era Secrets
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Cape Argus (Cape Town)
23 March 2008
Posted to the web 24 March 2008
Angela Quintal
Cape Town
Apartheid's official secrets are finally to be made public, although paid impimpi who shafted their liberation struggle comrades will still be protected and not "named and shamed".
This is in line with a far-reaching new bill which protects state information from destruction and disclosure and moves towards a more open and transparent approach.
The Protection of Information Bill was gazetted this week by Ronnie Kasrils, the minister of intelligence, and will be tabled in Parliament soon.
The bill allows for automatic declassification of apartheid-era state and classified information older than 20 years, opening a treasure trove of information about the country's past - despite the destruction of some key state records by the National Party government.
The proposed legislation also targets private intelligence operators, but does not outlaw them. Instead, they will face up to five years in jail if they act unlawfully.
Last month, Charles Nqakula, the minister for safety and security, said the bill aimed to fill the legal gap in relation to threats faced by the state from intelligence gathering by "unauthorised entities".
Referring to the controversial Special Browse Mole report, he said of particular concern was the extent to which "information peddlers" had attempted to undermine national intelligence structures by disseminating false information.
A special parliamentary ad hoc committee - which will include members of the joint standing committee on intelligence - will be established to process the bill, Kasrils told The Sunday Independent.
Kasrils tried to allay concerns that it would crack down on, rather than aid, the public's constitutional right to government information or that investigative journalists and academic researchers would be prejudiced. Nor was it aimed at covering up state corruption or incompetence, Kasrils said.
He hoped it would be on the statute books by year-end and urged journalists, researchers and others to engage the ad hoc parliamentary committee, which would hold public hearings on the bill.
Among the bill's strong points was the section dealing with the principles of classification, Lauren Hutton, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, said. Classified information, for example, "may not under any circumstances be used to conceal an unlawful act or omission, incompetence, inefficiency or administrative error" or "prevent embarrassment to a person, organisation, or organ of state or agency".
The bill states that sensitive information must be protected from disclosure to prevent the national interest from being endangered.
The media, for example, will not be allowed to report on classified information and if they obtain this illegally or through sources, would be obliged to return it. Failure to do so, and publication of classified information, would be an offence in the bill.
|
Although this is already the case at present, there is a reluctance to prosecute, given that the old Protection of Information Act of 1982 is susceptible to constitutional challenges.
As a result, South African media have got away with publishing the names of intelligence sources or operatives. The bill also overhauls the statutory crime of espionage, ensuring that the presumption is no longer on the accused to prove innocence and sets a penalty of 25 years in jail if convicted.
It creates other offences, including those of "hostile activities" - which bizarrely requires spies operating in South Africa to register as such and makes it an offence if they fail to do so.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 Cape Argus. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
