Special Hearings — Media Hearings — UNKNOWN

MOEGSIEN WILLIAMS: Thank you.  The media, a target of State Intelligence operations.  I am by no means an expert of media operations by the State, I was an Intelligence Officer and as such, obviously some of the Intelligence operations that we conducted, related to the media.	Now, the reason why during my years in the Intelligence Organisations, we concentrated or were interested by the media, was firstly because South African and Western experts in counter-revolutionary warfare, had trained us and taught us that the media was used by the Soviet Union and their surrogates, such as National Liberation Movements, to conduct political and psychological warfare.	Not only against South Africa, but against the West.  So the media in general, and certain journalists in particular, were therefore targeted and monitored in order to detect  and neutralise their so-called agent of influence role in the media.	I have handed in various documents to you.  One on the psychological and political warfare dimensions of Soviet support for international terrorism.  Another one on international front organisations.  The first is by Samuel T. Francis, an American academic.  The second is by Western Intelligence Agency.	Third is a bron verslag (source report) on Soviet active measures, again from a Western Intelligence Agency.  Document four is chapter XXX, Die Propaganda Bedreiging (propaganda threat) which is a draft chapter from the Annual Intelligence Review of the Secretariat of the State Security Council  Propaganda Threat, which is a draft chapter from the Annual Intelligence Review of the Secretariat of the State Security Council for 1981 and 1982.	And then to finish off the documents in this section, I have given seven examples of source reports done on radio media and other media reports.	Mr Chairman, very very briefly, the belief, the political belief at that time was that National Liberation Movements were conducting terrorism against South Africa and that a large element of terrorism was a psychological rather than a physical war and that therefore propaganda of the deed needed to be reinforced and explicated by the propaganda of the word and that the Soviets and their surrogates sponsored terrorism and used terrorism as an extension of their policy and they termed this policy relating to exploitation and propaganda in the media, as active measures.	And this is why I have given you certain documentation on front organisations and active measures.  And I want to reiterate that it wasn't only the South African Intelligence Services that regarded this information as being accurate and true.  It was the entire Western world, Intelligence Agencies and a lot of the information that I have given you here in fact, came from those Agencies.	There is a document here on the use of journalists by the KGB.  It states for example journalistic cover is frequently used by the KGB because journalists generally have better access to a wider range of influential individuals than diplomates or other officials.	Then Mr Chairman, the Chapter in the Annual Intelligence Review, I think I must first tell you that once a year, during the time of the previous government's State Security Council structure, the politicians were given an overall view by the Intelligence Agencies on the entire threat against the nation, against the State.	And this is a draft chapter from that and relates to the what is termed the Propaganda Threat and it sets out very clearly that the State at that time regarded the media as part or in particular the non-government supporting media, as part of the revolutionary onslaught against the country at that time.	It also goes as far as to discuss the role of so-called resistance culture and novels for example samples of books which were regarded at that time as being part of the resistance literature, is "'n Droe Wit Seisoen", by A.P. Brink and Burger's Daughter by Nadine Gordimer.	Then Mr Chairman, the second aspect of my evidence relates, that is why we were monitoring the media.  The second aspect is to do with manipulating the media and using propaganda and following the theory of fighting fire with fire, the South African State at that time embarked on its own operations to use the media for political and psychological warfare.  And this was in an attempt to counter Soviet style active measures which were in fact at that time being used against the State.	And this attempt grew into the now well-known COMOP and STRATCOM activities.  COMOP's are communication operations, it was mainly a military term and STRATCOM, strategic communications.  That is mainly a police term and then later became the State Security Council term.	In order then to attempt to keep the population in South Africa either pro-government or at least actively neutral in the political struggle for the hearts and minds of the people in the target community, the Security Forces in general and the State Security Council's structures, used various elements.	A special relationship existed between the SABC TV and radio news departments and the Intelligence community's units responsible for STRATCOM.  And there was in fact a war for the hearts and minds of the target community and the State was at a disadvantage because it did not own or control any credible print media.	And this could and was counter-acted by use of TV and radio.  Several documentaries on the ANC were made and broadcast and at least one series was attempted which attempted to portray the SAP in a positive light.	The SABC was also used at the time of cross-border raids to present the actions taken in a positive light.  And then Mr Chairman, as part of the supporting documentation under this section, I have documents first of all, B1 to B4, which are documents from the Department of Foreign Affairs and the South African Defence Force.  CV's and information on so-called influential people.  Many of whom were writers or journalists who were brought out to South Africa, paid for by the State, in order to use them in the propaganda war against the liberation movements, the ANC and of course the Soviet Union and everybody else.	Here are some examples of the particular individuals, people who were brought out and I have to emphasise that the way we treated these journalists was to use them as allies in a common struggle and at one time, I wrote a memorandum which I have included to you, to General Coetzee and I quoted a British soldier, Brigadier C.P.R. Palmer who published a paper called Public Opinion in the Armed Services and it was published by the Royal College of Defence Studies.	And he basically said that the effectiveness of the Armed Services, the Security Forces and the survival of a nation may well depend less on the ability to put up a stiff fight, than on the acceptability of that fight to public opinion.	And that brutalised and horrific media portrayal of Security Force action, can lead to public opinion being so shocked that the will of the nation to resist, may be lost.  So, that was essentially what we were trying to do to use these journalists to put across out point of view in this war.	There were also during this type of proceeding, journalists who were recruited and paid to present the line or to give us information on an Intelligence level.	There were also other journalistic related operations.  For example, I have given you a report which was done by the police on the exposure of the affair that Dr Allan Boesak had with Ms Scott.  And the full chronological, it is laid out in 13 pages, on how this operation was carried out, how different newspapers were used and how the Star finally printed the allegations.	And at the end of the day, the idea of this type of operation and in specific the operation against Dr Boesak, was in order to discredit him and to break down his political effectiveness.  And I can refer you to another document I have given you, which I have numbered B4, which relates to a media briefing but it also relates to the previous example I have given you about Dr Boesak, because and I will read.	It is a Ministry of Foreign Affairs letter, signed by the then deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Barend du Plessis, addressed to the then Minister of Law and Order, Louis le Grange and the heading is United Democratic Front UDF/ANC, confidential submission to the media.  First paragraph, in an attempt to limit the movement space of the UDF and in terms of the decision by the State Security Council that the UDF and its officials should be discredited, we felt that by means of a confidential submission to selected Editors of the South African newspapers, to try and temper publicity in South African papers in this regard.	So this is about a briefing to Editors in order to get them to play down the UDF factor in South African politics.  But what is important is that it says here very clearly, that this is being done as a result of the decision and order of the State Security Council that the UDF, its officials and patrons must be discredited.	Then Mr Chairman, the final example I can give in this aspect of media operations was that publications and films were produced, financed by the State.  Usually by the Defence Force and that these were published and released through co-operative or friendly journalists and for example during Oliver Tambo's world tour, I think in 1987, wherever he went in the world, the propaganda video's and publications got there before him, all of which concentrated mainly on necklacing, on Mrs Winnie Mandela's famous matchbox with matches speech, etc. etc. 	So I have given you a copy of one of those video's and I have given you also some of the documentation that accompanied this type of video.  They were released in Australia, United States, Canada, these sort of countries.	Then finally Mr Chairman, the third aspect which I can speak about is that journalists, because of their access and because they have reasons to ask questions, are targets of recruitment by both Intelligence Agencies and Revolutionary Movements.	These people can recruit journalists and use journalists so in our counter-intelligence function  we did have a special section that monitored journalists, but this was often done in order to determine their involvements in ... (tape ends) ... They monitored David Beresford.  At the time of the arrest, I think they called them the Armscor 4.  The Armscor Officials who had been arrested in England for sanctions breaking, for sending some - not weapons, but military related equipment to South Africa, and it was believed at that time, that David Beresford had been tasked by an Intelligence Agency to find out certain information and we monitored him for that reason.	I also included a source report that I wrote about a member of your panel, Mr Hugh Lewin.  Where he was monitored while a journalist overseas.  But again, he was being monitored not because of the journalistic activities, but because of his close relations with the African National Congress and other people.	And finally, I was requested in my subpoena to give you whatever information I had about SANA, the Southern African News Agency.  I have given certain budgets and letters and information which isn't really I don't think of very much use.  Basically SANA was a genuine organisation.  It was set up by certain South African journalists, during the period probably 1977 to 1980 roughly.  It was of course to a large degree under my control.	And while the people involved in it, were bona fide journalists, obviously they received instructions from me.  I could ask them for certain information and obviously that information then got passed back to the Intelligence Agencies in Pretoria.	Mr Chairman, that is basically the synopsis of what I have been able to find.  And what I have given to you, and just to summarise at the end that I was not in fact a COMOP or a STRATCOM officer myself, I was an Intelligence Officer and my involvement and the examples I have given you of use of the media in propaganda operations, is because of my personal involvement in these operations.  As a result of the fact that we had certain Intelligence capabilities that were needed to carry out these operations.	I think I can respond to questions.