14 Aug 2008: ISS Seminar, Cape Town: To Spy or Not to Spy: Intelligence and Democracy in South Africa

ISS Seminar: To Spy or Not to Spy? Intelligence and Democracy in South Africa
Cape Town, 14 August 2008

 

This seminar is the sixth and last in a series of public dialogues on intelligence and democracy in South Africa hosted by the Security Sector Governance Programme during July and August 2008.

 

 

Speakers:

 

Laurie Nathan – Between 1992 and 2003 he was Executive Director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution at UCT. He spent 2004 and 2005 on sabbatical at the Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics. In 2005, Laurie joined the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science at UCT as a research fellow and convenes the Honours module on Understanding and Managing Conflict. His main research affiliation is with the Crisis States Research Centre at London School of Economics. Laurie has extensive experience as a policy advisor to the South African government and currently serves on the Ministerial Review Commission on Intelligence.

 

Barry Gilder - Barry retired from the South African intelligence community in 2007. At the time he held the post of coordinator for intelligence at NICOC. Before taking up this position he had served in various senior roles in the government including Director General for Home Affairs. Gilder is a veteran of the African National Congress’ military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, and worked as second-in-command for both the National Intelligence Agency and the South African Secret Service.

 

Lauren Hutton - Lauren is a researcher with the Security Sector Governance Programme of the Institute for Security Studies. She joined the ISS in 2006 as a consultant. She currently manages a project on the democratic control of the intelligence sector as part of the larger field of security sector governance.

 

How do we embed a culture of transparent and accountable democratic governance in the most secret branch of state activity? What role do we as citizens in a democratic state want our intelligence services to play? How do we guarantee that the secret services are pursuing security for all and are not being subverted for personal or group interest?

 

In recent times, South Africans have witnessed several scandals involving the national intelligence apparatus. From the Billygate hoax e-mail saga to the Browse Mole Report, the once shadowy world of the national intelligence services have been plunged into public light and we now have the opportunity in this young democracy to interrogate and debate the nature and functions of the intelligence domain. The role and function of the intelligence services has been of particular importance with the recent outbreak of xenophobic violence in South Africa and this seminar will discuss the role of the intelligence apparatus relating to internal and external security.

 

Venue: Centre for the Book, 62 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town

 

Time: 16h30 – 19h00 (snacks will be served afterwards)

 

RSVP: Lauren Hutton, Tel: 012 346 9500; email: [email protected]