African Intelligence Services and the War on Terror
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28 March 2008: African Intelligence Services and the War on Terror
In an article in the New York Times last month, former station chief for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Congo in the 1960s, Larry Devlin spoke publicly about attempts by the United States to assassinate the charismatic Congolese politician, Patrice Lumumba. According to Devlin, he clearly recalls the day when he was handed a packet of poisons, including toxic toothpaste, and ordered to carry out a political assassination. The article goes on to explain how he stalled and did not carry out the assassination because ‘morally’ it was the wrong thing to do.
The Lumumba assassination has been a topic of interest for many years. Not only has it been the subject of a parliamentary committee inquiry in Belgium, but more importantly, the ties between US and Belgian involvement in regime change in the mineral rich central African state has left an cloud of suspicion hanging over US activities on the continent. This is evident even today when AFRICOM is debated. But there is a distinct difference between US military activities on the continent and the seeming impunity with which their foreign intelligence branch has operated here. The role of the CIA in ousting Lumumba and securing the brutal regime of Mobutu Sese Seko has often been justified in terms of the Cold War rhetoric of fighting against communist control. Is that enough of a justification for the activities that were conducted throughout Africa and in many other parts of the developing world that fell prey to the global power struggle?
Much of the discourse on how Africa was trapped in the Cold War power struggle has laid the blame on the global power players for orchestrating regime change and upholding brutal and corrupt regimes to fulfil foreign national interest. How different is the war on terror from the Cold War? Are we not once again seeing the total abandonment of any moral compass and a commitment to human security in favour of narrowly defined state needs and interests? For evidence we need look no further than the policy of extraordinary rendition, which has been practiced by the US since the Clinton administration. Broadly defined, extraordinary rendition refers to the apprehension and extrajudicial transfer of suspected terrorist persons from one state to another for interrogation and detention. Most commonly, the receiving state has a history of the use of torture and extreme interrogation techniques.
Of the 53 recognised cases of rendition in the past seven years, the one that has caused international outcry is the case of Abu Omar, an Egyptian national granted political asylum in Italy. In 2003, Omar was abducted by the CIA in Milan and transported to Egypt for interrogation. According to Omar he was tortured on and off for four years before being released and deemed not to be a terrorist threat. The torture included being blindfolded and handcuffed for seven months, subjected to electric shocks to his nipples and genitals, being sodomised and severely beaten. The Italian government has taken up Omar’s case and charges of kidnapping have been brought against 26 Americans, many of them believed to be CIA operatives. This landmark case is due to appear before the Italian court in March 2008.
As non-Americans, there is little we can do in Africa to counter the practices of the US intelligence services. Secret and covert operations, by their very nature, occur in an environment shielded from transparency and accountability. The issues of whether or not such activities are legal or illegal are also beyond our powers to decide. The nature and activities of the US intelligence structures and the controls that should be in place are issues that the citizens of the global superpower need to debate and discuss for themselves.
The concern for African citizens is that rendition and torture as practiced in the Omar case was only possible because of the lack of democratic governance of the intelligence and security services of states in Africa. As much as the weak states emerging from colonial rule during the Cold War period easily became embroiled in the global power standoff, so too now in the age of the war on terror are weak states and states suffering from a democratic deficit, easily drawn into being allies in activities and operations that the US does not want to take public accountability for.
According to Amnesty International’s 2007 Report on the State of the World’s Human Rights, torture and ill treatment of political detainees and criminal suspects are common and systematic in Egypt. These methods include indefinite detention, poor food and hygiene, severe over-crowding, beatings, the use of electric shocks, prolonged suspension by the wrists and ankles, and sexual abuse. Calls for political and judicial reforms by peaceful protestors in Egypt have also been met by violence and indefinite detention. Last year two pro-reform activists were reportedly arrested following a demonstration, beaten and sexually abused before being released after two days with no charges having been laid against them.
Africa needs to open up a meaningful dialogue on the role and activities of the intelligence services in Africa. This is not to say that the Egyptian example above is the norm but rather that as African states fully embrace democratic norms and standards, citizens have the right and, in fact the duty, to begin to interrogate all branches of state activity. Given the devastating impact that the activities of intelligence and security services can potentially have on civil liberties and basic human security, it is imperative that the efforts are made to enforce the democratic requirements of transparency, accountability, respect for human rights and rule of law to even the most secret branches of state activity. We need to acknowledge that African states are not only victims of the war on terror but are also sometimes participants. By allowing uncontrolled state security services to operate without concern for human rights and international legal norms and standards, the activities of African intelligence and security services are in fact also adding fuel to the flames of the anti-Western jihad.
Lauren Hutton, Researcher: Security Sector Governance Programme, ISS Tshwane (Pretoria)
