tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/state-security-28277/articlesState security – The Conversation2021-02-03T14:46:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1544392021-02-03T14:46:11Z2021-02-03T14:46:11ZZuma’s abuse of South Africa’s spy agency underscores need for strong civilian oversight<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381929/original/file-20210202-15-1kltb95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former South African President Jacob Zuma deployed spies in factional battles within the governing party.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If people who work for the government tell us our safety depends on us not knowing what they do, we might suspect that they wanted to cover up wrong-doing. Unless, it seems, they work for state security agencies.</p>
<p>South Africa’s media are awash with shock at <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/state-capture/2432859/zumas-millions-anonymous-spies-identified-the-week-that-was-at-the-zondo-inquiry/">“bombshell” revelations</a> about the country’s security services at the hearings of a <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">commission of inquiry into “state capture”</a>. Testimony shows that the <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/42/state-security-agency-ssa">State Security Agency</a>, which is meant to provide the government with intelligence on domestic and foreign threats, was used to fight factional battles in the governing African National Congress (ANC) and to engage in corrupt activity. The agency, the evidence suggests, served former president <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">Jacob Zuma</a> and his allies, not the country.</p>
<p>The revelations are of far less interest than the reaction of the media and the national debate to them. This is so not because the case against the security services is trivial. It is anything but: it shows that they did little to safeguard the country and much to protect a political faction and to funnel public money into private purposes. </p>
<p>But these allegations are not new. The fact that they are being treated as bolts from the blue shows how unprepared South Africa’s politicians, media and citizen organisations which shape the national debate are to deal with the threats posed by its security establishment.</p>
<h2>Spies behaving badly</h2>
<p>The core of the evidence was the testimony of <a href="https://www.uj.ac.za/contact/Pages/Sydney-Mufamadi.aspx">Sydney Mufamadi</a>, an academic and former cabinet minister. It was damning but should have taken no-one by surprise. It was given because he chaired a panel which investigated the security agencies at the request of President Cyril Ramaphosa. </p>
<p>Mufamadi’s panel reported in December 2018 and <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">its report</a> was released by Ramaphosa in March 2019. It is a public document, available on the Internet. There were <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-03-10-zuma-used-spooks-to-target-ramaphosa-report/">some media reports</a> on its <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/304466/zuma-spies-sought-to-derail-ramaphosas-presidential-bid-report/">contents</a> when it was released but it did not cause much of a stir.</p>
<p>Mufamadi’s evidence was supplemented by that of the acting director-general of the State Security Agency, <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/spy-boss-eye-popping-testimony-claims-rogue-ssa-lost-billions-of-rand-in-assets-20210127">Loyiso Jafta</a>, and by a witness who conducted an internal investigation into wrong-doing at the agency and who, consistent with the security services’ penchant for secrecy, is identified as <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/spy-vs-spy-at-state-capture-commission-zondo-allows-miss-k-to-give-evidence-20210127">“Miss K”</a>. While both added detail to Mufamadi’s account, everything they said reinforced his panel’s findings.</p>
<p>The factionalism of the security services has been evident for <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2015/2/24/inside-the-battle-for-intelligence-in-south-africa">at least a decade</a>. During the fight against apartheid, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-safrica-zuma-insight-idUSKCN0XV1RB">Zuma headed ANC Intelligence</a>. So, he could command the loyalty of former ANC underground security agents who joined the government after 1994, many of whom continued to put his interests first. Years ago, a colleague valued for his understanding of the workings of the governing party who had joined me in a radio panel discussion explained how the security agencies would interpret what we said and pass on their view to the faction whose interests they served.</p>
<p>So why have media treated the contents of a two-year-old report which confirmed older suspicions as a “bombshell”? One reason may be that most of the country’s reporters do not read anything longer than a media release, ensuring that government reports are ignored unless their contents are revealed at a press conference. Another is that the media – and citizen organisations which take part in the national debate – do not see the security services as a threat to democracy.</p>
<p>This is illustrated by the controversy over the <a href="https://static.pmg.org.za/130423bill06d-2010_2.pdf">Protection of State Information Bill</a>. It was passed by Parliament <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/29/south-africa-secrecy-bill-improved-still-flawed">in 2013</a> but is still not law – Ramaphosa sent it back to Parliament last year because he believes parts are unconstitutional.</p>
<p>The bill, which would give officials power to classify documents to keep them out of the public eye, <a href="https://www.right2info.org/recent/south-african-parliament-approves-secrecy-bill">triggered a campaign</a> by media and citizens’ groups who claimed it aimed to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-22298825">prevent reporting on corruption</a>. They insisted that there was no problem with “legitimate” secrecy which protected national security.</p>
<h2>Holding spies to account</h2>
<p>This misunderstood why the bill was tabled and what it was meant to do. Ironically, it began as an attempt to ensure that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv941vr3.10?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents">apartheid-era laws</a> were changed to align them with the values of the democratic <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/images/a108-96.pdf">constitution</a>. </p>
<p>When drafts of the bill proposed ending most government secrecy, the security establishment, as securocrats are wont to do, painted lurid pictures of the horrors which would ensue if citizens knew what they were doing.</p>
<p>They demanded strong provisions to keep information classified. To emphasise the bill’s real purpose, an entire chapter was included which made it clear that it could not be used to prevent reporting on government corruption – its only role was to safeguard “genuine” state secrets.</p>
<p>The “bombshell” evidence shows what the security agencies wanted to be protected from: information on how they were abusing their power. If the bill had been phrased as the campaigners wished, the security establishment’s secrets would have been classified, hiding their partisanship and wrong-doing from public view, while the media and citizens’ organisations claimed victory. </p>
<p>The fact that the Mufamadi report was largely ignored when it appeared suggests that the debate has no great enthusiasm for holding spies to account because it remains convinced that they need to hide what they do to protect the people.</p>
<p>Even now, this is a theme in some reporting on the “revelations”. Spies are feeding reporters more lurid details of how the evidence to the commission <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/politics/shock-wave-zondo-fallout-hits-security-agency-ramaphosa-20210131-2">threatens citizens’ security</a>. Agents who now fear for their safety when their identities are revealed will now, the country is told, sell their services to other employers who will protect them better. </p>
<p>None of this is backed by a shred of evidence – security agencies are in the business of exaggerating both the threats to the country and their importance in thwarting them. But, since the default position of many journalists and campaigners is to believe the spies, loud voices will again insist that they be allowed to keep their secrets.</p>
<p>Democracy’s health depends partly on ignoring those voices. </p>
<h2>Safeguarding democracy</h2>
<p>It is open to question how much the country needs security agencies. Crime intelligence is essential but the country is not threatened by any other state enemies (except those invented by security operatives) and internal threats to security stem from issues, such as <a href="https://td-sa.net/index.php/td/article/view/643/1111">local tensions</a> between citizens and local governments, which are no business of spies. </p>
<p>That said, the country probably needs security agencies to guard against future threats but, precisely because they do operate in secret, the interests of the people will be protected only if they are <a href="https://media.africaportal.org/documents/INTELSUBMITMAY07.pdf">subject to strong oversight</a> from elected representatives and citizens’ groups. </p>
<p>At the very least, oversight bodies need to know exactly what they are doing, how and why. This information, stripped of references to people and operations where Parliament thinks this is needed, must be available to all citizens.</p>
<p>If that does not happen, citizens’ rights will be eroded as they allow spies to prey on them while they claim to protect them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154439/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Revelations show that the State Security Agency did little to safeguard the country and much to protect Zuma’s political faction and to funnel public money into private ends.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/666012016-10-10T15:24:26Z2016-10-10T15:24:26ZBritain’s obsession with secrecy goes back to the Tudors and Stuarts – and is still at work today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141087/original/image-20161010-3909-wsic86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C426%2C2768%2C2001&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thomas Cromwell, a man who definitely knew what you did last summer.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cromwell,Thomas(1EEssex)01.jpg">Hans Holbein the Younger/National Portrait Gallery</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The secret services are recruiting – you may have seen advertisements seeking linguists or computer specialists placed by MI5 and MI6 in respectable publications. This is quite a change from the official position that they <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29938135">didn’t exist</a> maintained as recently as 20 years ago. </p>
<p>While these organisations’ origins lie <a href="https://www.sis.gov.uk/our-history.html">in the world wars of the 20th century</a>, we can trace their signature features back to the 16th and 17th centuries. And in doing so we find that many of the problems they face today – plots, terrorism, political unrest and foreign interference – would be very familiar to the spies and spymasters of the earlier era – such as Thomas Cromwell, for example, Henry VIII’s spymaster whose life forms the story of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gfy02">Wolf Hall</a>.</p>
<p>Living as we do in the age of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, we also find at that time similar tensions between the needs of the “secret state” and the demands of the growing public sphere.</p>
<h2>An early modern interest in secrecy</h2>
<p>Unquestionably, governments in the early modern era were always keen to cultivate an air of mystery. The arcane nature of ruling was seen as a natural part of an elite skill set – this suggestion of innate superiority obviously appealed to those in power. </p>
<p>Government secret actions, as journalist and pamphlateer Marchamont Nedham argued in his 1656 work <a href="http://www.constitution.org/cmt/nedham/free-state.htm">The Excellencie of a Free State</a>, was made up of “things … of a nature remote from ordinary apprehensions”. This way of framing the debate allowed governing to appear both mysterious and a skillful art outside the norms of life. These were, James Stuart himself <a href="http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oseo/instance.00032042">noted</a>, “no themes or subjects fit for vulgar persons or common meetings”. As “subjects” the role of the people in the early modern state was to “contain themselves within that modest and reverent regard of matters above their calling”. They might not have had an actual Official Secrets Act hanging over their head, but the people were certainly meant to know their place.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141108/original/image-20161010-3906-xhn1pm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141108/original/image-20161010-3906-xhn1pm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141108/original/image-20161010-3906-xhn1pm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141108/original/image-20161010-3906-xhn1pm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141108/original/image-20161010-3906-xhn1pm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141108/original/image-20161010-3906-xhn1pm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1246&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141108/original/image-20161010-3906-xhn1pm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1246&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141108/original/image-20161010-3906-xhn1pm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1246&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spilling the beans, 17th-century style.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And therein lay the tension which we can perhaps sympathise with today. Because just as governments developed their <em>arcana imperii</em>, or secrets of state, outside in the world a new landscape of media thronged with reams of printed newspapers, pamphlets and books, while in <a href="https://theconversation.com/coffee-shops-the-hangout-of-choice-for-the-hipsters-of-the-18th-century-43943">coffee houses political gossip and whispered knowledge flourished</a> – of politicians, but also of the state’s secret affairs. </p>
<p>It was feared that were state matters discussed widely this would weaken the doctrine of secrecy, perhaps even dispelling the “magic” of government and dissolving the boundaries between rulers and ruled. Given our world of endless speculation on social media, and the British government’s resistance to revealing anything at all about the workings of government throughout much of the 20th century, this should sound very familiar.</p>
<h2>Dark arts</h2>
<p>Unsurprisingly, the secret-state approach also provided a natural base from which to operate clandestine activities. Here we find many of the same activities used today. Spies and informers, and infiltration by foreign agents – such as William Gregg, who sold secrets to France before he was caught, tried and hanged in 1708. Political kidnapping was known on occasion, and political assassination, while rare, included serious attempts on <a href="http://www.elizabethfiles.com/plots-against-elizabeth-i/3509/">Elizabeth I</a>, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/overview_civil_war_revolution_01.shtml">Stuart kings</a> and Oliver Cromwell – the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/z3hq7ty">Gunpowder Plot of 1605</a> against James I is the most notable example. </p>
<p>The interception of post was common. As with the myth in modern times of the UK’s GCHQ, it was alleged that hardly any letter was safe. In 1649, for example, Cromwell’s regime: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Authorised [its officers] to open and view all such letters or pacquets as you or they shall conceave may conteyne in them any matter or thing prejudicial to the Commonwealth. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The uncovering of plots and conspiracies were regularly publicised (some of them were even true). Like the blossoming conspiracy theories of today, at that time even the Great Fire of London was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/great_fire_01.shtml">blamed on a Franco-Popish Plot</a>. Writer and poet John Dryden later noted: “Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths, and ruin kings”. It is a sentiment that is still true today.</p>
<p>Modern electronics aside, the covert practices of today had their parallels in the early modern state. Governments would cheerfully justify their use, while an increasingly open and demanding public would respond with moral outrage if their use was discovered. Even in the 16th and 17th centuries the government’s philosophical justifications were emerging: the practicalities of politics and foreign affairs were more than enough justification to cast spying and subterfuge as statecraft’s necessary evil, and even to proclaim its virtues in respect of the need to protect the then newly formed British nation. Again, it is a justification still familiar today.</p>
<p>A tension developed between state – which suspected and feared the very idea of the public and its opinions, and which considered espionage, suppression and censorship as vital – and the press and public sphere, which sought to know not only how but also why decisions were made on their behalf, and who stood to gain from them. Commentators of the time fondly imagined that knowing this would illuminate how things were done, and “the Great Ministers of State … [would be] … presented naked, their consultations, designs, policies, the things done by them … exposed to every man’s eye”. Having laid the foundations for 400 years of state secrecy, it is a wish that is as true today as it was then – and one that is as unlikely to be fulfilled.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66601/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Marshall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Look back centuries ago and you’ll find the same obsessive secrecy, and the same justifications, as seen today.Alan Marshall, Associate Professor in History, Bath Spa UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/608042016-06-09T11:30:42Z2016-06-09T11:30:42ZTerror threats and turmoil: a bad time for US-South Africa relations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125895/original/image-20160609-7059-170djtb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The US embassy in South Africa has warned of terror threats to the country's upmarket malls.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Saturday June 4 2016 the United States embassy in Pretoria issued a <a href="https://za.usembassy.gov/security-message-u-s-citizens-threats-shopping-areas-malls/">warning</a> to its citizens in South Africa that there was a heightened threat of terror attacks in the country’s upscale shopping malls in Johannesburg and Cape Town. The threat was tied to the jihadist group <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29052144">Islamic State’s</a> <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-islamicstate-idUSKCN0YC0OG">appeal</a> to its followers to undertake attacks on Western targets during the Islamic holy month of <a href="http://www.alternet.org/belief/ramadan-9-essentials-you-should-know">Ramadan</a>. For the next several days, skittish South African shoppers strode through Sandton and Rosebank’s fancy shopping centres wondering if and how their own government would respond to the apparent threat.</p>
<p>Four days later, on June 8, the South African government did indeed respond. A joint <a href="http://www.dirco.gov.za/docs/2016/alerts0608.htm">announcement</a> by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (<a href="http://www.dirco.gov.za/">DIRCO</a>) and the State Security Agency (<a href="http://www.ssa.gov.za/">SSA</a>) stated: “The information provided as a basis for the latest terror alerts on South Africa has been found to be very sketchy. On closer examination, we have found the information to be dubious, unsubstantiated and provided by a ‘walk-in’ source based on questionable conclusions.”</p>
<p>Put simply, South Africa disagreed with the assessment of the US (as well as the United Kingdom and Australia) that a credible terror threat existed. This is not unusual. There are often disagreements both within and across intelligence agencies as to the seriousness of a potential threat. </p>
<h2>Informed debate</h2>
<p>The question of how “credible” the threat was (or is) is also vexing because for the public it is unanswerable. Without access to the various pieces of information that the intelligence agencies used to form their judgment about the severity of the threat, the public cannot engage in an informed debate. They cannot decide for themselves whether South African or American officials came to a more accurate conclusion about the gravity of the danger posed.</p>
<p>But the joint DIRCO-SSA statement did more than dismiss the credibility of the American warning. It also indicated that the American motive for issuing the warning was not necessarily to keep its citizens safe. In an accusation unmistakably directed at the US, the statement read: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the South African government rejects attempts by foreign countries to influence, manipulate or control our country’s counter-terrorism work. We reject attempts to generate perceptions of government ineptitude, alarmist impressions and public hysteria on the basis of a questionable single source.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a serious allegation. It suggests that the US issued the terror advisory to undercut the South African government’s integrity and sow confusion within the country. </p>
<h2>Regime change</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, the theme of this accusation is not new. In February 2016 African National Congress (ANC) Secretary-General <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-02-23-analysis-mantashes-conspiracy-theories/#.V1ki_EbmPTo">Gwede Mantashe</a> suggested that the US <a href="https://yali.state.gov/">Young African Leadership Initiative</a> was designed to foment regime change in South Africa. </p>
<p>In 2014, Deputy Minister of Defence and Military Veterans <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/thuli-a-cia-spy-says-deputy-minister-1747300">Kebby Maphatsoe</a> labelled Public Protector Thuli Madonsela a CIA spy. He claimed she was attempting to undermine the ruling ANC and put a regime friendly to Washington in power. None of these accusations have been substantiated.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125894/original/image-20160609-7083-yi5zkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125894/original/image-20160609-7083-yi5zkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125894/original/image-20160609-7083-yi5zkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125894/original/image-20160609-7083-yi5zkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125894/original/image-20160609-7083-yi5zkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125894/original/image-20160609-7083-yi5zkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125894/original/image-20160609-7083-yi5zkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South Africa’s Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thus the latest DIRCO-SSA statement accusing the US of attempting to destabilise South Africa must be seen in a broader context of mistrust and paranoia that continues to plague relations.</p>
<p>This mistrust matters. It could result in not just hurt feelings, but an actual breakdown in cooperation on key issues between South Africa and the US. And cooperation, especially in the realm of counter-terrorism, is vital.</p>
<h2>Effective counter-terrorism</h2>
<p>The DIRCO-SSA statement confidently proclaims: “The South African government is fully capable of securing our country, protecting our people and taking care of the safety of foreign citizens on our soil.” </p>
<p>But this is not true. Global threats, such as terrorism, do not respect borders and therefore are difficult for any one state to combat. Effective counter-terrorism demands cooperation across states, and is impeded by petty conflicts between them. Casting wild allegations that the US warning is based on malevolent intent hinders rather than helps this cooperation.</p>
<p>While unproductive, South Africa’s pique might be somewhat understandable. That is if the US did not follow the correct channels to issue its warning, as the DIRCO-SSA statement suggests. The facts regarding what channels ought to be followed, and which ones actually were, are unclear. At the very least the South African government felt it was not consulted sufficiently before the US warning went public.</p>
<p>There is room here for growth in the relationship. Developing a clear understanding as to how to handle these types of terror alerts in the future would be a small but important trust-building step in a sometimes strained relationship.</p>
<p>But broader questions must also be addressed. A more <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/pebble.asp?relid=22182">measured statement</a> found on the South African Presidency website affirms that, “South Africa and the United States continue to enjoy strong and cordial relations in various areas of cooperation including political, economic, social and security matters.” But friends don’t openly accuse friends of seeking to undermine them. If South Africa and the US want fruitful collaboration to continue, an end to public accusations and increased communication would be a good start.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Governments need to build trust, especially during a time of heightened tensions around the threat of international terror attacks.Christopher Williams, Visiting Lecturer and Researcher, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.