DIS, DIS where art thou?
Boom! A scandal of apocalyptic proportions breaks out of the United Kingdom. UK’s Immigration Enforcement Criminal and Financial Investigations announces simultaneous arrests of five men and one woman across the UK in an anti-human smuggling operation. The UK described the operation as one of their “highest priority investigations” due to the scale of the threat, the number of people believed to be involved, the immense harm these victims are potentially at risk of, and the amount of financial gain the suspects stand to make.
The kingpin of the syndicate is said to be a 37-year-old Botswana national. He is believed to have facilitated the entry of more than 200 Botswana nationals into the UK illegally over a two-year period, leading them into a life of fraud and exploitation. Once in the country, it is believed the five assisted in submitting false asylum claims using fake documents in order to fraudulently legalise the migrants stay in the country. They are also believed to have assisted the migrants with illegal employment in care homes, working with the most vulnerable without adequate training or medical expertise. The UK government has made it clear that the arrests were a product of “intelligence” that suggested the lead people smuggler was exploiting the individuals he lured there under false pretences, forcing them to do unpaid work. Underline the word ‘intelligence,’ and appreciate the wonders that actionable intelligence can do.
Boom! A brazen daylight cash-in-transit heist happens on Atlas Road in Boksburg, Gauteng. The robbers blow up two G4S cash vans and flee with an undisclosed amount of money. Few days later, the no-nonsense former South African Minister of Police, Bheki Cele confirmed the mastermind of the heist as a young Botswana named, Thato ‘The Bomber’ Gaopatwe. Cele publicly acknowledged that the young man’s expertise in explosive ordinance such as bomb-making, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and blasting. What even impressed about Gaopatwe was his ability to work solo or in teams without employing any special tool or vehicle to safely locate, identify, recover, disarm, or dispose of dangerous weapons. This made him the darling of South Africa’s highly- competitive crime sector.
As we were still shocked, another boom! A 30-year-old Lesedi Molapisi was arrested at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Bangladesh after customs agents found her carrying 3.145kg of heroin. She had been traveling on a Qatar Airways flight from South Africa. Molapisi is currently on death row. Who on earth thought Batswana can achieve all these feats. Beating the UK immigration and the water-tight security systems is not at all an easy feat. It is remarkable achievement. But for a young Motswana man to reach high echelons of one of the world’s most-competitive crime industry, is beyond remarkable. It is stupendous. Now imagine a young Motswana lady travelling all the way to Bangladesh with drugs, it surely takes more than courage. It is safe for one to conclude that, Botswana produces some of the ‘finest’ criminals in the world.
Besides the humour, the question is, as our country’s reputation is dragged in the mud internationally, where is the DIS. How did they miss all red flags on these three and many more. But we all know these are just rhetoric questions. We know there is no way they would have picked anything on them. The DIS is busy with internal fights and court cases. Since its inception, the DIS has behaved like a qausi-political organisation. Although it is enjoying limitless public funding, there is nothing out there that suggests that they have public confidence on their side. Instead of being part of the solution, the DIS have become part of the problem. Instead of being part of the cure, they have become part of the disease.
This blurry line between intelligence and the polity is not a new thing, it is a historical anomaly in our political ecology. The resultant has been a political and homeland security environment that even calls into question political authority. The point being, politics often has short-term interests, while national security is a long-term concern. Therefore, politics should not determine the shape and form of national security outlook. Politicians should not direct the mandate of the security sector. That is the function of the law. By politicising the security sector, we were always playing Russian roulette with national security. At a minimum, this politicisation has led our national security strategy down the wrong path.
All these should serve as a wake-up call, reminding securocrats above all of the need to urgently craft National Security Strategy (NSS). Today’s global security landscape can be characterised as chaotic and competitive, with power increasingly dynamic and distributed. The nature of national security challenges is diversifying considerably across the continuum of conflict, and the technological landscape is evolving in ways that diminish traditional notions of national strengths.
Maintaining unfair advantages to perceived adversaries is growing harder by the day. And of course, domestic political disarray works to the advantage of those who seek to harm us. An effective NSS requires a coherent theory of national security, one that defines the purpose of our power and balances the means and ends required to achieve it. The strategy must account for international threats that could undermine our existence, along with opportunities that could strengthen it, and then align objectives and resources.
Our security infrastructure must be able to credibly confront challenges across the spectrum of conflict, including nuclear, high-end conventional, grey zone, and counterterrorism. Our security must be able to counter near-term threats, while also preserving readiness and modernising the future establishment to effectively fight and defeat future challenges.