Bonyongwe Speaks On Spy Ring

Explains Arrest Of SA Operative

Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) former Director-General Happyton Bonyongwe (pictured) has spoken for the first time on the dramatic arrest of a South African intelligence operative and the subsequent cracking of his local spy ring in a counter-intelligence operation 20 years ago.

Aubrey Welken (aka Andrew Brown), a South African secret service’s covert agent, was arrested in Victoria Falls on 10 December 2004 for espionage.

This was after he had crossed the border into Zimbabwe from Livingstone, Zambia, after he had been lured into a trap by a local intelligence officer he wanted to meet to get some information.

After his arrest, Welken named his Zimbabwean agents, leading to the arrest of Godfrey Dzvairo, who was then-ambassador-designate to Mozambique, banker Tendai Matambanadzo, flamboyant business mogul Phillip Chiyangwa and Itai Marchi, a Zanu PF security director/external relations.

They were arrested for spying and charged for breaching the Official Secrets Act.

The suspects were prosecuted, convicted and jailed between five and seven years.

Chiyangwa was released.

The other suspected spy Erasmus Moyo, a diplomat, fled out of the country to overseas.

The story was first broken by a then Zimbabwe Independent journalist – who now works for The NewsHawks – soon after the South African intelligence operative was arrested and the CIO swiftly swooped on his Zimbabwean agents in the dead of the night.

This was in the aftermath of the Zanu PF congress in Harare held from 1–5 December 2004, which led to the elevation of former Vice President Joice Mujuru following the crushing of Emmerson Mnangagwa, the then Zanu PF secretary for administration, and his faction amid the controversial Tsholotsho Declaration storm.

The Tsholotsho Declaration was about Mnangagwa’s political allies gathering at Dinyane High School in Tsholotsho to finalise plans for his anticipated ascendancy at congress.

The late former president Robert Mugabe and his allies, led by slain ex-army commander retired General Solomon Mujuru and former State Security minister Nicholas Goche, crushed the plot.

During those times of political turmoil in Zimbabwe amid land reform upheavals, economic implosion, the rise of the opposition MDC and the Mugabe succession battle, as well as Zimbabwe’s diplomat confrontation with Britain and sanctions isolating Harare, foreign intelligence services were more active on the ground trying to understand the crisis.

In his recently released book, titled One Among Many: My Contribution to the Zimbabwean story, Bonyongwe makes some disclosures as he writes: “Counter Espionage Operations: Intelligence organisations are established to give states certain advantages in the conduct of international relations and business. This invariably involves spying.

It goes without saying that every state must work to counter the espionage of other states.

These activities are basically known as counter-intelligence operations.

Such operations are necessary even against friendly states and are accepted as a given in international relations.

Thus it was that in 2004 the CIO laid a trap which caught a South African intelligence operative who ran a spy ring in Zimbabwe.

This led to the arrest and prosecution of the Zimbabweans who were members of the ring.

The accused persons were a diplomat, Godfrey Dzvairo, Zanu PF Director of External Affairs, Itai Marchi, and a banker, Itai Matambanadzo.

The charges were formulated under the Official Secrets Act.

All the civil servants covered by the Act who had breached its provisions were convicted and sentenced to imprisonment.

Dzvairo was sentenced to seven years in prison, while the junior civil servants, Marchi and Matambanadzo, were each sentenced to five years.

Philip Chiyangwa, a lawmaker who was not covered by the Act, was released by the High Court for lack of evidence.

The other accused, a diplomat, Erasmus Moyo, fled the country and was last known to have been somewhere in Europe.

As alluded to earlier, the case succeeded because the CIO was able to trap a foreign operative who would come into the country on missions to meet with the sell-outs; the South African agents would steal state secrets and then sell them on.

A most elaborate operation was mounted and the South African operative was caught red-handed.

He volunteered the list of the agents he handled and others whom he knew. When the agents were first arraigned in court, they all pleaded guilty since they knew that what they were doing for money was wrong and was tantamount to selling out their own country.

It was only later, when the accused had secured the services of lawyers, that they tried to say that their confessions had been obtained under duress. Fortunately, there was no such evidence and the High Court rejected the attempt to change the pleas.

This case tested the relations between the (South African Secret Service) and the CIO and, at a personal level, (Director-General) Dennis Hilton and me, respectively.

We were both in the same business and we knew what was at stake.

I had a duty to protect the secrets of my country, as he did for South Africa.

Fortunately, we dealt with the case professionally, so avoiding the possibility of irrevocably souring relations.

We were neighbours, members of SADC and most importantly our countries were not at war.

Had our countries been at war, then the consequences for the South African intelligence operative would have been dire.

There is nothing like the Law of Armed Conflicts or jus in bello (the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols) applicable to the activities of intelligence operatives or spies.

This case demonstrates the importance of the adage that a country does not have permanent friends, but only permanent interests.

This is an important plank of the theory of realism in international relations.

A state must always be able to protect itself and gain advantage when necessary.

Survival of the state is a precondition for the attainment of all other goals.

The ultimate concern of states is security; Baylis et al. quote Henry Kissinger: ‘a nation’s survival is its first and ultimate responsibility; it cannot be compromised or put to risk’.

Therefore, citizens must be patriotic and must put their own country first.

When one of the Zimbabweans who had become a South African spy was caught, he broke down, and sighed with relief, saying that he was glad that it was all over.

He had become an alcoholic due to the guilt he carried for selling out his own country.

I would suggest that if there be a need, one should only co-operate or fraternise with one’s own country’s intelligence service and never with a foreign intelligence service.

Whenever approached by a foreign service, run quickly to your own intelligence service and tell them of the approach and you will never regret that decision.

In the majority of cases, it is through the action of patriotic citizens who report such approaches that spy rings are broken and sell-outs arrested and prosecuted. Any service worth its salt will be focused on such operations. It is the security service’s ultimate responsibility to protect the country from espionage.”