Today is the 5157th day that the Directorate of Intelligence Services and Security (DISS) has been in existence. Right from Day 1 to date, DISS has never been short of drama and on some days, it resembles a travelling theatre company than an intelligence agency. When the DISS’ Director-General, Peter Magosi, appeared before the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee last Wednesday, Bobonong MP, Taolo Lucas, expressed grave concern about “the drama that is associated with the way you work.”
The MP gave the example of the spectacle that came standard with each court appearance of a DISS agent whom the nation now knows as Butterfly – which was apparently her code name. Lucas derided the spectacle of “sirens and guns” that a Butterfly court appearance guaranteed.
“Can’t you do your work quietly without attracting too much attention?” he posed. “If you want to interview people, can’t it go silently without making all this noise?”
A second Committee member, Wynter Mmolotsi of Francistown South, referred to a spectacle that he witnessed not too long ago along the A1 Highway in Serule. He said that he encountered agents travelling in a total of 12 vehicles, including “large fuel-guzzling” ones, for a simple operation of arresting a harmless female suspect. The MP added that at a time that the national economy was in bad shape, it wasn’t a good idea to continue spending in extravagant fashion. He hazarded the guess that “P20 000 was spent where only P2000 could have been adequate.”
The third member, Mephato Reatile of Jwaneng-Mabule, made an even more damning charge – that DISS “advertises” its arrests in order to gin up media circus designed to humiliate suspects. His elaboration of that charge was that DISS agents leak information to journalists in advance of arrests and he gave the recent arrest of the Commissioner of Police, Keabetswe Makgophe, as an example. According to the MP, journalists called him to ask which prominent figure was going to be arrested that day. The journalists said that they had have been asked to be “on standby around the Ministry of Foreign Affairs” in order to witness the arrest. The headquarters of the Botswana Police Service are next to the latter ministry. Reatile added that these arrests, which happen “day and night”, are meant to humiliate suspects because of all the arrests that DISS has made, only one case has reached the courts.
The case in question is that of Magosi’s own predecessor, Isaac Kgosi, whose first arrest happened at the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport in January 2019 as he returned from Christmas holidays with his wife and children. A gaggle of reporters were on hand and some livestreamed the arrest on Facebook.
Reatile also mentioned a 2021 incident in which he was himself a DISS target and at a period of time that he was in Kgosi’s company. He said that the arresting officers had passed up many opportunities for a drama-free arrest, only pouncing in dramatic fashion when he and Kgosi were travelling together in a vehicle. He proposed that where a suspect is not armed and poses no threat, DISS should just call him on the phone and ask him to come over to their offices.
Most interesting though was the answer that Magosi gave: that in certain cases, such spectacle is necessary. The DISS boss used “hamstrung” one too many times and his response to this particular issue was one such.
“I would feel a bit hamstrung to go into operational side,” he said. “For every action that we take, there is a reason.”
Returning to this issue much latter, he added that “there is a need for that to happen.”
Such explanation notwithstanding, Magosi said that he had noted the concern (“especially about sirens”) and that where possible, DISS would tone down on the drama, especially where it is overdone. He refuted Reatile’s allegations with regard to Makgophe’s arrest and that DISS “advertises” its arrests.
“That’s not true,” Magosi said with regard to the latter, adding later that he won’t allow his officers to intimidate suspects.
He noted that DISS was “very much aware of what happened” with regard to information about Makgophe’s arrest being leaked to the media. He couldn’t divulge details, he said, because the matter was operational in nature. As regards arrests that never yielded prosecution, he said that investigations are ongoing and the cases will reach court.
While MPs would have had reason to worry about the drama they complained about, it is nothing compared to the 2008-2018 DISS when President Ian Khama was president and Kgosi was DG.
One of the most dramatic raids that DISS carried out was in 2009, when agents raided offices of the Government Implementation Coordination Office. Words that MPs used in parliament last Wednesday were used to describe this raid. The agents swooped on the office, sealing it and ordering all GICO employees out, leaving personal belongings like laptops and hand bags behind in what became an overnight operation.
The target was Moses Lekaukau, GICO’s Director General, who was reportedly being investigated for corruption. He would later be fired but was never charged for any criminal wrongdoing. A claim that could be supported with facts was that Lekaukau had helped fund the legal battle of Gomolemo Motswaledi, who was challenging his suspension by President Khama as Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) Secretary General as well as his recall as Gaborone Central parliamentary candidate. The GICO staff members who had been deprived of their freedom of movement and personal property were mere collateral damage.
While the media is able to record DISS work nowadays, that was not always the case in the Khama-Kgosi era. In one incident at the Village Magistrate Courts in Gaborone, agents wearing face masks and carrying big guns forced photojournalists to delete pictures they had taken. The agents were escorting suspects in DISS custody and despite the fact that they were wearing face masks, didn’t want their pictures to be taken. In the pre-digital era, they would have destroyed the analogue film.
