Malawi: Legal intelligence service to help journalists - media guru

"It is a welcome move," said Osman, "it would be supported by civil society, the media, the legal fraternity and all other stakeholders in our nascent democracy."

Osman said this in his contributions to the opinion and analysis page of The Nation on Sunday of 3 April 2011 after minister responsible for public security Aaron Sangala told local Capital Radio about the country's intelligence service.

"This creates the impression that the state now intends to either legalise the operations of the existing organisation or create an entirely new national intelligence service," said Osman, who owns Capital Radio.

Legal and transparent framework needed

He said a legal and transparent framework is important because the operations of such intelligence agencies inevitably infringe upon aspects of human rights, privacy of citizens and the rights and pursuits of other professionals such as journalists.

"What needs to be pointed out is that a national intelligence service is a necessary product of any sovereign state such as Malawi," he said, but added, "Good, timely and reliable intelligence is crucial. It is dependent on hard work by specialised agents, focused leadership and institutions that can translate information into high grade intelligence."

Osman observed that since such operations are covert, they sometimes involve spying on citizens and sniffing out secrets of citizens by tapping into telephone conversations and intercepting other communications. He said this invariably leads to rights of citizens and the security of the state becoming compromised, especially when intelligence services are established for narrow interests.

"In countries which respect the rule of law, this places a high burden of risk and responsibility on the intelligence organisation and its agents. This justifies, therefore, why intelligence services need to be guided and protected by the law under the oversight of parliament," he explained.

Possible abuse of power

He said operations of intelligence organisations can sometimes be gruesome and sordid with a close reflection of Malawi's track record of its intelligence service body under the ruling of Malawi Congress Party (MCP) between 1964 and 1994. He observed that since the MCP intelligence unit operated independently of the Malawi army and the police they exclusively reported to the head of state and that their mission was mainly to abduct, detain and assassinate political opponents of Life President Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda.

"The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) was blamed for the assassination through petrol bombing of exiled journalist Mkwapatira Mhango alongside nine members of his family in Lusaka, Zambia in October 1989," he said.

Osman, who was once managing editor of The Botswana Gazette, said the SIS apparatus was smashed by the Malawi Army in an operation code named 'Bwezani' (Give Back) in 1993 in the run-up to this country's historic multiparty elections. A year later it was replaced by a National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) which was formed by President Bakili Muluzi when he was elected to office in 1994. Its critics claim it was used mainly to promote Muluzi's United Democratic Front (UDF) by cracking down on his political enemies.

"I am arguing that unless intelligence organisations are legally and transparently constituted through Parliament, or placed under existing structures such as the Malawi Defence Force or the Malawi Police Service, they are likely to continue to be used to serve the party and president of the day," said the journalist who once served as President Muluzi's press secretary.