Book review

Tiro Sebona | Wednesday May 8, 2013 00:00

Title: Songs and Secrets Author: Barry GilderPublisher: JacanaDate of Publication: 2012Place of Publication: South AfricaISBN:  978-1-4314-0436-0Retail Price: P 239Available at CNA, Game City, and Exclusive Books, Riverwalk Mall

In Songs and Secrets, the South African struggle for democratic governance explains itself in logical and lyrical terms. Songs and Secrets is a memoir in which Barry Gilder accounts for his role in the African National Congress's journey from national liberation movement to party in government. Gilder's story attests to the ANC's manifest ability to act, a factor that gained it recognition at home and abroad as official opposition and culminated with its personnel forming the first post-apartheid government.

Gilder narrates a story that shows how difficult the battle against apartheid was. He recounts his various roles in the struggle. Gilder's strategic recollection covers his experience from childhood in Johannesburg to his current position as Director for Operations at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection. Gilder's roles include running the ANC underground intelligence machinery in Botswana from 1982 to 1989, coordinating the chief directorate in South African Secret Services (SASS) after 1994, supervising intelligence operatives in National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and serving as director-general in the department of Home Affairs.

The narrative is not presented in a strictly chronological order. The anecdotal account is peppered with flashbacks that place some of Gilder's choices and predicaments in context. An archival list of important historical events happening synchronously around the world and in South Africa, particularly in matters concerning the activities of the ANC, structures the recounting of the various turning points in Gilder's life. Gilder is a shrewd storyteller. He is skilled in noticing, remembering, documenting and explaining things. The story is delivered in a zesty voice. A get-up-and-go spirit permeates the book. The author ably conveys how it felt to be doing what he was doing. The book is in eight chapters buttressed by a prelude and a postlude. An interlude separates the two quartets of chapters.

Gilder informs us about his descent from a Jewish and English speaking family residing in Johannesburg. He was born in 1950. Gilder hints that he was inculcated with the stories of the oppression of the Jews slavery in the biblical times and during the Holocaust. He intimates how he grew up detesting bigotry, racism and injustice.As a boy, he was already drawing parallels between the condition of African people in South Africa and the historical experience of Jewish people. Close friendship developed between Gilder and Wilson Msomi who worked as a gardener and lived in a back room at the Gilder home. The duo held discussions critical of the apartheid set-up.Gilder refers to his 1968 compulsory military service in the apartheid army. Gilder felt isolated in the Afrikaner-dominated army. After army service Gilder went to study at Witwatersrand University. Gilder does not mention his programme of study. It is hazy as to whether he ever graduated. What he highlights is his participation in student protests, his guitar-playing, his term as a cultural officer on the national executive of National Union of South African Students at the headquarters in Cape Town and his conversion to Marxism. When called-up for another round of military service, Gilder fled to Botswana on January 16, 1976. Fifteen years passed before he could return to South Africa. Gilder did not stay long in Botswana. He reminisces on his first days in Botswana, particularly the interrogation by Special Branch when applying for asylum and the friendly conversations with Batswana on the balcony of the President Hotel. His NUSAS comrades together with the International University Exchange Fund (IUEF) arranged an intelligence related task for him to take up. He flew to Geneva to investigate an outfit of Caucasian South Africans led by poet Breyten Breytenbach. The group called Okhela, branded itself as the 'white wing of the ANC.' Gilder's cover job was to spend three-month researching on the South African student movement.

After completing his work in Geneva, Gilder went to London and spent three years working as a musician in a travelling worker's theatre group, doing work with the ANC and the anti-apartheid movement. He did part-time singing at solidarity meetings and gatherings throughout the UK and in Western Europe.In 1977, a year after completing his work at IUEF, Gilder was approached by Lars-Gunnar Eriksson the then director of IUEF for advice on the suspicion that one character called Craig Williamson was a spy. Gilder told that Williamson did not fit the profile of a South African Caucasian leftist. Gilder was of the view that Williamson was too efficient to be trusted. Another indication that Williamson was not to be trusted was his choice of the police force for his compulsory military service. Gilder had also noticed that when Williamson was the vice-president of NUSAS, he had a quote from Stalin displayed on the pegboard next to his desk. Eriksson disregarded Gilder's advice and went ahead and hired Williamson as deputy director of IUEF. Three years later Gilder's premonitions were confirmed when Williamson confessed that he was a South African police special branch agent.

In 1979, Gilder was allowed to join the ranks of Umkhonto we Sizwe. He flew to Angola and was posted to a military training camp near the town of Quibaxe. He relates the highs and lows of camp life. He shares vivid recollections of the rigorous physical exercises, the early morning drills, the political training sessions and tutelage in guerrilla combat techniques. He remembers commanders who impressed him. He mentions his friendship with a cadre who later died in Mozambique. While in Quibaxe, Gilder worked as part of the production team of Dawn, the Umkhonto we Sizwe publication. He also took on guard duties. He was recruited into the South African Communist Party. His training complete, Gilder moved to Luanda where he enjoyed serving in editorial board member of Dawn.

Gilder combined journalistic work with intelligence-related tasks such as working closely with Soviet instructors in Angola to develop an overview of the structure and operations of the apartheid military machinery, South African Defence Force. In 1980, Gilder went to Moscow to train as a security and intelligence officer. In Moscow, he stayed in a safe flat that doubled as a lecture-room complete with desks and boards. A dedicated care-giver served him five meals every day. The training was part of an extensive military co-operation between the ANC and the Soviet Army. It was conducted by what was called the 'Northern Training Centre', a department of the Soviet military that had been set up to provide military training to liberation movements around the world. The course was called the Brigade Commanders Course. It was primarily a military course based largely on the experience of the Soviet partisans, with an admixture of small guerrilla warfare and large-scale conventional warfare.The course was designed to allow for different specialisations- military tactics, artillery, weaponry, engineering that involved blowing things up, and underground or military combat work. Gilder specialised in intelligence but his course included all the disciplines.

Gilder learnt about strategic and operational sweep of military endeavour as well as the tactical intricacies of battle. He learnt how to organise forces and how to deploy artillery. He enjoyed plotting battle plans on maps. He acquainted himself with the work of a commander such as knowing your own forces, studying the enemy forces, understanding the impact of the terrain and the climate on the battle, anticipating the possible responses of the enemy to one's planned actions and co-ordinating all capacities and resources.Gilder had a particular liking for his intelligence instructor called Vassily Semyonovich. The instructor explained intelligence operational procedure well.He also alerted Gilder to the vagaries of real-world intelligence that may impact on the conduct of his work.Semynovich taught Gilder the arts of intelligence tradecraft: how to recruit and manage a source, write reports, separate operational information from intelligence information. Emphasis was placed on the need to spend time fully understanding the transport system in the areas of operation, the habits and cultures and taboos of the population within one's work area, the streets and buildings and installations around which secret work is conducted. Semynovich also trained Gilder on secret communications: arranging underground meetings, using dead letter boxes, writing in invisible ink as well as photography.

Gilder studied the intelligence and security services of the big Western powers, the Americans, the British, the French and the Germans. He learnt the techniques of counter-surveillance such as how to reconnoitre a check route long before the need to use it arises, with checkpoints along the way that will allow detection of surveillance without letting on that one is checking. Gilder went on practical counter-surveillance exercises around the streets of Moscow. Gilder was trained on organising a revolution through all its stages of development: from the early beginnings of little but a few underground political cells in the capital and in smaller towns, plus a small armed guerrilla capacity. He learnt how to establish more political cells throughout the country as well as larger guerrilla units. He gained skills on building a range of specialised underground cells: intelligence units, logistical units, factory units, sabotage units as well as units of soldiers who defected from the enemy forces to join revolutionary forces. Gilder enjoyed this part of training. He qualified as a brigade commander and intelligence officer in May 1981. His diligence and sense of commitment impressed his instructors. They showered him with sweet accolades and assured him that with cadres of his calibre the struggle would soon achieve its aims.

After completing his training, Barry Gilder was assigned to set up a special intelligence unit in Botswana. The unit was to recruit and run Caucasian intelligence agents whose job was to infiltrate the apartheid establishment. The structure had to find ways of obtaining sensitive information on the operations and the resources of the South African Defence Force. Gilder was warned against making any contact with the other ANC operatives who were part of the political, military and intelligence structures in Botswana. He reported directly to Mazwai Piliso, the then head of the ANC directorate of intelligence and security in Lusaka.In July I982, while on a mission to establish how he could set up base in Botswana, Gilder participated in the Gaborone Culture and Resistance symposium that brought together artists, writers, film-makers, musicians, photographers, dramatists from South Africa and those in exile to shared thoughts and experiences on the role of culture in the struggle against apartheid. Among the illustrious participants were Abdullah Ibrahim, Wilson 'Kingforce' Siljee and Denis Mpale the writers included Nadine Gordimer, James Matthews and Richard Rive Gilder's cover in Botswana was the Solidarity News Service (SNS), a news agency specialising in disseminating news and analysis on developments in South Africa to the ANC, the solidarity movement abroad and to various publications.

For most of his time in Botswana, Gilder served on the small, highly secretive regional committee of the South African Communist Party, eventually serving as its Chairperson. The committee oversaw a number of small party cells of comrades based in Botswana, encouraging debate on international developments, the unfolding dynamics in South Africa and the many challenges facing the national liberation movement as well as recruiting new members of the party in South Africa. The SACP's focus was on mobilising the working class in the struggle against apartheid while ANC had a much broader constituency to mobilise and organise.In the 'forward areas', as countries bordering South Africa like Botswana were referred to, the ANC worked through 'senior organs' or Regional Political Military Committees. The RPMCs oversaw distinctive political, military and intelligence structures.When Gilder arrived in Botswana, the ANC regional leadership included people like Henry Makgothi, Lambert Moloi, Billy Masetlha, Keith Mokoape, Dan Tloome, Wally Serote, Thabang Makwetla, Patrick Fitzgerald and Marius and Jeanette Schoon.

Gilder makes it clear that he found Botswana congenial. He was not isolated. Together with ANC people, there were many other South African people residing in Botswana. Gilder participated in the music unit of MEDU Art Ensemble, a coalition of South African, Batswana and others cultural workers actively engaged in discussion, performances, exhibitions, productions and readings. MEDU organised the 1982 Culture and Resistance festival and symposium. MEDU members included Wally Serote, Willie Kgositsile, Baleka Mbete, Jonas Gwangwa, Hugh Masekela, Brigitte Mabandla and Thami Mynele. Gilder describes this period as a special time. He remembers the heady weekend nights of dancing at the Woodpecker near the banks of Molopo River. Gilder's intelligence unit was composed of Peter Richer and his spouse, Lauren who trained in intelligence work in the then German Democratic Republic. The unit recruited acquaintances and friends who had to come from South Africa to Botswana. Gilder also established a research unit that studied South African telephone directories, military and police publications and maps. Mike Hamlyn was recruited from Durban.

He studied science at the University of Botswana and helped establish links with the Caucasian war-resister community. Gilder ran a well-trained source based in South Africa who provided high-value intelligence for a considerable period before succumbing to burn-out and quitting with dignity. Gilder describes the horror of the 14th June 1985 Gaborone raid. He records the death of comrades and the trauma those who remained went through. In this memoir, the June 1985 raid is placed in the context of a campaign of gruesome bombings and killings of ANC operatives in Botswana and other frontline states by the South African murder machine. Gilder recounts how the ANC leadership reviewed ANC presence in Botswana and accordingly restructured its operational units. Gilder assumed responsibility for ANC's intelligence and Security machinery operating from Botswana. He also sat on the council that oversaw all the ANC underground and military work inside South Africa.

After the 1985, raid support networks had to be rebuilt, safe houses for meetings and sleeping had to be sought, open-source support re-activated and border reconnaissance had to be done. Botswana was a key infiltration route for Umkhonto we Sizwe cadres into South Africa. Under conditions made more difficult by the raid, Gilder was responsible for managing operational funds for ANC work in Botswana as well as for the military and other underground units inside South Africa. He interfaced with the Swedish and Norwegian embassies to receive and account for funds that sustained refugees.

Gilder's work was done without the benefit of offices and with minimal staff. He collected cash using plastic shopping bags and had to distribute it to meet the specific needs of ANC people. This involved signing vouchers, accounting for funds, reconciling figures and monies. The most arduous task for Gilder and comrades was that of infiltrating Umkhonto we Sizwe cadres into South Africa through 'The Pipeline'. Combatants were driven from Lusaka to Livingstone and from there they would be directed to a point on the Zambezi River where Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe borders intersected. At night they would be taken across the river in inflatable rubber boats.

On the other side they would hike to Kasane where they would be then taken to Gaborone or Francistown to be briefed on their missions before entering South Africa. Gilder describes how at times the ANC underground committees would hold meetings in moving cars loaded with limpet mines. He recounts how Richard Whiteing, who then worked for Botswana Orientation Centre, helped develop and maintain a 'leave house system' where houses of expatriates on leave would be rented for short durations and used as safe houses. Whiteing also helped in processing accounts for the monies received from Nordic embassies. Artist Judy Seidman is also mentioned as being instrumental in renting safe houses and running a newspaper cutting service from her sitting room. Messages to Lusaka were relayed using ingenious ways such as stuffing coded messages and reports in innocuous packets of biscuits, soap powder and chocolates.

Gilder does refer to the numerous run-ins that the ANC underground in Botswana had with Botswana security authorities especially the Special Branch. Arrests and deportations of cadres are remembered with a tinge of controlled sourness.  Particular mention is made of the then head of Gaborone District Special Branch who was suspected to be an apartheid agent and was not above roughing up cadres during interrogation sessions.The memoir lets on that then deputy chief of BDF, Ian Khama had tasked Botswana military intelligence to liaise with ANC Underground structures. In Gilder's view, some people within Botswana army intelligence personnel and in ANC underground seemed to be contemptuous of Botswana special branch staff. Gilder's mission in Botswana ended in 1989 when he relocated to Zimbabwe to be part of Operation Vula, a plan to infiltrate ANC leaders into South Africa.

Following the unbanning of the ANC and other political organisations, Gilder went to South Africa in April 1991.Gilder's candour is at its best when he describes how his re-immersion into South Africa after 15 years in exile coincided with being held captive by the credit economy. He had to buy a house he could ill afford for his family. For the first time in his life he had to worry about paying bills and school fees. He also recounts how he was pressured into buying an expensive car. His story is that of a Marxist intelligence operative walking into an obvious trap of everlasting debt to capital with his eyes wide open. It is the sad story of many other returnees. It is also the tragedy of the ANC'S adoption of neo-liberal policies. Fast-forward to 1995 Gilder was appointed the general manager of the Foreign Offices of the South African Secret Service.

He tells the story of how the disparate intelligence services were re-organised to lay fresh foundation for a more accountable and democratic diplomatic, intelligence and security infrastructure. Gilder later spent time directing the internal sector of the security and intelligence service. He was later transferred to the department of Home Affairs and then later asked to coordinate all the intelligence services. In 2007, Gilder retired from government work.Songs and Secrets is good material for people interested in Southern African history, narratives of liberation movements, intelligence, security and political work. It is an inspirational document that deserves to be read critically.