Zimbabweâs intelligence service is spying on aid organisations and âcomparing notesâ with South Africa in terms of a year-old pact. Zimbabweâs Director of Intelligence, Aggrey Maringa, said in an interview this week that some non-government organisations were under the microscope of his agency. Maringa told the Sunday Times that Zimbabwe shared information with South Africa on NGOs simultaneously active in both countries. The deal was revealed in the wake of attacks on foreign-funded non-government organisations by President Thabo Mbeki last month and Zimbabweâs Minister of National Security, Didymus Mutasa, this week. Mbeki told African editors and an African Peer Review conference he was worried about the influence of some NGOs because their agendas were set by donors and not by the needs of Africa. Mutasa said after Thursdayâs inaugural meeting of a joint commission on defence and security that foreign NGOs and journalists were the greatest threats to Zimbabweâs stability. âWe would like Europe please to keep your NGOs to yourselves,â he said.
Mutasa and South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils signed two new accords at the meeting attended by ministers, military chiefs and officials from the two countries. They agreed to improve co-operation in defence, border control, environmental management, security and intelligence. Zimbabwe will send air force instructors to train South African fighter pilots and buy the airframes of South Africaâs ageing Alouette helicopters. A senior air force official said the Alouettes would be sold without weapons, but might be flight-capable.
Kasrils told the Sunday Times that an intelligence-sharing deal in place since July last year was reaffirmed. âItâs about international terrorism ... syndicated crime, drug smuggling, human smuggling, money laundering,â he said. Kasrils said the parameters of the co-operation were clearly defined in an exchange of notes, but Maringa said: âWe have not given each other any prescription as to boundaries.â