An illegal military camp in White River, Mpumalanga. Picture: X
A MULTI-agency investigation is under way into the illegal military camp where at least 95 Libyans were trained in White River, Mpumalanga, but the man at the heart of the matter appears to have vanished.
While security experts were divided, Martin Ewi from the Institute for Security Studies said the root of the problem was transnational criminality.
“Everyone is looking at the Libyans and saying they came in here illegally. Were they smuggled? No. Were they trafficked? No. They were paying someone to train them and when we analyse it we don’t pay attention to the one who received the money and is providing the training.”
Late yesterday Independent Media was told another five Libyans had been arrested, but was unable to confirm the information. This is in addition to the 95 who have appeared in court on charges of misrepresentation and contravening the Immigration Act.
Authorities found the secret military camp after residents of the nearby village of Masoyi complained that the Libyans were terrorising locals.
The National Prosecuting Authority’s Mpumalanga spokesperson Monica Nyuswa said the 95 men would be back in the White River Magistrate’s Court on Monday where an Arabic translator would be present. She said their visas had been revoked.
Police said the men had claimed on their visa applications that they were going to be trained as security guards but it was suspected they were undergoing military training.
Home Affairs said the men entered the country with visas that were “acquired through misrepresentation in Tunis, Tunisia”. “The visa cancellation means that all the affected Libyans are now undocumented foreign nationals,” said Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber.
During the court hearing it emerged that the men had applied for study visas to South Africa.
Last week police Minister Senzo Mchunu said the company training the Libyans had met the requirements of the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority when it applied to become an accredited security training facility, but this was no longer the case.
Ewi said the company had a licence to provide military-style security training and that even if this was “missed” when issuing the licence and they lied about their activities, there should’ve been a check to see if they were compliant.
“When you are issuing a licence to anyone, even a single individual, who is crossing the borders to come to this country on the pretext that they’re coming to get training for security services, that’s already, for me, a red flag. This is not geography they are coming to study. They are not coming to study history, they are not coming to study natural science, these individuals are coming for security training. The paperwork needs to be very clear. The company serving as their host needs to have the appropriate licence. We don’t just come in the middle and start blaming other people and say it’s foreigners who came here with wrong visas,” said Ewi.
Unlike other security experts, he did not believe this was a sign that South Africa faced a major terrorism threat.
“We know South Africa has a problem with transnational organised crime and criminality. We know the threat of terrorism has always loomed in this country but we’ve had cases that have reassured the country that the law enforcement agencies do sometimes do things at the right time, and they’ve been able to clear the threat.”
Advocate Sipho Mantsula, a researcher from the Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs, said there were many conspiracy theories about the Libyan training, but it might not necessarily be linked to terrorism.
“It might be a lack of our immigration laws, how we handle other nationals who come in and nationals who come from war-prone areas or conflict zones. If you have a secret military camp, then it becomes a violation of the Foreign Military Assistance Act of 1998 which has clauses that define the offences people will be committing should they be found to be having secret military camps.
“That will not exclude right-wing elements in this country who might also become suspects of creating military camps.”
Other experts said there should be “significant concern” that South Africa was being used as a potential training hub for terrorist organisations which may pose a threat to its national security.
Ryan Cummings, the director of analysis at Africa-focused risk management company Signal Risk, said reports of military camps in South Africa had been around for more than a decade and this latest one might just be the tip of the iceberg.
“The first verifiable reports of South Africa hosting training camps for the al-Shabaab terrorist group surfaced in 2013 after the attack on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping complex. Details of this were contained in an intelligence dossier provided to Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyata,” he said on his X account.
“The same dossier claimed that in October 2011, al-Shabaab planned to launch attacks against the OTC bus station and Kwa Mwaura Bar in Nairobi by South African-trained operatives. Both facilities were eventually attacked in October 2011 and March 2012 respectively,” said Cummings.
He said in 2007 two people had been accused of running and financing a training camp outside Port Elizabeth. At the time, Barry Gilder, then the head of the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee, conceded there could be training camps in South Africa.
Cummings said in recent years more reports emerged that the terrorist organisation ISIS was running training camps in South Africa, including a Durban-based ISIS cell.
“What happened in White River could be that our country is being exploited by criminals and extremist organisations to engage in acts of training, financing and various kinds of auxiliary activities, links to transnational crimes in terrorism. There should be a change in our domestic and foreign policy,” said Cummings.
Correctional Services Minister and FF Plus leader Pieter Groenewald said he had previously flagged the issue of military training camps in South Africa, but the matter was ignored during a parliamentary debate.
“The White River incident offers irrefutable proof that it is indeed the case.
“After the unrest in KwaZulu-Natal in July 2021, the FF Plus warned that the country's intelligence services were not up to standard and should be overhauled. That obviously has not yet happened.
“Allowing foreigners to receive military training in South Africa, especially if they could possibly be tied to terrorism, seriously jeopardises the country’s territorial integrity,” said Groenewald.
Professor Helen Duffy, a human rights specialist linked to several universities worldwide who has written extensively about terrorism said: “Sub-Saharan Africa was described in 2022 as an epicentre of terrorism, accounting for 48% of global deaths from this cause.”
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