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Security sector reform and intelligence

services in sub-Saharan Africa: capturing

the whole pictureDustin DehzPublished online: 12 Jul 2010.

To cite this article:Dustin Dehz (2010) Security sector reform and intelligence services insub-Saharan Africa: capturing the whole picture, African Security Review, 19:2, 38-46, DOI:10.1080/10246029.2010.503058

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ISSN 1024-6029 print / 2154-0128 online 2010 Institute for Security StudiesDOI: 10.1080/10246029.2010.503058http://www.informaworld.com

African Security Review 19.2, June 2010, 3846

Dustin Dehzis ahistorian and visitingprofessor at the Centrefor International Studiesat the University ofEconomics, Prague([email protected])

Security sector reform

and intelligence services

in sub-Saharan Africa:

capturing the whole picture

Dustin Dehz

Introduction

In recent years the security sector has been identified as a crucial component in

guaranteeing lasting peace and security, particularly in countries that emerged from

bloody civil wars and internal conflicts. The reform of the security sector, therefore, is

a means of ensuring that such countries do not re-enter conflict situations and wars. In

this respect, reform also forms part of conflict prevention.

Security sector reform (SSR) ideally addresses the dual challenge posed by security

services and security sector governance by transforming military forces to defend their

countries against foreign enemies while trying to institutionalise civilian oversight and/

Keywordssecurity sector reform, intelligence services, security sector governance, civilmilitary relations,regime security, African socialism, conict resolution


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Features 39

or parliamentary control. To this end, SSR aims to strengthen oversight and executive

control of all security services from the army to border control and the intelligence

services while trying to enhance their operational capabilities.

The concept of SSR owes its appeal to its dual function. First, it helped identify the missing

link between security policy and development assistance, and in that sense led to a move

toward security in the way the West understands development and stability. Second, SSR

provided a coherent concept, a means of bridging the gap between these fields.

Despite this early success, however, SSR has remained largely conceptual. The

coordination and sequencing of measures taken under the SSR framework remain

highly contested issues. Governments emerging from conflict situations find it difficult

to comprehend the complexity and sophistication of the process, while donors stillneed to develop a coherent system-wide approach. And although SSR highlights the

importance of well-managed civilmilitary relations, apparently little effort has been

made to manage assistance in this realm. Moreover, surprisingly little progress has been

made in understanding these relations in general.1

The impact of conflicts on civilmilitary relations has been largely neglected, and the legacy

of socialism particularly in the African context has not received much scholarly attention

either. This is also the case with the challenges posed by the incorporation of intelligence

services, customs and border control. Obviously, while SSR is being implemented bydevelopment practitioners, little research has been done to support their efforts. And

currently the gap between practice and academic knowledge is widening. It is noteworthy

that the most influential books on civilmilitary relations and its role in different forms

of statehood are to this day those written by Samuel Huntington and Morris Janowitz.2

Further scholarly attention will need to focus on civilmilitary relations not only to guide

efforts in SSR but also to incorporate the history of civilmilitary relations in the past two

to three decades in our understanding of the military in Africa, the Middle East, and those

states that were governed by socialist regimes until the end of the Cold War.

While, as Andrea Wright put it, everybody is doing SSR,3clearly not everybody knows

what exactly to do. Although SSR is certainly en voguein development circles, knowledge

of the military and security services is thinly spread, especially given the aversion to

the military that has long characterised the development community as a whole. It is

therefore feasible to ask whether all donors really have a plan or a cohesive framework

to guide their efforts. Do they know how to include all national security services?

Intelligence services in particular need to be taken into account, but for various reasons

these services have not been given the attention they deserve.

It is against this background that this article discusses intelligence services and their role

in SSR. Its aim is to close gapsthat have been left, first, by the lack of academic effort


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40 African Security Review 19.2 Institute for Security Studies

to describe the role of intelligence services and second, by SSR efforts that have largely

neglected the intelligence sector. The role of intelligence services in the national security

architecture is outlined and the relations with other security services discussed. The

article then describes the major problems SSR needs to address when aiming at cohesivereform of the security sector, including intelligence services. Finally, some preliminary

conclusions are drawn. The focus of the article will be on SSR efforts in sub-Saharan

Africa and the challenge left by the legacies of colonialism and socialism in the African

context. The specific impact of the role of the military in African states will also be

highlighted.

Dening the relationship and identifying problems

There can hardly be any doubt that security services and security sector governance are

important features of modern statehood. Security is basically at the heart of any state,

as states derive their legitimacy and mandate to govern from the provision of security.

Ideally security services provide security for the population and are being commanded

and controlled to that end by the state and its institutions. In democracies this control

would ensure that the military does not undermine the state, since the controlling

institutions are products of the will of the people. However, undemocratic regimes and

autocrats could face threats from outside the country as well as from the inside, either

from the upper echelons of their own ruling elite or from society itself.4

It is becauseof this concern for their very own survival that many autocrats use security services to

serve their own interests and not the interests of the state.

Especially during the Cold War, national security services in sub-Saharan Africa were

occupied with regime security and often received aid from their allies to this end.

Intelligence services were not exempt from that focus. In autocracies the security of the

regime translated directly into regime stability.5This, however, was by no means equivalent

to the stability and security of the state, let alone of its population. On the contrary,

the means employed to secure regime stability often undermined the stability of statestructures. Efforts to enhance regime stability therefore often only fostered the negative

sovereignty of these states and increased their status as quasi-states that is, states that

were only called states because of the international recognition they had received earlier.6

Moreover, most African states have at some point tried to develop socialist systems,

whether they called it scientific socialism or African socialism. Between the beginning

of the decolonisation period and the 1980s no fewer than 35 out of 53 states at some

point had called themselves socialist states.7These experiences have left a problematic

legacy as socialist regimes tended to highlight regime security even more than otherautocracies, often by putting the party and not the state in charge of national security

affairs and the army.


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Features 41

In communism, there simply could not be anything like a military outside the political

realm, since in previous decades the military was seen as the armed wing of capitalism

and defender of the bourgeoisie. In the eyes of communist leaders, it was therefore

totally legitimate to turn the military into an instrument of the Communist Party, atool to modernise society and advance socialism. As the case of Ethiopia dramatically

illustrates, this dynamic led to a militarisation of society and a politicisation of the

military, intelligence and other security services.8 Over decades the focus on regime

security manifested itself in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa in decision-making

processes that were largely undisturbed by civilian oversight and control. This inevitably

culminated in rampant corruption and poor management of the national security forces.

Corruption, poor ministerial planning and a lack of oversight have left many of sub-

Saharan Africas armies and intelligence services ill-prepared for current challenges

ranging from an increase in the trade of narcotics in western Africa to the threat ofradical Islamism in the Horn of Africa.

This legacy has weakened armies and intelligence services alike, not least because

these institutions share important features: both are created to protect the state, but

both command the power to become the states greatest threat. Security sector reform

in these areas therefore identifies the need to strengthen civil oversight bodies while

at the same time facing the challenge to increase operational effectiveness. Both have

to cope with the legacies of the Cold War. Like many military forces in sub-Saharan

Africa, intelligence services in autocracies have been and often still are dominated bythe ethnic group that seized power in that particular nation, however small that ethnic

group may be.

Although intelligence services in sub-Saharan Africa had originally mirrored those of

their colonial counterparts, they were often transformed after these countries gained

independence. In Anglophone African states, for instance, most intelligence services

originated from within the police, most commonly in the form of a Special Branch.

However, since many countries in sub-Saharan Africa have often faced recurrent

coups dtat by military forces or presidential guards, the shape and function of theseservices have often been changed rather dramatically.9In the wake of such coups, newly

established regimes quickly moved to redirect the work of intelligence services to

their own safety and often subsumed intelligence command structures under military

leadership,10 creating a highly politicised and militarised intelligence community that

worked solely toward regime security.

New regimes and juntas often created new or rival intelligence services with the sole

purpose of maintaining regime security. These security services were established only

after a certain force had seized the state and subsequently developed an interest in theconsolidation of power. The Gambia is a case in point. When in 1994 the army under

the leadership of a young officer called Yahya Jammeh staged a coup dtat, its hold on


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power at least initially was tenuous. The new regime quickly moved to install the

Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC) that was to lead the Gambia for the

next two years before Jammeh would run on a civilian platform for re-election.11Regime

security, however, remained an important issue during this time, and in 1995 the newregime created the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) which reinforced the AFPRCs

control over society and radically changed the political atmosphere in the country.12

Despite the establishment of a civilian platform in 1996 the Alliance for Patriotic

Reorientation and Construction, APRC the Gambia remains a dictatorship to this day.

Hence the main task of the NIA remains the maintenance of regime security. In fact,

just like other parts of the national security apparatus, the NIA is involved in identifying

dissidents and journalists critical of the regime. Moreover, the NIA may have had a role

in fabricating alleged coups in 1996, 1997 and 2006. These all served as a pretext for theregime to consolidate its hold on power by taking these instances as an opportunity to

jail opponents.

SSR in the area of intelligence services therefore needs to change not only the ways in

which intelligence is being conducted, but also the means to significantly alter its ends.

It is not surprising that intelligence services have historically been comparatively weak,

particularly when it came to countering threats from abroad. During the Cold War this

weakness was by no means compensated for by stronger intelligence from Westernnations or the Soviet Union and its allies. In the Congo crisis of the 1960s, for example,

the United States relied heavily on Belgian intelligence because it had long neglected

to develop its own intelligence capabilities in sub-Saharan Africa. Until the 1960s the

US believed that the former colonial powers would take the lead in cooperating with

the newly independent African states and keeping the Soviet Union out of sub-Saharan

Africa. When it finally did develop these capabilities, it still had problems to catch the

entire picture.13

With the end of the Cold War, intelligence capabilities with regard to sub-Saharan Africahave again been significantly downgraded, and Western intelligence capabilities are only

slowly being rebuilt. There is therefore reason to believe that in the absence of strong

intelligence on Africa and because of a lack of strong partnerships with African partner

services, the West may currently not be in a position to strengthen the operational

capabilities of African intelligence services.

Intelligence services differ in one important respect from armies. They are by their very

nature active services and in peace time are more active than their army counterparts.

Apart from that, the work of intelligence officials requires a certain distance frompoliticians and political decision-makers, for various reasons. On the one hand their work

needs to be conducted partly under covert circumstances, and this requires a certain


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Features 43

degree of isolation. On the other hand, political decision-makers are not subject to the

same scrutiny intelligence officials are. Relationships that are too close could therefore

compromise the covert nature of intelligence work.

This distance is, however, a challenge to civil oversight and renders SSR efforts

particularly difficult. Ideally, intelligence services are subsumed under the leadership of

some sort of executive authority which in turn is being held accountable by independent

legislative bodies of the state in democracies most often a parliamentary oversight

committee. In such a setting intelligence services must regularly report on their activities

and the oversight committee must have the power to demand any information it sees fit

to implement its oversight function, including the right to issue subpoenas. However,

even in fully established democracies this is by no means always certain, and even there

security establishments can exert an influence on politics. The question, as Nicole Ballput it back in the 1980s, is just how much influence is normal.14Often problems with

oversight and the implementation of civilian superiority can only be detected indirectly,

in sub-Saharan Africa the most apparent perhaps being the extent of control over and

public accountability for the financing of intelligence services. Since intelligence services

by necessity operate in secretive ways, civilian oversight is harder to implement than in

other areas of the security sector, indicating the dual challenge posed by intelligence

services for SSR. First, the necessity for efficient intelligence-gathering is particularly

relevant in countries with limited financial resources as is often the case in countries

where SSR is being undertaken and therefore requires the use of secret measures, andsecond, this makes effective civilian oversight all the more important.

Today, it is commonly accepted that intelligence services in their counter-terrorism

measures need to act simultaneously in a de-territorialised, desegregated and cohesive

manner. The number of institutional security services has grown on nearly all levels,

be it national, federal or regional. The growing number of agencies and the need to

cooperate and at times move beyond the operationalculture boundary therefore

constitute a particularly daunting challenge to the services.

Even if they manage these relations rather efficiently, democratic oversight bodies are

confronted with the task of controlling activities that are becoming ever more complex

and sophisticated. Efficient oversight bodies are required to deal with the large number of

agencies and with inter-agency relations. However, oversight bodies cannot expand in the

same way as intelligence agencies, nor can they monitor all inter-agency communication

and linkages, either within the country or between foreign agencies. In democracies,

oversight bodies are usually constituted as parliamentary committees, which cannot

expand in number; neither can more parliamentarians be allocated to the committees

or the number of staffers on the committees be increased. Moreover, an expandingintelligence and security sector system may require experienced parliamentarians in the

oversight committees, but in democracies there are always some new faces in committees


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and in sub-Saharan Africa where many democracies have been established only recently,

after the end of the Cold War or civil wars experienced parliamentarians that are willing

to and capable of applying the full spectrum of oversight are in short supply.

Then there is the institutional history. Some agencies may be closely scrutinised, perhaps

because of a need felt in parliament or after some sort of scandal. Other, newly established

agencies may not be monitored as strictly, even though they are perhaps engaging in the

same activities.

Drawing conclusions

Intelligence services are perhaps the least studied instrument of the states securityapparatus in sub-Saharan Africa. The ultimate aim of security sector reform in the area

of intelligence services is to detach intelligence services from the political arena while at

the same time strengthening executive and legislative control over them. The challenge

therefore really lies in overcoming historical civilintelligence relations that focused on

regime security and replacing them with civilintelligence relations that are characterised

by stronger ties between oversight committees and the intelligence leadership. At the

same time it should be ensured that intelligence services focus on state security rather

than regime security.

Typical recommendations for any intelligence service are to bolster its operational

capabilities and to put more analysts in the field.15However, many sub-Saharan African

countries will find it impossible to commit more resources to intelligence in the

foreseeable future. Therefore, clear and specific legislation detailing mandates and fields

of operation is as important as adhering to general principles of civilian control. Moreover,

it is important that, despite scarce resources, security services should be financed only by

the state and should not have access to any other source of finance. Parliaments will need

to extend control from oversight to allocation, weapons procurement, and definition of

the rules of intelligence engagement a daunting task.

While improving capability is important in the context of sub-Saharan Africa, national

security in the Western world is also affected. Ever since radical Islamists began to challenge

the state in northern Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Somalia, partner agencies have to

improve their pre-emptive intelligence and counter-intelligence capabilities. For example,

in Pakistan the Inter-Service-Intelligence (ISI) has nurtured ties with the Taliban and is

now reluctant to cut these ties entirely and fight the Taliban even though the latter have

begun to pose a threat to the state. Such situations are to be avoided by all means.

Strong capabilities of partner services in Nigeria and eastern Africa are in the interest

of the West.16 As the Gambian case illustrates, some services have been established


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Features 45

with the sole purpose of enhancing regime security and reforming their structures and

capabilities will be a particularly difficult challenge. Here SSR needs to change the way

in which threats are being perceived and foster a change in focus.

Further research needs to focus on the differences in structure, style and method

between Western intelligence and intelligence services in sub-Saharan Africa. Nearly

all developing countries are in some process of reform of the security sector and their

intelligence services anyhow. In recent years these efforts have been simply overruled by

donor agendas. Sequencing in this context is first and foremost a question of where to

pick up local reform efforts. A further problem is that most donors are still developing

their own approaches to SSR. This leads to neglecting SSR efforts in recipient countries

and often to contradicting donor agendas. Moreover, since SSR programmes are relatively

new and are in most cases still in the initial stages of implementation, the withdrawal ofdonors is a relatively recent challenge that also lends more importance to the question

of sustainability.

Overall, intelligence has been neglected in reform efforts, not enough emphasis has been

placed on the training of parliamentarians and knowledge of intelligence services in

sub-Saharan Africa is rather limited. While reform of the security sector in sub-Saharan

Africa turns into a policy priority of the West and its development assistance programme,

more research needs to be conducted into how oversight in Africa is enforced and what

characterises African intelligence services.

Notes

1 Security sector reform was introduced by the Labour government as a concept for post-conflictstabilisation in the UK White Paper on International Development of November 1997: Deane-Peter

Baker, Agency theory: a new model of civil-military relations for Africa? African Journal on Conflict

Resolution7(1) (2007), 113135, 115.2 Samuel Huntington, The soldier and the state: the theory and politics of civilmilitary relations, Cambridge:

Belknap Press, 1964; Morris Janowitz, Military institutions and coercion in the developing world, Chicago:Chicago University Press, 1977.

3 Andrea Wright, Security intelligence everybodys doing it: new challenges for democratic control, Paper

delivered at Fourth ECPR General Conference, Pisa, 68 September 2007.4 Jennifer Ghandi and Adam Przeworski, Authoritarian institutions and the survival of autocrats,

Comparative Political Studies40(1) (2007), 12791301.

5 Ulrich Schneckener, States at risk: Zur Analyse fragiler Staatlichkeit, in Ulrich Schneckener (ed),FragileStaatlichkeit: States at Risk zwischen Stabilitt und Scheitern, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2009, 940, 21; and on

the ideological character of the security forces during the Cold War, John Markakis and Michael Waller,The hammer, the sickle and the gun, in John Markakis and Michael Waller (eds), Military Marxist regimesin Africa, London: Frank Cass, 1986.

6 Robert H Jackson, Quasi-states: sovereignty, international relations, and the Third World, Cambridge,

Cambridge University Press, 1990, 2129, and Michael Wesley, The state of the art on the art of statebuilding, In Global Governance14(3) (2008), 369385, 370.

7 M Anne Pitcher and Kelly M Askew, African socialisms and postsocialisms,Africa76(1) (2006), 114.


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8 Bahru Zwede, The military and militarism in Africa: the case of Ethiopia, in Eboe Hutchful andAbdoulaye Bathily (eds), The military and militarism in Africa, Dakar: Codesria, 1998.

9 Extensive research is available on coups dtat in Africa: Aaron Belkin and Evan Schofer, Toward astructural understanding of coup risk, Journal of Conflict Resolution 47(5) (2003), 594620; Patrick J

McGowan, Coups and conflict in West Africa, 19552004, Armed Forces and Society32(1) (2005), 523;and Patrick J McGowan, African military coups dtat, 1956-2001: frequency, trends and distribution,The Journal of Modern African Studies41(3)(2003), 339370.

10 Lauren Hutton, Intelligence and accountability in Africa, ISS Policy Brief 2, June 2009, 1.11 Abdoulaye Saine, The Gambias elected autocrat poverty, peripherality, and political instability, 1994

2006,Armed Forces and Society34(3) (2008), 450473.12 Alice Bellagamba, On the virtue of margins: a story of conflict between government and Muslim

leadership in post-1994 Gambia, in Alice Bellagamba and Georg Klute (eds), Beside the state: emergentpowers in contemporary Africa, Kln: Kppe, 2008, 105120.

13 Charles C Cogan and Ernest R May, The Congo, 19601963: weighing worst choices, in Ernest R Mayand Philip D Zelikow (eds),Dealing with dictators: dilemmas of US diplomacy and intelligence analysis, 19451990, Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2006.

14 Nicole Ball, Third world militaries and politics: an introductory essay, Cooperation and Conflict 17(1)(1982), 4160.

15 Eric Rosenbach, The incisive fight: recommendations for improving counterterrorism intelligence, TheANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science618(7) (2008), 133147.

16 David Omand, The limits of avowal: secret intelligence in an age of public scrutiny, in Gregory FTreverton and Wilhelm Agrell (eds), National intelligence systems: current research and future prospects ,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

This article i s based on a presentation delivered at a conference on Intelligence and Democracies in

Conflict and Peace held at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, 1820 October 2009.

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2010_Dehez_SSR Intelligence Sub Saharan