The Security Branch of the South African Police, established in 1947 as the Special Branch, was the security police apparatus of the apartheid state in South Africa. From the 1960s to the 1980s, it was one of the three main state entities responsible for intelligence gathering, the others being the Bureau for State Security (later the National Intelligence Service) and the Military Intelligence division of the South African Defence Force. In 1987, at its peak, the Security Branch accounted for only thirteen percent of police personnel, but it wielded great influence as the "elite" service of the police.

In addition to collecting and evaluating intelligence, the Branch also had operational units, which acted in neighbouring countries as well as inside South Africa, and it housed at least one paramilitary death squad, under the notorious Section C1 headquartered at Vlakplaas. It is also well known for recruiting askaris (informants, double agents, and defectors), and for the systematic use of torture and numerous deaths in its detention facilities. Branch officers carried out the murders of Ruth First, Ahmed Timol, the Pebco Three, and The Cradock Four, among many other anti-apartheid activists; Steve Biko died in Security Branch custody after being severely beaten by officers. Famous Branch investigations include those leading to the 1956 Treason Trial, the 1963 Rivonia Trial, the 1964 Little Rivonia Trial, and the 1990 Operation Vula trial. It also carried out "Stratcom" disinformation and "dirty tricks" operations which some have likened to a "propaganda war" against the African National Congress.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) found that the Security Branch engaged in "massive and systematic destruction of records" in 1992 and 1993, following an instruction from head office in 1992. As a result, the details of many of the Branch's operations remain unknown or uncorroborated. Several former members, though a small proportion of the overall staff complement, submitted amnesty applications to the TRC and testified at length about the Branch's involvement in extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations.

History

1947–1950s: Suppression of communism The Branch was established as the Special Branch of the South African Police (SAP) in 1947 under the command of Hendrik Jacobus "Fly" du Plooy. Du Plooy, who headed the Branch until he was replaced by Willem Carl "Sampie" Prinsloo in 1954, said that he was asked to use the Branch "to combat Communism more actively." The Branch became the leading agency in the administration and enforcement of the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 upon its enactment in July. Because the Act defined communism remarkably broadly – as more or less any form of subversion – the Branch thus secured a broad role in political matters and matters of national security. Perhaps the most famous application of the Act is the prosecution of Nelson Mandela and 155 other anti-Apartheid activists during the 1956 Treason Trial, which followed a series of investigations, raids, and arrests by the Security Branch.

1960s–1980s: Expansion

The early 1960s in South Africa were characterised by an intensification of political repression, following the Sharpeville massacre; the banning of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and the establishment of their military wings, Umhonto weSizwe (MK) and Poqo; and the beginning of the armed struggle, including a year-long sabotage campaign by MK. At this time, the Security Branch had a modest staff complement of about 200 officers, of whom about half were black. In 1963, however, Hendrik van den Bergh was appointed commanding officer of the Branch, and it hardened and expanded during his tenure.Selfe, James (1987). "The total onslaught and the total strategy: adaptations to the security intelligence decision-making structures under P.W. Botha's administration". PhD thesis. University of Cape Town. The SAP's budget increased significantly in subsequent years, with much of the increase absorbed by the Branch. By 1964, all four floors of the Compol Building in Pretoria, which previously had housed the broader SAP, were occupied by the Branch's national headquarters.

The Branch's surveillance capabilities improved in the 1960s, and it interrogated a large number of political detainees during the first half of the decade. With the blessing of Minister of Justice John Vorster, van den Bergh set up a special unit, known as the "Sabotage Squad," to monitor and interrogate anti-Apartheid activists. The Sabotage Squad was a forerunner to later Branch units: it was during this period that the Branch secured its enduring reputation for brutality and torture, with Branch interrogators like Theunis "Rooi Rus" Swanepoel gaining notoriety among activists. Joe Slovo contrasted the Branch officers of this era and beyond with earlier security police in South Africa, who he said were "gentlemanly" by comparison. It was later established that several Security Branch officers, including Swanepoel, received training in interrogation techniques in foreign countries, including in France, which was known for having used torture extensively during the Algerian War of Independence.

Only months after van den Bergh's appointment, the Branch orchestrated the raid on Liliesleaf Farm which led to the Rivonia Trial. It is uncertain exactly what intelligence led the Branch to conduct the raid, but it probably had an informant inside the ANC. The same week, Van den Bergh told the Sunday Times that the Branch had "virtually smashed" the country's various subversive political organisations: "All that remains are the remnants, who will be rounded up in time." At the trial, defendant Elias Motsoaledi told the judge that Branch officers had "assaulted" him during interrogation.

Also early in his tenure as commanding officer, Van den Bergh founded Republican Intelligence, South Africa's first covert national intelligence service and a direct offshoot of the Security Branch – many Branch officers were transferred to staff it. By 1969, Republican Intelligence had been replaced by the Bureau for State Security, which van den Bergh left the Branch to run.

Enabling legislation

From the 1960s onward, the Suppression of Communism Act was supplemented with a host of security legislation which expanded the Branch's powers. Detention without trial in non-emergency situations was allowed, for up to twelve days, from 1961. Thereafter were introduced the following:

The General Law Amendment Act of 1962 broadened the definition of sabotage and extended the Minister's power to impose banning orders; The General Law Amendment Act of 1963 allowed SAP officers to detain suspects without a warrant, and without access to a lawyer, for up to ninety days. In practice, detainees could be held indefinitely without trial, because the 90-day period could be renewed if further interrogation was deemed necessary; Section 22 of the General Law Amendment Act of 1966 provided for short-term "preventive" detention for up to fourteen days (also renewable); and The Terrorism Act of 1967 provided for indefinite detention without trial in solitary confinement for the purposes of interrogation.

The Internal Security Act of 1982 consolidated and extended the provisions in these and other laws and remained in effect, with some amendments, until the democratic transition. Police also had remarkably extensive powers of search and seizure. In this legislative environment, the Branch was often able to detain people in poor conditions without the knowledge of their families or lawyers, and it is suspected to have been responsible for numerous forced disappearances.

1990s: Democratic transition

Harms Commission

In November 1989, Butana Almond Nofomela, a black Branch officer, caused a scandal when he alleged on death row that he had belonged to one of five death squads operating under the Branch out of Vlakplaas farm, later revealed to be the headquarters of the Branch's Section C1 . He claimed that the Branch had brutally killed anti-apartheid activist Griffiths Mxenge in 1981, and that he had participated in or witnessed other extrajudicial killings committed by the Branch. His claims were corroborated in the Vrye Weekblad by the Section's former commanding officer, Dirk Coetzee, and by David Tshikalange, another Branch officer. Adriaan Vlok, Minister of Law and Order, denied the allegations and said they were part of a plot to undermine the security police "to make it easier to bring about... a Communist state." By the end of the month, the McNally Commission, led by Tim McNally, Attorney General of the Orange Free State, had investigated and submitted to President F.W. de Klerk a report which discounted the allegations.

In January 1990, however, under mounting pressure from civil society, de Klerk appointed Judge Louis Harms to investigate the allegations, under the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Alleged Murders, better known as the Harms Commission. The commission's terms of reference were broad: to inquire into political murders and political violence committed in South Africa "with political aims," and it investigated the Civil Cooperation Bureau as well as the Security Branch squads at Vlakplaas. Its report, released in November 1990, was "famously vacuous": it did not name any specific units or officers as participants in death squads, and it was denounced by anti-apartheid groups as a whitewash. Meanwhile, sometime in 1990, the Branch sent a parcel bomb to Coetzee in Lusaka. Officers sent the parcel under the name of Bheki Mlangeni, a human rights lawyer who had represented several clients during the Harms Commission, but Coetzee was suspicious and returned it to its ostensible sender in Johannesburg. Some months later, in February 1991, it exploded, killing Mlangeni. Another Section C1 operative who testified at the commission, Brian Ngqulunga, was killed by his handlers at Vlakplaas in July 1990.

Operation Vula The Security Branch achieved its last major public triumph in July 1990, when its Durban division uncovered Operation Vula. Operation Vula was an ANC project which sought to smuggle arms and activists into the country and to establish an underground network linking domestic activist structures with the ANC in exile. It was initiated in 1986 but, controversially, had continued to operate despite the resolutions of the May 1990 Groote Schuur Minute. At a raid in Durban, the Branch found evidence of the operation, including communications between underground structures and the ANC headquarters in Lusaka. A series of arrests followed, and at least eight operatives were charged with terrorism, although they were later indemnified. Among those arrested were Pravin Gordhan, Mac Maharaj, Billy Nair, and Siphiwe Nyanda. Two ANC operatives detained in July, Charles Ndaba and Mbuso Shabalala, were missing until 1998, when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) found that they had been arrested and killed by the Security Branch and their bodies thrown in the Tugela River.Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. 3. Cape Town: The Commission. 1998. According to the testimony of a Branch officer, Ndaba and Shabalala were killed after refusing to turn on the ANC. The officer also claimed that Ndaba had previously been a Branch informant, but the ANC denied this and portrayed the Branch as having stumbled upon Vula by chance.

Demise