'Spies' names kept from Mandela'

[dArKeR]

Shortly after the first democratic elections in 1994, the leaders of South Africa's intelligence agencies refused to tell then-president Nelson Mandela the names of the informers and spies they had employed against the liberation movements.

The names were sought by the African National Congress because there was a fear the informers and spies might be blackmailed into taking part in a "counter-revolution".

This was disclosed on Friday by President Thabo Mbeki, who said Mandela had intended to contact each of the informers "to tell them that they would not be used any longer as spies".

In his weekly newsletter on his party's website, ANC Today, Mbeki said that "early in the life of the GNU (government of national unity), we asked the leaders of the intelligence agencies to give us the names of the informers/ spies they had used in their struggle against the democratic movement".

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=13&art_id=ct20040123214120466M121126&set_id=1