Cape Town - The supposed targets of a planned terrorist attack in Joburg have downplayed a US embassy warning of a terrorist threat – that media reports said was possibly aimed at their events.
The US warned on Wednesday that Sandton, a hive of activity this weekend, could be the target of an attack in the coming days, while the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office published a travel alert warning to supplement the US’ statement.
While the Department of International Relations and Co-operation and the State Security Agency remained tight-lipped about the warnings, the UK reiterated its message yesterday.
News24 reported that the Johannesburg Pride 2022 and Cape Town comic Nik Rabinowitz were potential targets of the terror attack, but organisers of the Pride and Rabinowitz took to social media to say they would continue their events.
“For safety reasons, this is how I’ll be performing @theatreonthesquare in Joburg next week,” Rabinowitz captioned a picture of himself on the floor with a dark background, with a reference to the reported threat.
In a statement, Pride organisers said they had assessed the situation and decided not to postpone the event as it had not been directly threatened.
Meanwhile, addressing a press briefing on day President Cyril Ramaphosa said: “It was quite unfortunate that the US government issued that type of warning without having had deep-dive type of discussions with us.”
He said the two governments have since held discussions.
“Warnings such as those do send a lot of panic. South Africans should be best informed by the South African government,” Ramaphosa said.
He said SA’s agencies were getting better at protecting the country and the government is working around the clock to look closely into the message by the US government.
“It is unfortunate that another government should issue such a threat as to send panic amongst our people.”
Political analyst Professor André Duvenage said there are indications that the announcement came as a surprise to SA officials.
“In a way, we can argue that the US embassy did cross a diplomatic line,” Duvenage said.
“But again, when it’s about safety and security then I think safety is priority number one. We know that the SA intelligence environment is dysfunctional. Under these circumstances, I don’t think you’ll have a strong argument to argue that this was an attempt to cross a diplomatic line.”
He said he has no doubt that the SA government should have warned its citizens. Duvenage said what happened in the July riots was a case of sabotage with elements of the State Security Agency (SSA) behind the riots.
Dirco spokesperson Lunga Ngqengelele referred queries to the SSA, whose spokesperson Mava Scott said: “Unfortunately we are not doing any interviews at the moment until further notice. Please note that the law precludes us from discussing operational matters with third parties. As such we are not in a position to comment on this.”
Both Dirco and the SSA were asked:
• Was there any coordination between the SA government and the US embassy before the announcement was made?
• Did the US embassy not cross a diplomatic line by jumping the gun on the alert? Was the country perhaps not undermined by the decision to issue the alert?
• Does the SA government not owe it to their citizens to let them know of a possible attack?
• Is this another case of the State Security Agency being caught napping, as it was during the July riots in KZN and Gauteng?
soyiso.maliti@inl.co.za