Mutharika orders spying on diplomats, opposition

Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika has ordered the Secret Intelligence Services (SIS) to spy on foreign diplomats, top government officials at principal secretary and directorship level – opposition party leaders have also been targeted - Nyasa Times has learnt.

The stunning revelation has been made at a time when Mutharika has ordered the deployment of spymasters as security attaches in all its diplomatic missions to spy on Malawians living abroad.

“Mutharika is so
scared thinking that the foreign diplomats are working with his government during the day and opposition at night. He is questioning their stance on Section 65 and current stand-off on the national budget in parliament.”

“He wants to spy on his principal secretaries, directors as well as bosses of state owned companies. He thinks all of them are working with the opposition to bring down his government,” our source at national police headquarters revealed.

The intelligence officers track down who is having a meeting with the diplomats among the political leaders. They are bugging the phones as well.

A cabinet minister told Nyasa Times that Mutharika in an emergency cabinet meeting told the ministers that their phones were being monitored both fixed landlines provided by Malawi Telecoms Ltd; and the two cellular network operators – Celtel Malawi and Telecom Networks Ltd.

“He clearly said that our phones and those of opposition parties are being monitored by SIS working with the telephone service providers,” the minister said on condition of anonymity.

Malawian in the era of Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda lost their lives through undercover intelligence police officers who committed the worst atrocious and murderous activities in foreign land.

“In all embassies that we have there will be an intelligence official as a security attaché.

“This is a practise that the country is copying from Zimbabwe where their intelligence service - Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) - is all over their embassies and they are able to spy on dissidents in Diaspora,” bragged a Foreign Affairs Ministry official.

Identities of intelligence officers being deployed to embassies could not be verified.

“This is a bad practice …. it is bringing back the old days of dictatorship … what does the government want to put on surveillance in the embassies? ..Innocent Malawians?” wondered Jones Banda, a retired Police Officer in Lilongwe.

Malawi’s SIS formed by Mutharika – after disbanding National Intelligence Bureau which operated during the Dr Bakili Muluzi era - is being modelled to the notorious Zimbabwe’s CIO.

Malawi has no law permitting it to tap or intercept telephone conversations and the act - although a security precaution - is a total violation of personal privacy.