Doubts persist over army’s suitability for lockdown duty

President Cyril Ramaphosa wanted it, the Joint Standing Committee on Defence (JSCD) on Wednesday authorised his letter calling for almost every available uniformed SANDF member backdated to 2 April, and a feisty SANDF chief of staff Lieutenant General Yam told the JSCD said he was not the police, Ramaphosa was his boss.

And until an equally feisty constitutional expert takes up the myriad questions surrounding the notification of parliament and the authorisation of the SANDF employment in the Constitutional Court, Ramaphosa gets to be the real Commander in Chief for a while.

The call up was merely the upper limit of what he could call into action, not necessarily that he would, noted military expert John Dovey.

He explained “combat readiness” was an administrative function which essentially meant all the different units facing deployment had to have all their paperwork in place.

“That includes everyone having their current health assessment, medically assessed to be fit for duty, there’s a dental exam, what their HIV status is, are they qualified for their post, have they done their preparatory courses, they have the right rank for the post, and that’s just for each individual,” Dovey said.

“Then expanding the picture, they have to look if they have the right equipment, and a very small part of that is an assessment of the unit which includes a variety of exercises to ensure they are sufficiently trained to carry out their various operations.”

And there comes the rub, with many units having spent extensive time in various war zones on a rotational basis working under the United Nations.

“From external deployments, especially the guys who have been deployed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that is a combat deployment, which is not the same as what has been ordered here in South Africa,” Dovey said.

“There, they are forbidden most of the time from interacting with civilians except in the most superficial way. So, this is not something they’re prepared for, in fact quite the opposite.”

Dovey explained troops had been in the DRC since it was still known as Zaire following Nelson Mandela’s first authorisation for the SANDF’s deployment to the war-torn country.

“They have a combat mindset. It’s the same as when troops were pulled off the border and put into the townships in the mid – 80’s, this is the exact equivalent of that. Which is a concern,” Dovey said of Ramaphosa’s recent deployment.

Every single uniformed member of the South African National Defence is required by law to have had the SANDF’s code of conduct explained to them, acknowledged they understand it, sign, and act according to its prescripts.

The first line reads: I pledge to serve and defend my country and its people in accordance with the Constitution and the law and with honour, dignity, courage, and integrity.

“Nowhere does any legislation allow for SANDF members, despite being given virtually the same powers as the Saps, allow for any kind of punishment to be meted out in the form of slaps, pushups, or forcing people to roll in the street,” Dovey said vehemently.

“All of that is not only illegal but against the code of conduct as well.”

Nor, it seemed, was this enough with the SANDF yesterday calling for specialist reservists who not been contacted yet to join up.

These included health care practitioners, especially nurses and doctors, qualified chefs, mechanics, engineers, (both technical and mechanical), pilots. and seamstresses.

“This is part of the total government scenario planning, taking into consideration the worldwide trends and our own scientific analysis and experience,” the SANDF said in a statement yesterday.

“Various skills within the SANDF will be deployed in support of other government departments to deal decisively with contingencies that might arise. In the main, it will capacitate the engineering capabilities, healthcare capabilities and logistics capabilities.”

Director at African Defence Review and defence expert, Darren Olivier, estimated on Tuesday night there were about 8 200 air force, 34 000 army, 5 200 military health, and 5 700 navy personnel, plus 20 000 reservists – not all of whom are deployable – as well as a few hundred auxiliaries.

Writing for defenceWeb, defence analyst Helmoed Heitman noted; “If I am correct we are looking at a situation unprecedented since the 1994 election deployment but not a similar actual deployment of troops.”

In a statement, Freedom Front leader Pieter Gronenewald said; “This deployment comes down to a state of emergency in South Africa and the Disaster Management Act is exploited to bypass constitutional requirements for a state of emergency. In terms of Section 37 of the Constitution, there needs to be strict parliamentary oversight in a state of emergency, but in terms of the Disaster Management Act, there is almost no oversight”.

“This is a serious flaw the FF+ will address by introducing a Private Member’s Bill to the National Disaster Management Act in Parliament.”

Ramaphosa said the “employment of the additional members is for the period 2 April 2020 to 26 June 2020”.

However, as noted in a report by Institute for Security Studies senior researcher Johan Burger; “Limited time for planning, organising and training made it inevitable that policing South Africa’s COVID-19 lockdown would pose challenges for law enforcement”.

“Many countries have taken drastic measures to contain the pandemic, but in South Africa the restrictions have been particularly severe. They include keeping people in their homes, banning the sale of non-essential items, and preventing informal traders from operating without a permit,” Burger wrote.

– amandaw@citizen.co.za

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