Mass SANDF deployment unrealistic and a little too late

While somewhat comforting to the panic-stricken public, experts believe the plan to deploy 25 000 SA National Defence Force (SANDF) members to stop the ongoing violence and looting was not only fanciful but also little too late.

Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula on Thursday published a code of conduct for the armed forces to adhere to during “Operation PROSPER’ in support of the police.

According to the code of conduct, the SANDF’s cooperation with the police is limited to protecting life and property during crime combating operations, and it emphasises that troops have an inherent right to self-defence.

It states that: “This right to self-defence may be exercised to defend oneself, other members, prime mission equipment, property, SAPS members, and any member of the public where life is threatened and/or where there is an imminent threat of serious injury or destruction of property.”

Call-up of an unprecedented scale

According to Darren Olivier, Director at African Defence Review, the 25 000 pairs of boots encompassed more than infantry soldiers, as it was more than the SANDF has in both its regular and reserve force in that category.

“…so I would expect that it also includes personnel from the Military Health Service, engineers, signallers, logistics, and other support roles as well as air force transport aircraft and crews,” he said.

But Olivier said the number was “aspirational” to some extent, as it depended on an extensive call-up of reserve forces at a scale not seen in decades and that, even if that was successful, it could take some time to complete.

“..so the full 25 000 may not be possible before this crisis is over. Nonetheless what will be deployed is a substantial force,” he said.

According to Olivier, the cost of the deployment will be steep, but it would probably be carried by the Treasury and not from the SANDF’s own budget alone.

“If they do not, the expenditure on this operation will cripple the SANDF for the rest of the budget year and maybe longer,” he added.

Too little too late

Head of Capital Markets Research at Intellidex Peter Attard Montalto lamented that this deployment has been a little too late, with the tide already turned and only useful in maintaining order.

“Overall government has been far too slow to deploy the army in this required size, given the multiplicative effects of looting they should have been deployed through Sunday,” he said.

According to former Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi, security agencies failed to pick up the riot experiment that played out at Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla home a week ahead of his arrest.

Highly trained, organised and targeted

Speaking during a virtual press briefing organised by the Defend our Democracy campaign on the current crisis on Tuesday, he said the experiment was an attempt to turn Nkandla into a laboratory for anti-constitutional activism.

“It was calculated to coerce the courts and government to allow Zuma to get away with his refusal to subject himself to the rule of law … The fact that that spectacle was playing out in Nkandla for that long, was an early warning signal which ought to have been taken seriously by government. Security forces had ample time to move ahead of the curve. Regrettably they chose to sit on their hands and the much feared, ghastly consequences materialised,” Mufamadi said.

Former director-general in the presidency Frank Chikane said the riots were the work of a highly trained organised unit, targeting strategic installations.

He said the attack on malls was never expected but it was clear that the plan by those intent on collapsing the state had no mass support.

“Those who are corrupt and committed crimes are intending to do everything else to make sure that they do not go to prison. Either that they capture the state and govern us as a dictatorship or bring down the country…,” Chikane said. siphom@citizen.co.za