Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

Roy Andersen BOOST TO THE RESERVES Former Liberty Life and JSE chief Roy Andersen has been promoted to the rank of major-general and chief of the SANDF's reserve forces (RF), including the army, navy, air force and medical services. Andersen's successor as head of the army reserve force is Maj Gen Keith Mokoape, a former operative in the ANC's military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK).

Andersen's appointment follows his deep involvement in Project Phoenix, aimed at revitalising the army's conventional reserves (formerly the Citizen Force).

Phoenix has restored and upgraded regular training for army RF officers. Orders have now been given for implementation of the next phase, including recruitment of former regular force members to the RF; the strengthening of selected units, such as the parachute battalion; and the provision of funds for basic training for 750 recruits a year.

Andersen's new post is the highest available to an RF officer. Since his retirement as CE of Liberty earlier this year, Andersen has continued his voluntary military commitments, which began in 1967 when he was commissioned into the Transvaal Horse Artillery, the regiment of which he is now honorary colonel. He retains links with the business world as non-executive chairman of construction giant Murray & Roberts.

Mokoape joined MK in 1973 and was involved in recruitment and operations in Swaziland, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. After the ANC came to power in 1994, he retained his links with the military as an RF officer and co-chairman of the Reserve Force Council.

In recent years Mokoape and Andersen have worked closely together and, comments Andersen, "We have developed a close friendship."

South African National Defence Force (SANDF) Chief Siphiwe Nyanda officially opened the 4th South African Joint Air Defence Symposium in Pretoria today.

The symposium aims to provide a forum for people in the air defence sector to exchange information and ideas on technology and solutions on a formal and informal basis.

The three-day symposium is held every two years and more than 500 delegates from around Africa attended it.

General Nyanda said the SANDF would continue to strive for best standards and exchange information and ideas with the world's biggest armies to acquire more skills and technology.

"We want to be rated among the top armies in the world," said General Nyanda. "We will continue to send our personnel to acquire best training with the international defence forces."

The first symposium was held in the country in 1997 and was an effort initiated by the South African Army and focused mainly on its ground defence.

Since then the symposium has evolved to address air defence and related elements from a joint perspective.

General Nyanda said air defence capability was a critical component of any defence force and was designed to counter first world threats.

It comprises state-of-the art technology.

White extremists accused of plotting to overthrow the South African government were planning to chase the country's 35 million black people over the border to Zimbabwe, a court heard Wednesday.

Police informer and former right-winger Johannes Coenraad Smit told the Pretoria High Court, where 22 members of the white right-wing Boeremag (Boer Force) organisation are facing treason charges, that a similar plan had been hatched for the more than one million South Africans of Indian origin.

"Black people would have been chased to Zimbabwe," Smit testified at the first day of the hearing, held in the South African capital under tight security, and which had been dogged by numerous postponements.

"The coup plan made provision for the country's Indians to be chased to the (eastern) KwaZulu-Natal coast via the N3 highway, from where they would have been shipped to India," Smit said.

He added: "Blacks and Indians who resisted the Boeremag's repatriation efforts would have been summarily shot."

The men are facing 42 charges, ranging from terrorism to murder, related to a series of bombings committed in the predominantly black Johannesburg township of Soweto last year and a plan to unseat the African National Congress (ANC)-led government.

Details of the coup plot were contained in a document which Smit claimed to have received from the organisation's leader and first accused, Mike du Toit, in June 2001, the SAPA news agency reported.

Smit said he had infiltrated the organisation and took the stand on Wednesday after being given indemnity from prosecution.

Dubbed "Document 12", the paper outlines different phases in the planned coup, starting with identifying and recruiting members, and followed by the elimination of enemies, including former president Nelson Mandela, leading up to the formation of a new government.

Said Smit: "We discussed Document 12 in full detail at a meeting in June 2001. He (Du Toit) said all the (black) people ... must be chased out of the country on the N1 highway."

"His (Du Toit's) biggest ideal was that South Africa should be a white country.... He said that there were already people in place that could take over parliament."

The plan provided for the destruction of the public broadcaster SABC, seen by the plotters as a propaganda tool for the ANC government, which was democratically elected in 1994.

"The SABC was seen as a huge propaganda tool that could be used against us. We had to destroy the SABC to stop its propaganda."

The plan also included taking over several military bases, and altering the machinery of the South African Mint to produce weapons rather than coins.

Smit also discussed the formation of so-called "shadow commandos" within existing structures in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and staging possible cash-in-transit robberies to fund the planned coup.

The shadow commandos were to occupy buildings such as police stations, defence force headquarters and fuel depots.

"Certain military bases were earmarked. Some had to be taken over, others destroyed and in others, the logistics removed," said Smit.

The trial had been due to start in May, but was repeatedly postponed by the defence, which has complained about jail conditions for its clients, and which tried without success to subpoena former president Frederik de Klerk to testify.

Said Smit: "Anyone who did not support us had to be destroyed."

Some SA National Defence Force bases and their troops were identified in 2001 to help carry out a plan to overthrow the state, the Pretoria High Court heard in the Boeremag treason trial on Wednesday.

Police informer Johannes Coenraad Smit, the first State witness, also told the court convicted extremists Barend Strydom and De Wet Kritzinger had been identified to him as some of those behind the planning of the coup.

Smit testified that a certain Kobus von Marle told him and accused number three, Adriaan van Wyk, in April that year that the Thabazimbi, Zeerust and Wonderboom SANDF bases had been identified as possible allies in the coup plot.

Meetings to this end had taken place with the commanding officers of several commandos and generals, including former police general Lothar Neethling. A meeting with Colonel Chris Zeeman, commander of Wonderboom commando, proved to be unsuccessful.

Both Smit and Van Wyk were members of that commando.

Von Marle proposed Van Wyk, a special forces operative, as a coup leader for the Pretoria area, Smit said.

Stumbling over AIDS DEFENCE Minister Mosiuoa Lekota has developed an unfortunate habit of marching with his foot in his mouth since taking over the high-profile cabinet position. Little wonder he tends to trip up so often these days.

No obstacle appears more likely to cause him to stumble than the contentious issue of government's handling of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Recently Lekota came under fire after telling senior foreign envoys there was "no alarm" in SA over HIV/AIDS. His political opponents couldn't have wished for a handier stick with which to beat government and the ruling African National Congress, its resistance already severely compromised by President Thabo Mbeki's baffling HIV/AIDS denialism.

What Lekota also said at that meeting was that SA was not about to collapse as a result of HIV/AIDS, and that government was taking the issue seriously and putting programmes in place to contain the disease's impact. In that context, what he clearly meant was that there was no need for panic, that government now had a plan in place and was sticking to it.

Similarly, his comment that it was "not useful" for the South African National Defence Force to accept HIV-positive army recruits may have been clumsy, but it surely did not justify the ensuing outcry. No defence force in the world knowingly recruits HIV-positive people into combat positions, and many armies discharge personnel who become infected while in service.

The SANDF's position is in fact relatively "soft" by global standards - it will recruit HIV-positive people who are not yet symptomatic to certain administrative positions and ensures that current personnel who fall ill with AIDS receive treatment. HIV-infected applicants for active service positions are indeed turned away, but so are those with hepatitis, heart murmurs and diabetes; hard physical training and the likelihood of blood being spilt make any other course of action too risky.

The defence force is already struggling to cope with the "hollowing out" effect of AIDS as illness and death strike soldiers in the most vulnerable age group between 26 and 39, which also happens to be the age of the bulk of the army's footsoldiers. And, with at least one in five serving members HIV-positive, the military health support budget is terribly stretched as it is.

The SANDF does not need the added burden of being forced to recruit people it cannot use effectively and who it knows will inevitably add to its financial woes down the line.

POST-apartheid defence policy in SA developed in an open and consultative manner. But today the assumptions underlying the original debate and its openness have been eroded.

Shortly after the 1994 elections, the government of national unity began the development of the White Paper on Defence (completed in 1996) and the Defence Review (1998).

A large gap has developed between the outcome of the defence review process and the current situation (practice).

Many problems and obstacles were encountered in translating intention into reality. The first was that plans for the integration of the former soldiers of seven opposing armed forces and subsequent demobilisation of the excess numbers proved more difficult, drawn out and expensive than expected. A second is that continued high levels of violent crime require the ongoing deployment of about 3000 soldiers internally. Finally, SA's leadership position in conflict mitigation on the continent demands ever-increasing forces for peace support missions.

Today the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) serves as an important instrument of foreign policy to a degree unforeseen by government scant years ago. T he establishment of an African common defence and security policy, an African standby force and a regional defence pact, have also served to move SA away from self-defence.

The SANDF has about 3000 soldiers deployed in Africa with a demand for more. This brings the present SANDF deployment (nationally and elsewhere) to about 6000 men and women, most being infantry soldiers significantly more than envisioned by the Defence Review. To maintain these force levels requires at the very least three times as many mission-ready soldiers to allow for rotation, contingency reserves, training and force preparation, home duty and leave.

In short, there has been a steady and pragmatic shift away from the written policy as promulgated in the White Paper on Defence and the Defence Review. Arguably the gulf has become so wide as to render some sections of these core documents obsolete. A force design predicated on short logistic lines for highly mechanised mobile forces prepared to fight in defence of the territorial integrity of the country has given way to preparations for out-of-area force projection and support requirements in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and shortly Liberia.

The development of defence policy in the 1993-to-1998 era was transparent, consultative and inclusive; this is not the case today. The role played by the parliamentary defence committees and civil society during the development of the White Paper and Defence Review is much reduced.

The time has come for an open defence policy debate. It should recognise the high level of violent crime, regional instability, the spread of civil wars, the developing African peace and security mechanisms.

In the period after the 1994 elections the defence debate in SA was an open and consultative process. Unfortunately the same is not true today.

Le Roux is from the Institute for Security Studies.

SA National Defence Force A BATTLE FOR SURVIVAL Defence force starts a new recruitment and service system to tackle its manpower crisis The SA National Defence Force (SANDF) is locked in its biggest battle since the apartheid war - a battle for its own survival.

It is no exaggeration to say that if its battle plan - a new recruitment and service system that began tentatively this year - fails, our defence force could face functional collapse.

If that sounds melodramatic, consider the dire state of the ageing, unfit, unhealthy SA military - especially the army, which is nearly 1l times bigger than the air force, navy and health service combined, and makes up 45% of the full-time defence force.

The average age of a private, lance corporal and corporal - the arms, legs and guts of any army - is 33 years. It should be 24.

"No private should be older than 28, says SANDF director of human resource planning Brig Gen Dries de Wit. The problem lies not just with the lower ranks. At least 38% of the entire force has an unacceptable rank-to-age profile, he says. Not only are older soldiers less fit than their younger counterparts, but many have families and are unwilling to serve on peacekeeping missions or risk their lives in disaster relief work, currently the SANDF's prime functions.

Force reduction is a political hot potato. Natural attrition has brought the regular, or full-time force down to 75670 from a high of 101000 in 1995/1996 when the old SADF, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the African People's Liberation Army (Apla) and the four bantustan armies were combined. But the attrition rate is far too slow to solve the SANDF's dilemma. Also it is mainly younger soldiers who are leaving; the old ones stay for security of income. So the average age keeps rising.

Defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota and defence chief Gen Siphiwe Nyanda want to pare down the force to around 65000 regulars. But they also need to get rid of redundant troops - 15000-20000 of them. While they remain, keeping the personnel bill sky-high, the defence force can't afford to hire fresh recruits. And they can't simply dump the old soldiers, many of whom dedicated their lives to the anti-apartheid struggle. Most have no skills beyond the military, and if rendered jobless could turn to crime or add to the state's welfare burden. "We must be careful not to solve one problem and create another," says the head of parliament's joint standing committee on defence, Thandi Modise.

While the politicians have dithered the defence force's woes have worsened. But things may now be changing for the better, as we shall see further on.

A major problem is that MK and Apla combatants, who make up a large proportion of the redundant troops, spent up to 30 years or more in exile without pension plans. Their SANDF plans have not had time to accumulate enough capital for retirement.

But the logjam may have been broken. Last month parliament approved amendments to the Government Employees Pension Act and the Special Pension Act to give MK and Apla cadres the same retirement benefits as SADF soldiers. Why it has taken this long is anyone's guess. But once the bill is enacted, the laying off of redundant personnel is bound to gather pace.

"There are many people on standby, just waiting for it to be implemented so that they can go," Lekota says.

De Wit says the state pension fund has enough money to cover the expected surge in pensions, and the SANDF has an exit management system to control who leaves and when.

The challenge does not end there, though. Personnel costs consume a gigantic 53% of the defence budget, excluding special payments for strategic weapons. The 1998 Defence Review, which contains the force design and rationale for the SANDF, recommends a 40%:30%:30% split between personnel, operating costs and capital renewal.

"The force design proposed in the Defence Review is clearly not affordable, given the budget allocation to Defence," states a hard-hitting internal review of the personnel situation, Human Resource Strategy 2010, compiled by De Wit's staff.

There is also the health issue. Along with age, HIV/Aids and other diseases are driving up SANDF mortality. In 1996, when the armies amalgamated, 40% of all defence force deaths were due to medical causes. Now they account for 70%, says De Wit. In the year to August 2003, most deaths occurred among soldiers aged 26 to 39.

Racial representivity is also skewed. Nearly 90% of privates are black African while just 4% are white. Conversely, the "management" ranks - major, lieutenant colonel, colonel and brigadier general - are filled mostly by whites. The technical musterings - pilots, engineers and the like - are as heavily white-dominated, if not more so, than their private-sector equivalents.

When the corvette SAS Amatola sails into Simon's Town harbour on November 4, it will symbolise a new era for the defence force - the start of a hugely expensive strategic re-equipment that had been held back for decades by international sanctions and since then the budgetary constraints of a post-war society in need of social repair.

The Amatola will not be ready for service until 2005, after its computerised combat system is installed and functioning. But its presence here will be the first tangible manifestation of the R50bn strategic defence package. Over the next several years three more corvettes, three submarines, 52 jet fighters and 30 utility helicopters are due to replace the outdated and fatigued equipment currently in service. What use will it all be if there are not enough skilled people to fly, sail and maintain them? Or if there is not enough money for fuel with which to operate them? At last politicians and military planners have begun to act on the crisis. And there is a glimmer of hope that they will succeed. The key is an ingenious human resource strategy that may, over the next six or seven years, turn the SANDF back from the brink and begin restoring it to functional efficiency.

The "new service system concept" (see graphic) is a complete revision of the way the defence force recruits personnel and retains their service. The three-tier system came into effect in January and nearly 2100 volunteers have already begun two years of basic training and service under what is called the "military skills development system" (MSDS).

The aim is to raise this volunteer "call-up" to 7000 recruits a year as quickly as budgets allow, and eventually stabilise it at 10000 a year, says De Wit. Existing training facilities cannot at this stage cope with a 10000 intake.

Under the MSDS, every recruit must have a grade 12 (matric) qualification and be aged between 18 and 22. After the first year of training, a leadership component will be selected for training as officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs). The rest will complete their second year as ordinary troops. Thereafter, the intake will be split: some will remain as professional soldiers while the rest will pass out of the regular force and into the reserves. In this way the two components of the SANDF - the regular and reserve forces - will receive a constant intake of young, fit and trained soldiers.

The reserves have been depleted by inadequate funding and generally deteriorating morale over the past 10 years. There are now just over 16200 conventional reserves and 50500 commandos. The latter are being phased out and the personnel mostly absorbed into the conventional reserve.

Meanwhile, a 16-month-old project to revamp the conventional reserve - Project Phoenix - stepped up a gear this month. It has received funding to begin direct recruitment of 750 volunteers a year. They will receive basic training through a programme started last year to run combined reserve and regular force exercises.

Legislation is being prepared to ensure that reserves serve at least 30 days a year for at least five years. Companies may be unwilling to let their staff take time off for camps, especially since they are no longer compelled to give military leave. But De Wit says the SANDF may try to persuade government to set up an incentive framework to encourage private-sector participation.

MSDS recruits who prefer to remain in the regular force after their two years' training will be enlisted into the second tier, known as the "core service". Enlisted troops will not be allowed to stay in core service past the age of 28. They may go to the reserves and undergo vocational training before leaving the regular force. De Wit expects about 2500 of a 7000 intake to enter the reserves after basic training. Those who become officers or NCOs will stay in the core service up to the age of 45. Senior officers and those older than 45 who are eligible to remain in the regular force will enter the third tier, the "senior career system". This includes the ranks major up to general and in noncommissioned ranks, staff sergeant up to warrant officer. They will have to retire at 60, but may take early retirement from 51.

De Wit hopes the system will grow to full function by 2010. The aim is for the MSDS and core service elements each to comprise 40% of the regular defence force and the senior career system 20%.

Once that stage is reached, De Wit says, the SANDF could be saving up to R800m on its human resource budget, which is now R7,6bn. That is because it is cheaper to recruit youths and school-leavers under the MSDS than it is to retain older, higher-paid soldiers.

What could give the MSDS crucial political support beyond the military is a plan to use the system as a skills booster. De Wit hopes to register the MSDS as a form of learnership under the national qualification framework. It could also encourage school-leavers to sign up for military training.

"We are going to tell the private sector about our MSDS discharges," he says. "We'll tell them: if you're looking for staff, don't hire school-leavers; hire these people because they are more mature and have built up some life skills already." The MSDS, however, will not solve the skills crisis within the defence force. That is where a special foundation training course, conducted by state arms manufacturer Denel, comes in. Military recruiters scour mostly black schools for good students who fancy a career in the military. They enrol them in the foundation course where they undergo intensive bridging tuition in maths, science and other technical fields to enable them to go on to tertiary qualifications.

To give further impetus to this, the SANDF is forming a reserve officers training corps, on the American model, to improve the education level of its officers. Out of these initiatives, the military hopes, will come the black pilots, navigators, engineers and military leaders of the future defence force.

Dozens of trainee pilots are currently moving through military flying schools in Mpumalanga and the Western Cape. It will be a tight thing to have them ready in time for the new aircraft: it takes eight to 10 years to train a frontline fighter pilot. At 2 Squadron, near Louis Trichardt, in August last year, there were just 10 fighter pilots (only one of them black) for 36 Cheetah jets, though these mostly were hangar-bound because of fuel shortages.

The shortage of operational funding hurts personnel morale. Pilots want to fly, not kick their heels on the ground. The challenge for the SANDF is to keep its specialist staff. SA Airways, itself under staff pressure from dollar-and pound-paying international airlines, has hired away many military pilots, air traffic controllers and technicians over the years. De Wit hopes to establish a formal antipoaching agreement between the defence force and the airline.

The force is also putting together an incentive scheme for specialists such as pilots, navy combat officers and special force infantry. The first phase, an extra allowance, was introduced early this year. It is still too early to say how well it is working, he says.

The financial obstacles are daunting. "We have only two options," De Wit says. "We either get extra money or the SANDF must make capacity within its own ranks by speeding up the exit mechanism." The latter will be helped by the new pension equalisation scheme. There is also a plan to transfer about 3700 soldiers in the 35-40 age group to the police over the next 18 months. That will enable the defence force to take in nearly 5000 MSDS recruits, says De Wit.

Even then, the financial crunch is bound to intensify as the annual payments for the strategic weapons rise from R6,5bn to a peak of more than R7bn in the next three years. Thereafter the payments will diminish, which should free more cash for operations, recruitment and training. Of course, further large capital acquisitions - such as new-generation armoured cars and transport aircraft - loom in the future.

Defence chiefs are already lobbying the treasury and cabinet not to cut the defence budget as strategic weapons payments decline.

GETTING THE MILITARY INTO PROPER SHAPE Few SA institutions have had to face up to as many transformational challenges as the military. The need was apparent as far back as 1990 and escalated in real and symbolic terms after the first democratic election of 1994.

The various armed formations had to be amalgamated with demonstrable political neutrality - and without bloodshed. Thereafter, the focus shifted to defining a new strategic role for the SANDF and inculcating a national military culture. New weapons were needed, former enemies reconciled, racial and ideological sensitivities addressed. Crucially, discipline had to be maintained. All this against a shrinking defence budget.

Something had to give, and it was recruitment, which has been largely on hold for more than a decade. The result is that parts of the force are old, unhealthy, and unbalanced in terms of skills and race. With no new soldiers coming into the regular force and few leaving, the reserves are in dire straits.

But as we make clear this week (see page 29), the military planners have devised excellent proposals to rejuvenate the SANDF. The assumption, correctly, is that our military capability should be based on a small professional core with a large reserve force that can be kept trained and ready should the need arise. A citizen-reserve military is much cheaper than a standing army, and more likely to preserve political stability.

A key proposal is that from an annual intake of about 10000, about 20% would remain in the military as career soldiers. The rest - disciplined, trained, experienced - would be released back into the economy after two years, with an annual obligation of up to 30 days' reserve force service.

The SANDF has planned well. But it is also time for business to play its part through increased co-operation in terms of realising training needs, and sympathetic treatment of employees who wish to make a part-time military commitment. In this, business could play a pivotal role in creating a military force tailored to the real needs of the country.

SANDF firm on HIV in spite of cabinet stance Ministry denies position out of step Chief Political Correspondent THE South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has defended its position of not recruiting HIV-positive people, despite the cabinet's insistence on Wednesday that there was no government policy to that effect. While maintaining that its recruitment policy would not prevent HIV-positive individuals from serving the army in "civilian" administrative capacities, the ministry emphasised yesterday that healthy citizens, with potential to carry out strenuous physical training, would be prioritised during intakes. It also denied that its position contradicted that of government's on the matter. Government spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe was emphatic this week that each case would be treated on its own merits.

But ministry spokesman Sam Mkhwanazi confirmed yesterday that HIV-positive people would not be eligible for military recruitment, and yet insisted that the ministry and the cabinet were speaking with one voice.

He reiterated Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota's statement that it was not only people with HIV-positive status who could be excluded from the military, but everyone who failed an "overall health assessment".

Lekota said earlier that other applicants who suffered from other illnesses that affected their physical wellbeing had also been turned away. Asked whether an HIV-positive person who passed every other aspects of the health assessment would be eligible, Mkhwanazi said: "No, in as much as a person with a heart condition or poor eyesight would not be eligible." Earlier this month, Lekota said there was no point in recruiting HIV-positive individuals, saying it would not be "useful". He was widely criticised for this, with some legal experts arguing that such a stance was unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, the Aids Law Project has welcomed the cabinet's stance on the matter. However, it still expressed "extreme concern" that despite the cabinet's pronouncement, the SANDF seemed determined to continue excluding HIV-positive job applicants from joining the army. It named four HIV-positive applicants who had been turned away. They included a woman who applied for a position as a nurse. Her initial positive HIV test results later turned out to be false.

The organisation has opposed the rejection of the four applicants.

The project said that it hoped that the cabinet's statement would clarify the confusion that appeared to exist between government's position and the army's on the matter. It also argued that the SANDF's position needed to be brought in line with that of the cabinet's.

The SA National Defence Force would not recruit individuals for its military arm if they were HIV positive, the Defence Ministry maintained on Thursday.

But it denied contradicting the cabinet, which stated on Wednesday [22 October] that there was no government policy to exclude people from the SANDF merely because they were HIV positive.

"Each case is treated on its own merits," government spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe said then.

Ministry spokesman Sam Mkhwanazi confirmed that HIV-positive people would not be eligible for military recruitment, but insisted that the ministry and the cabinet were talking with one voice.

He explained that HIV status had not been isolated as a criterion for recruitment. It was part of an "overall health assessment".

Mkhwanazi refused to give a yes or no answer to the question as to whether an HIV-positive person would be considered for the military.

Asked whether an HIV-positive person who passed every other aspect of the health assessment would be eligible, he said: "No, in as much as a person with a heart condition or poor eyesight would not be eligible".

Earlier this month, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said the SANDF did not recruit people with what he termed "the condition".

He said there was no point in recruiting HIV-positive individuals, explaining: "You can't take ill people into the positions in the army. It's not useful."

His statement was widely criticised and some lawyers believed the stance to be unconstitutional.

The SA National Defence Force would not recruit individuals for its military arm if they were HIV positive, the defence ministry maintained on Thursday.

But it denied contradicting the Cabinet, which stated on Wednesday that there was no government policy to exclude people from the SANDF merely because they were HIV positive.

"Each case is treated on its own merits," government spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe said then.

Ministry spokesman Sam Mkhwanazi confirmed that HIV-positive people would not be eligible for military recruitment, but insisted that the ministry and the Cabinet were talking with one voice.

He explained that HIV status had not been isolated as a criterion for recruitment. It was part of an "overall health assessment".

Mkhwanazi refused to give a yes or no answer to the question as to whether an HIV-positive person would be considered for the military.

Asked whether an HIV-positive person who passed every other aspect of the health assessment would be eligible, he said: "No, in as much as a person with a heart condition or poor eyesight would not be eligible".

Earlier this month, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said the SANDF did not recruit people with what he termed "the condition".

He said there was no point in recruiting HIV-positive individuals, explaining: "You can't take ill people into the positions into the army. It's not useful."

His statement was widely criticised and some lawyers believed the stance to be unconstitutional.

The defence ministry later denied discriminating against HIV-positive people, saying there was no ban on them doing civilian jobs in the military.

Netshitenzhe said on Wednesday that Lekota's words may have been distorted.

"You do not have a principled position of government, a principled policy, that merely because you test HIV positive you would then not be accepted into the SANDF."

The Aids Law Project (ALP) on Thursday welcomed the Cabinet's statement.

"The ALP is, however, extremely concerned to note that despite this pronouncement, the SANDF has excluded and continues to exclude job applicants with HIV from employment in the SANDF."

It cited four examples of individuals it claimed were refused employment by the SANDF for being HIV positive. One of them involved a woman who applied for a position as a nurse, whose initial positive HIV test results later turned out to have been false.

The SANDF's decisions in all four cases were currently being challenged by the ALP, with three ready to go to court.

"The ALP hopes that the statement by Cabinet will clarify the confusion that appears to exist between Cabinet and the SANDF," it said in a statement.

The SANDF's policies should immediately be brought into line with the Cabinet's position, the ALP added.

In contests of strength, team work and precision, graduates of the South African National Defence Force's new Military Skills Programme demonstrated their abilities at a passing out parade enlivened by smoke grenades and dramatic pyrotechnic effects.

The gun run - a traditional naval contest in which teams compete to disassemble a weighty field gun, get the parts and team members across the demonstration field along a line suspended above the ground, then reassemble the gun on the other side - was the clear highlight of the programme.

To the delight of the audience, a mast display and precision drill were also included.

The graduation marked the conclusion of the flagship year of a project aimed at empowering youth by providing them with skills that can be used outside the military as well as within.

After what Sub-lieutenant Greyling van den Berg calls the post-1994 "miracle" military transition in which former enemies from the South African Defence Force and the liberation armies joined in the SANDF, the military leadership realised that under-used facilities could be used to train people as a step to alleviating unemployment.

"We have a responsibility not only toward Africa, but toward the citizens of this country," he said.

In all, 450 students representing a cross-section of society were chosen from 12 000 applicants to participate in the two-year programme.

They were chosen on the strength of their matric marks and their performance in an interview with a panel of officers.

At the end of the two years students graduate with certificates in seamanship, computer skills, basic language and mathematics skills, a military driver's license, environmental, fire fighting, and first aid skills, and financial and career management.

A R1 700 monthly salary is supplemented by three-and-a-half meals a day, a bed at night, comprehensive medical care, transportation, and a uniform at no cost.

At the end of the programme, some students are invited to remain in the military and become officers and others are given the option to sign a five-year contract to join the reserve force.

Those who join the reserves are also given one year's salary.

Ultimately, the military hopes that graduates will use the skills acquired in the programme to empower themselves and help build their communities.

A SA National Defence Force member was killed and his three colleagues were injured when their military vehicle overturned near Tweespruit, Free State police said on Monday.

Constable Christopher Mophiring said the vehicle's right tyre burst and the 30-year-old driver, who died at the scene on Sunday, lost control of the vehicle. It overturned several times.

The vehicle was travelling from Thaba-Nchu to Ladybrand and the passengers were two civilian women and a SANDF member, a man.

The injured were taken to Moroka Hospital in Thaba-Nchu and one of the women and the SANDF member were in a critical condition.

The South African Council of Churches (SACC) on Thursday said it was shocked and dismayed at Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota's announcement that the country's armed forces would "no longer accept HIV positive people into its ranks."

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF)'s policy on HIV recruits was immoral to consider that a person living with HIV/AIDS was unfit to serve the country, said Father Gary Thompson, the SACC director for HIV/AIDS Programmes.

Thompson said that it was regrettable for a government department, a custodian of the country's constitution, to so blatantly discriminate against its own people because of their health condition.

"Attitudes like this fuels stigmatisation and perpetuates discrimination. When activists the world over are calling for openness and acceptance, the SANDF opts for a position that gives more reason for people not to declare their status," Thompson said.

He also regretted that such a stance was being taken by government at a time when the world was crying out for more compassion for people living with HIV/AIDS.

"Surely the SANDF will not apply the same criteria for people suffering from tuberculosis. In the same way that untreated TB is fatal for one's health, treatment for HIV can prolong the life of individuals," Thompson noted.

Lekota on Wednesday disclosed that about 20 to 22 percent of the members of the defence force were HIV positive.

He added: "Anybody with the condition (HIV) cannot be recruited into the defence force. There is no point. You can't take in ill people into the positions in the army. It's not useful."

The defence minister said those already ill and part of the SANDF would be deployed "where they are deployable. We will support them."

But Thompson called on Lekota and SANDF to seriously rethink their position and find alternative ways of utilising the much needed skills of people living with HIV/AIDS and not only limit them to combat which he said appears to be the reason for their exclusion.

The National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS has also criticised the minister's remarks, saying that the move would further increase discrimination and stigmatisation of people living with HIV/AIDS.

The Defence department has denied discriminating against people living with HIV/Aids, saying there is no ban on such individuals doing civilian jobs in the military.

"But all recruits for active military duty have to pass a comprehensive health assessment - including an HIV/Aids test - to be accepted," defence ministerial spokesman Sam Mkhwanazi said on Thursday.

"This is standard practice in the military. Recruits for active duty are also being turned away for things such as poor eyesight, bad hearing, diabetics, and even for being overweight."

Mkhwanazi queried the outrage of some organisations over a statement this week by Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota that the army could not accept people living with HIV/Aids.

Lekota said there was no point in recruiting such individuals, explaining: "You can't take ill people into the positions into the army. It's not useful."

Mkhwanazi said: "When the minister alluded to this, he did not say anything new. He was merely stating standing policy in the Department of Defence."

Individuals applying for civilian posts in the department, did not have to undergo the same comprehensive health assessment. Such jobs would be open to people living with HIV/Aids.

"So, it would be wrong to say we are discriminating," Mkhwanazi said.

The latest criticism of Lekota came from the SA Council of Churches (SACC), which accused the minister of fuelling the stigma of HIV/Aids.

"It is immoral to consider a person living with HIV/Aids as unfit for service within the defence force," the SACC said in a statement.

"Surely, the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) will not apply the same criteria for people suffering from tuberculosis."

The SACC said it intended seeking an audience with Lekota on the matter.

Mkhwanazi said every application for a position in the military was being considered on its own merit, depending on the area of deployment.

If the application was for, say, a foot soldier in the army, a full health assessment was crucial.

"We need to make sure that the recruit will be able to withstand the rigours of active military duty, Mkhwanazi said. "Different rules will apply for someone seeking to become a clerk, for example."

The National Association of People Living with HIV/Aids earlier in the week accused the military of trampling on the very rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

"Science has demonstrated that HIV-positive people could live longer. But now they are refused an opportunity to earn a living," the organisation said.

A soldier of 10th South African Infantry Regiment shot and seriously wounded his girlfriend, an employee of Absa Bank at Zeerust, before turning the gun on himself, police said on Wednesday.

Inspector Gabashane Moseki said the 28-year-old soldier arrived at the bank on Wednesday afternoon, and went into his girlfriend's office, apparently to eat lunch with her.

About 3pm bank staff heard screams. The woman ran out of her office, pursued by the man, who fired several shots, wounding her twice, once in the back and once in the head.

He then turned the pistol on himself.

The man died on the scene. The woman is in a critical condition. She has been moved from the Zeerust hospital to Bophelong Hospital in Mafikeng.

Their names have been withheld as their next-of-kin have not yet been informed.

The weapon used was a private, licensed firearm, Moseki said.

The South African National Defence Force [SANDF] will no longer accept HIV positive people into its ranks. This announcement was made by Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota at a justice-cluster briefing in Pretoria yesterday.

"Anybody with the condition (HIV) cannot be recruited (into the defence force)," he said. "There is no point. You can't take in ill people into the positions in the army. It's not useful. We need people who would be sent into difficult missions and be able to (withstand the pressures)."

Lekota announced that an estimated 20 to 22 per cent of members of the defence force were HIV positive.

His announcement drew sharp criticism from the National Association of People Living With HIV/AIDS. Its national director, Nkululeko Nxesi, said that if the SANDF proceeded with a policy of not accepting HIV-positive people in its ranks, this would further increase discrimination and stigmatization of people living with HIV.

"It is an unacceptable policy because it tramples on the very rights guaranteed by the constitution," said Nxesi.

"This announcement further alludes to the challenge faced by HIV people in that even senior people who should be looked upon for direction do not understand the basic facts about HIV.

"Science has demonstrated that HIV positive people could live longer. But now they are refused an opportunity to earn a living."

Nxesi said his organization would rally civil society and all those who supported the cause for HIV positive people "to fight this government-propelled discrimination in the constitutional court".

Lekota said those already ill and part of the SANDF "will be deployed where they are deployable. We will support them. Even when they need home-based care, we will support them."

The number of HIV positive people in the SANDF was reflective of how the pandemic had become a problem in the broader community. It was to be expected that the estimates would tally with national infection rates, as soldiers were an integral part of society.

Lekota said the SANDF was now engaged in peacekeeping missions on the continent and needed able-bodied individuals to carryout tasks. Apart from the benefits that accrued from peace, a stable Africa and Southern African Development Community region would be an incentive for investment.

There was no alarm in South Africa about AIDS, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Tuesday [7 October].

"All of this noise every day about HIV/AIDS and so on, that suggest that this country is about to collapse as a result of HIV/AIDS, are really unfounded," he told senior foreign envoys in Pretoria.

"There is no alarm in this country."

Lekota said programmes run by the government would enable it to contain the disease. The need to address the issue was taken very seriously, he added.

"This we are working very hard on, and we will reduce it."

The minister said official estimates were that about 20 to 22 per cent of SA National Defence Force (SANDF) members were infected with HIV - comparable to the rate in broader society.

The SANDF did not recruit people with what he termed "the condition". Those who contracted HIV later were deployed according to their abilities. Those who developed full-blown AIDS would be looked after by their employer, Lekota added.

He said the defence force was not crippled by AIDS, and blamed "disloyal" elements for "sneaking" out stories to this effect.

Some of these elements were members of the apartheid-era defence force who have not made peace with the transformation of the country, Lekota said.

'I'm tired of this," remarked a South African National Defence Force (SANDF) soldier offloading a small group of glum-looking immigrants at the Musina police station, a ramshackle collection of squat buildings in South Africa's most northerly outpost.

It was not yet mid-morning and the soldier's company had arrested yet another batch of desperate Zimbabweans illegally crossing the nearby Limpopo river. "Night and day, all the time, every day the same," he sighed, leading the men to the station's cells.

"I haven't eaten for two days," said 24-year-old Phillip Chikumbo, his dark eyes bloodshot with fatigue. There was no hint of outrage or bitterness in his comment; he was simply hungry. "They do not have food for us here because we are unexpected visitors."

Dressed in a blue-and-white check shirt, his hair closely cropped, Chikumbo is one of about 20 young men - all Zimbabwean - patiently awaiting deportation to a place he no longer wants to call home.

"My father is not very happy," he said, squatting on his haunches among a tangle of roots belonging to a wild fig that prospered in the middle of the prison courtyard. "He is angry that I left; he says it's running away. But there is nothing to do [in Zimbabwe] as far as a job. It's hard to raise money."

A qualified mechanic, Chikumbo was born and raised in Chiredzi, in Zimbabwe's central Mashonaland district. Long disheartened by the lack of opportunity in the country, he is an old hand at crossing the border illegally.

Chikumbo works as a junior mechanic at a private trucking company on the road to Thohoyandou. It is not an uncommon story told in the prison courtyard. Maxwell (33), "caught in an ambush along the river", has been a mall security guard in Johannesburg for nine years. Morris (18), from Masvingo, earns R750 as a tractor driver on a Mpumalanga farm.

"I get paid R600 a month," said Chikumbo. Exploitation wages to be sure, but he is happy with the opportunity to work. The income allows him to visit his girlfriend Sara every three to four months in Chiredzi.

Chikumbo said his arrest is a minor inconvenience, his words echoing the sentiments of many of the detainees. Take, for example, Freedom Kulalelo (23). Arrested two weeks ago in the Johannesburg suburb of Berea, he spent 10 days at Lindela repatriation centre near Krugersdorp. After his return to Zimbabwe he headed straight back to South Africa.

It used to be, a policeman told us, that Zimbabweans detained illegally crossing into South Africa were fined upon repatriation. They were even sent away to Harare. But occurrences of illegal crossings are so frequent along this border (26 742 in 2000, 19 932 in 2001, and 18 033 recorded last year) that the Zimbabwean authorities have stopped imposing punitive sanctions. At worst, one border-jumper told us, they might be told to clean the Beit Bridge police station before being released.

"I have been disturbed from my programme," commented Maxwell, who had been following our conversation intently. Tinged with a suggestion of humour, Maxwell's comment nonetheless articulated the thoughts of many of those in the Musina prison. "I am late for work now," he quipped, adding: "It's very obvious. I can't live in that place of [President Robert] Mugabe anymore. I'm coming back - today." Chikumbo smiled: "Me too."

We arranged to meet Chikumbo in Beit Bridge with the aim of accompanying him on his illegal border crossing. Having previously visited this Zimbabwean town perched on the periphery of Mugabe's politically besieged country, we knew it to be relatively docile, which is not to say it is a benign, sleepy hollow. Stern Zanu-PF banners in the town's centre offered a reminder of the larger context: "Land Reform for Economic Empowerment," one of them read.

A necessary pit stop for migrants travelling south, the town of Beit Bridge presents many obstacles. Aside from the obdurate plainclothes policeman from the criminal investigations department, there are also exploitative taxi drivers, dissolute gangs of robbers (otherwise known as the guma guma), rapacious crocodiles and the SANDF.

"You have to be clever," Kulalelo told us, particularly when it comes to the guma guma. "They don't have guns, but they carry spears, screwdrivers, axes, knives." While crossing the Limpopo, Kulalelo saw a woman being raped by eight of them, an allegation later confirmed by a SANDF patrol.

By all accounts the guma guma are motivated by economic expediency alone, a fact emphasised by the Shona meaning of the word. Loosely translated, guma guma means to get something by no effort. One migrant we spoke to said the word was actually onomatopoeic, deriving from the sound of pigs eating. This aptly pegs the guma guma for what they are, scavengers who prey on naive, often cash-rich border-jumpers.

Operating in banded groups along the Beit Bridge border area, the guma guma ostensibly offer guided walks and/or taxi journeys to various points along the South Africa/Zimbabwe border. They charge a minimum of R50 for leading migrants to purpose-cut holes in the South African border fence, a 180km tangle of electric wires delineating the political boundary between the two countries.

Chikumbo's protracted ritual breaching of this patchwork fence, a toothless beast that is a throwback to apartheid times, merely highlights the ease with which border-jumpers cross the border with impunity. With the cost of processing undocumented migrants said to be R16 000 a person, the implications of these crossings are by no means inconsequential. Last year the SANDF arrested 50 852 immigrants along South Africa's borders with Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and Botswana.

After being offloaded by a Department of Home Affairs truck at the Beit Bridge police station Chikumbo immediately headed for the township of Dulibadzimo, on the outskirts of town. At the central market he chartered a sky-blue Datsun taxi, at a cost of Z$35 000 (R90). "It's not a good business," the lanky taxi-driver confided as he drove us an hour or so east of Beit Bridge. "Fuel is too expensive."

The scenery on our drive was revealing. Drought and profligate overgrazing have destroyed the landscape. Only the baobabs prosper. We passed four men walking. Chikumbo waved. "They were with me in prison this morning," he chuckled. "They're also going back."

The taxi ride came to an end at a dusty soccer field 20km east of Beit Bridge. From there we had to walk, the mass of small rural paths finally congre-gating into one well-worn (smuggler's) path that led us to the river. I asked Chikumbo about the crocodiles, which have been known to take migrants. "It's a matter of starvation," he said. "You can't worry about those things."

We eventually forded the Limpopo by moonlight, darting around slimy pools of stagnant water. When there was no way around these, we waded knee-deep through the river. On the South African side a bedraggled series of farm fences hinted that we were not the first visitors to crawl under the first, then hop over the second.

It is really that simple gaining entry into South Africa, though the reality for many border-jumpers is that they will be detained by the SANDF in Musina. But this is nothing compared with the disastrous situation in Zimbabwe. "It's true! It's real!" said Chikumbo. "People from the opposition are being killed; even job applications are turned down. People are angry."

As long as this anger is unattended to, it seems that Musina's prison courtyard will continue to be a congregation point for the youths who gather there like the collected flotsam of some invisible shipwreck: Zimbabwe.

Grahamstown law enforcers have responded swiftly and in visible force to an upsurge in township crime in the city over the past few weeks.

A rampage of gangsters in Mayfield's Extension Nine last weekend during which at least ten people were stabbed brought the community to boiling point.

Yesterday (subs: Frid) the South African Police Service (Saps), the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), the Makana traffic department and the Area Community Policing Forum (CPF) launched a crime-busting blitz aimed at stamping out crime in the city's townships.

The campaign started in Extension Nine where the Saps erected a tent and placed a police caravan to help the community deal with crime in the area.

Police spokesperson Inspector Mali Govender said the aim of the campaign was to educate the community about the way the police operated so as to eradicate crime.

Whilst enforcement officers patrolled the township on foot a convoy of 15 police vehicles with blue lights flashing and sirens screaming moved into the city centre.

Members of the community applauded the police actions. One person said: "This is very good! We support the police in their endeavours because this way we can get on top of crime.

"People complain all the time that the police are not doing their duty but when they do their job they complain." He said: "We salute the police for what they are doing." Khayalethu Nyenge from Xolani Township said the police were doing a "great job". He said that patrolling the township when criminals were least expecting it was a wise move.

Inspector Govender said the police gave out pamphlets containing hints and tips to the community on how to "build a relationship between the community and the police".

Senior Supt Morgan Govender said the operation was seen as a major success. "The police presence created a sense of security within the community," he said.

Inspector govender said that the operation was ongoing.