Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

Top court rules SANDF may not withdraw from bargaining body Victory for SA National Defence Union Legal Affairs Correspondent THE Constitutional Court yesterday ruled that the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was not entitled to withdraw unilaterally from the Military Bargaining Council and to impose conditions for its return.

This is a victory for the South African National Defence Union, which has been struggling to engage with the employer since the Military Bargaining Council was established in 2000.

The union brought an application for leave to appeal arising from three separate cases which were disposed of by the Supreme Court of Appeal in a single consolidated hearing last May and in two judgments in August last year. All the cases centred on the interpretation of the right of SANDF members and the employer to engage in collective bargaining. The union said section 23(5) of the constitution afforded trade unions a right to bargain with employers and that chapter 20 of the General Regulations of the South African National Defence Force and the Reserve published in 1999 established a duty to bargain on the part of the defence force. The SANDF argued that neither section 23(5) established a judicially enforceable duty upon employers to bargain with trade unions, nor did the regulations or the constitution of the Military Bargaining Council impose a duty on the SANDF to bargain.

Judge Kate O'Regan, writing for the court, said the judgments in the High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal commenced their analysis with the meaning of section 23(5) and whether the section conferred a justiciable duty to bargain. She said this did not seem to be the correct starting point because section 23(5) provided that legislation be enacted to regulate collective bargaining.

The question that arises is whether a litigant may bypass any legislation so enacted and rely directly on the constitution, she said.

O'Regan said a litigant who sought to assert his or her right to engage in collective bargaining under section 23(5) should in the first place base his or her case on any legislation enacted to regulate that right, not on section 23(5).

To permit the litigant to ignore the legislation and rely on the constitutional provision would be to fail to recognise the important task conferred upon the legislature by the constitution to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights. O'Regan said legislation governing collective bargaining existed in the form of chapter 20 of the regulations.

She said chapter 20 was promulgated after the Constitutional Court had ruled in 1999 that members of the SANDF had the right to join trade unions.

The regulations provided for registration of the military trade unions. Registered trade unions had a range of organisational rights, including the right to recruit members. The regulations also specified that military trade unions might engage in collective bargaining.

The regulations also said collective agreements were binding upon parties to such agreements and no party might withdraw from them.

O'Regan said the defence department might not withdraw from the Military Bargaining Council unilaterally without following its dispute resolution procedure.

The South African National Defence Force was not entitled to withdraw from the Military Bargaining Council, the Constitutional Court has ruled.

Cabinet has approved the extension of the deployment of 70 SA National Defence Force (SANDF) members to Mozambique to help clear up after a devastating explosion in Maputo in March.

"This deployment will provide military assistance in the clearance and demolition of unexploded ordinance devices at the ammunition storage facility in Maputo following the explosion at the facility which occurred on March 22, 2007," government communications spokesman Themba Maseko told a media briefing on Thursday.

The SANDF would participate in this exercise until July 15.

The SA National Defence Force must negotiate its transformation with the SA National Defence Union in the Military Bargaining Council, the Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday.

In a judgment for the court, Justice Kate O'Regan found that the department of defence may not withdraw from the Military Bargaining Council (MBC) without following its dispute procedure.

It could also not impose conditions for its participating in the MBC, or apply a new policy without exhausting the bargaining procedures.

SANDF permanent force members were banned from joining a trade union until May 1999, when this was declared unconstitutional.

The SANDU, representing a third to a quarter of all SANDF members, was registered in June 2000 and was admitted to the newly-established MBC in October that year.

By then, the SANDU had already indicated to the SANDF that transformation should be subject to negotiation and consultation.

O'Regan said it was clear the department of defence and the SANDU found bargaining "frustrating and painful".

While the department accused the union of "bad faith bargaining", the union was angered by a perceived failure to address its concerns.

In September 2001, the SANDU threatened "national labour unrest". The defence minister said this would be treated as mutiny, and suspended negotiations pending the withdrawal of the threat.

When the SANDU learned that October of the SANDF's unilateral introduction of a new staffing policy, it immediately withdrew its threat, asked that the policy be reversed and requested talks.

Instead of resuming bargaining, the defence minister said he would do so only if the SANDU submitted to mediation, and if an agreement was reached on the "manner and form" of collective bargaining.

He held that he was entitled to implement the new policy in the public interest.

The SANDU took the matter to court. On two occasions it was found -- and upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeal -- that the minister was not obliged to bargain with the SANDU and that his withdrawal from negotiations was not unreasonable, given the SANDU's conduct.

In overturning these findings on Wednesday, O'Regan held that the general regulations of the SANDF and the Reserve "neither contemplate that an employer may withdraw from the MBC, nor that either party may unilaterally impose preconditions for participating at the MBC".

The regulations provided that disputes which could not be resolved in the MBC be referred to the Military Arbitration Board (MAB) for determination.

"What is clear from the regulations is that, if the department is aggrieved at the conduct of the union parties at the MBC, it may declare a dispute and pursue that dispute to its end.

"The department did not follow this route. Instead, it sought unilaterally to withdraw from the MBC and to impose conditions for its return. The regulations do not permit the department to do this."

O'Regan said that although the SANDF was still trying to implement its unilateral new staffing policy in 2003, it had since indicated that it no longer wished to do so.

However, finding that a similar dispute might arise in the future, she ruled that the SANDF was not entitled to unilaterally implement a policy about the permissible bargaining topics in the regulations before the dispute resolution process had run its course.

She could not find that the SANDF and department of defence were "duty-bound" to bargain on the content of the regulations, because these were law, but went on to declare certain of them unconstitutional.

This included the regulation preventing SANDF members from demonstrating over the employment relationship with the department or any matter related to the department.

O'Regan also declared that the union had the right to represent its members at grievance, disciplinary or military court proceedings, or to redress unjust administrative action or unfair labour practice.

She further found it unconstitutional for the minister of defence to appoint all five members of the MAB, but suspended the declaration for six months and ruled that any current appointment to the board not be affected.

A Constitutional Court ruling that union representatives may act for their members came "a day too late" to stop a soldier wounding his commanding officer in a shooting at Kroonstad, the SA National Defence Union said on Wednesday.

In a 62-page judgment on Wednesday, Constitutional Court Justice Kate O'Regan found unconstitutional a provision of the Defence Act's General Regulations of the SANDF and the Reserve preventing troops receiving union representation.

She ordered the section reworded to allow union representation at grievance, disciplinary or military court proceedings, or to redress unjust administrative action or unfair labour practice.

"Unfortunately, this judgment comes a day late," said SANDU acting national secretary Pikkie Greeff.

On Tuesday, a lance-corporal shot Group 24 commanding officer Colonel Johan "Grobbie" Grobbelaar in his office at the Kroonstad military base, critically wounding him.

A military council decided the gunman should be dishonourably discharged with immediate effect. He was arrested and was to appear in the Kroonstad Magistrate's Court on Wednesday.

"These kinds of things will, in future, be preventable," Greeff said.

Good decisions were "more likely to prevail" where a union member was allowed union representation when called on "office bearing" -- one-on-one talks with a commanding officer about issues involving, among others, discipline or work.

Union members trusted their union representatives, even when they advised in favour of the commanding officer.

In their absence, there was unlikely to be a meeting of minds which "could cause incidents like [that in Kroonstad]," he said.

In her judgment O'Regan also ruled that SANDF members may demonstrate over the employment relationship with the department or any matter related to the department -- but not in uniform.

She further found that the SANDU had the constitutional right to engage in collective bargaining with the SANDF.

She ordered that the department of defence -- the employer of SANDF members -- could not withdraw from the Military Bargaining Council (MBC) or implement new policy without exhausting the dispute procedure, nor could it impose conditions for its participation.

In addition, O'Regan ruled it unconstitutional for the minister of defence to appoint all five members of the Military Arbitration Board --to which disputes unresolved in the MBC must be referred.

However, she suspended the declaration for six months and ruled that any existing appointment to the board not be affected.

The judgment was "a landmark decision", said Greeff. "I think it's a turning point in the history of labour relations in the defence force," he said.

Registered in 1999 after a ban on union activity in the military was declared unconstitutional, SANDU went to court in 2001 over the SANDF' unilateral implementation of a new staffing policy.

However, two high court hearings -- later upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeal -- found that the minister was not obliged to bargain with the SANDU and that his withdrawal from negotiations was not unreasonable, given the SANDU's conduct.

The minister argued that he was entitled to implement the new policy in the public interest after pulling out of negotiations over a SANDU's threat of labour unrest, which he viewed as mutinous.

Greeff claimed the department of defence had, since 2003, refused to negotiate on any issue of labour relations in the SANDF.

"This has led to a lot of unhappiness, frustration and demoralisation in the rank and file of the defence force," he said.

Wednesday's judgment overturning the high court and SCA findings meant that the minister and department would "never again be able to abdicate their responsibility" to negotiate with SANDU and its members.

"It is irresponsible for any employer to try and ignore trade unions in its midst. This is what [the minister and department] were trying to do," Greeff charged.

The union was especially pleased about the ruling allowing its members to protest "because it gives us leverage in negotiations... which we didn't have before". It was a tool which could be sparingly, but effectively used, he said.

Greeff estimated that the costs order against the minister of defence, secretary of defence and chief of the SANDF in respect of three high court cases, one SCA hearing and the Constitutional Court matter would "easily" run to R7 million or R8 million.

"Our costs so far are R3.5 million," he said,

"They need to explain to the taxpayer why this unnecessary litigation for four years when all they had to do was act responsibly with the union,"

The defence ministry said it had noted the judgment, was studying it and intended issuing a statement later on Wednesday.

The soldier who allegedly shot and wounded a commanding officer at Kroonstad military base is expected to appear in the town's magistrate's court on Wednesday afternoon.

According to a court official, the man would make his first court appearance after 2pm.

Meanwhile, Colonel Johan (Grobbie) Grobbelaar -- commanding officer of Group 24 -- was still in a critical condition after he was shot on Tuesday.

SANDF spokesman Brigadier General Kwena Mangope said that Colonel Grobbelaar's condition had "not worsened and not improved."

"He is still critical and in the intensive care unit."

Mangope said Grobbelaar was in his early 50s and had a wife and children.

The suspect, a lance-corporal, allegedly went to Grobbelaar's office and shot him around 7.30am on Tuesday.

"It looks like it was a premeditated type of action," said Mangope.

He said the motive was not known and the matter was still being investigated.

Grobbelaar was flown by helicopter to 1 Military hospital in Pretoria.

The lance-corporal was arrested by the SA Police Service and detained at the Kroonstad police station.

Mangope said a military council held an urgent meeting to discuss the shooting on Tuesday, and decided that the suspect should be dishonourably discharged with immediate effect.

The man is believed to have used a pistol but it was not known if this was military issue or privately owned.

The criminal investigation into the matter continues.

The commanding officer who was shot by another soldier at Kroonstad military base on Tuesday was still in a critical condition, the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) said.

SANDF spokesman Brigadier General Kwena Mangope said on Wednesday that Colonel JS Grobbelaar's condition had "not worsened and not improved."

"He is still critical and in the intensive care unit."

Mangope said Grobbelaar was in his early 50s and had a wife and children.

Grobbelaar is the Officer Commanding Group 24.

The suspect, a lance-corporal, allegedly went to Grobbelaar's office and shot him around 7.30am on Tuesday.

"It looks like it was a premeditated type of action," said Mangope.

He said the motive was not known and the matter was still being investigated.

Grobbelaar was flown by helicopter to 1 Military hospital in Pretoria.

The lance-corporal was arrested by the SA Police Service and detained at the Kroonstad police station.

He was expected to appear in the Kroonstad Magistrate's Court on Wednesday.

Mangope said a military council held an urgent meeting to discuss the shooting on Tuesday, and decided that the suspect should be dishonourably discharged with immediate effect.

The man is believed to have used a pistol but it was not known if this was military issue or privately owned.

The criminal investigation into the matter continues.

A soldier accused of shooting and critically wounding his commanding officer at the Kroonstad military base on Tuesday has been fired, the SA National Defence Force said.

"Subsequent to the shooting incident a military council held an urgent meeting to discuss the matter," said SANDF spokesman Brigadier General Kwena Mangope.

"Chief of the Army, Lieutenant-General Solly Shoke, has announced that the military council resolved that the suspect will be dishonourably discharged with immediate effect."

Mangope said the shooting took place at Group 24 in Kroonstad in the Free State around 7.30am on Tuesday.

The suspect, a lance-corporal, allegedly went to the office of the Officer Commanding Group 24, Colonel JS Grobbelaar, and shot him.

"It looks like it was a premeditated type of action," said Mangope.

He said the motive was not known and the matter was still being investigated.

The man is believed to have used a pistol but it has not been established whether this was military issue or privately owned.

Grobbelaar was flown by helicopter to 1 Military hospital in Pretoria, where he was in a critical condition late on Tuesday.

The suspect was arrested by the SA Police Service and detained at the Kroonstad police station.

The criminal investigation into the matter continues.

A group of military personnel from across the continent spent the past week in Pretoria preparing for a chemical attack.

The potential of such a terrorist threat is real, according to senior SANDF members who monitored the exercise.

The exercise was the third of its kind, conducted by South African military medical personnel at the request of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

It was attended by representatives of South Africa, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Libya, Malawi, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

OPCW co-ordinates the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prescribes co-operation between states.

The organisation also provides assistance to countries under chemical attack.

Colonel Ben Steyn, the SANDF’s chemical and biological defence adviser to the surgeon-general, said terrorist chemical attacks were a threat worldwide, but particularly in Africa.

“This is because of the huge amounts of chemicals transported throughout Africa at any given time,” he said, adding that it did not require vast expertise to use an available chemical as a weapon.

Steyn said that the threat of such an attack was becoming greater, “especially as the world’s attention is being constantly drawn to such things”.

Exercises such as these were extremely important because “you have to know what to do long before the incident occurs”.

He added: “It is pointless trying to figure out what to do once the attack or chemical accident has occurred. You have to know now.

“It is difficult enough to manage a bomb explosion, let alone a chemical attack.”

The conference was important as it was aimed at teaching people how to manage such incidents when they occurred.

Steyn said there should be more exercises of this nature as there was a need for a co-ordinated effort in Africa to deal with chemical disasters, be they terrorist attacks or accidents.

South Africa was chosen to host the exercise because of the country’s knowledge and capabilities in dealing with such situations.

“At this exercise, we were teaching the principals of command and control and the management of a disaster area, which includes how to conduct mop-up and decontamination operations.

“In the beginning, the emphasis of the exercise was on the battlefield, but then we moved to the civilian area, which is where terrorists could or would strike.

“Our conditions in hosting this exercise were that we be allowed to teach the delegates to handle such attacks against a civilian population,” he said.

They were taught how to deal not only with attacks, but also with potentially deadly chemical spills.

The most important aspect of the exercise was preparing disaster management teams for any situation, Steyn said.

Shamin “Chippy” Shaik, chief of acquisitions for the South African National Defence Force during the arms deal, and youngest brother in the well-known Shaik family, is packing for Perth.

Shaik, whose brother Schabir’s application for leave to appeal against his conviction and 15-year sentence for fraud and corruption was heard by the Constitutional Court this week, has been accused in recent months of fleeing the country or going underground, lest he be charged for asking for a bribe from a German arms supplier.

He has also been accused of using more than one passport, “as though I were some kind of scumbag gun runner”, and with the help of a group of academics, of plagiarising parts of his mechanical engineering doctoral dissertation at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Shaik said he had decided to emigrate to Australia three years ago (“before I turned 45”) and had applied for residence and looked for a job there.

But it was the most recent events – the re-emergence of allegations that he had been involved in an arms deal bribe and that he had cheated on his dissertation – that had made him decide that it was time to start his life again elsewhere.

“The situation in this country is toxic for me and my family,” said Shaik on Friday at a coffee shop in Sandton’s Mandela Square minutes before going into a board meeting, related to a mine in Mozambique, with his brother, Yunis, and other businessmen.

“And it has been this way for years. There has been an ongoing campaign against me, obviously as a result of Schabir’s troubles. I don’t need it. I especially don’t need to live in a place where my two kids, aged 14 and 8, can open up the newspaper and see me being maligned and humiliated.”

Shaik then hauled his passport out of his jacket pocket and said, “Here is my passport, by the way. Here is my Australian residence visa and here are my Mozambican visas. This is the only passport with which I travel. I had another passport which was full, which is why I was issued with a new one, and which is lying around somewhere.

“But what’s the big deal? If I used it, it would come up at passport control as out of date or the official would see that it was full. Why this ongoing attempt at portraying me as some sort of lowlife who runs around with multiple passports?”

Shaik said his troubles began in the late 1990s when Patricia de Lille, then of the PAC, produced her infamous dossier which, among other things, implicated him in an arms deal bribe. But there had been a triple-agency government probe of the arms deal which found that the primary contracts in the arms deals were all legitimate and had also cleared him.

During the course of the investigations into him, Shaik had given a classified document to someone not allowed to see secret documents – his attorney – and was suspended from his post as chief of procurement for the SANDF. Shaik gave the attorney the document because he had been accused, among other things, of having had a “conflict of interests” (Schabir’s company was one of the bidders for arms deal tenders) and he wanted the attorney to see factual evidence that he, Chippy, had no financial interest at all in Schabir’s companies.

“But we got through that and then I resigned of my own free will. I had stayed in my job for two years while the investigation took place, I was cleared, I was never charged, and I left because I chose to do so.

“I had long before then told Mosiuoa Lekota, the Minister of Defence, my boss, that I wanted out. I wanted to leave for my sanity. I am a very private person and did not need that kind of nonsense in my life.

“But bang! What has happened in the media ever since then? I am said to have been suspended and fired because of the arms deal.”

And then, said Shaik, the Der Spiegel report surfaced, alleging he had asked for a R21 million bribe related to the arms deal. At first he thought it was merely a replay of De Lille’s original dossier, so didn’t pay it much attention. But newspapers kept reprinting the allegation. “And I am willing to go on record about it. I want to say very clearly that I know f . . .-all, absolutely f . . .-all, about any bribe or any money. There is nothing else to say. I am not a policeman. I can’t go and look in other people’s accounts. That’s for the authorities to do.”

Regarding the charge that he cheated on his mechanical engineering doctoral thesis, “Development of higher-order theories for the analysis of laminated composite structures under static and thermal loading”, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Shaik took out a schedule procured this week from the university by Yunis. It accounted for every chapter in the dissertation, explaining on which journal articles each chapter was based. Shaik has been a co-author of every article.

“I’m not going to get into a slanging match in the newspaper. We all know where the story came from – it’s from someone with an axe to grind. And if some newspaper decides to base a lying story on what that person says, so be it. It’s just part of the ongoing campaign against me and my family.

“Consider when the article came out – in the week that Schabir’s case was going before the Constitutional Court.

“I am not even interested in launching a defamation case, which my brother wants to do, and which we could easily win, because frankly, I don’t care any more.

“Let the university do its investigation. There is nothing to hide. There was no cheating. Apparently, some pages were lost when my thesis was bound and there were some spelling mistakes. Let the university talk to the binder and the typist.”

Shaik said the only wrong thing he had ever done in his life – and he took full responsibility for it – was to return to South Africa in the early 1990s from the United States where has was on a Fulbright scholarship at San Diego state university.

“‘Come home,’ my brothers said, ‘and be party to the wonderful things that are going to happen in South Africa’. And what have I got from it? Was I ever thanked for the back-breaking work that I put in at the department of defence? Have I ever read anything decent about myself in the media? Have my children? No, I’m going. That’s it.”

Denel Land Systems, a subsidiary of Denel (Pty) Ltd, has been awarded an R8 billion contract by Armscor to develop the South African Army's new generation infantry combat vehicle.

The vehicle will replace the old Ratel ICV which has been around for about 30 years, said Denel's Group CEO, Shaun Liebenberg.

Mr Liebenberg was addressing the media in Parliament on Thursday, shortly after Minister of Public Enterprises, Alec Erwin's budget vote.

The multi-billion Rand contract, for about 270 infantry combat vehicles (ICV) for the SANDF, was three years in the making and signified "a tremendous boost to local industry and the South African economy in general," said Mr Liebenberg.

The tender was open internationally but ultimately Denel was the only one that bid for it.

The contract, Project Hoefyster, is arguably the largest contract Denel has landed in its 16-year history, he said.

Denel is the prime contractor in the programme with South African companies delivering more than 70 percent of the total value of the contract, and companies abroad delivering the remainder.

Armscor will be placing phased orders on Denel Land Systems (DLS) over a 10-year period as milestones are achieved towards final delivery to the Army of five variants of the ICV system, namely Command, Mortar, Missile, Section and Fire Support vehicles.

Denel's proposal was based on a Finnish Patria platform with a turret designed by Denel Land Systems.

The turret will be the heart of the system.

According to Denel Land Systems, they are not off-the-shelf items. The future Command variant will be equipped with intricate network communications and battlefield awareness systems, while others carried a variety of weapons systems.

The CEO explained that the first phase would be the development phase and is to run over a three-year period. This will see 18 percent of the contract completed.

It would be six to seven years before the first vehicle would be off the production line, said Mr Liebenberg.

The light infantry vehicle, in its complete state, will be able to hold between five to 11 soldiers.

As prime contractor Denel will be required to manage a supply chain of local subcontractors, including Small, Micro and Medium Enterprises and Black Economic Empowerment companies.

All of these companies stand to have guaranteed business for the next 10 years, some with follow-on support work after delivery with the vehicles set to have a life span of about 25 years.

Denel as main contractor would involve numerous South African defence companies and subcontractors, like BAE Systems' South African subsidiary Land Systems OMC.

The actual vehicle will be locally built under a Patria license.

"The awarding of this contract is a clear example of very high level alignment to meet South Africa's defence needs," said Mr Liebenberg.

"Our Department of Public Enterprises and the Department of Defence, along with Armscor and the SANDF, all cooperated admirably to bring us to this point. But importantly, for Denel a new chapter has been written. This Armscor contract puts Denel Land Systems on the road to sustainability."

Denel's macro strategy for the turnaround of the company started some 19 months ago and has already shown very good progress.

Based on transformation and people, the five-pronged strategy calls for:

Securing "privileged access" for the local defence industry - not only Denel - to a minimum portion of defence spend by the Department of Defence; Partnering with state agencies to align planning and obtain "political support"; Focus on growing commercial viable businesses in Denel; Secure equity partners with major global and local industry players; and Raise capabilities and productivity to world-class levels.

Project Hoefyster signifies a significant acquisition programme that essentially underwrites all the pillars of Denel's macro strategy.

"I foresee tremendous opportunities and further spin-offs to be realized through this contract, mainly for young technicians and engineering students who wish to make a career in the defence-related industry.

"This contract will contribute immensely to skills development and training, which are very much part of the Deputy President's Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) programme," Liebenberg concluded.

South Africa's democracy and government's approach in the conduct of foreign affairs has increased the demand for military representation abroad, says Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota.

Addressing the 2007 Defence Foreign Relations course Tuesday, the minister said the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is encouraging its members to become Attache (representatives) in foreign countries.

Those appointed as Attaches, are expected to dispense their duties with honesty and integrity.

As an Attache, the minister said, one must be knowledgeable of a wide spectrum of topics as an attache would be exposed to many spheres, cultures and customs.

The minister also advised those in the defence force appointed as Attaches, and wished to withdraw to do so, that people with necessary ingredients in their job can be placed.

The minister said responsibilities allocated to an Attache are vast and require integrity, honesty, commitment, passion and good organisational and administrative skills.

"As Attache, you must be able to function wholly and totally independent," he said.

He warned that being an attache in a foreign country does not mean that one is on holiday.

With regard to military diplomacy, Minister Lekota said the Department of Defence (DoD) lays an increasing role in the international arena and is a vital component in assisting the Department of Foreign Affairs in achieving government's foreign relation objectives.

He added that the successful implementation of the DoD strategy is based on the ability to allocate quality and appropriate resources, to the military diplomacy function.

"Military diplomacy is a valuable asset to the South African government," the minister said, adding that it is to dispel hostilities, build and maintain trust and contributes to the development of democratic defence forces.

"One must strive to establish and maintain sound and professional working relations with other members of the South African Embassy," he said.

More than 1000 SANDF military personnel have been deployed in peacekeeping missions in other parts of Africa.

South Africa currently has peacekeeping troops deployed in a number of other African states in need of increased security, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Burundi and Sudan.

The country is also participating in a significant way in post conflict resolutions, in concert with the AU, in countries including the DRC and Ivory Coast.

In the DRC alone last year, the SANDF and South Africa's Independent Electoral Commission undertook the major logistical task of supporting the central African nation's first democratic elections in over four decades.

South African organisations printed the ballots, distributed them across the vast, resource rich nation and assisted with ICT support for the monitoring and counting process there.

The SA National Defence Force is to be challenged in the Pretoria High Court on whether its HIV testing policies are constitutional, the Aids Law Project (ALP) said on Monday.

The Aids Law Project, acting for the South African Security Forces Union (Sasfu), has filed court papers.

A joint press conference hosted by the ALP, Sasfu and the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu), heard that the Department of Defence had given mixed messages about testing and HIV, fuelling a 13-year struggle between it and Aids organisations.

They will challenge the SANDF on its stand that people living with HIV are medically unsuitable and unable to withstand stress, and adverse physical and weather conditions, read a joint statement.

"To the contrary, the evidence shows that HIV-positive people, who are asymptomatic, are able to undertake difficult physical activity with no adverse effects on their health -- in fact regular exercise is beneficial to their health," read the statement.

They cited the example of Evelina Tshabalala who ran the Comrades Marathon in 2005 and last year and this year scaled Mount Aconcogua in the Andes.

"The preparation involved in training and running the Comrades Marathon is clearly far more stressful than the exercise regime imposed by the SANDF."

They are further challenging the SANDF's justification that its approach to HIV members was to comply with United Nations regulations regarding peacekeepers.

Themba Hlatshwayo, Sasfu deputy general secretary, told of discrimination around the armed forces' approach to HIV.

Affidavits of soldiers' experiences of discrimination would be filed before the court, said Aids Law Project researcher Nonkosi Khumalo.

One was the case of a trainer who prepared soldiers for deployment but was not allowed to go on foreign missions because he was HIV positive.

Another was a human resources clerk, denied promotion and also the opportunity to go on foreign missions, which was a source of better income.

A third told the story of a pilot in the Air Force where policies were more progressive due to the influence of the Civil Aviation Authorities, but were not reflected on the ground.

Hlatshwayo said the "discriminatory" nature of the SANDF's approach to HIV permeated into communities.

"If people are seen not to be promoted, or deployed, communities ask questions... It is developing kids that are resentful," he said.

Two brigadier-generals in the South African National Defence Force are holding onto their jobs despite being convicted of serious criminal offences.

Several other high-ranking officers, including two former brigadier-generals, have even been promoted - although they were earlier demoted for cheating in their military exams.

The names of the officers are contained in a damning three-page letter submitted to the SANDF by Brigadier-General Ernest Zwane this week in response to an ultimatum demanding he show cause why he should not be fired.

Zwane was kicked out of his post as director of military prosecutions late last year by Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota after it emerged that he had criminal convictions for fraud and the illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.

In a letter to Zwane, the SANDF threatened him with dismissal for bringing the defence force into disrepute and for not divulging his previous convictions.

In his response, Zwane alluded to 10 other people still in the employ of the SANDF despite having convictions.

No ethical person can ignore the rape, murder and other destruction in Darfur that occurs with the direct or indirect participation of the Sudanese government. After years of fruitless talks and symbolic action, it is necessary for the world to send the Sudanese leadership (and its supporters, e.g. China) a message that cannot be misinterpreted ("China's role in Sudan," Editorial, April 24).

There is no longer any legitimate debate over whether genocide is taking place in Darfur. The efficacy of sanctions remains uncertain. Nonetheless, all countries as well as individual athletes and businesses should show that they value human life by boycotting the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Alternate games should be organized in South Africa. For countries to send their athletes to China at this time is shameful. Furthermore, as events in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia show, U.N. peacekeepers cannot be effective if there is no peace for them to keep.

Perhaps the South African government should end the world's complicity in the slaughter and deploy a sufficient number of units of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) with the mission to end the violence in Darfur and, if necessary, be prepared to use force to accomplish their objective. Politics demands that ending the slaughter in Darfur needs an African solution to be acceptable. South Africa has the moral standing and capability to take appropriate action. If the SANDF needs assistance, other countries may choose to supply the needed equipment.

Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) president Letlapa Mphahlele has appealed to government to reveal the real killers of the Highgate hotel massacre in East London 13 years ago, reported SABC on Tuesday.

Mphahlele was speaking at the hotel at the first public commemoration of the May 1, 1993 attack.

The PAC's armed wing, the Azanian People's Association (Apla) was blamed for the attack which left five dead and seven wounded, three of them permanently disabled. Nobody applied for amnesty for it and nobody had been prosecuted.

Mphahlele repeated his earlier denials that the perpetrators were from Apla, saying that as Apla's former commander he would have known about it.

Late last year, the survivors heard from a former police investigator and Mphahlele that the attackers were probably acting on behalf of the then apartheid government, presumably to whip up emotions in the run-up to the 1994 election.

"Actually I think the state is withholding some information about the Highgate massacre, because if you have to compare the Highgate massacre with the Mthatha massacre, in Mthatha five schoolchildren were killed and the state to this day is withholding the names of the people who actually killed these children," said Mphahlele.

The Mthatha massacre was the attack on a PAC member's home in Mthatha in October 1993 by the former government's SA Defence Force (SUBS: SADF NOT SANDF), in which the children were killed. At the time, the government confirmed responsibility for the action and said it was aimed at Apla members.

Tuesday's commemoration was organised by the Highgate Survivors' Support Group which was established last year.

"Nobody has ever come forward as a group to commemorate the Highgate," said spokesmen for the group, Neville Beling and Neville Harris (SUBS: SAME FIRST NAME CORRECT) on Monday.

"We as a group are breaking 14 years of silence in honouring those who lost their lives and were injured. Now their souls can be put to rest and we can find some closure."

Beling was severely injured in the attack and Harris's son Deon died in it.

The group is appealing for information on the attack and has asked anyone with information to call 082-877-2168.