Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

Text of interview with the South African National Defence Forces, SANDF chief, Siphiwe Nyanda, by Willie Bokala as published by South African newspaper Sowetan on 24 March

[Bokala] How far have you taken the process of integrating members of the former liberation forces, Bantustans and the conventional SADF [South African Defence Forces] into one SANDF [South African National Defence Forces]?

[Nyanda] That process will be over on 26 March. We are bidding farewell to the British assistance team, who were brought here to adjudicate and referee that process. It was a daunting task but I think it has been one of my major achievements. We had no models to work from, bringing together forces of the liberation movements, Apia, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), former Bantustans and the SADF of the apartheid times would never have been easy. But it is over. We are now one defence force.

[Bokala] So you are now looking at the way forward?

[Nyanda] We are involved in transformation, in fact it's now how we work in the new democracy.

[Bokala] How do you answer allegations the SANDF has failed to recruit white youth?

[Nyanda] That is not correct. In 1994, and because of integration, the force had swelled to 110,000 people, and our country does not need such numbers. We decided to downsize, meaning there was no recruitment drive for some time. After downsizing enough, I gave instructions for the process to begin and I said there must be a deliberate targeting of whites. I think 20 per cent of the recruits this year are white.

[Bokala] What about representivity in the higher ranks, with blacks saying whites still dominate?

[Nyanda] Yes, representivity in the force is still skewed, but there are explanations. Middle management is still mostly white colonels, and so on, but there are reasons.

[Bokala] What are they?

[Nyanda] It has always been a white defence force - the perception was of a fight between white and black people. Whatever was created for blacks was created in the Bantustans. There was a deliberate policy to keep blacks out of the armed services. They were recruited only for junior positions, to be troopers.

[Bokala] What is your take on allegations that the military academy's programme is also skewed to favour producing white officers?

[Nyanda] I have no such reports. I am not surprised there is racism at many other institutions. We have a culture that was in place even before the advent of the National Party in 1948. For people to expect racism to disappear overnight boggles the mind.

[Bokala] But foot soldiers still complain of racism in the camps.

[Nyanda] Well racism will always be there. There were incidents of people walking out of military camps in Angola and there were no whites there. We must be careful here. In the military some people were members of MK and Apia and had to be retrained and unavoidably most of the information and expertise imparted to them had to come from former members of the SADF.

They had the conventional know-how. Now what we are concerned about is producing a disciplined soldier. In MK people hated instructors. You can imagine that if those instructors were white there would have been allegations of racism. I am not saying there is no racism. How can you deny something that has been there for so many years? But I don't want any officer - black or white - to be soft because they are afraid of being called racist. We want to produce commanders who are going to demand discipline from others.

[Bokala] How is the HIV/AIDS pandemic affecting the force?

[Nyanda] It is as prevalent as anywhere in the country. Investigations we conducted show that the percentages are less than what is alleged.

[Bokala] What are our defence capabilities, particularly civil defence?

[N] We are stretched because we are used at all times. Our troops have been used in the fight against foot-and-mouth diseases, our doctors, nurses and paramedics have dealt with the outbreaks of many diseases including cholera and malaria. I am not in favour of being involved in routine crime operations of the SAPS.

They should only involve us in intelligence-driven operations which would need big capacity, and especially our expertise to contain. As a defence force our duty should be to protect the integrity of this country, its borders. We may think there is no threat to us now, but it is there.

If we don't work to bring peace elsewhere in Africa, what is happening there could easily spill over and affect us. If there is peace in the region, there will be peace for us as well.