Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

There is a seething discontent in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). Critics say that integration has failed, communication has broken down, grievance procedures are counterproductive and good leadership is absent. Urgent recommendations and requests to officialdom have languished disregarded for more than two years.

Since 2001, the former black South African Defence Force (SADF) members forum has been clamouring to be heard. There has been no response to communiques sent to the president and the defence minister. The forum represents black soldiers who joined the former SADF before 1994 and served alongside white soldiers. While their white colleagues have apparently been forgiven for their role in oppression, the black foot soldiers of the apartheid regime are still seen as "collaborators".

"We have been prejudiced, rejected and sidelined," said forum spokesman Fikile Mkhwanazi. "We were not given a choice about integration and we were not consulted about the process. We have been trying to get the government to listen to us, but instead they call us hooligans and have us arrested ... [ellipsis as published] The government is busy sending troops to the Congo to sort out their problems but the problem at home has not been sorted out."

Brigadier General Philip Schalkwyk of the Democratic Alliance's standing committee on defence agrees. On such missions, he said, "our shortcomings are being exposed on the world stage".

According to Schalkwyk, transformation in the SANDF has failed in the lower ranks. "There is a theoretical grievance procedure but in practice it does not work. Any soldier who complains to his superior officer is immediately labelled as a troublemaker and is targeted for punitive discipline."

The South African National Defence Union (SANDU) represents white former SADF members, former liberation fighters and troops from the former homelands. SANDU National Secretary Cor van Niekerk said the government shows no willingness to communicate.

"We have been waiting for more than a year to have a meeting with either the Department of Defence or the defence portfolio committee."