Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

Government had until Tuesday next week to produce permits and end-user certificates related to the abortive attempt to supply arms to Haiti in February, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Wednesday.

If the documents were not forthcoming, the DA, acting on the belief - and available evidence - that the attempt to export 150 R1 assault rifles, ammunition and equipment to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's police was unlawful, would report the matter to the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions.

"If a copy of the permit and end user certificate is not furnished to us by 11am on Tuesday, we will have no alternative but to approach the office of the national director of public prosecutions to investigate this matter," Leon said.

But presidential spokesman Bheki Khumalo dismissed Leon's threat as politicking.

"If Leon wants to electioneer it is his democratic right to do so. Government has done nothing wrong. It has followed the law to the letter. If he wants to take the president to the NDPP then so be it," Khumalo said.

Leon said the National Conventional Arms Control Act, steered through Parliament by Education Minister Kader Asmal last year, bound the state as much as any private entity.

Before the state could send arms to Haiti, it had to obtain a permit from Asmal's national conventional arms control committee (NCACC) and obtain and end-user certificate from the ultimate recipient, in this case Aristide.

As it was, by the time an SA Air Force Boeing 707 reached Jamaica, en route to Haiti, to deliver the arms, Aristide had already fled into exile. The aircraft and arms then returned home.

Leon, at a press conference in Sandton said it appeared at face value that Asmal had broken his own law.

He said although Asmal had responded to questions about the NCACC's role in the matter, he had not answered them.

Legal opinion obtained by the party was that Asmal's clearing the export after receiving an urgent request from the Caribbean Community, a regional bloc similar to the Southern African Development Community.

Leon wanted to know when the NCACC sat to hear the application, who was on the panel, where the end user certificate was, which state department applied for the export permit and where the supporting minutes and paperwork was.

"It appears to us that no permit or end user's certificate was issued for the transfer of arms to Haiti. This amounts to a violation of the National Conventional Arms Control Act, as... it is an offence to trade in conventional arms without the required permit and end user certificate," Leon said.

The DA leader also said he had written another letter to President Thabo Mbeki regarding the use of air force aircraft to transport the shipment. He had received no answer to his previous query regarding its dispatch.

Leon said Mbeki was usually prompt in his responses, often taking less than 48 hours to reply. His silence, particularly after Khumalo's promise of an answer, was "strange."

The DA leader said he had taken legal advice and was told that the flight to Haiti amounted to the employment of the Defence Force as contemplated in the Constitution and the new Defence Act, and that government, by not reporting this deployment to Parliament within the stipulated 14 days, was in breach of the law.

Asked whether Mbeki had to inform Parliament even about minor deployments of the SA National Defence Force, such as dispatching aircraft, Leon, quoting legal opinion, said: "It is clear that section 201 (of the Constitution) covers the use of a few members of the Defence Force, as well as large scale operations. Section 1 of the Defence Act defines the term 'Defence Force' to include 'any portion' of the force."

For that reason it appeared Mbeki had no power to authorise the employment of the SANDF to export arms to Haiti.

The DA said it would, in light of any answers received, see if the government had also breached the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, usually employed to prosecute mercenaries.