Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

The SA National Defence Force has bought or developed a number of missile systems as part of its armaments acquisition programme. It is at the same time selling off large quantities of redundant hardware and has also subscribed to a US computer-based system for predicting conflict and developing arms.

The moves are part of the rearmament programme the SANDF began in 1999, but also seem geared to the overall rationalisation of the force to make it better able to engage on the African continent. This has recently involved more recruiting to compensate for the over-age and often ill personnel currently available.

According to state arms agency Armscor's latest annual report, the accent has been on land- and sea-based missiles. The SA Army's air defence artillery has taken delivery of a batch of British Starstreak portable very short-range air defence systems (Manpads).

The SA navy has begun equipping itself with Exocet missiles - in August the Department of Defence's acquisition division announced the SAS Amatola had some months before tested an Exocet anti-ship missile.

The Exocets were acquired as part of 'Project Sitron', which has already seen South Africa take delivery of four German-built Meko A200SAN patrol corvettes.

According to reports, an initial 17 missiles were acquired, one for testing and the rest to parcel out among the ships. The missile is designed to attack large warships, with a range of about 50km.

The Starstreak acquisition is part of the first phase of a larger ground based air defence systems (GBADS) programme. The first phase comprises one battery of man-portable SAMs and an Thales/Denel radar-based early warning and command system.

The Starstreak is designed to counter threats from very high performance, low flying, aircraft and fast attack helicopters. It is a threat to any aircraft within 300m to 5000m of the launcher.

In November 2002 Armscor announced the cost of the three-year programme was around R797m.

A further phase of the GBADS programme could include a land-based version of the Umkhonto missile and more command-and-control systems.

At the same time SA is reported to one of the clients of the Tactical Numerical Deterministic Model, or TNDM, designed by the Dupuy Institute, a military think-tank based near Washington, DC. The $93,000 purchase price includes instruction classes, a year of technical support and a subscription to the TNDM newsletter, with subsequent updates to the software costing extra.

Sweden is reported to use the software to improve its arsenal and to model weapons that could then be proposed to engineers, according to the Economist magazine.

Most clients contract the Dupuy Institute to produce studies that combine the software's conflict predictions with human analysis.

Clients for weapons

While it has been acquiring new weapons, the SANDF has also been destroying or selling numerous tanks, aircraft and ships in the last year, according to a briefing to the parliamentary defence portfolio committee.

In the main the clients have not been named. In one case 354 Ratel infantry fighting vehicles were sold for R1.1 million. Another 120 could be sold later. One hundred Mk1 35mm GDF anti-aircraft cannon were sold.

Still up for sale are 80 1970s Eland armoured cars, 117 20mm and 32 23mm anti aircraft guns and 24 14.5mm machine guns.

The key difficulties in selling second-hand or new arms on the African continent are the ability of buyers to pay and the willingness, or otherwise of SA's National Conventional Arms Control Committee to approve such sales, say analysts.

The SA Army also donated 450 SA Military (Samil) trucks to Uganda, in addition to selling 837 for R31.9 million and putting another 837 forward for disposal. It has been controversially selling equipment to the Ugandan police for riot control.

In total, the state received just over R183 million from the sale of redundant stock and equipment, including R64,000 for 2,300 parachutes.

Since August 2003 the SANDF has destroyed 14 Olifant Mk1A main battle tanks and 14 Rooikat armoured cars. Fourteen more are up for sale. Also destroyed were two strike craft, the SAS Shaka and SAS Sekukhuni, two Ton-class minesweepers - SAS Kimberley and Windhoek - and the submarine SAS Spear.

The former supply ship SAS Outeniqua was sold as a "going concern" and earned the state R40 million.