Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

A four-star American General, the second highest rank in the United States military, arrived in South Africa on Tuesday to examine ways of assisting the development of the SA National Defence Force.

General William Ward, deputy commander of US European Command, arrived only a few weeks after US president George Bush cleared the way for military aid to nearly two dozen countries, including South Africa, which have not agreed to shield US soldiers from action before the International Criminal Court.

"There are things going to happen as result of that waiver being in place," Ward said, but denied that his visit was directly related to it.

He met with General Godfrey Ngwenya, Chief of the SANDF, in Pretoria and received briefings on the future plans for the SANDF.

"Not surprisingly the commonality of objectives are just so apparent," Ward told journalists at a press conference afterwards.

During his three-day visit he is also due to visit the SA Army College in Pretoria, the Tempe Military Base and Air Force Base Bloemspruit in Bloemfontein, and Simonstown Naval Base in Cape Town.

South Africa was one of the countries who refused to exempt US soldiers from possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court and as such was under a four-year-old US military assistance ban. However earlier this month Bush waived the restrictions.

Notwithstanding the ban South Africa has already benefited from the controversial African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (Acota) programme, which sees US training and equipment for peacekeepers.

Although Ward said his visit did not come as result of Bush's announcement US military assistance to the SANDF was high on the agenda of talks.

"First we want to see what it is that the South Africans want, and once that has been put on the table, on the basis of that, what we could do," he said.

Ward did not want to be drawn on any specifics.