Cosatu march tomorrow to protest ‘purge’ in SANDF
COSATU will tomorrow march to the Department of Defence’s offices in Cape Town to highlight what it calls a purge of former uMkonto weSizwe (MK) and Azanian Peoples Liberation Army (Apla) forces in the SA National Defence Force.
The federation’s Western Cape organiser, Mike Louw, said the march will be in a form of “a military-style drill through the city to highlight the crisis in the SANDF.
“This crisis has seen the old white management of the defence force try to purge the ANC and PAC military men,” he said.
“The army’s insistence that Defence Force unions cannot join Cosatu is unconstitutional. The Constitutional Court declared in 1999 that prohibiting defence force members from public protests violated their right to freedom of expression ,” he said.
Louw said the “old guard” in the army did not want to transform the service.
He said it was a myth that the apartheid-era army was a professional outfit and that today’s problems were a result of integration of the MK, Apla and forces of the former homelands.
“The old guard does not want to share the resources and experience. Instead, they bicker about affirmative action, even in the case of black officers who are studying and were not part of the liberation forces,” he said.
He said Defence Minister Mosioua Lekota was sweeping the problems under the carpet.
Louw said the military police had tried to stop the march.
SANDF spokesman Sam Mkhwanazi was not available to comment.
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26 Janvier 2007 à 10:03 dans
- zsandf (anglais)
