Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

I could not resist the temptation of responding to Max Du Preez’s article on the national defence force (Pretoria News, February 14).

His submission is driven by white old order politics, as he wittingly or unwittingly associates professionalism and the culture of discipline with the notorious apartheid-era army.

The SADF was never brought to book for its crimes, including the rape of young girls and their mothers in townships like Dimbaza in the Eastern Cape.

I have no doubt that Max would be forced to eat humble pie were the full scale of the SADF’s atrocities revealed.

It would seem that Max is yearning for the old days when there were no trade unions in the army.

There is no organisation that is above the constitution, and the armed forces are no exception. We are living in a democracy with rights and obligations.

Those who serve in the SANDF are expected to enjoy their rights and honour their obligations. Some of us bear the scars of having been discriminated against and abused in the SANDF by the very SADF officers whom Max is defending today. The white officers colluded against former liberation soldiers and had at every conceivable opportunity resisted and even sabotaged transformation in the SANDF. By comparison, who is the worst culprit: the one who rapes and murders or the one who threatens protest action for a better living wage?

While Du Preez’s complaint of dropping standards of professionalism might have merit, defending an army of hooligans that kicked down our doors as they were searching for the so called “terrorists” cannot be justified. In Mthatha, the SADF brutally murdered the Mpendulo children (Samora and Sadat -twins, and their friend, Sandiso Yose) while they were sleeping in their beds. The Mpendulo house was riddled with bullets in every room.

We have not forgotten that SADF paraded grandparents and parents naked before their children.

This is an army that had no respect for humanity. Today we are made to believe that they were a professional and highly disciplined armed force.

My own experience in SANDF has taught me that we have professional and unprofessional men and women across colour lines.

If we are to critique the SANDF, let us do so objectively not through rose-tinted glasses that obscure the truth.