Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

FORMER president Kgalema Motlanthe , in one of his last executive acts before handing over the reins to President Jacob Zuma , approved the deployment of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to do border duty in support of the police.

Historically, the safeguarding of SA's borders, except for controls at entry points, was a defence force function but it was made an exclusive police function some years ago.

The overstretched South African Police Service (SAPS) has been unable to cope with the border security function, making SA's frontiers, particularly that with Zimbabwe, notoriously porous.

Motlanthe's action, contained in a letter to Parliament, resonates with recent comments by Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa that the military could be roped in to assist with the protection of SA's borders, and perhaps also with the protection of cash in transit vehicles.

The transporting of cash has long been a primary target of organised criminals, resulting in what have become known as "cash in transit heists".

Motlanthe says in his letter: "This serves to inform the National Council of Provinces that I have employed the South African National Defence Force personnel for service in co-operation with the South African Police Service in the prevention and combating of crime and maintenance and preservation of law and order within the Republic of South Africa, along the RSA/Zimbabwe international border, to perform borderline control duties.

"A total of 160 members of the SANDF will be employed for this service until March 31 2010."

A further problem is that suggestions that the military be used to augment border controls come at a time when it faces personnel challenges of its own. The SANDF has several peacekeeping commitments across the continent.

Considering the thousands of kilometres of border which SA has, both land and sea, the allocation of 160 soldiers will seem ridiculously small.

Helmoed Heitman, defence analyst and local correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly, says deploying 160 troops suggests that what is involved is a single infantry company of three platoons with a few attached specialists.

"That force is clearly far too small to exert any real control over the full length of the border between SA and Zimbabwe, even assuming that there are other troops in the Madimbo training area that lies adjacent to the eastern part of the border.

"The only really useful role for a single company along a border of this length will lie in focused ambushes of known crossing points used by criminal elements, the protection of vehicle check points on roads in the border area, or to accompany small teams of police officials as a 'force multiplier' that allows the few police assigned to border duty to be spread over more of the border," he says.

Heitman adds that the effectiveness of this small force will be further decreased by the fact that the commando system no longer exists, robbing it of the communications and quick reinforcement capabilities -- and local knowledge -- that those reserve units could provide.

There was an outcry in 2005 when the government announced that all volunteer commando units would be disbanded because of the role they played in combating insurgents fighting against apartheid. The plan was that commandos would be taken up in the SAPS reserve.

While there is no official indication yet that soldiers will be used to protect cash in transit, this move would raise the spectre of foreign visitors, particularly those coming for the Confederations Cup this year and the Soccer World Cup next year, seeing heavily armed solders performing normal police functions.

Heitman says the use of ordinary soldiers to protect cash in transit vehicles is likely to serve only to raise the risk of "serious civilian casualties resulting from fire fights between them and gangsters".

"The ordinary soldier is not trained or armed for this role, and will require quite considerable retraining to be effective," he says.

"The military is not the answer here, except possibly to provide heliborne reaction forces that can intercept a hijacked cash in transit vehicle or the robbers after they have fled the scene -- assuming that the Police Air Wing or an Air Force spotter aircraft have been deployed to track the vehicle(s) in question," he says.

Heitman says: "The SANDF is grossly underfunded and understrength for the missions with which it is tasked. It has a three- battalion foreign deployment that actually requires an 18- battalion force to maintain.

"The army has some 11 battalions, all under-strength.

"The result is an army -- in fact an SANDF -- that is consuming itself. Adding yet another set of missions will be fatal if not accompanied by substantial additional funding to allow recruitment of additional troops, proper training, proper maintenance, the replacement of old equipment and the acquisition of equipment needed to close existing capability gaps."