Reparations: ANC launches its election manifesto in Durban (. Military veterans, who were members of the Non-Statutory Forces, are planning to protest at the ANC’s elective conference on 16 December in protest against their not being compensated. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
More than 2 000 military veterans are preparing to go to court in a class action aimed at forcing the government to pay them R4 million each in “reparations” for the services they rendered during the liberation struggle.
In addition to the R10.6 billion in reparations, the former members of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the ANC’s military wing, and the Azanian People’s Liberation Army, their Pan Africanist Congress counterparts, want the state to provide them with housing, medical and other benefits.
The veterans also say that as members of the Non-Statutory Forces, they were subject to inferior pay, rank progressions and conditions of service to members of the apartheid state’s South African Defence Force (SADF) and the Transkei Defence Force (TDF) and other bantustan armies, which were integrated to form the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in the mid-1990s.
They have been in discussion with the department of defence and military veterans for several years with little success and last October held Defence Minister Thandi Modise and her deputy, Thabang Makwetla, hostage for several hours when their meeting at the St George’s Hotel in Pretoria collapsed.
New discussions led to consensus agreement on a once-off payment and improved benefits for the former soldiers, but have broken down again, with the state offering them a pension of R4 500 a month.
Their lawyer, Andries Nkome, said the 2 171 former combatants had given the presidency and the ministry until 15 December to meet them, failing which they would lodge a class action in the high court.
“We are in the process of getting their collective action as a class action. We are taking the department of military veterans and the presidency to court to enforce the agreement in which they said the veterans would be compensated for having participated in military activity in pursuit of democracy,” Nkome said.
“The current president formed a task team with which they reached agreement through a consensus document which conceded that there are valid claims. Now the government seeks to implement it without having a discussion with regard to the totality of the amount due.”
Nkome said that based on a figure of R500 000 each in 1994, actuarial scientists had set a reasonable figure for each former fighter at R4 million each in the basic “reparation” payment, along with medical benefits, pension and employment assistance.
“We have provided them with a list of people and issues and have requested a face-to-face meeting with the government. We understand that it would be cheaper and quicker to find one another than going through a court process. If they are not committed to us finding each other, we have no other option but to go to court,” Nkome said.
In a letter to the presidency on Tuesday, Nkome said they had a mandate from all the claimants and that the matter was “far advanced” and at “the point of registration of the claim as a class action, which will be served in due course”.
The claimants asked for a meeting to address their “frustrations” with the “persistent failure to address these claims, despite numerous promises to the contrary”.
If the deadline was ignored, the class action would go ahead.
Mzukisi Ronyuza said he and other claimants were tired of being promised their claims for reparations, benefits and pension benefits and were prepared to take the state to court.
They were also planning to stage a picket at the ANC’s national conference at Nasrec on 16 December in protest against their treatment.
Ronyuza served in ANC underground structures and acted as a courier for MK in the Vereeniging area and the Eastern Cape before going into exile, where he was based in an MK camp in Uganda.
Ronyuza said he and other Non-Statutory Forces soldiers were placed on two-year contracts with the SANDF, while their SANDF and TDF counterparts were granted permanent posts, which resulted in better rank progression, benefits and, ultimately, a better package than the former guerillas when they retired from service.
“I participated in underground military activities from the age of 17 and later found myself in Uganda,” Ronyuza said. “The most painful part was that when we were integrated, we were subjected to two-year contracts, while those of SADF were given permanent positions.
“We were underranked and frustrated to the point that some of us fell by the wayside and left the military. We made our contribution to this democracy, and we don’t deserve to be treated in this way.”
Ronyuza is among those arrested for taking Modise hostage and is out on bail. He says the incident was a “misunderstanding” and that all they wanted was to have their concerns addressed.
Ronyuza is now a municipal worker, but struggles to feed and educate his five children.
He believes the proposed R4 500 monthly special pension being offered by the department of defence is far from enough to live on. He and his comrades have asked the department to peg it at R15 000 instead.
“All over the world you don’t find veterans being treated like this. We need to be taken care of. I have to go to a mashonisa to get money to pay school fees. I have been trying for three years to get money for my eldest child to study. Rather they pay me out so that I can do something and get on with life,” he said.
Ronyuza said they would “picket and stop the conference from going ahead at Nasrec” if their demands were ignored.Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya referred Mail & Guardian to the defence department, which had not responded by the time of writing.
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