Whites are still being prosecuted for refusing to attend camps, reports Stefaans Brummer
SOUTH Africa’s new ministry of defence has come under fire for persisting with a whites-only call-up and prosecutions of those who fail to report for duty.
While the Defence Act was amended last year to abolish white conscription and create a non-racial voluntary service, members of the Citizen force and commando units — who are all white because of conscription policies under apartheid — are still routinely called up for camp duties.
Anti-conscription groups branding the practice “racial discrimination in disguised form” have accused Defence Minister Joe Modise of dragging his heels in reforming a system identified by the Negotiating Council as a clear example of discriminatory legislation.
The issue will be raised in parliament next month by Democratic Party MP Douglas Gibson who is to ask whether prosecutions of defaulters will continue.
Deputy Defence Minister Ronnie Kasrils said this week amendments of the Defence Act were being drawn up and that a policy statement could be expected before the end of August.
“One’s got to replace one system with another. All we are asking for is a little more time,” he said. A system of incentives, rather than one of coercion, was envisaged until the new voluntary service had built up sufficient numbers. At stake is the experience and manpower vested in the 120 000-strong citizen force and 130 000-member commando units.
“The elections and the state of emergency (in kwaZulu/Natal) clearly demonstrated we need a reserve we can call upon,” said Institute for Defence Policy chief researcher Brigadier Bill Sass. “Until the new voluntary system has delivered enough people, it will be very difficult to make do without it.”
The Conscription Advice Service and the End Conscription Campaign (ECC) – – which would have disbanded last year when conscription was scrapped but is running a skeleton staff to deal with citizen force and commando call- ups — stepped up calls to scrap compulsory camp duty when it became clear after the elections that the practice was continuing.
In a letter to Modise, the ECC said the call-up was “a de facto continuation of the whites-only call-up. Only whites are required to report for camps and can be prosecuted for not doing so.”
Prosecutions underway include those of Louis Mitras, a conscientious objector who allegedly defaulted on a sentence of community service and citizen force members Hendrik van Rensburg, Rolin Sibley and Frederick Barnard.
Kasrils said: “At the moment those prosecutions are not really underway. In a formal sense they are, but no one is actually standing trial or has been sentenced.”