Serious questions are being asked about the state of South Africa’s defence forces following the Lesotho intervention, writes Howard Barrell
The public, defence and security analysts and African National Congress and opposition politicians have expressed concern over the past 10 days about the coherence of the young South African National Defence Force (SANDF) after it apparently struggled to pacify 1 000-odd mutinous soldiers in Lesotho.
The comparison has been drawn with the seeming effectiveness – some defence analysts maintain “mythical effectiveness” – of the old South African Defence Force (SADF) of the PW Botha years. And the result of the dbcle in Lesotho seems certain to be far closer public scrutiny of the SANDF’s performance in future.
Richard Cornwell of the Institute of Security Studies has voiced several searing criticisms. He says the intelligence available for the operation was clearly defective. Orders for the mission given to Colonel Robby Hartslief, the commander of the 600- strong force that initially went in, were imprecisely phrased, with the result he had few clear objectives.
The force was told to expect little to no resistance. And the rules of engagement soldiers were given, ordering them to use minimum aggression and minimum force, meant each went into battle “with one arm behind his back”, according to Cornwell.
This week senior army officers including the deputy chief of the army, Major General Roland de Vries, and the chief of special forces, Brigadier General Borries Bornmann, were highly critical of the operation, blaming politicians for the botch-up. Bornmann said: “The wrong people were sent in and there was a lack of intelligence. Our troops could not adapt to the terrain.”
Analysts across the board, a number of whom spoke to the Mail & Guardian on condition they were not identified, are far freer in criticising what one called “the fundamentally stupid strategic decision” to mount what was basically a “peacemaking” operation in Lesotho.
One said: “You didn’t need informants on the ground to know Lesotho would fight back. You just had to read the previous week’s M&G.”
A number are mystified at South Africa’s failure to employ the kind of strategy used effectively in the past by the SADF: the gradual ratcheting up of threats. The SADF used to send private warnings of military action to parties in a neighbouring state, which were often followed by public warnings; the threat was then ratcheted up to the level of a show of military strength such as increased troop deployments along a common border or overflights of the neighbour’s capital, before eventually deploying forces aggressively on foreign territory.
The picture some analysts paint of the situation in the SANDF is alarming. Official figures released by the government seem to bear it out.
Analysts say the SANDF is being dangerously run down by a combination of swingeing budget cuts, an inability legally to retrench surplus soldiers, decrepit equipment and a lack of clarity on what the force’s main roles are.
They believe the attempt to integrate the former SADF, the various bantustan armies, Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) and the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (Apla) has so far mainly been a success.
Several thousand former bantustan soldiers joined the SANDF at its inception. By the beginning of this year, more than 17 000 former members of MK and Apla had joined and stayed on, according to the Department of Defence’s latest annual report.
The integration of the former SADF complement involved the retention of an already bloated, overstaffed military bureaucracy. And only 9 000- odd soldiers applied successfully for voluntary severance packages. In total there are now about 90 000 members of the SANDF, 20 000 more than it wants or can afford.
But, over this period, Parliament has continued to cut the defence budget. Since 1990 the budget has been cut by more than half in real terms. The decline has not eased during the ANC’s four years in power.
Since 1994, the defence budget as a proportion of total government spending has fallen from 8,7% to 5% this year. Measured as a proportion of total South African economic activity (gross domestic product), over the same four- year period defence spending has fallen from 2,7% to 1,5%. This is considered by many analysts to be a very low level of defence spending for a country with South Africa’s resources.
The financial squeeze to the SANDF personnel has distorted the force’s shape. The defence department now spends an astonishing 57% of its budget on personnel costs alone, according to a department representative. Another 35% of the budget goes on day-to-day operating costs. And a measly 8% remains for purchases of new equipment.
The budget cuts have played havoc with the SANDF’s attempts to maintain, operate and replace equipment. A vast amount of money designated or needed to pay for equipment is being redirected into paying salaries.
Currently, defence equipment worth about R5-billion – measured either in terms of purchase or replacement value – is in storage, not operational or out of commission because of the cuts, according to the Deputy Minister of Defence, Ronnie Kasrils.
This equipment includes nine Transall freight aircraft worth R300-million, 22 Mirage fighters worth R500-million and two naval strike craft with a combined replacement value of R1 200- million.
“There is quite literally a danger that one or more of our ships … is just going to sink one of these days,” says James Selfe, the Democratic Party’s defence representative in Parliament.
There can be no solution to this distortion in the SANDF until it tackles the issue of how to get rid of the 20 000 unwanted soldiers. But it cannot do so in the near future because the government has not yet devised a legislative framework for getting rid of the soldiers – or what are called “employer-initiated retrenchments”.
Until this framework is available, the SANDF’s plans to re-equip itself via a huge composite weapons deal abroad must be considered to be in danger, according to analysts.
Moreover, if South Africa does not abide by various smaller arms purchase agreements already entered into, it faces cancellation penalties running into hundreds of millions of rands.
The overhang of staff also makes it almost impossible for the SANDF to reorganise seriously for the roles the government wants it to play, which include fighting crime and guarding borderlines and polling booths.
“We can afford to employ 90 000 full- time members of the SANDF, but we cannot afford to deploy 2 100 in the fight against crime. Surely something’s wrong,” says Selfe.