The deployment of the army to areas hit by xenophobic attacks was long overdue, opposition parties said on Wednesday after President Thabo Mbeki’s nod to South African National Defence Force ”involvement”. South African police say 42 people have been killed in violence in Johannesburg that has raged for more than a week and 16Â 000 have been displaced.
The xenophobic attacks in Gauteng appeared to have subsided, a provincial spokesperson said on Wednesday. However, KwaZulu-Natal police are monitoring a possible outbreak of attacks there. ”There are no new reports of attacks,” said Thabo Masebe, deputy director of communications for the provincial government.
HIV-positive people will be able to join the South African National Defence Force after it admitted in the Pretoria High Court on Friday that its policies preventing HIV-positive people from employment, foreign deployment and promotion in the armed forces were unconstitutional.
It is impossible to have an HIV-free South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and a defence-force policy discriminating against people with HIV is unconstitutional, the Pretoria High Court heard on Thursday. Advocate Gilbert Marcus, SC argued that people should be assessed individually, since an individual who was HIV-positive was not necessarily sick.
A report by six former South African National Defence Force generals might lead to action being taken to address the violence in Zimbabwe, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad said on Wednesday. He said President Thabo Mbeki was waiting for a report from the generals on the violence before considering appropriate action.
A union representing South African soldiers is to take the country’s armed forces to court on Thursday over alleged discrimination against HIV-infected personnel, the union said on Wednesday. The South African Security Forces’ Union accuses the South African National Defence Force of discriminating against HIV-infected people.
South Africa’s international land borders are as porous as the proverbial sieve, with tens of thousands of refugees streaming into the country each week, alongside gun-smugglers and drug-traffickers, says the Democratic Alliance (DA). The party called for the deployment of South African National Defence Force troops to the worst-affected border regions,
There has been a clear increase in the number of Zimbabweans trying to cross the border illegally into South Africa since the March 29 election, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) said on Wednesday. The SANDF has three companies, which total more than 500 soldiers, patrolling the border in support of police border operations.
A Chinese ship carrying a shipment of arms and ammunition destined for Zimbabwe was not in South African territorial waters, a Defence Ministry spokesperson said on Monday in reaction to a claim that the An Yue Jiang was ”passing through South Africa’s territorial waters” in violation of a court order.
African National Congress (ANC) veteran Andrew Masondo died on Sunday, the ANC said on Monday. ”Masondo dedicated his life to the cause of the South African people, having served as a soldier since the early years of Umkhonto weSizwe,” the party said.
Free State Agriculture had to take the government to court to ensure the safety of farmers and farm workers because the government had failed them, the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) said on Thursday. ”Safety is a constitutional right. A Constitution not being applied is not worth the paper it is written on,” said the ACDP.
The Pretoria High Court has issued an interim interdict to restrain the government from relocating people from the former Pomfret military base in the North West. The order also brings a temporary halt to the demolishing of property in the town. Judge Brian Southwood granted an urgent court order to the 6 000-strong Pomfret community.
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/ 29 February 2008
The issue of the Khutsong demarcation was not on the agenda of an African National Congress delegation visiting Carletonville, a media report said on Saturday. The eight-member team from the party’s national executive committee met other ANC members and community members behind closed doors in the troubled North West area.
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/ 8 February 2008
Some of the 17 fires that were raging through the Western Cape on Thursday were under control in the evening, said Cape Town chief fire officer Ian Schnetler. ”Firefighters are still battling the blaze at Naval Base as the winds are making the situation worse,” he said.
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/ 7 February 2008
Seventeen runaway fires were ravaging the Western Cape on Thursday afternoon, with the two most serious blazes at Simonstown, Cape Town chief fire officer Ian Schnetler said on Thursday. The two fires were reported at Redhill at 9am and at Naval Base at 11am and were burning strongly, he said.
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/ 30 January 2008
A South African National Defence Force helicopter from Pretoria was expected to deliver food parcels to flood victims in Limpopo on Wednesday, the province’s housing and local government department said. ”Those residents are cut off from the outside world. We can only access them by air,” said a departmental spokesperson.
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/ 29 January 2008
The mandate of about 1 000 South African soldiers deployed in Burundi under an African Union mandate is to be extended as efforts to get the last remaining rebel group to re-join the peace process gain momentum, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday.
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/ 26 January 2008
Fires in Scarborough which started on Friday evening were under control
on Saturday morning, Cape Town Fire and Rescue Services said. Six shacks had burnt down in Oceanview and 70 people had been affected, however no injuries had been reported in the area.
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/ 25 January 2008
Investigations into the incident at the South African Army Combat Training Centre in Lohatla in which nine soldiers were killed have revealed that the tragedy was caused by a mechanical failure, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Friday. The nine soldiers died when a 35mm Oerlikon GDF MK-5 gun malfunctioned at the training centre on October 12 last year.
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/ 16 January 2008
The South African Air Force has grounded its fleet of Pilatus Astra PC-7 MkII aircraft following the death of a pilot in a plane crash on Tuesday. The fleet would remain grounded until further notice, South African National Defence Force headquarters said on Wednesday.
The ANC’s national executive committee elected its 28-member national working committee (NWC) on Monday. Get the complete list of NWC members here, as well as the names of the eight ANC members who will form part of the ad hoc committee to draw up a report on the arms deal.
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/ 28 November 2007
The South African National Defence Force Union on Wednesday threatened to lay a criminal charge against Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota for contravening the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The union also wants the Labour Department to take action against the South African National Defence Force for non-compliance with health and safety legislation.
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/ 21 November 2007
A police officer was killed and eight others seriously injured in a South African Air Force helicopter crash in the Free State on Wednesday, the military said. Seven other people suffered minor injuries. The Oryx helicopter was carrying 19 people when it crashed at about 11.40am near the Lesotho border.
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/ 24 October 2007
The nine South African soldiers killed during a military training exercise at Lohatla base were on Wednesday hailed as heroes and heroines during a memorial service in Kimberley. Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said that the five men and four women had fallen in defence of South Africa’s hard-won democracy.
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/ 17 October 2007
A military board of inquiry into an accident in which nine soldiers were killed has begun its work, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Wednesday. Lekota was visiting seven troopers in various Bloemfontein hospitals, who were injured in the anti-aircraft gun accident at the Lohatla training area in the Northern Cape last Friday.
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/ 16 October 2007
The accident at the South African National Defence Force’s Lohatlha training grounds last week happened immediately after technicians had finished repairing the weapon, a Mark V twin-barrelled 35mm gun, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said in the National Assembly on Tuesday.
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/ 14 October 2007
Six names of the nine South African National Defence Force soldiers who died during a training accident at the South African Army Combat Training Centre in Lohatla, Northern Cape, were released on Saturday. The Department of Defence has appointed a high-level board of inquiry to investigate the accident.
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/ 13 October 2007
A female artillery officer risked her life at Lohatlha on Friday in a desperate bid to prevent members of her battery being killed by their own anti-aircraft gun. By the time the gun had emptied its twin 250-round auto-loader magazine, eight soldiers were dead. A ninth soldier, a woman, died soon after being airlifted to Bloemfontein.
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/ 12 October 2007
Nine South African soldiers were killed on Friday in a shooting accident involving an anti-aircraft gun during a training exercise at a base in the central Bloemfontein region, the army said. "I can confirm that nine of our people have died and another 15 were injured and taken to various," a South African National Defence Force spokesperson said.
South African Police Service (SAPS) offices in Cullinan, near Pretoria, have been shut down after they were found to constitute a health threat, the Department of Labour said on Monday. Department spokesperson Zolisa Sigabi said the Crime Investigation Department building was shut down on Friday for contravening the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
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/ 6 September 2007
After years of waiting, thousands of people who lodged a claim to have their land at Wallmansthal, north of Pretoria, returned to them will on Saturday receive the deeds of their stands. The land set to be restored measures 4 186ha. Approximately 4 270 people will benefit from the settlement, the Land Claims Commission said on Thursday.