‘A concentration on policing for purposes of political control meant that prior to 1994 – and in contrast to developments in other societies – the understanding and practice of crime prevention was poorly developed in South Africa.
‘The NCPS was the most important initiative aimed at achieving sustainable safety in South Africa. It had two broad and interlocking components, that of law enforcement and that of crime prevention, particularly social crime prevention.
‘The study adds that law enforcement initiatives will be weakened if conditions in which they are carried out continue to generate high levels of criminality. International experience had shown that sophisticated crime prevention strategies had only a limited effect when such institutions of policing and criminal justice were poorly developed.
‘What was required were social crime-preventing programmes which targeted the causes of particular types of crime at national, provincial and local level. Such an approach also recognised the impact of broader government economic development and social policies for crime prevention. The effective delivery of basic services such as housing, education and health, as well as job creation, had in themselves a critical role to play in ensuring living environments less conducive to crime.
‘I have summarised this frank and objective police study to show how Sydney Mufamadi and George Fivaz accurately described the type of police force the new South Africa was inheriting from the apartheid regime. These are the well-considered views of two eminent and courageous leaders with undisputed credentials in their commitment to the country.
‘The crisp message from them was that we need a new police force, totally different from the one that served the apartheid state, if we are to succeed in reducing the unacceptably high level of crime ravaging the country. Only a force stripped of its paramilitary and authoritarian characteristics and properly trained in the modern methods of policing in a democratic order could help South Africa to achieve this object.
‘Commentators of integrity would compliment the Department of Safety and Security for their analytical ability and vision. No honest analyst, black or white, could expect this goal to be achieved within a period of seven years.19
‘In his budget speech to the National Assembly on 28 May 1998, Sydney Mufamadi quoted a telling passage from the South African Institute of Race Relations Survey [of 1993/94]:
Murder and armed robbery, as well as attacks on the elderly and on policemen, have increased dramatically, while white-collar fraud had also risen sharply in 1992.
The Minister of Law and Order, Hernus Kriel, said in Parliament in May 1993 that more than 20,000 people had been murdered in South Africa in political and criminal violence in 1992. There were 380,000 rape cases in South Africa every year and 95% of the victims were African …
In the ten years from 1983 to 1992, the murder rate increased by 135%, robbery by 109%, housebreaking by 71%, car theft by 64%. However, many crimes were unreported.20
‘Sydney Mufamadi added that that indeed was a picture of an escalation of serious crime which demonstrated grave geometric continuity.
‘It is against this background that the achievement of the government in transforming our police force must be seen. It must, however, be conceded that even during the darkest moments of apartheid there were many police, black and white, men and women, of the highest calibre, who were professional in their duties, and who tried to the best of their ability to serve all sections of the population without discrimination.
‘But these were few and far between. They were the exceptions rather than the rule.
‘The overwhelming majority fully accepted the inhuman policies of apartheid, and served as the instrument of the most brutal forms of racial oppression this country has ever seen. Some of these men and women are still members of the present force, occupying strategic positions and obstructing in countless ways the creation of a new police force.
‘Nevertheless, both Sydney Mufamadi and his successor, Steve Tshwete, George Fivaz and [his successor as] the present National Commissioner Jackie Selebi, have made unprecedented progress in creating a new force capable of policing in a democratic order, and in significantly reducing the high levels of crime.
‘On 24 May 1997, and after discussing the matter with me, Deputy President Mbeki announced the appointment of Mr Meyer Kahn, Group Chairman of the South African Breweries Limited, to take on the position of Chief Executive of the SAPS for a two-year period.* The Deputy President explained that that was a new civilian function calculated to direct and accelerate the conversion of the SAPS into an effective law-enforcement and crime-prevention agency. Mr Kahn would report to Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi.
‘The Deputy President added that our selection of one of the private sector’s toughest and ablest managers – and his willingness to answer the call – underscored the new era of partnership between the public and private sector to end the scourge of crime.
‘National Commissioner Fivaz would thus be freed of the administrative burden within the SAPS, and would be able to concentrate his total energy on managing and controlling the pure policing operations of the service.
‘The goal, the Deputy President said, was to put the police back on the frontline, and make sure that they were equipped with the right skills and resources to do their job well.
‘But the partnership between the government and the private sector actually started a year earlier with the establishment of a non-profit organisation, Business Against Crime (BAC). The prime aim of the organisation was to contribute to the government’s crime-combating strategy, policy and priorities, and to transfer much-needed technology skills to government.
‘This partnership has been hailed as one of the best practices of its kind in the world. The NCPS was the first initiative of this partnership. After the engagement of Meyer Kahn, other full-time business executives were appointed and funded by the business community.
‘These helped to modernise the criminal justice system, combating commercial crimes, organised crime [and facilitating] the installation of electronic surveillance with remarkable success. In one area, electronic surveillance resulted in an 80% reduction in crime, increased conviction rates in cases where crime had been committed, a 90% decrease in the number of police personnel required to patrol the area, and an average response time to incidents of less than 60 seconds.
‘This sober assessment comes from Business Against Crime, an important section of the community which has spent considerable resources, time and energy to improve the quality of our police services.
‘I asked Meyer Kahn for a report on our agreed strategy to reconstruct the SAPS into an effective law-enforcement agency. He responded on 02 July 1998. Among the structural focus areas he dealt with was the enforcement of the newly launched Code of Conduct with a view to, over time, changing the conduct and behaviour of the police.
‘The golden thread that flew from that Code, Meyer Kahn reported, was one of caring. Care for your country, care for your communities, care for your colleagues, care for your assets and, above all, care for your reputation.
‘He pointed out that he had by then been in office for eleven months and had no regrets about his appointment. He believed that our new strategies were as good as one would hope to find. He was heartened by the fact that our statistics indicated clearly a stabilisation and mild decrease across the board in terms of all the serious crime in our country. He considered this to be fairly remarkable against the background of a deteriorating external environment of no economic growth and greater joblessness. In addition, the very high and speedy arrest rates by our detectives in respect of high-profile crimes that so damage the morale and reputation of our country certainly indicated that the SAPS still had the skill and dedication to compare with the best in the world.
‘However, he placed on record that the increase in the police budget of only 3.7% in monetary terms and on a comparable basis, he found difficult to comprehend. Particularly against the backg
round that fighting crime is recognised by every South African, as well as by international opinion, as the foremost, if not the only priority, in order to create an environment for our democracy and economy to flourish.
‘He regretted that a reduction that year in real terms of at least 4% in police spending would inevitably impede even the most basic policing that our people were entitled to expect, and would most certainly place our medium-term strategy of reconstructing the SAPS in serious jeopardy.
‘But the Deputy President, Business Against Crime and Meyer Kahn, acting independently of one another, virtually reinforced the assessment of Sydney Mufamadi and George Fivaz in analysing the formidable challenges facing the Department of Safety and Security in their efforts to transform the SAPS from an illegitimate and discredited service to a credible and efficient force in a democratic South Africa.
‘They all spelt out the changes required and in due course assessed the results of such initiatives, the cooperation between the SAPS and the masses of the people, and the gradual decline in the levels of various crimes. Their performance and achievements left all of us proud of our country, of our comrades, our police and of ourselves. We were exuding with confidence and optimism …21
‘It has been a long haul from the difficult and painful era of the pre-1994 police, who enjoyed no public legitimacy, to the present force which works with the public and which guarantees safety and security to all our people. Without a properly trained and efficient police force which enjoys the trust and support of the public, as the present one does, political and economic stability would have been an elusive daydream.’22
* * *
The transformation of the military, by contrast, had got off to a promising start, with General Georg Meiring giving his unqualified commitment to serve Mandela’s government. This was punctuated by the seamless security around both the 1994 elections and the ceremonial embrace of the inauguration. Before long, however, the transformation of the defence force proved a lot more turbulent than had been anticipated.
The SADF and the defence forces of the nominally independent Bantustans of Transkei, Venda, Bophuthatswana and Ciskei, as well as the KwaZulu Self-Protection Force, had to be merged into an integrated South African National Defence Force (SANDF) together with their traditional enemies, the ANC’s MK and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania’s Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA). Once this was complete, the new entity, the SANDF, had to be rationalised and downsized.
There had been earlier meetings between the SADF and MK, the first in 1990 in Lusaka, and then in 1992.23 Initiated by Mandela, then ANC president – who told the ANC, ‘These people want to talk’ – the first practical engagement was in April 1993, when senior ANC military and intelligence leaders met the top five of the SADF.24
Chaired by General Meiring during the time of the TEC, a Joint Military Coordinating Committee, with representatives from both the SADF and liberation movement forces, worked towards the creation of a single defence force, to come into effect at midnight on the day the elections began. This entailed ‘the integration of a large number of statutory and non-statutory forces into a single, cohesive defence force’ and the establishment of ‘systems of civilian control over the defence force’.25
The ANC prepared for integration by briefing its MK cadres in the camps and by holding conferences throughout the country, some of which Mandela attended, to impart his wisdom. These men and women had joined MK to acquire skills to fight and liberate the country from apartheid oppression and exploitation. Now, while many of their compatriots donned the uniform of the new and integrated national defence force, they would have to divest themselves of the uniforms that had given them a sense of being part of something hugely meaningful.
All soldiers feel naked in the clothes of civilians. Mandela understood this vulnerability, this sense of being robbed of a crutch. He knew, also, that there was a possibility for the strength of the new defence force to be depleted by the introduction of voluntary severance packages, a double-edged sword. It appealed to people with a few years of pensionable service; it was also likely to encourage the exodus of exactly the kind of talent the defence force needed. Knowing that some of the ex-combatants – many of them young and inexperienced – would be excited to receive the large sums of money being offered to those volunteering for demobilisation, he advised them against ‘eating the money’. Sadly, in most cases, his advice fell on deaf ears.26
Despite the careful preparations, years of enmity, suspicion and conflicting expectations posed huge difficulties for the integration. The rumblings were loudest in the military base of Wallmansthal, some 50-odd kilometres from Pretoria, where, days after the election, the car of two MK generals driving into the base to deal with complaints was pelted with stones by former members. A few months later, some five hundred MK members marched from the base to the Union Buildings, demanding to see the president. Mandela came immediately from his residence and, after listening, acknowledged their grievances as genuine. He discussed the matter with General Meiring, the Acting Chief of Staff Siphiwe Nyanda and Minister of Defence Joe Modise. Interacting further with MK members, Mandela met the SANDF Command Council, the highest decision-making body of the defence force, and urged them to address the fact that the non-statutory forces were being accommodated rather than integrated. The process was very slow; racism was alive and well in the camps, and the living conditions were atrocious.27
Seeking to settle the matter, Mandela visited Wallmansthal to address the former MK members there and was immediately faced with the enormity of the situation. After listening for two hours, Mandela had a firm message for both protesters and the top brass. While the soldiers had legitimate grievances, their mistake was to pursue them in a manner that was unseemly for people in uniform. He told them that they had a week to return to barracks, at their own cost, and submit themselves to SANDF discipline; those who weren’t back by then, need not return. To the SANDF leadership, he said that the integration process needed accelerating. He added that he was confident that General Meiring and the commanders were committed to making a success of integration.28
While some of the soldiers returned to base, a number didn’t, sparking rumours of armed protests; this highlighted concerns that demobbed soldiers, from either side, might turn to crime or political destabilisation.
Half the seven thousand soldiers had gone AWOL and were still refusing to return until their issues were resolved. Now he reminded the soldiers of MK history: why it had been formed and its proud record – a record of which they were expected to be custodians, he said.29
Two years later, in 1996, Mandela voiced his concern in an interview:
‘We have a big army of about 90,000. We don’t need even half of that. We need far less because we have no enemies. But, assuming we reduce it by half this year, there would be another 45,000 people unemployed. We already have five million unemployed.
‘We then create a great deal of bitterness on the part of people who are trained to use arms. And with arms circulating in this country almost freely, that would be a dangerous thing to do.
‘So when we move away from the apartheid budget, we should do so cautiously and gradually and we will be unable to do many things we would like to do.’30
Many elected leaders the world over have echoed Mandela’s lament about the circumstances that render them ‘unable to do [the] many things’ they would like to achieve. A few of those have been hobbled by the budget not squaring up to the social needs of the citizens; few, however – except in war-torn countries – have had to roll back the inexorable legacy of problems associated with the past. These were intricate problems facing a society that was still inchoate – soft like clay before it is fired in a kiln. The solution, if applied unwisely, could very well lead to its collapse.
A year earlier, in 1995, South Africa’s dishonoured past had risen up, bringing a new set of problems for Mandela and his government. Together with IFP leader M. Z. Khumalo and eig
hteen others, Magnus Malan, the former apartheid minister of defence, was arrested and charged with being responsible for leading the massacre in KwaMakhutha, Amanzimtoti, near Durban. Thirteen people, mostly women and children, were shot dead at the home of United Democratic Front activist Bheki Ntuli on 21 January 1987. Mandela knew that Malan’s arraignment would further divide the country. Magnus Malan – a decorated soldier’s soldier and military strategist – was as admired by the apartheid military establishment as he was reviled by the majority that had, directly or indirectly, borne the brunt of his excesses in the enforcement of P. W. Botha’s doctrine of Total Strategy.*
In a note for a National Executive Committee meeting, Mandela observed that the ‘arrest of General Malan and others provoked wide interest across the length and breadth of the country … Before and after the formal arrest we briefed several individuals and organisations, eg. Georg Meiring alone first and later the command structure of the SANDF; business; Archbishop Tutu alone first and thereafter the SACC [South African Council of Churches]; Bishop Lekganyane; DRC [Dutch Reformed Church]; political scientists from all our universities, with the exception of Stellenbosch and PE [Port Elizabeth]; the 26 teachers organisations; the FF [Freedom Front]; and P. W. Botha.’31
Briefing the diverse men of the cloth to enlist their appreciation of the nuance of the arrest was one thing, but Mandela was somewhat more offhand with the SANDF. General Nyanda remembers Mandela saying that ‘he wanted to come to a regular Monday meeting of the Defence Staff Council. He didn’t allow any questions, just came there as commander-in-chief. The essence of what he said was this: “We have gone through a difficult period of change; our people fought for the democracy that we now enjoy. It is at a tenuous stage and if there are people who want to undermine it and reverse things, the South African people will defeat them.”’32
He made similarly stern remarks when, in January 1996, the parliamentary caucus put forward a motion to scrap Afrikaans as one of the languages of instruction, training and command, requesting instead that English should be the only language used. Mandela felt that tampering with a group’s language would ‘reduce the country to ashes’, and vowed to ‘protect’ the Afrikaner cultural heritage ‘as if it was my own’.33 Fortunately, the idea was rejected by the minister of defence and cabinet, and by May 1996 the section on language written into the White Paper on National Defence for the Republic of South Africa required that the SANDF ‘shall respect the constitutional provision on language and shall endeavour to cater for the different languages of its members. Instruction, command and control shall be conducted in a language that is commonly understood by all.’34
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