Here’s why there’s doubt that deploying the army will be effective

When all else fails, send in the army. Sounds like something a struggling dictator might say.

And here we are, deploying our own army internally.

There are two obvious assumptions one makes when deploying an army in any circumstance: that there is indeed an army to deploy and that it will be effective in whatever task it is deployed to engage.

In South Africa, there’s a lot of doubt on both fronts.

Can we trust the SANDF?

Yes, sure, we have an army in name and entity but how much do you really trust their preparedness? That’s not a dig at the soldiers but rather a consideration of the SANDF’s budget issues. There was also that allegation of R50 million misappropriated from soldiers’ SA Army Foundation, and remember when we were told last year that only six of the Air Force’s 330 aircraft are operable?

It wouldn’t fill anybody with confidence in defending an invasion from Lesotho, so how is it supposed to fill us with confidence that it will put a dent in the problems its sent in to resolve domestically? Again, not a dig at the soldiers but rather a comment on those who were tasked to keep the military well oiled, financed and ready for action.

Even if I’m wrong in my interpretation of the military preparedness – and goodness do I hope that I am – this all seems rather catch and release in the bigger scheme of things. That’s my question of how effective this will be.

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In isolation, when deployed to fix crime, the only thing the army could really do to fix the problems is drop bombs into zama zama tunnels and get trigger happy around gangs. In the context of a criminal justice system though, they’re not in isolation and have to work with crime intelligence, prosecution authorities, police gang units and many other role players. Gosh, probably social workers, negotiators and financial investigators too.

Will soldiers be allowed to be effective?

With this in mind, what exactly is the army supposed to add that wasn’t already available to tackle illegal mining and gangsterism?

Do we not have enough police officers? Do we not have the capacity to fight these issues in the ordinary course? It would be easy to look at the situation and say clearly not but that’s just too basic a read of it. The system in all of its complexity just doesn’t seem to want to work.

The forces at the coalface seem to know who the actors are, where they are and how they’re operating and yet, the unlawful actors still seem to be operating. We sometimes hear of arrests but what about successful prosecutions as a result? Those are luxurious. It seems that a lot of the time, they don’t even get to prosecution before being bailed out.

And then there’s the question of internal forces working against the army. With reports of gang bosses benefitting from rail contracts, without even mentioning everything coming out of the Madlanga commission, just how many higher ups are in the pockets of gangsters and illegal mining syndicates?

ALSO READ: Why SANDF deployment is stalling and could fail

Spending some R800 million on a military deployment hardly seems like it’s going to do much when you’ve not dealt with the corruption of the decision makers – the ones who can tell police to look the other way and the one who can divert money away from the soldiers who do the work they’re supposed to do.

To South Africa’s credit, the belated results coming from the Zondo commission do show some promise and the fact that these issues are out in the open also inspires some hope. Seeing the raids, arrests and engagements of law enforcement have been something of a revitalisation of faith in the project to keep South Africa lawful.

It’s just that if all of these institutions were effectively coordinated in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this situation and there’d be no need to deploy the army.

Now we’re left with a bigger question; what is it exactly that the army is meant to achieve with this deployment and why do we need the army to achieve it?

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