National lockdown… and the SANDF will help ensure you stay home

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is preparing to deploy up to 10 companies of troops on the streets later on Tuesday, to add muscle to government efforts to enforce a clampdown on the movement of people and contain the coronavirus.

On Sunday, a warning order was sent to the army to prepare soldiers from infantry battalions based in each of the nine provinces for deployment from noon on Tuesday.

The unprecedented mobilisation, the first in South Africa’s democratic era, has been codenamed Operation Chariot. It involves various companies being placed under the command of regional Joint Tactical Headquarters (J Tac HQ) in each province.

The troops are being used to “support the effort” to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic, according to orders from Army HQ in Pretoria.

The action is set to last for at least 21 days from today, but may be extended to three months.

The gates of the Rand Light Infantry barracks in Craighallpark, 23 March 2020. Military personnel were seen gathering ahead of a speech by President Ramaphosa in which he is expected to announce a lockdown. Picture Neil McCartney

This deployment is in alignment with the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) constitutional mandate to render “support to the civil power” in terms of “disaster relief, humanitarian assistance and crisis response”.

The soldiers have orders to work with the SA Police Service in support of the police’s “primary function” – to maintain law and order.

Soldiers will be at what is termed “combat readiness level 2”, which is one less than for deployment to a war situation and is intended to enable soldiers to “conduct secondary tasks”.

Working with the police, the troops will wear “full battle dress” when operational. This includes bulletproof vests, gloves and masks. Each soldier will carry a personal weapon (in this case the R4 assault rifle) and will have one magazine of 30 live rounds.

They will be equipped to be deployed independently for up to 72 hours with full rations and water.

Any SANDF member on this deployment may arrest “somebody who has committed an offence in his presence”. Once such an arrest is made the person arrested must be handed over as soon as possible to the police and the soldier must make a statement to the police giving reasons for the arrest.

The gates of the Rand Light Infantry barracks in Craighallpark, 23 March 2020. Military personnel were seen gathering ahead of a speech by President Ramaphosa in which he is expected to announce a lockdown. Picture Neil McCartney

The plan is that the SA Army’s 21 SAI battalion based in Lenasia will operate in Gauteng, deploying a company to Johannesburg and another to Pretoria; 4 SAI in Middelburg will provide a company of troops to assist in Mpumalanga; 121 SAI battalion from Mtubatuba will do the same for KwaZulu-Natal; while Bloemfontein’s 1 SAI battalion will handle the Free State; 14 SAI in Mthatha will manage the Eastern Cape, with 9 SAI in Cape Town doing the Western Cape. Upington’s 8 SAI Battalion will support efforts in the Northern Cape with Mafikeng-based 10 SAI providing assistance in the North West.

The orders stipulated that no press releases or statements are permitted to be made to individuals or the media and that all questions should go through the Tac HQ.

What the lockdown entails

The government has followed the Chinese example by imposing a nationwide lockdown for three weeks to help stop the coronavirus in its tracks.

The 21-day “stay at home” and “whole country” lockdown starts at midnight on Thursday and extends until 16 April.

The only people allowed out in public will be health workers, emergency personnel, soldiers, traffic police, those involved in production and distribution of food, as well as those rendering vital services in the banking and telecommunication sectors.

Individuals will be allowed out of their houses in special circumstances, including to get medical care or buy medicines and food, or collect social grants. Temporary shelters will be set up for homeless people and sites will be designated for those who are not able to self-isolate.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said last night all shops and businesses – other than pharmacies, and those involved in the production and transport of food and basic products – would be closed.

Furnaces and underground mine operations would have to be put in “care and maintenance” regimes and firms should continue to work remotely.

Ramaphosa said the SA National Defence Force would be deployed to ensure the measures were complied with. The measures were necessary, he said, to “fundamentally disrupt the chain of transmission across society”.

The plan was sketched out last week by former health minister Dr Olive Shisana (now a special advisor to The Presidency).

Her plan also suggest that “to reduce transport and movement opportunities by the controlled closure of some modes of public transport and capillary road networks with only main roads remaining open and unobstructed.

“Due to disruptions in supply and distribution of goods, medical and other supplies will be secured and stored in bulk, including supplies such as personal protective equipment for healthcare workers.”

Special “spatially based” teams (including volunteers), each handling about 300 households will conduct “house-to-house screening and testing”.

In addition, “to identify as many cases as possible, testing will be made widely available and the criteria for a test will be relaxed, with commensurate increasing laboratory capacity”.

This will enable each new case in a specific “enumerator area” to be identified so that hot spots of infection can be rapidly identified.

Healthcare will be provided through triage to obtain “centralised treatment” for severe cases and “decentralised primary care” for mild cases.

“A key objective is not to overwhelm hospitals with unnecessary care seekers,” says the plan.

Ramaphosa also announced a raft of measures to tackle the social and financial implications of the lockdown. Among those was a commitment from the Rupert and Oppenheimer families of R1 billion each to provide financial relief for the most deserving.

Government relief in support for workers, as well as for companies who would continue paying their employees despite the lack of business. was also announced.

He said the measures would help as many as four million of the most affected workers in the economy.

– news@citizen.co.za

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