Nosiviwe Mapisa-nqakula Minister of defence & military veterans

Score:

0.25

During the lockdown, the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) was deployed all over SA to help the police enforce lockdown regulations. But defence force members did the organisation no favours in the beginning by, for example, forcing citizens to do push-ups and frog jumps.

It was also members of the defence force who assaulted and caused the death of Collins Khosa, who had been drinking beer in his own yard. An internal report by the SANDF, labelled a sham, exonerated those implicated in the murder. It resulted in the Khosa family approaching the courts to ask for an order declaring basic rights, and ensuring guidelines be developed on how to treat citizens during this time.

It set the tone for a lockdown in which the abuse of power was feared from the very start.

February says Khosa’s death will be a stain on SA’S lockdown, calling it “shameful and brutal”.

She says it is extraordinary that citizens’ rights needed to be affirmed in such a way in a constitutional democracy.

“President Cyril Ramaphosa was largely silent about these sorts of abuses. That has been both unhelpful and unfortunate. He should, as commander-inchief, have reined in his ministers early on so that they desisted from the use of militaristic language which facilitates acts of brutality.” February says Nosiviwe Mapisa-nqakula failed to take responsibility from the start, instead standing by the soldiers in question. “There was something rather callous about the minister’s response.”

In her evaluation, Booysen says it “was a failed opportunity for the defence force to serve its community”.

Sarakinsky believes that despite the increase in military spend, the defence force made no clear contribution to health and infrastructure, while the behaviour of troops who used violence against citizens was “unacceptable”.