FROM DEFENCE TO DEVELOPMENT This page intentionally left blank FROM DEFENCE TO DEVELOPMENT Redirecting Military Resources in South Africa Jacklyn Cock and Penny Mckenzie for The Group for Environmental Monitoring David Philip Cape Town International Development Research Centre Ottawa, Canada First published in 1998 in Africa by David Philip Publishers (Pty) Ltd, 208 Werdmuller Centre, Claremont 7700, South Africa First published in 1998 in the rest of the world by the International Development Research Centre, PO Box 8500, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1E 3H9 ISBN 86486 415 9 (David Philip) ISBN 0 88936 853 8 (IDRC) Compilation © 1998 Jacklyn Cock and Penny Mckenzie The contributors claim copyright on their individual chapters All rights reserved. Printed in South Africa by National Book Printers, Drukkery Street, Goodwood, Western Cape Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Cock, Jacklyn From defence to development: redirecting military resources in South Africa Includes bibliographical references ISBN 0-88936-853-8 1. Militarism South Africa. 2. South Africa Military policy. 3. South Africa National security. 4. Sustainable development South Africa. I. Mckenzie, Penny. II. International Development Research Centre (Canada). III. Title. IV. Title: Redirecting military resources in South Africa. UA856.5C621998 355.6 0968 C98-980043-1 CONTENTS Foreword Thenjiwe Mtintso vii Acknowledgements vii List of contributors xi 1. Introduction Jacklyn Cock 1 2. Guns or Butter? Growth, Development and Security Gavin Cawthra 25 3. The 1996 Defence White Paper: An Agenda for State Demilitarisation? Laurie Nathan 41 4. Reclaiming the Land: A Case Study of Riemvasmaak Penny Mckenzie 60 5. Weapons testing: Its impact on people and the Environment Penny Mckenzie 85 6. South Africs arms industry: Prospects for Conversion Peter Batchelor 97 7. Light weapons proliferation: The link between security and development Jacklyn Cock 122 8. Still killing: Land-mines in Southern Africa Alex Vines 148 9. Apartheis nuclear arsenal: Deviation from development David Fig 163 10. After the war: Demobilisation in South Africa Tsepe Motumi and Penny Mckenzie 181 11. Demobilisation and reintegration in society: Human resources conversion Rocky Williams 208 12. Militarised youth: Political pawns or social agents? Monique Marks and Penny Mckenzie 222 References 235 Index 244 FOREWORD Thenjiwe Mtintso This book addresses some of the most controversial aspects of our transition from apartheid to a non-racial and non-sexist democracy. The creation of a representative and legitimate defence force is probably the most difficult aspect of our commitment to create a common society and to build institutions which unite rather than divide us. The role of the new defence force is to protect and consolidate democracy: this implies a total break from the past when the South African Defence Force helped to make South Africa a terrorist state reliant on fear to maintain its authority. In the past vast resources were devoted to the SADF to support white minority rule. Today military expenditure must be appropriate to our central task: to address the real threats to our security poverty and unemployment. In the past military issues were also shrouded in secrecy, whereas today we are committed to transparency. In this context there is an urgent need for extensive public debate on defence and security issues. We need to empower civil society through access to information and alternative perspectives so that debate is not dominated by insider security experts, and to enable a broader range of our people to contribute and make their voices heard. Both the consultation around the 1996 Defence White Paper and the Defence Review process have allowed for some participation from civil society, but that participation must be widened and deepened. In particular, efforts must be made to ensure that women participate because they suffer the most from poverty, unemployment and environmental degradation. As a contribution to the public debate on defence and security issues, the publication of this book is to be welcomed. Thenjiwe Mtintso Chair, Commission on Gender Equality Pretoria ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book draws on research which was conducted for the Group for Environmental Monitoring (GEM) between 1993 and 1997. GEM is a small NGO based in Johannesburg which seeks to build an environmentally sustainable and just society through participatory research and the sharing of knowledge. For this end we were fortunate to obtain the intellectual and financial support of the International Development Research Centre in Canada. We would like to express our gratitude to the IDRC and to everyone at GEM for their assistance and encouragement. Every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge copyright holders of photographs. Should any mistake or omission have been made, the publishers apologise and will correct it in the next impression. CONTRIBUTORS Peter Batchelor is a senior researcher at the Centre for Conflict Resolution, University of Cape Town, and co-ordinator of the Centre s Project on Peace and Security. Gavin Cawthra runs the Defence Management Programme at the School of Public and Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand. Jacklyn Cock is a professor of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand. She was a founder of the Group for Environmental Monitoring (GEM) and project leader of the Militarisation and the Ecology of Southern Africa project. Terry Crawford-Browne is a former international banker who has been mandated to establish a South African affiliate of Economists Allied for Arms Reduction. David Fig is a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand and was formerly director of the Group for Environmental Monitoring. For the past two decades he has been a researcher and commentator on South Africa s nuclear industry. Hazel Friedman has been a reporter with the Mail and Guardian since 1993. Gunni Govindjee is a history teacher and an executive member of the Ceasefire Campaign, a demilitarisation organisation based in Johannesburg. Jill Gowans is Environment and Tourism reporter for the Sunday Tribune in Durban. Daisy Jones is a reporter for The Star newspaper in Johannesburg. Adele Kirsten is co-ordinator for Gun-free South Africa. In the early 1990s she worked with the Peace Accord and inaugurated training in non-violence in Daveyton. Monique Marks is a lecturer in the Sociology Department at the University of Natal, Durban, and a member of a joint government and non-government grouping in the KwaZulu-Natal Policing Task Team, which aims to bring about improved policing in the province. Penny Mckenzie was the project co-ordinator of the IDRC-funded project Militarisation and the Ecology of Southern Africa . Until recently she co-ordinated GEM s Defence and Development project. Tsepe Motumi is the Director of Human Resources Policy in the South African Defence Secretariat. Laurie Nathan is executive director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution at the University of Cape Town. He served on the Cameron Commission of Inquiry into Armscor and drafted the White Paper on Defence (1996). Martin Rupiah is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Zimbabwe. Rob Thomson is a member of the Methodist Order of Peacemakers, and a member of the executive committee of the Ceasefire Campaign. Alex Vines is a research associate at Human Rights Watch and author of several books on southern Africa. Susan Willett is a defence economist working at the Centre for Defence Studies, where she is Director of the Comparative International Security Programme. Rocky Williams is the Director of Defence Policy at the South African Ministry of Defence. Sue Wixley is currently working for Oxfam (UK and Ireland) as communications officer, and has become actively involved in the South African Campaign to Ban Land-mines. 1 INTRODUCTION Jacklyn Cock Contemporary South Africa has been described as the most important experiment in democracy since the end of the Second World War (Smith, 1996:31). The consolidation of this democracy depends on the capacity of the post-apartheid state to meet human needs. This book presents an argument for shifting resources from the military towards this goal. Throughout Africa, the military has been a major obstacle to achieving democracy, and war has been instrumental in the continent s development crisis. It has meant death and injury for millions, absorbed vast amounts of national resources, caused ecological damage, destroyed infrastructure and social organisation, distorted production, and created millions of displaced people and refugees. Even when there has been victory in liberation struggles against colonial rule, or cease-fires after civil wars, real peace has often been short-lived and democratic government has not been realised. Frequently, the reason for this is the failure to demilitarise. The successful transition to peace and democracy in South Africa, as elsewhere, depends on a process of demilitarisation that involves shifting power and resources away from armed formations and military elites. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those that hunger and are not fed, are cold and are not clothed. Dwight D. Eisenhower South Africa is among some 40 countries that have changed from authoritarian to democratic rule over the past twenty years. In this political transition, restructuring the military is crucial. Huntington points