"Government insists SANDF 'not in crisis' " (Cape Times, August 26) refers. It does seem that what goes around, comes around. Just over 50 years ago a very negative report on the Union Defence Force had been submitted by the Auditor General.

Assertions by the government that, on the contrary, the UDF was in fact battle-worthy only seemed plausible due to a number of high-profile equipment acquisitions taking place at the time.

The then Minister of Defence's claim was that they were "reorganising and streamlining". Seems almost like déjˆ vuâ doesn't it?

The British Military Liaison Officer at that time commented: "The minister's desire to learn how to streamline is in itself admirable, except there are no forces to streamline."

An assessment by the US representative was to the effect that defence morale was low due to insufficient pay and poor living conditions as well as "political interference"â as the National Party moved to "nationalise" the UDF - this last what we would today term rationalisation or affirmative action.

That the situation in the SADF at that time did not become a catastrophe was due only to the fact that South Africa's foreign and defence policy was rapidly moving into a "back to the laager" mode.

This is not the case in 2005. Nepad and the military "peace keeping" policies place a load on the modern SANDF which the old UDF did not have to face. We cannot allow political face- saving at the expense of the SANDF. Neither can the SANDF afford to follow the old, rather subversive, "if you, the government, tell us to do it, we can do it with what we have" approach and then use limited running costs to do it.

Neither can the ANC afford to follow in the footsteps of old National Party.

In the same vein, if the opposition parties really do have the interests of South Africa rather than those of their own party at heart, then they must also be prepared to support the government in policies which are in the long-term interest of South Africa. Don't make a political football out of the SANDF.

Take the trouble to understand the very real problems that they face and admit that the problems they face at this time are NOT caused by the arms acquisitions. In fact to the contrary.

The basic problem is that as the major power in sub-Saharan Africa, it is not good enough that we are only prepared to allocate a meagre 1.6 or 1.7% of GNP to defence.

If we really want Nepad to work, if we really want to play an important and helpful role in bringing peace to the African continent, then we must be prepared to allocate at the very least 2.2% to defence.

We must further ensure that a sufficient portion of that Budget is allocated to operating costs, thus ensuring the battle-worthiness of all three arms of the SANDF and in the process thus also helping to save the lives of our soldiers facing danger in other parts of Africa.

Our only other alternative is to return to the inward-looking laager mentality. But then we must not whinge and whine when someone else who we do not like fills the vacuum that we leave in Africa.

Rear Admiral Chris Bennett SAN (Retired)
Tokai

With acknowledgements to Chris Bennett and the Cape Times.