Background: different armies and different traditions

Despite the fact that South Africa’s negotiated settlement had been under discussion since early 1990, it was not until November 1993 that the armed forces of the two major political actors, the South African government and the African National Congress (ANC), became involved in direct and structured negotiations. The reasons for the ‘lag’ between the pace of the political and the military talks were, for both the ANC and the South African government, largely identical. First, both parties saw the retention of their armed forces as a form of a ‘security fallback’—a psychological and symbolic asset necessary to appease their often sceptical constituents. Second, the retention of their respective armed capabilities was seen, in very pragmatic terms, as a physical guarantee that could be utilised should the negotiation process falter.

Considerable debate had preceded the initiation of direct military negotiations between the primary protagonists—the South African Defence Force (SADF), Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK)—and the other armed forces present in South Africa at the time: the Azanian Peoples’ Liberation Army (APLA), the Transkei Defence Force (TDF), the Ciskei Defence Force (CDF), the Venda Defence Force (VDF) and the Bophuthatswana Defence Force (BDF). Given the numerical, organisational, budgetary and skills superiority of the SADF, it was maintained by many commentators that the envisaged integration process was rather going to be a process of ‘absorption’ in which MK and the other non-SADF armed forces would effectively be ‘swallowed’ by the SADF.

It was argued that there were many dangers in such a process of ‘absorption’. First, it would reduce the capacity of an incoming ANC government (by 1993 already a foregone conclusion) to effectively control the armed forces of the new democratic dispensation. Second, it would impact minimally upon the reprofessionalisation and democratisation of the armed forces (a process deemed crucial given the praetorian profile of the SADF within the PW Botha administration). Third, it would leave the officer corps largely white for the foreseeable future and reduce the capacity of the other integrating armed forces to impact meaningfully on the restructuring of the new Defence Force.

These observations were valid at the time and were, indeed, accurate for at least the initial period of the integration process. A range of factors in subsequent years (particularly the post-1996 period), however, witnessed the beginnings of a real shift in the balance of power within the armed forces. This shift had much to do with the enforced resignation of the chief of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), General George Meiring, over a report that he had presented to the president implicating senior MK officers in an alleged coup plot. The effects of this resignation on the integration and restructuring process within the SANDF is analysed in greater detail below.

To understand the significance of the South African integration process, to assess its relative success and to understand the nature of the shift in power that has occurred, and is still occurring, within its structures, it is important to divide the past six years into various phases. For purposes of simplicity the first phase will be referred to as the Joint Military Co-ordinating Council Phase—the period in which the planning for the integration process began. The second phase will be referred to as the Absorption Phase—the period during which the six non-SADF armed forces were, to all intents and purposes, absorbed into the former SADF. The third phase will be referred to as the Meiring Report Phase—the period during which General Meiring and a number of other former SADF officers were compelled to retire from the SANDF and which effectively halted the process of ‘absorption’ referred to in phase two.

Phase one: the Joint Military Co-ordinating Council phase (November 1993–April 1994)

The establishment of the Transitional Executive Council in late 1993 with its seven sub-councils—three of which had a broad security mandate in the form of the sub-councils on Defence, Intelligence and Law and Order—made the question of whether an integration process would take place an inevitability. The role of the Sub-Council on Defence was essentially political-strategic by nature. It was primarily responsible for maintaining oversight over the armed forces during the pre-election phase and for initiating the planning required to create a new, integrated, National Defence Force.

The planning and staff responsibility for the management of the pre-integration planning process was delegated to a body known as the Joint Military Co-ordinating Council (JMCC) which fell under the authority of the Sub-Council on Defence. Although the JMCC did not possess the attributes of a formal command structure, it was to become responsible for the management of a strategic planning process whereby detailed plans for the creation of the new defence force were laid. The JMCC had two chair persons who took the chair in rotation (the chief of the SADF, General George Meiring, and the MK chief of staff, Siphiwe Nyanda).

To facilitate the planning process the JMCC established a rage of working groups depending on either the functional area being addressed (personnel, intelligence, operations, logistics, finances and non-cardinal issues) or the arm of service under consideration (Army, Air Force, Navy and Medical Service). Representatives on these committees were drawn from both the statutory forces (the SADF and the TVBC armies) and from the non-statutory forces—NSF (MK and, at a later date during 1994, APLA) but, in reality, it was both the SADF and MK who ether co-chaired these committees and/or dominated their proceedings.

The SADF’s mandate regarding their participation in the JMCC was to try to keep the structures, doctrines, training culture and organisational culture as intact as possible throughout the integration process. This was achieved for a number of inter-related reasons:

The SADF’s influence over the process was most manifest in its virtual monopoly of the formal staff skills and strategic management concepts, its keen sense of bureaucratic politics, and its familiarity with the practical, conceptual, strategic and doctrinal issues underpinning both the planning and the force design process.



The SADF possessed the organisational, planning and budgetary capabilities that allowed them to prepare, in considerable detail, their various position papers well before their discussion with the formal structures of the JMCC. Invariably SADF positions came to dominate most of the proceedings of the JMCC.

Although MK’s influence over the process was significantly enhanced by the political leverage possessed by the ANC on the national political stage—a leverage that allowed it to exact key political compromises on the ranking and placement of NSF officers, the management and oversight of the integration process during the post-election period and the participation of the British armed forces as neutral arbitrators overseeing the entire process—its ability to impact more decisively upon the process was made problematic by a range of organisational and historical problems.

MK’s command and control structures within South Africa were, at the time of the JMCC, weak with its cadres dispersed throughout the country and with many being active in non-military fields (the latter being particularly pronounced with the immanence of the country’s first democratic elections). The mandate received by MK officers participating in the JMCC was often vague and MK officers frequently had to use their own political and military acumen to thwart SADF positions that would have otherwise disadvantaged non-SADF personnel in the integration process. Their ability to participate in the JMCC proceedings in a more robust manner was further limited by a range of very practical and personal problems, not least of which was the fact that most did not enjoy the benefits of a fixed income, very few possessed their own transport, material resources to support them in the preparation of position papers were virtually non-existent, and they lacked, quite simply, the advantages of an organisational infrastructure to empower them in what was an immensely detailed, complex and, for some, alienating force planning process.

The influence of MK in the process was thus uneven and depended strongly on the area of restructuring being addressed. Within the Air Force and the Navy Workgroups, the influence of MK was minimal—these being areas where MK, a primarily landward guerrilla army, had failed to build any strategic expertise. Its influence was more pronounced in the Army Workgroup (partially due to the quality of MK officers on this workgroup and partially due to the fact that the SADF co-chair of this group, a charismatic conventional force officer, was well-disposed towards and enthusiastic about the impending integration process) and within the Medical Services Workgroup (where MK officers and doctors proved adept at preparing detailed position papers on the integration process within their particular arm of service).

The TVBC armies had no significant impact on the integration process beyond the influence of a few individuals. A parochial regional focus, lack of strategic exposure, lack of a political and institutional power base beyond their regions, and sheer lack of confidence amongst many of their officers contributed to their marginalisation in the process. It is not surprising, for the reasons outlined above, that the force design of the new SANDF was largely based on that of the former SADF and that the strategies, doctrines and procedures remained unaltered (prompting one senior SADF officer at the time to comment that “the SADF got more than 80% of what it wanted out of the JMCC process”). The immanent integration process was to be based, therefore, on SADF structures and SADF rules and regulations—a phenomenon that was to greatly undermine the capacity of non-SADF forces to influence the integration process in the initial integration period.

The JMCC process was most probably significant for the fact that it formally bought hitherto warring armies together for the first time and began creating the basis for a common institutional culture and camaraderie within the organisation. It also provided a manageable and goal-oriented planning framework for the new SANDF— an advantage enjoyed by no other civilian government department at the time.

The absorption phase: the integration process (May 1994–March 1998)

The fact that the integration process relied on SADF structures and practises created the conditions for what was effectively to become the ‘absorption’ of most NSF and TVBC personnel into the structures of the ‘new’ SANDF (although this absorption process was uneven within and between the various levels of the organisation). This was partially a product of historical necessity and partially a product of vastly disparate force levels—the SADF bought some 90,000 personnel to the integration process, MK envisaged a contribution of some 22,000 personnel, the TVBC armies 11,000 members and APLA some 6,000 soldiers.

The fact that none of the non-SADF forces had an institutional power base within the SADF created innumerable obstacles to their free and fair integration into the structures of the new SANDF. At a psychological level many SADF members regarded the activities of the new SANDF as simply being ‘business as usual’ and treated integrating non-SADF members as though they were new members of a long-established organisation. Not infrequently, arrogance and racism were used by white officers to obstruct the activities of non-SADF officers within the SANDF. The continued use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction and command and control also had the effect of disempowering non-SADF officers and preventing them from contributing to or understanding the restructuring processes within which they were involved.

NSF officers in particular were disadvantaged by the fact that it took, in some cases, years for them to be integrated into the SANDF—a period during which they remained on nominal salaries without the service benefits normally accruing to regular military personnel.

The capacity of the non-SADF forces to influence the restructuring process was further limited by the positions within which they were placed, the de facto authority that these posts carried and by the training requirements that they were required to fulfil prior to being confirmed in their ranks. Most of the influential senior command and staff positions within the new SANDF continued to be occupied by former SADF officers. These positions included the chiefs of the arms of service, the chiefs of the staff divisions (Personnel, Intelligence, Operations, Finance and Logistics), the officers commanding of the territorial commands, the officers commanding the conventional forces and virtually all key strategic directorates with the Defence Headquarter establishment.

During 1994, nine non-SADF generals (three lieutenant generals and six major generals) were appointed to a number of general staff positions within the SANDF. Yet, for a number of reasons, these positions wielded only a de jure and not a de facto authority. Many of the generals were elderly MK veterans whose capacity to intervene in the restructuring process was limited by age, lack of familiarity with the strategic, staff and operational concepts being utilised within the SANDF and the fact that little effective staff support was provided to enable them to navigate the treacherous waters of post-election defence restructuring. Invariably a number of these generals were ‘ringfenced’, at best, by former SADF officers who assumed responsibility for the bulk of their command and staff duties or, at worst, were effectively excluded from the de facto decision-making chains within the staff division or arm of service concerned.

Those generals who were appointed to influential command positions (the chief of defence staff and the officers commanding two of the territorial commands, for instance) were kept out of these positions for a number of years due to the courses that they had to complete prior to their substantiation in their ranks. The training requirements of the integrating non-SADF members were extensive and provided a convenient rationale for the exclusion of non-SADF members from either the key staff and command appointments in the SANDF or from the various transformational processes under way within the organisation. In some cases problems of indiscipline (manifesting in a series of MK mutinies at the assembly areas) and the presence of alternative career opportunities outside of the organisation, saw many MK members leaving the SANDF anyway.

Areas where such a process of institutional and cultural absorption were less pronounced were in the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Secretariat. The Ministry of Defence, under the political control of Minister Joe Modise (the former commander of MK) and Deputy Minster Ronnie Kasrils, strongly resisted attempts by the chief of the National Defence Force to determine the political and strategic agenda according to which the restructuring of the defence function should proceed. This led to heated exchanges within the Council of Defence where the ministers, secretary for defence and the chief made their key decisions, and a fair degree of political tension ensued between the office of the minister and the office of the chief of the National Defence Force.

The capacity of the Ministry to implement its proposed policies depended, critically, on its ability to secure trusted personnel to oversee and execute this process. This was found in the newly established Defence Secretariat where a small group of former MK and liberal SADF officers had been appointed to key positions within, in particular, the Policy and Planning and Finance divisions. The process of de facto absorption referred to above began being reversed by two processes in particular. The first was the successful manner in which the Ministry of Defence, via the Defence Secretariat, succeeded in managing the Defence White Paper process and, more significantly, the exceedingly comprehensive Defence Review process.

These processes considerably empowered the Ministry in its dealings with the chief of the National Defence Force for two inter-related reasons. The first was the fact that it produced the ‘blueprint’, an ambitious transformational plan, upon which defence restructuring would be predicated in the forthcoming decade. The second was the fact that this ‘blueprint’ was designed jointly with parliament’s powerful Joint Standing Committee on Defence (JSCD). The entrance of the JSCD into the political and policy debate, and its resolute determination not to approve any policies or procurement programmes that did not meet with their endorsement, began shifting the locus of decision making away from the Meiring faction within the SANDF towards the terrain of the Ministry and parliament.

The process of absorption also began being reversed by a further series of developments that ‘old guard’ elements within the SANDF had not anticipated in 1993 and 1994. This was the simple but inescapable fact that non-SADF officers in general, and MK officers in particular, were completing their compulsory training courses and were now ready for real deployment with the SANDF. The strategy of excluding NSF and non-SADF officers from posts and processes on the basis of their training commitments was now coming to an end and it was in this environment that the Meiring Report surfaced.

The Meiring Report phase: The shift in the balance of power occurs (March 1998–present)

In early 1998 the chief of the National Defence Force submitted a report to President Mandela. The lengthy document (numbering more than 80 pages), written in appalling English and with very little strategic and logical continuity, detailed bizarre allegations of a plot by an allegedly disaffected grouping known as MKAPLA and including prominent politicians, business people, military officers, civil servants and international personalities (the latter including none other than Michael Jackson) who had as their aim the revolutionary seizure of power via a combination of mass insurrection and a classic military coup d’etat.

Apart from the content of the report, which was replete with conspiracy theories reminiscent of the ‘Total Strategy’ period of the 1980s, it was the persons against whom it was directed and the manner in which it was processed that caused such concern. Persons mentioned as being involved in the conspiracy included none other than the heir apparent to General Meiring himself, Lt General Siphiwe Nyanda, the chief of the Services Corps, Lt General Lambert Moloi, the chief of the Medical Services, Lt General Masuku, and a number of other prominent MK officers within the structures of the SANDF.

The allegations were based on untested intelligence provided by a sole source who had been handled by defence intelligence since the early 1990s. During the process of compiling the report no attempt had been made to ‘test’ the intelligence with other members of the intelligence community (the South African Secret Service, the National Intelligence Agency and Criminal Intelligence), it was not processed to the president via the required channels (the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee and the Cabinet Committee on Safety, Security and Intelligence), the Minister of Defence had only been broadly informed of its content (which he dismissed as laughable), and the Deputy Chief of Staff Intelligence (a former MK officer) was singularly unaware of the existence of the report.

Why did General Meiring, a highly capable and politically astute officer, decide to take a report of this nature to the president? The response from the chief of the National Defence Force’s office was straightforward. Given the sensitivity of the information contained in the report and given the political ramifications of the information, the chief had decided to use his privileged access to the commander-in-chief to highlight his concerns regarding the content of the report. Other theories also abounded. One was that the chief had been ‘set up’ by reactionary officers within the SANDF (an unlikely scenario given Meiring’s own conservatism and the indisputable authority he wielded over his officers in general and former SADF officers in particular).

Another explanation related to the internal power struggles occurring within the SANDF. It was known that the chief had, on occasions, expressed his concern to both the minister of Defence and the president about the ability of many MK officers to assume responsibility for the senior command and staff positions for which they had been designated. It was also rumoured that he was concerned about the capabilities of the chief of Defence Force designate, Lt General Siphiwe Nyanda, to assume command of the National Defence Force upon completion of General Meiring’s contract (due to expire in 1999) and would prefer the appointment of Lt General Hechter, chief of the Air Force, in this position.

Proponents of this theory maintained that the report provided a justification for discrediting some of their heir apparents—a vacuum that would have allowed other candidates to be proposed for the various positions. It is unlikely that the exact motives for the decision to provide the report to the president will ever be known. What is clear, however, is that it occasioned a severe breakdown of trust between the political elite and the commander of the SANDF, and it was evident that no amount of explaining would restore the working relationship that had hitherto existed between these two levels of government.

This was testified to by the reaction of the president and the deputy president. The reaction of the Office of the President and the deputy president was decisive and brutal. Both had long been concerned about the manner in which the intelligence services had been bypassing the necessary oversight and regulatory channels to present untested information to the presidency. The presidency had also been concerned that the SANDF was misusing its privileged relationship with the commander-in-chief to lobby him for greater budgetary allocations for the armed forces. Both the president and the deputy president were, apparently, outraged at the allegations made in the report and it was made clear to the Ministry of Defence that General Meiring and other senior officers involved in the compilation of the report would have to resign. Within a period of a few months General Meiring resigned (to be replaced by General Siphwe Nyanda), the chief of the Army, Lt General Reg Otto was replaced with Lt General Gilbert Romano and the chief of Defence Intelligence, from whence the report had emanated, was replaced with Lt General Mojo Motau.

This shift in the balance of power had a two-fold effect. First, it signalled the demise of the so-called ‘old guard’ within the new SANDF. This clique basically referred to a prominent faction from the old SADF which was centred largely around the personality of the chief of the National Defence Force, General George Meiring, and was bound together by a complex web of personal ties, shared historical experiences (most came from a strong counter-insurgency background—particularly via their involvement in the various South West Africa campaigns—and virtually all owed their career progression to either the patronage of PW Botha and/or emerged into prominence during the PW Botha years), institutional loyalties (most, but certainly not all, were former South African Army officers with extensive counter-insurgency experience) and common political sentiments (most had been closely allied with the PW Botha faction within the National Party, some even enjoyed sympathies to the right of the National Party and many had been active members of the Broederbond).

Second, and this point is related to the first, the demise of this conservative faction heralded the rise in prominence of two new groupings within the SANDF—both of which increasingly made common cause with one another in the restructuring of the SANDF and which provided the basis for the emergence of a hegemonic bloc of constitutionally inclined officers. The first grouping consisted of those former SADF officers who were supportive of the democratic transition and who acknowledged the importance of transforming the Department of Defence at all levels (in terms of its organisational efficiency, equal opportunities and affirmative action and through the realignment of defence policies with the changed strategic environment).

These individuals were drawn from many different quarters but consisted mainly of senior officers from the South African Army’s conventional forces (largely untainted by the more controversial aspects of counter-insurgency deployment), certain senior staff officers from both the South African Navy and the South African Air Force (particularly those who had been involved in the strategic management functions of both arms of service), certain senior officers from the South African Medical Services, and a handful of former SADF officers who had civilianised within the new Defence Secretariat. The second grouping consisted mainly of former MK officers located largely in the SANDF but also including a handful of civilianised officers within the Defence Ministry and the Defence Secretariat, as well as various SANDF officers drawn from the ranks of APLA and the former TDF (the latter having enjoyed close links with both MK and APLA during the last seven years of Transkei ‘independence’).

With the conservative axis removed from the SANDF, and with a spate of further resignations succeeding those of General Meiring and the other generals, a wide range of black officers, now course qualified and ready for promotion, were promoted into senior command and staff positions. A number of new generals took over as general officers commanding the territorial commands, some were appointed chief of staff of the territorial commands, a black MK general was appointed the first officer commanding of a conventional brigade and many others assumed senior appointments in the intelligence, personnel and financial divisions.

South African defence restructuring into the new millennium

The integration process reflected the twin realities of a vastly changing political terrain outside the National Defence Force and the beginning of a very real shift in the balance of power within the institution itself. Problems persist and these will take time to rectify. The senior officer corps continues to remain largely white, certain areas are still woefully unrepresentative in terms of race and gender (command of the conventional brigades and battalion commanders, for instance) and the Air Force and the Navy have lamentably few black officers in the senior officer ranks. Future years will require the vigorous management of the Department of Defence’s equal opportunity programme to ensure that these problems are addressed in such a manner that the command and combat capabilities are maintained.

But the Defence Force is beginning to benefit from the vision and capabilities of a mixed group of black and white officers who are increasingly disenthralled of the old political prejudices that divided them and are increasingly identifying with one another as fellow officers and not adversaries. In a very real sense South African civil–military relations have turned a corner and the integration process, now largely complete, has contributed to the laying of a basis for the emergence of a new institutional culture and espirit de corps in the SANDF. This is a significant accomplishment in light of the histories of the seven different armies that came together to form the SANDF. It has been a difficult and complex process, managed in a continually changing international and sub-regional environment, yet it is a process that is beginning to bear fruit.

Perhaps most significant of these is the fact that despite these institutional challenges and tensions, the SANDF has maintained its institutional cohesion and, more importantly, has continued to execute its constitutionally mandated responsibilities. This is an impressive accomplishment if one compares this process with the chequered record of those of other countries that have attempted to integrate fewer armed forces with less success over a longer period of time.

The success of this process in the long-term, however, is not a given and will depend on the ongoing political management of South Africa’s complex transition and the level of leadership that will be provided to the armed forces themselves. Real problems (perhaps inevitable, given South Africa’s history) persist within the new SANDF. Considerable uncertainty prevails at all rank levels and amongst all constituent forces of the new Defence Force regarding the immanent spectre of demobilisation (from the present levels of 90,000 to 65,000 over the next five years). Pockets of racial and cultural tension (the latter referring to non-ethnic factors such as different military-institutional traditions and expectations) continue to exist at all levels of the hierarchy (although they remain more pronounced within the lower levels of the hierarchy). Finally, real leadership needs to be provided at levels of the officer corps and the non-commissioned officer cadre if the force is to maintain the momentum it has to date. The forthcoming decade will indicate whether the SANDF will continue to remain a professional and largely modern defence force or a force that is incrementally undermined by the immensity of the historical problems it has inherited.

Conclusion: lessons for integrating armed forces elsewhere in the world?

It is clear that the South African integration process provides a number of salient lessons for armed forces integrating elsewhere in the world. The integration process of any country is invariably highly specific and is conditioned by the peculiarities of the country concerned. For any integration and/or restructuring process to be successful, it is imperative that a number of conditions are met, i.e. that:

a viable and lasting political settlement between the different belligerents has been attained;



a high level of political will exists on behalf of the major parties involved in the post-conflict scenario. This political will must be enforceable to ensure that the rank and file of the organisation comply with the directives of leadership;



the principles, values and objectives of the proposed restructuring process are reflected in key ‘core’ documents—the constitution, the appropriate legislation and key national policy documents;



the management of the process be inclusive, involving all former belligerents and that it be tailored to domestic realities;



a realistic assessment be made of the institutional capacity of the armed forces to deal with complex transformational challenges and that transformational objectives be defined accordingly;



transformational objectives be prioritised—one cannot do everything at the same time—and these priorities be adhered to;



a realistic assessment be made of the balance of power within the armed forces to ensure that reactionary officers with obstructionist tendencies are identified and isolated during the integration process;



a viable and sustainable demobilisation strategy be formulated during the early stages of the integration and/or restructuring processes and that a realistic assessment of resource availability be conducted; and



any restructuring process and the policies that emerge from that process be integrated into government’s national developmental plan.

The South African integration process can provide many lessons with regard to the above, however, it is important to stress that this process occurred in a unique environment and under highly unusual circumstances.