The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Dale T. McKinley -
The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is drowning in a sea of mismanagement, corruption, political manipulation and strategic myopia.
While this state of affairs will probably not result in an imminent ‘attack’ on the Union Buildings, as was the case in 2009 when justifiably angry rank-and-file soldiers protested over conditions of service, the ongoing fallout is much worse.
It’s hard to know where to begin but let’s start with the basics....
Richard Pithouse -
In his speech at the memorial service for the soldiers who were killed in the Central African Republic Jacob Zuma presented us, and not for the first time, with the idea that we should receive another accumulation of bodies – of black bodies – as a tragedy, as a cruel consequence of the random movement of the wheel of fortune. Thabo Mbeki, watching our steady accretion of 'tragedies' from the sidelines, might, perhaps, have recalled a line from Shakespeare: “Our remedies oft...
Glenn Ashton -
The role of the military in Africa has morphed from the established model of supporting strongmen, to that of projecting economic power and influence. This has recently been placed in sharp focus by the questionable intervention of South African National Defence Force (SANDF) troops in the Central African Republic (CAR).
The opacity around South Africa’s presence in the CAR has been tragically emphasised by the statistically unsatisfactory outcome of 13 dead and 26 declared injured...
Jane Duncan -
Many South Africans are worried about the mounting evidence of abuse of security cluster resources, and rightly so, as it is a highly sensitive area of government that could easily be used against political opponents of the ruling elite. Without investigative journalists drawing on sources of information inside the cluster, these abuses may not have come to light.
Security cluster employees are often the first people to become aware of abuses, as they are close to the action and...
