MEDIA STATEMENT BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL DEFENCE UNION (SANDU) IN REACTION THE THE CONFUSION SURROUNDING THE GUPTA USE OF AIR FORCE BASE

Pretoria

1 May 2013. 

SANDU wishes to point out that on 30 April 2013 the Department of Defence denied officially on an e NCA interview that it had ever granted permission for the Gupta entourage of guests to use AFB Waterkloof as a landing facility. 

On the same evening the Department of International Relations issued a statement apparently under the name of the spokesperson of the Department of Defence, claiming that permission had indeed been granted according with diplomatic courtesy customs. Being a formal government statement, the latter was rightly interpreted to represent an about turn on Defence's earlier denials. 

The International Relations statement was subsequently rejected by the Department of Defence an hour later, again insisting that Defence had never given the permission referred to. Notwithstanding this 2nd denial by Defence, the Department of International Relations again reportedly confirmed to e NCA that in fact Defence had given permission. 

The confusing and embarrassing result is that there are now 2 different departments contradicting each other publicly on this matter. 

The following explanations for this contradiction exist:

The Department of Defence was completely disregarded in the permission being granted and its power over usage of a major military facility usurped without its consent or knowledge. This would represent a major cause for concern as it would imply a total absence of military control and security over our airspace and military landing facilities; the same applies if the Department of Defence was informed, opposed the venture but was nevertheless over ruled. The 3rd possibility is that the Department of Defence claims of not granting permission is false.

The fact remains that the usage of a military facility such as AFB Waterkloof in the manner employed yesterday, can never occur without the active participation of the military personnel and their command structure stationed at that facility which includes Air Traffic Controlllers, Fire Fighters, Ground crew, Security personnel, Logistical officers and their command. These factors alone makes the Defence denials more unlikely. The only other possibility is that these military personnel were directed and controlled by powers outside the military sphere of command, which would in turn represent a total emasculation of our military leaders of their control function over the SANDF.

The egg dance which has ensued around the explanation of this entire fiasco is unacceptable and farcical. Either someone within government structures is riding roughshod over military command and control or the ministry of Defence is misleading the public by either being afraid to admit same, or by simply falsely denying that it had been complicit in the landing permission being granted.

Either way, what soldiers and the public are now seeing is usage of a military facility for essentially private reasons without any acceptable explanation. Given that abuse of military equipment and facilities is a criminal offence under the Military Discipline Code, soldiers now observe at face value and in absence of any acceptable explanation an offence perpetrated seemingly with the backing from authorities. The message sent out is that abuse of miliatry facilities is okay as long as permission, however dubiously obtained, has been given. The fact is that this country is in the precarious and embarrassing position that its authorities are in complete confusion as to who gave permission for the usage of the largest and strategically one of the most important military facilities of South Africa. Clearly leadership is severely lacking.

Statement issued by Pikkie Greeff, SANDU national secretary, May 1 2013

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