The South African military and peacekeeping: Reflections on conditions, capacity-building and prospects

The original publication is available at http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za/pubSince the advent of a new dispensation in South Africa, expectations in Africa and elsewhere have steadily grown regarding South Africa's potential role as a peacekeeper in African conflicts. In fact, South Africa has been identified by many observers as the one state able to ensure effective peacekeeping on the African continent. On paper, South Africa's military capabilities appear impressive in terms of African standards. However, in reality there are current impediments to a major role for the South African military in Africa, of which the delicacy of the ongoing transformation process of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and financial constraints are significant. Moreover, it would seem that South Africa has thus far preferred the role of diplomatic peacemaker to that of forceful peacekeeper.Publisher's versio

The emerging South African profile in Africa: Reflections on the significance of South Africa's entrance into peacekeeping

Since the political transformation in South Africa in 1994, there has been a steady growth in expectations in Africa and elsewhere regarding South Africa's role as a peacekeeper in African conflicts. With its participation in two peace missions of the United Nations (UN) in Africa, the country now seeks to take up its rightful role in international peacekeeping, both politically and militarily. It can rightly be stated that South Africa's engagement in peacekeeping is of great interest from a foreign policy and security point of view. This paper endeavours to discuss South Africa's emerging profile in Africa. Especially, it attempts to reflect and comment on the significance and importance of the country's contributions to multinational peacekeeping

Maintaining international peace and security : reflections on peace-support operations in Africa

CITATION: Neethling, T. 1998. Maintaining international peace and security : reflections on peace-support operations in Africa. Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, 28(1):111-137, doi:10.5787/28-1-202.The original publication is available at http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za/pubThe shift from a bipolar to a multipolar and multi-faceted world has reduced the risk of conventional inter-state wars, but has been the cause of several intra-state armed conflicts with an even higher risk of regional instability. Such conflicts and the resurgence of a global activism have produced a dramatic growth in peacekeeping requirements since the end of the previous decade. The international response, mainly through the United Nations (UN), has been to promote preventive diplomacy and, in a number of cases, to conduct peace-support operations. In brief, this paper points out that each UN peace-support operation places an extremely high premium on UN administration, organisation, coordination and resources. To this end, a multiplicity of contributions from various role-players is needed. It also points out that peace-support operations require significant commitments on the part of participating states, specifically the willingness to accept financial costs and fatalities in the interest of promoting international and regional stability. This is especially true in the case of African peacekeeping. This paper, furthermore, underscores the fact that the undertaking of peace-support operations in Africa is by no means a simple and easy task. The nature of peacekeeping missions in certain African countries have, in fact, resulted in an increasing reluctance on the part of the major powers and some of the other traditional troop-contributing nations to deploy on African soil. It concludes that the real impact of the post-Cold War era is that the burden of resolving African conflicts rests more and more on Africans. African countries and organisations are accordingly compelled to take measures and develop strategies to address the peacekeeping requirements on the continent.http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/202Publisher's versio

Peacekeeping in Africa: Reflections on developments and trends

Africa is arguably the most important regional selling for United Nations peacekeeping challenges. Hence, Africa is the first continent where extensive efforts have recently been made between the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity with the specific aim of enhancing the management of conflicts in the region. It is significant that the UN now seems prepared to form partnerships with willing regional organisations and alliances in Africa with regard to the conducting of peace-support operations. At the same time, the United States and certain European nations have begun to support the idea of an African response capability of some kind. Another significant development relates to the fact that sub-regional organisations in Africa have started to feature as important peacekeeping instruments in recent years as it has increasingly been accepted that there is a need for such institutions to take care of their own security requirements. In this regard, the “indigenous" intervention operations without UN endorsement or involvement in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Lesotho are of particular interest, as these would seem to represent a new dimension in the management of African peacekeeping requirements. What is needed in the African context is to establish an acceptable basis for involvement or intervention in intra-state conflicts that respects the dignity and independence of stales without sanctioning the misuse of sovereign rights to violate the security of people within a stale's borders. It would therefore be desirable that all the roleplayers in Africa and further afield should develop a set of broad principles to respond appropriately and speedily to situations where the security of people is imperilled

Suid-Afrika en vredesteunoperasies: perspektiewe op uitgangspunte en oorwegings

Since South Africa held its first non-racial and democratic elections international expectations regarding South Africa's role as a member of the international community have grown. These have ranged from the hope that South Africa, like other African states, will play a responsible role in the resolution of various intra-state conflicts in Africa, to an expectation that South Africa will play an increasing leadership role in subregional, regional and even international organisations in respect of peace support operations. On paper South Africa's military capabilities appear impressive, but in reality there are certain impediments to a major role for the South African National Defence Force. Notwithstanding such impediments and the novelty ofsuch operations to South Africa, it would seem that tire sheer force of circumstance is likely to propel South Africa into the subregional and African peace suppon operations arena. Accordingly, tire South African government have attempted to fonnulate a coherent policy on peace suppon operations with a view to responding pro-actively and constructively to the expectations and challenges. This article will assess the premises and considerations as regards South Africa's commitment to participation in peace support operations

THEORETICAL APPROACHES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: THE SOUTH AFRICAN MILITARY AS A FOREIGN POLICY INSTRUMENT

The utility of theoretical approaches in international relations can be found in the fact that such approaches provide ‘lenses’ that can be applied to enhance our understanding of the social dynamics of the world we live in. Theoretical approaches are also instrumental in shaping perceptions of what matters in international politics as a social activity. At least indirectly, such approaches inform the choices made by decision-makers on foreign policy and related defence planning. The aim of this article is to revisit those theoretical approaches in international relations that underlie security studies, and to evaluate the relevance of the approaches with regard to a scholarly understanding of militaries and specifically their roles and functions in a foreign policy context. The latter pertains to militaries in general but also to the South African military in particular regarding its role and function as a foreign policy instrument of the South African government

PURSUING HUMAN SECURITY IN AFRICA THROUGH DEVELOPMENTAL PEACE MISSIONS: AMBITIOUS CONSTRUCT OR FEASIBLE IDEAL?

Pursuing human security through Developmental Peace Missions: Ambitious construct or feasible ideal? appears at a time when the continent of Africa is wrought by conflict, internal unrest and not-so-civil war, compelling African leaders to grapple with the theory and reality of peacekeeping and conflict resolution in extremely difficult and challenging environments. Notions of Developmental Peace Missions (DPMs) emanated from both the political debate and the study of African peace missions by university-based and NGO-employed researchers. This volume examines DPMs and assesses the utility of the concept itself as a means to pursue sustainable levels of human security through a combination of peacekeeping interventions. DPMs, which envisage a model of concurrent developmental efforts and security actions to turn back destructive internal African conflicts, is a noteworthy South African contribution to this debate. The editorial staff of Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies are pleased to publish this third Supplementa, which is probably the most comprehensive work on DPMs to date and of immediate interest to the defence community. Pursuing human security developed under the supervision of Prof Theo Neethling and Maj Benjamin Mokoena and was submitted by Lt Col Laetitia Olivier as a thesis, presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Military Science (MMil) in Security and Africa Studies at the Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University. It has been editorially altered and revised for this publication. The valuable inputs made by Prof DJ Kotze of Unisa as external examiner, as well as those proffered by the lecturing staff of the School for Security and Africa Studies during the initial research colloquium are acknowledged

Collecting evidence on the use of parliamentary oversight tools : a South African case study

CITATION: Van Rensburg, W. J., Vrey, F. & Neethling, T. 2020. Collecting evidence on the use of parliamentary oversight tools : a South African case study. African Evaluation Journal, 8(1):a424, doi:10.4102/aej.v8i1.424.The original publication is available at https://aejonline.org/index.php/aej/Background: Parliament, through its oversight function, plays a central role in holding the executive to account. In South Africa’s 2014 Defence Review policy document, it was stated that the ‘Defence Force is in a critical state of decline’. This brings about the question whether the South African Parliament effectively held the executive to account regarding developments around defence. Objectives: The article aims to gather evidence on the use of oversight tools by the South African Parliament over a 20-year period, within the post-1994 democratic dispensation, in order to determine the broader trajectory of parliamentary defence oversight. Method: To determine the trajectory of oversight, this article gathered evidence on the use of internationally recognised parliamentary oversight tools by South Africa’s two parliamentary defence committees from 1994 to 2014. The period allows for a 20-year review of oversight of defence, inclusive of four full parliamentary terms. Evidence was collected on parliamentary debates, questions, special inquiries, oversight visits and the use of external audits as oversight tools. Results: The article found that tools were used with varying degrees of success. Results for research on each oversight tool is discussed. Conclusion: Based on evidence on the use of oversight tools, this article concludes that over a 20-year period there was a declining trajectory in parliamentary oversight of the defence portfolio. The proven applicability of the criteria utilised in this article can serve to inform evaluations of the effectiveness of parliamentary oversight, specifically at committee level.Publisher's versio

Mortality trends and diff erentials in South Africa from 1997 to 2012: second National Burden of Disease Study

Background The poor health of South Africans is known to be associated with a quadruple disease burden. In the second National Burden of Disease (NBD) study, we aimed to analyse cause of death data for 1997–2012 and develop national, population group, and provincial estimates of the levels and causes of mortality. Method We used underlying cause of death data from death notifi cations for 1997–2012 obtained from Statistics South Africa. These data were adjusted for completeness using indirect demographic techniques for adults and comparison with survey and census estimates for child mortality. A regression approach was used to estimate misclassifi ed HIV/AIDS deaths and so-called garbage codes were proportionally redistributed by age, sex, and population group population group (black African, Indian or Asian descent, white [European descent], and coloured [of mixed ancestry according to the preceding categories]). Injury deaths were estimated from additional data sources. Age-standardised death rates were calculated with mid-year population estimates and the WHO age standard. Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation Global Burden of Disease (IHME GBD) estimates for South Africa were obtained from the IHME GHDx website for comparison. Findings All-cause age-standardised death rates increased rapidly since 1997, peaked in 2006 and then declined, driven by changes in HIV/AIDS. Mortality from tuberculosis, non-communicable diseases, and injuries decreased slightly. In 2012, HIV/AIDS caused the most deaths (29·1%) followed by cerebrovascular disease (7·5%) and lower respiratory infections (4·9%). All-cause age-standardised death rates were 1·7 times higher in the province with the highest death rate compared to the province with the lowest death rate, 2·2 times higher in black Africans compared to whites, and 1·4 times higher in males compared with females. Comparison with the IHME GBD estimates for South Africa revealed substantial diff erences for estimated deaths from all causes, particularly HIV/AIDS and interpersonal violence. Interpretation This study shows the reversal of HIV/AIDS, non-communicable disease, and injury mortality trends in South Africa during the study period. Mortality diff erentials show the importance of social determinants, raise concerns about the quality of health services, and provide relevant information to policy makers for addressing inequalities. Diff erences between GBD estimates for South Africa and this study emphasise the need for more careful calibration of global models with local data