President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended the deployment of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to certain parts of the Western Cape.
He reacted to the Congress of the People (COPE) leader, Mosiuoa Lekota’s criticism during the debate of the Presidency’s budget vote that the presence of the army in communities had led to the killing of many innocent people in the past.
Soldiers arrived in Manenberg on the Cape Flats on Thursday, a week after Police Minister Bheki Cele announced that the SANDF will be deployed in the area to help combat rampant gang-related crime.
Ramaphosa told Parliament on Thursday that the army is capable of performing peacekeeping operations.
He says, “It’s not the defense force of old. The defense force of old was the one that went into the township that used people as targets for shooting. This is the defense force of Democratic South Africa, been involved in many peacekeeping operations in various parts of the continent.”
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