JOHANNESBURG — A South Africa human rights group, Afriforum, yesterday successfully applied for an interdict to prevent the South African defence force from transferring retired military helicopters to Zimbabwe.
Report by Mail&Guardian/Staff Reporter
Yesterday the Mail & Guardian reported on the deal in which the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was to donate Alouette III helicopters and spares to the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF).
Afriforum lodged an appeal at the North Gauteng High Court asking for an interim interdict prohibiting the SANDF from delivering any helicopters or spares to the ZDF pending an application for a review of the decision to donate them.
The interdict was granted late yesterday afternoon. Court papers listed the Minister of Defence, the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), and the Secretary for Defence in her capacity as head of the secretariat of the NCACC as the respondents.
Afriforum’s legal spokesperson Willie Spies said the group had asked for a temporary interdict, with a return date of February 19, when the respondents were to return to court to give reasons why the interdict should not become a final interim interdict pending a review of the decision.
Spies said Afriforum, which had earlier heard rumours of the deal, had written to the Defence department on January 17, asking for details on it, but had not had a response.
The group decided to seek an interdict in court after learning that the Defence department had confirmed that the helicopters and spares were “ready for dispatch”.
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In its legal papers, Afriforum argued that the deal contravened section 15 of the National Conventional Arms Control Act, which requires that the NCACC “avoid contributing to internal repression, including the systematic violation or suppression of human rights and fundamental freedoms” and “avoid transfers of conventional arms to governments that systematically violate or suppress human rights and fundamental freedoms”.
Spies said his organisation was overjoyed that the application had been successful. He added that AfriForum would continue to use all legal avenues at its disposal to prevent delivery of the aircraft to Zimbabwe.
Exports of military hardware from South Africa must be sanctioned by the NCACC, which is chaired by Justice minister Jeff Radebe. But Radebe’s spokesperson, Mthunzi Mhaga, said the Alouettes and spares did not “fall within the NCACC’s parameters of control” under its enabling legislation.
The NCACC was apparently relying on the classification of the helicopters as “civilian” after their guns were stripped out, though both the giver and the intended recipient are military.
But Spies said that this argument was “absolutely legally flawed” and that Afriforum had little doubt that it would succeed in its bid to attain the interdict.
The deal had raised fears that the helicopters would be used in a military-backed campaign to put President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party back in power in polls expected this year.
Zimbabwe is scheduled to hold elections by the end of March, although they are widely expected to be delayed for some months. Apprehension is building in civil society and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change that the military will step in, as it did during the violent 2008 presidential run-off to save Mugabe.
The Defence department had defended the donation, saying that it stemmed from“a decision that was taken by the former and first Minister of Defence, Joe Modise, in 1997 when (the Alouettes) were being phased out. How the donation of the spares to the ZDF relate to the forthcoming elections in that country is difficult to understand”.
“The SANDF would like to place it on record that it has a bilateral agreement with the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and a number of exchanges in various fields between the two Defence forces have taken place and will continue”
