President Cyril Ramaphosa has acknowledged calls for the deployment of the South African army in gang-ridden areas but suggests that police investigative work will inform such decisions.
He spoke to the media on the sidelines of the opening of the ANC NEC Lekgotla on Saturday, following renewed calls, particularly from crime fighters in the Western Cape.
Organisations like Cape Flats Safety Forum want a military presence on the Cape Flats to quell the ongoing gang violence
Meanwhile, organisations like the Cape Crime Crisis Coalition are calling for the issue to be declared a state of disaster, with chairperson, Dr Llewellyn MacMaster, arguing that ordinary policing was insufficient to address the scale of the crisis that is gang violence.
READ MORE: Fresh demands to declare gang violence a state disaster
Ramaphosa on Sunday noted that the army can be deployed to assist, but that the police have to be “armed with good intelligence”.
He added and stressed that the army’s role differed from that of the police.
“The army, as it engages in any situation, are not police people. They don’t investigate. When they see somebody who is doing wrong, they see that as an enemy and they shoot to kill. So, we have to balance all the deployments of these forces,” said Ramaphosa.
He said deployments needed to be balanced and coordinated to avoid unintended consequences.
According to the President, the preferred approach was a “multidisciplinary” one, where the army could support police operations rather than replace them.
“The army can come in to support the police, and the police also have to be armed with good intelligence… Crime intelligence should be on site to be able to know exactly who the wrongdoers are.”
He suggests that with proper intelligence on the criminals, “other forces can give support”.
“Gang violence is one of those challenges that we’re facing that is very, very prominent in our minds,” said Ramaphosa.
