Defence Blog Canada

John AllenCape Town

South African military personnel will travel into flash points in the country's economical heartland to assist police force force end onslaughts on migrators from other parts of Africa.

President Thabo Mbeki's business office annnounced late on Wednesday that he had approved a police petition for aid from the South African National Defense Mechanism Military Unit in fillet onslaughts on foreign subjects in Gauteng Province.

More than 20 migrators have got been killed and one thousands driven from their places since the force began in Alexandra Township in Gauteng last week.

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The well-informed military letter writer of the Gauteng newspaper, Beeld, reported earlier today that the defense mechanism military unit chief, General Godfrey Ngwenya, had transmitted a police force petition for aid to Mbeki's business office on Monday. The regular army was ready to act, the study said, but had to expect Mbeki's decision. South Africa's fundamental law necessitates presidential blessing for the deployment of the regular army in support of police.

The newspaper quoted military beginnings as saying the defense mechanism force's primary purpose would be to mount a show of military unit to do it easier for the police force military unit to stop the violence. The police force had asked for troops, armoured vehicles and aircraft. Military medical services would also be deployed.

Since liberation, military personnel have got rarely been seen on the streets of South Africa. Deploying them in achromatic residential countries is controversial, associated in the heads of many with the concluding years of the battle against apartheid. In the 1980s, apartheid leadership mobilised their regular army against anti-apartheid activistics who were responding to phone calls from African National United States Congress leadership in expatriate - Mbeki outstanding among them - to do the countries "ungovernable".