Brothers and sisters in uniform

The recent upsurge in incidents of violence between these two respected institutions is a cause for serious concern to every right-thinking citizen, whether that citizen is in uniform or not. No civil strife poses a greater threat to the survival of a state than a conflict between the armed groups responsible for maintaining law and order. It is obvious that the police and soldiers on the ground are unsure of where they stand regarding each other and the two Commissioners need to come out and publicly outline the protocols for when the two sides enter a situation of potential conflict.

What is the duty of a soldier when he is stopped and questioned by a police officer? When should he cooperate and when not? When should a police officer step aside for the army? These kinds of situations and questions need answers that result in a set policy for inter-service interactions, and this policy needs to be made public.

The Police Commissioner has recently expressed his distress at the wayward behaviour of some of his subordinates and called for a return to the professionalism which marks an effective police service. His statement alone has gone a long way to mend the image of the police, which has taken a recent battering for their violent and abusive interactions with the public in the pursuit of the notorious ‘Scarface’. Hopefully, he will take actions concomitant with his statements because until police officers are actively pursued by the police and prosecuted by the Director of Public Prosecutions’ office when they break the law – for whatever reason – the police force will be bedevilled by allegations of favouritism, nepotism, corruption and gratuitous violence.

The army similarly needs to engage in some introspection and think deeply about its role in the country and how best to achieve their mission without alienating the population.

The army needs to re-examine its core mandate to protect civilians (including the police) and see whether it is upholding this goal to the best of its ability and, if not, what it is going to do to fix it. No matter how the army PRO wants to describe it, the fact of the matter is that soldiers are beating non-military people savagely, sometimes shooting them, and apparently getting away with it.

The average citizen views the army as a law unto itself because soldiers do not often seem willing to comply with civilian laws – to the extent that Magistrate Sindisile Zwane complained over the weekend that she was sick of seeing soldiers in her courtroom for mundane offences such as drink-driving. "Soldiers are regular visitors in this court and I am tired of them," she said, and she could have been speaking for the whole country.

Soldiers often break the laws with the twin excuses that ‘orders have been given’ and ‘every second counts’.

But surely some orders are less important than others and surely not every mission is so time-sensitive? A soldier who cannot refuse an illegal order is not a soldier but a gangster in uniform, as is a ‘soldier’ who believes that his orders override the necessity of social peace.

 There may be occasions where this is so but surely not every mission is so vital that the army can risk alienating the taxpayers who support them.

For there to be peace in Swaziland, everybody needs to respect the laws – even laws we may not agree with. One such law is that it is illegal to offer physical violence to anyone except in the case of self-defence.

This is a law that the police and army are also obligated to follow, in every circumstance but those specific instances in which they are mandated to use force.

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