Yesterday’s illegal violent protest at the Union Buildings by around 3 000 1 500 SANDF soldiers was a deeply embarrassing and disgraceful moment for South Africa. The sight of soldiers, men and women who are supposed to protect us from harm and the forces of chaos, gleefully trying to attack police officers, attempting to break into the Union Buildings complex and destroying military and civilian property is something I hope we aren’t exposed to again soon. We should be ashamed that things have reached this point.

The SANDF’s response should be swift, harsh and unmerciful, and it should be made very clear that this sort of severe breach of discipline will not be tolerated within the ranks of the defence force. The SANDF needs to do more than just suspend the soldiers without pay, as it has done so far; it needs to arrest each and every soldier who was AWOL from barracks or photographed in the mob yesterday and subject them all to a disciplinary review or court martial process. Most, if not all, should receive a dishonourable discharge at minimum and be expelled from the military, while the organisers should be imprisoned. Soldiers like these are a poison in the ranks of the SANDF and the entire force will be much better without them.

There is, quite simply, no possible excuse for the behaviour we saw yesterday. It’s true that, on some level, these soldiers have a legitimate grievance — the pay for lower-level personnel in the SANDF is atrocious — but resorting to violent protest is unacceptable. They should not even have a right to protest peacefully. For defence force personnel, the only routes that should be taken for the addressing of grievances should be through the normal chain of command or, if that fails to produce results, through Parliament and the defence committees tasked with the SANDF’s oversight and finally the media. If none of these routes produce results, then the answer is simple: Quit. Nobody has any right to a well-paying job for life in the military.

Looking to the long term, there is an urgent need for serious debate in both the SANDF and civil society about the role of labour unions in the defence force and whether they should continue to be permitted. From my perspective, the answer to that question is an emphatic no, because defence force unions create an inevitable breakdown in discipline, encourage the bypassing of the chain of command, contribute to a fragmentation of loyalty and generally serve to destroy the bounds, traditions and institutions which keep modern militaries not only effective but subservient to their senior command and the civilian government. As yesterday’s events showed us all too clearly, unions like SANDU are a threat to law and order and our country’s still fragile democracy. We cannot afford to have massive sections of the defence force believing they have the right to do as they please and threaten the rest of us the way SANDU has.

I only hope Defence Minister Sisulu has the foresight to see this problem for what it is and take the steps necessary to prevent it from re-occurring, rather than just sweeping it under the rug the way it has been in the past. Judging by her past actions, I don’t have much faith that she will do the right thing, but I’ll be overjoyed to be proven wrong.