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Vol 61 No 13

Published 25th June 2020


South Africa

Farewell to arms

Debt-laden, dysfunctional and unable to find a modern role, the state arms-manufacturer is being steadily cut back

The debate about whether post-apartheid South Africa really needs its own arms industry and such a large military establishment has been raging since the country’s first democratic elections in 1994. Civil society and many in the ruling African National Congress (ANC) believed that the advent of democracy was the perfect opportunity to scale down the size of both the military and the country’s arms manufacturing capacity, freeing up funds that could be used for social development instead.

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