Operators of illegal military training camps risk losing everything. This is the warning from Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSiRA) CEO Manabela Chauke. In this interview with BizNews, he says: “…should you be found guilty, you can even have everything forfeited to the State, including the farm that you’re using.” Giving an update on investigations into the illegal military training camp where 95 Libyans were arrested recently, he says: “The main issue here is that you are not supposed to give military assistance to foreign nationals who come from a country where there is instability.” He describes the line that is drawn between tactical training and military-style training. He also details how PSiRA sent a specialist team to the farm where one training facility was registered, but the other – several kilometres away – was not. “They sent the pictures back for us to make an assessment, and we beefed up the team with an additional investigation, and all other forces then ascended there, the South African Police, National Defense Force, Home Affairs…we actually shut down the training even before the arrest took place.”
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Extended transcript of the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Chris Steyn (00:01.647)
Investigations are continuing into the illegal military training camp where 95 Libyans were recently arrested. We get an update from the CEO of the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSiRA), Mr. Manabela Chauke. Welcome, Sir.
Manabela Chauke (00:03.164)
Welcome.
Manabela Chauke (00:20.199)
Good morning and welcome. Thank you for receiving me.
Chris Steyn (00:24.609)
What is the real issue here? Please tell us.
Manabela Chauke (00:28.174)
The real issue here comes from Section 198 of our Constitution, South African Constitution. It details what are the principles that governs our national security. And one of them is that South Africa has resolved that we do not participate in either nationally or internationally in countries where there is armed conflict. So flowing from there, there was then legislation that was crafted in South Africa enacted called the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act. That legislation was cross-reverenced into the PSiRA Act, which then gives PSiRA the power to regulate any form of training that is likely to be in contravention of our Constitution. So that’s the real issue. So the issue of about military training is neither here nor there, because we do such a lot of training similar to that that we call tactical training. So we do it in the bush, we do it with obstacles, we do it with everything else that is there. Even when we train anti-poaching, anti- people who are dealing with anti-poaching activities like rangers and so on, we train them in the bush, we train them in scenarios which are in the camouflage and the obstacles and so on and so on. The main issue here is that you are not supposed to give military assistance to foreign nationals who come from a country where there is instability.
Chris Steyn (01:59.055)
Okay, can you give us a timeline of your activities leading up to these arrests, please Sir.
Manabela Chauke (02:06.232)
Well, our timeline, I think we acted in the matter of a day after which we received information about the existence of the foreign nationals in that farm. Fortunately, our specialised team was in Mpumalanga doing operations at the time. We redirected them to that farm. They went to the farm and they started questioning people. They saw what they saw there. They sent the pictures back for us to make an assessment and we beefed up the team with an investigation, additional investigation, and all other forces then ascended there, the South African Police, National Defense Force, Home Affairs and everybody else was on that farm. All these activities took place a week before the arrest took place.
So we had a lot of investigation to do before we actually took a decision to, you know, to do the arrest.
You will recall that yesterday when I gave also the feedback, I also stated that we actually shut down the training even before the arrest took place. The training had stopped at the time. So those are the activities that we did.
So the investigation is ongoing. As you might know that this is a very big matter. It’s something that is impacting on our national security – and we want to make sure that we get to the bottom of it.
Chris Steyn (03:39.065)
So what investigations have you done since the arrests?
Manabela Chauke (03:44.812)
The investigations that we’ve done is to try to understand the activities that were taking place at the farm, specifically at the Libyan camp. And those are the activities that we try to unravel. Unfortunately, I cannot give details of the actual information that we are in possession of.
There’s a whole lot of other information that still needs to be unpacked. As you might know, people are probably wondering how did these people get to South Africa in the first place? So that part of the investigation is being done by another team, which probably in some near future will be taking the country into confidence in explaining what really happened here.
And, of course, all other transactions that might have taken place leading up to this. I mean, people are asking, for instance, who is the training done for, what are these people going to do and all sorts of things. So those are the things that will be unpacked.
But in so far as us dealing with the issues that relates to the training and the accredited people, I think we are almost where we want to be.
As we said yesterday, we are now…issuing charges in the near future. In the weeks to come, we should be ready to bring them to book. We have given them seven days to tell us why we should not suspend their licenses individually as directors as well as the business itself.
Chris Steyn (05:28.407)
But, it turns out that there were two camps, one registered and one not registered. Is that correct?
Manabela Chauke (05:35.864)
That is correct. These camps are in one farm. The entrance to the farm is one entrance. When you get into the farm, is the camp A, which is where the main business is. That’s where we accredited the premises for training to take place.
Manabela Chauke (06:04.568)
From there, you then proceed outside this farm. There is another entrance that leads to a further location, which is seven and a half kilometers away from this one. And this is way deeper into the farm, which this is where the Libyans were. And I don’t think there’s anyone who would have known about their existence unless if you were using some arial kind of, you know capability to surveil the place. Other than that, you wouldn’t have known that there is something like that happening in that form.
Chris Steyn (06:43.927)
Is this the first time that an illegal military training camp was uncovered?
Manabela Chauke (06:51.99)
Well, for us, it is the first time. It could have been… I know that in the past that the police and other agencies did pounce on a few farms way back in the past. But these activities are activities that are ongoing and we really need to educate our public because sometimes we will mistake in, you know, regular, ordinary training, technical training as military training.
I’ve seen the videos that were shown to me that are sitting on the website, for instance, of the same business where people are wearing camouflage, have been trained, they are drilling. To me, that’s normal training. That is normal training that is given to anti-poaching teams, that’s given to rangers and so on.
So we really need to know where the line is here. So the line would be when you start now doing this for nationals of another country or citizens of another country. It is no longer security. It is now military because once you give it to a citizen of another country. Only their government can have the soldiers. So why would you want to say train an additional team of soldiers for that country?
Something like that. So that’s where the difference is. If South Africans are doing it, certainly there’s no problem. If they’re within the law. Of course, we look at the curriculum that they’re training, the programmes that they’re using. But if you start locally, start training people in a similar manner, but you start now training them how to shoot mortars, how to shoot hand grenades, and so…now you’ve crossed the line. So that’s where we need to say, you can’t do this. You know, so, so yeah, it’s not as easy as we see it.
Chris Steyn (08:44.505)
Can you tell us how many registered security training providers are there that you have to monitor? It must be a big job.
Manabela Chauke (08:53.134)
It’s almost 1,600 of them that we have to monitor. And we have 16,000 companies that are active. We have 650,000 security officers that are active out of the 2.7 million that we’ve registered on our database. So the total number of companies that we’ve registered is over 30,000. But the active ones is over 16,000. Training schools is 1,600.
Chris Steyn (09:26.095)
Can you give us a roundup of what happens to people who contravene regulations? How do you take it further?
Manabela Chauke (09:35.758)
Well, first of all, I must say it is criminal. It is a criminal offence to contravene our regulations. Secondly, it is also a Code of Conduct offence. In other words, if you’re a member, we can prosecute you. We have our own judicial system within PSiRA to take people through those that are contravening the regulations. We can impose a fine on them. We can suspend their registrations. We can also… a fine up to one million per count. So the highest fine that we imposed when the security company was 20 million rands. If you Google it, you’ll find it somewhere in KZN for crossing the line. So that’s how strict these things are. We have jailed people. I think the highest sentence I remember is about five years. Someone was jailed for five years in prison for violating our regulations. So it’s quite a very serious offense to violate our regulations.
Chris Steyn (10:38.083)
After this latest incident, do you think there is a need to intensify monitoring or do you think the monitoring process is adequate at the moment?
Manabela Chauke (10:47.202)
I think there is a need for us to do a lot more advocacy, a lot more awareness so that these type of activities can be flushed out because they impact on our national security. So there is definitely a need for us to be on the ground.
As I said, if we give much more education, it will assist. Since this whole story broke, there’s quite a number of tips that we’re getting. I can tell you safely now that we’ve been to another farm, somewhere in the country, but only to find that it is a simple technical training that was taking place and the South Africans have been given training. So it was not necessarily a military kind of training. So it was within the law. Things like those.
Chris Steyn (11:39.407)
So how would you appeal to the public to be vigilant and what tips can you give them so that they don’t inundate you now with false tips?
Manabela Chauke (11:51.31)
Yeah. I think the public must know that the only people that can give military training in South Africa is the South African Defense Force that is created in terms of section 199 of our Constitution. They are the only people that can give military training. The rest of the other people can give military-style training, something like that. But the military-style training is actually something that is forbidden because you’re not even supposed to give military training. So unless you say I’m giving tactical training or I’m giving advanced tactical training, whatever name you want to call it, except using military-style training, it’s something that South Africans must know and must be able to see.
Chris Steyn (12:39.927)
Any last reflections following this incident that has made headlines across the world, Sir?
Manabela Chauke (12:48.216)
I think we, South Africans must understand much better what the Constitution says. From what I see, if South Africans had first read section 198B of the Constitution, they would have understood better what we are talking about. These things impact on a lot of things. For instance, if you look at our international obligations, our participation in United Nations. There’s a lot of resolutions that have been taken that may possibly impact on things like this if we’re not enforcing. You may know now that South Africa was Gray Listed a few years ago. It is because of issues like this. If we’re not enforcing them, if we’re not tough on those that are breaking the law, it is something that can be negative for our country.
And maybe just as a last warning for South Africans who want to engage in these type of activities, they must know that should you be found guilty, you can even have everything forfeited to the State, including the farm that you’re using. If you go and look at the regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, it makes provision for the forfeiture of everything that is used for these type of activities.
Chris Steyn (14:15.419)
So that farm and everything on it can be gone because of what’s happened here.
Manabela Chauke (14:20.674)
It may be gone, depending on how it turns out at the criminal level, when the people are prosecuted and what evidence is there and so on.
Chris Steyn (14:32.079)
Now, there have over the years been reports of illegal terror training camps. Obviously, these people are not going to go and register with you. Have you heard anything about these camps?
Manabela Chauke (14:52.46)
Let me take you back to a story of Ekurhuleni and Simon Mann. I don’t know if you still remember they were arrested in Zimbabwe.
Manabela Chauke (15:03.874)
That training, the preliminary training, was done in South Africa in Limpopo elsewhere, and they flew into Zimbabwe to refuel well their plane and only to be arrested. So we know about it and yeah, so people do such things and that’s why we need to be very vigilant and make sure that it doesn’t happen.
Chris Steyn (15:30.095)
Thank you. That was Mr. Manabela Chauke, the CEO of the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority, speaking to BizNews following the arrest of 95 Libyans at an illegal military training camp. Thank you, Sir.
Manabela Chauke (15:47.854)
Thank you so much.
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