THENEWSOUTHAFRICA
less, by May 1997 there were 77,882 uniformed members in the SANDF,
including 9,388 officers, of whom 8,033 were members of the former
SADF, 1,079 were from Umkhonto we Sizwe, and 306 were from the
APLA. 26 Racial tensions persisted, however, within the armed forces
throughout the Mandela presidency and beyond.
The police force was probably the most venal state institution inherited
by the Mandela government.V Its primary function had been to maintain
white supremacy, and it was notorious for torturing and.even murdering
its victims. Many police were deeply corrupt and lacked the most basic
skills needed for conventional police work. Mandela's minister of security
and safety, thirty-five-year-old Sidney Mufamadi, a founding member of
COSATU and the UDF, took over 130,000 police divided among eleven dif-
ferent agencies. 'Two-thirds of its members were black, but nearly all of the
officers were white. From those materials he created a single national
South African Police Serviceled initially by a white commissioner, General
George Fivaz. But there was no significant improvement in the quality of
the police force..Many members were still functionally illiterate. Morale
was low, especially among the African members of the force, who were