CITIZEN ARMY

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29070, 5 December 1959, Page 13

CITIZEN ARMY

South African Precautions

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, December 4.

South Africa’s citizen forcesimilar to the Territorial Army in Britain—is being formed into lightly-armed highly mobile regiments strategically posted throughout the Union and designed mainly for internal security, says the Pretoria correspondent of “The Times.” The correspondent says that from a statement made by the Defence Minister, Mr Erasmus, it appeared that the reasons for removing the previous emphasis on building an armoured task force for the defence of the Middle East gateways to Africa were that British bases in the Middle East had been closed and “plans for the formation of a Middle East defence organisation by the Commonwealth countries were abandoned.”

Heavy armour and artillery bought for the task would be kept in depots and gome units would be trained in their use in case it ever became necessary to equip an expeditionary force. Mr Erasmus said that the most important thing remaining for a South African defence force in the forseeable future was to guard against subversive activities and terrorism of the kind that had arisen in Algeria. There would be 49 citizen force regiments of which 22 would be Afrikaans-speaking and 14 Eng-lish-speaking.

Road Deaths.—The fatal road accident rate in Australia is going down, according to the chairman of the Victorian Traffic Commission (Mr J. D. Thorpe).— Melbourne, December 4.