Johannesburg — THE most interesting aspect of the new rural security strategy announced by Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa - which includes border patrols by the army, a beefed-up reservist force and a dedicated rural safety unit - is how much it resembles the status quo 16 years ago when the African National Congress (ANC) took over the levers of power from the National Party.

Then, the army was responsible for patrolling SA's borders, the commando system ensured farmers co-operated closely with the authorities and were therefore intimately involved in ensuring their own security, and there were specialised police units dedicated to stock theft and other categories of crime that are specific to rural areas.

But the ANC wasted no time in dismantling this system, even though it was effective in suppressing crime, because it was a remnant of the apartheid order and the new broom was intent on sweeping clean.

To be fair, SA's rural security system was dominated by conservative white policemen and farmers, and racial discrimination was rife, with rough justice the order of the day and vulnerable farm workers often living in fear. In addition, the army and commandos had a history of armed conflict with insurgents engaged in the struggle to end apartheid, and were therefore anathema to the ANC.

So it was understandable that the country's new democratically elected government would seek to intervene to impose its authority and ensure that blacks living in rural areas had equal access to justice. Unfortunately, rural security was one of many areas of governance where the ruling party was so eager to eradicate the apartheid legacy that it neglected to put much effort into coming up with workable alternatives.

Confining the army to barracks and giving the already overburdened police responsibility for securing SA's borders was a bad idea from the start, as was dismantling the myriad specialised police units, many of which have had to be reinstated, albeit in different guises. And the commando system could surely have been reformed rather than abolished.

The baby was all too often thrown out with the bath water in the areas of justice, health, education and administration too. Both capital and corporal punishment were banned -- and rightly so -- but the vacuum that was left was not filled by coherent alternative forms of punishment, with the result that serious crime surged and indiscipline made teaching impossible in some schools.

Similarly, retrenching experienced teachers may have made the demographic make-up of the profession more palatable to the ruling party, but it set the education system back years.

To its credit, the current administration is gradually reversing some of these errors, its new approach to rural security being a good example.