Trampling on the sacrifice of our dead soldiers

The flood of revelations from the #GuptaEmail leaks are enough to make the average citizen sick to the stomach.

But among the most distasteful to emerge so far from the rank swamp of immorality which is being revealed is, in our view, the report carried by The Times yesterday.

We revealed how a South African company - at the time owned by former cabinet minister Ben Ngubane, now chairman of Eskom, and key Gupta associate Salim Essa - considered an oil and gas deal in the Central African Republic.

Under normal circumstances, this would hardly elicit a raised eyebrow, but these were not ordinary circumstances.

Only months before these conversations began in 2013 some 200 South African soldiers had fought in what is now known as the Battle of Bangui against 3000 or more heavily armed Séléka rebel coalition fighters, among whose key commanders was Michel Djotodia.

The conflict was one of the most important involving the South African military and cost the lives of 13 of our troops, with another 27 injured.

They were lauded for their courage and discipline in the face of incredible odds as they held off their attackers, inflicting about 500 casualties, until a ceasefire and disengagement was negotiated.

Soon after Djotodia named himself president, and hardly were our soldiers' bodies back home than the South African deal-makers moved in to try to find a lucrative angle with Djotodia's regime.

It is difficult to think of anything more callous and disrespectful of our compatriots who gave their lives.

To have even considered doing business with Djotodia's regime shows an utter lack of any sense of patriotism or of moral rectitude. But any sense of shame, we are confident, escapes them.