New Delhi, Feb. 28 -- It's an unusual move for the African continent's leading democracy: South Africa's president announced earlier this month that he will deploy the army to high-crime areas to fight the scourge of organized crime, gang violence and illegal mining.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said soldiers would take to the streets - in places that have some of the world's highest rates of violent crime - to combat what he described as the "most immediate threat" to South Africa's democracy and economic development.

He said the deployment would happen in three of the country's nine provinces, without giving a timeline. Some critics, however, say the army deployment could be seen as an admission that Ramaphosa's government is losing the ...