South Africa’s DRC shame 

A horrific lack of support for the country’s soldiers in the DRC has highlighted not only our military failures in the Great Lakes region, but our diplomatic blunders on the continent too, writes Vrye Weekblad’s Max du Preez.
5 mins read

South Africa has been punching well above its weight on the international stage for three decades, largely thanks to our peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy, the invocation of Nelson Mandela’s name, and our economic standing in Africa. 

With the seismic shift in international geopolitics following Donald Trump’s election in the US, our status as “gateway to Africa”, will be more important than ever. Why? Because if we are no longer seen as a significant power in Washington, London, Berlin, Paris, New Delhi, Moscow and Beijing, we will be pushed around. 

South Africa still has considerable “soft power”: an open society and free media, the ANC’s acceptance of electoral defeat and the subsequent creation of the government of national unity are examples. We are also the only African member of the Brics group of nations. 

But these attributes have been undermined in recent years by crumbling infrastructure, high crime levels, poor governance, worsening poverty and corruption. In the West, the ANC’s obsessive flirtation with Russia, China and Iran puts a red cross against our name, while our mostly catastrophic attempts at military diplomacy on the continent have further undermined our status. 

The poor performance of our military in the peace efforts in Mozambique and the disastrous Battle of Bangui in the Central African Republic in 2013, which claimed 15 South African National Defence Force (SANDF) soldiers’ lives and led to a surrender, are examples. Then, last week, 13 of our soldiers died in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). 

The SANDF contingent was surrounded by M23 rebels outside Goma, and soldiers informed their families in South Africa that they had “surrendered” and handed over their weapons to the rebels, that they had too little ammunition, and that the many wounded were not receiving help. Videos of our soldiers waving white flags appeared to support these claims. 

In one disturbing voice note from Goma by an Afrikaans-speaking female soldier, circulating in South Africa, she says the women in the SANDF base feared they would be raped by the rebels. Family members of deceased and wounded soldiers used social media to express their distress that they had received almost no information from the military. 

Diplomatic ructions 

Indeed, defence minister Angie Motshekga, waited until Wednesday afternoon to say anything about the conflict and deaths – at a somewhat chaotic media conference as part of the ANC’s lekgotla feedback.  

Motshekga appeared awkward, made contradictory claims, and left it to her deputy from the UDM, Bantu Holomisa, to acknowledge that the lack of proper weaponry and air support lay at the heart of the drama. 

This was followed by accusations from President Cyril Ramaphosa that Rwandan forces had fired on South African soldiers. Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame then hit back, saying if South Africa seeks confrontation with his country, it will get it. Kagame said South Africa is not suitable to be a mediator in the DRC conflict, claiming the country is “pretending to be playing a peacemaking role”. 

“What has been said about these conversations in the media by South African officials and President Ramaphosa himself contains a lot of distortion, deliberate attacks, and even lies. If words can change so much from a conversation to a public statement, it says a lot about how these very important issues are being managed,” said Kagame. 

Which leads one to wonder whether Ramaphosa has forgotten his experience as the leading negotiator of the 1994 transition. It is significant that Kagame, leader of a small, poor country, so easily challenges South Africa to military confrontation. He and other African leaders know the Rwandan soldiers were much more effective than the South Africans when they tried to maintain peace together in Mozambique. 

Many of the senior officers of the Rwandan military were part of the Tutsi-controlled force that fought in the civil war between 1990 and 1994, and eventually took control in Rwanda. They are seasoned in insurgency and counterinsurgency. 

There is consensus among military experts that the South African contingent in the DRC is totally under-armed, receives poor logistical support, and cannot do what is asked of them without air support, especially helicopters. 

Understandably, there has been widespread indignation that several military generals were seen relaxing at a golf day last weekend while the fighting raged in and around Goma – and that at least one air force helicopter was parked on the golf course. 

Several military specialists have declared in the past year that the quality of certain units of the South African army, especially the special forces, is not in any way below standard. The problem clearly lies with senior SANDF leadership and the ministry of defence. 

It’s a catastrophic fall from once being the third strongest military in Africa after Egypt and Algeria. Today South Africa takes 10th place, weaker than Morocco, Nigeria, Eritrea, the DRC itself, Sudan, South Sudan and Ethiopia. 

Rwanda, on the other hand, has been very successful with its military diplomacy and contributions to peace efforts on the continent in recent years – something that has rather irritated Pretoria. But Rwanda’s strategy to present itself to the world as a reliable and strong partner in Africa is now being undermined by its undeniable support for the M23 rebels in eastern DRC. (Goma lies on the border with Rwanda.) 

Justice and constitutional development minister Ronald Lamola fears that a full-scale war between the DRC and Rwanda is now a possibility. In the new Trumpian binary geopolitics, this, or even just a continuation of the current military confrontations, would be bad for Africa and, due to our prominent involvement, South Africa. 

So what to do? 

A way forwards 

A first step towards defusing the conflict is an acknowledgement that Rwanda does have reason to feel threatened. 

The east of the DRC – with its immense mineral resources, like cobalt, copper, tin, diamonds and gold – has been highly unstable for more than a century. It is certainly one of the most complex areas in the world today, with more than 70 armed militias active in the region. 

After the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, a large number of Hutu extremists and former members of the old Rwandan military fled to the North and South Kivu provinces. They formed militias and threatened ethnic Congolese Tutsis, the Banyamulenge, who in turn also militarised and eventually began operating as M23. 

The Kagame government supports the M23 rebels, and there is evidence that the Rwandan military itself has become militarily involved in the Kivu provinces. M23 in 2012 took control of Goma, a strategic trade and transport centre with more than 1-million inhabitants, but withdrew after a peace treaty. 

The DRC argues that Rwandan support for M23 and the presence of about 4,000 Rwandan soldiers in DRC territory is a declaration of war, while Rwanda’s response is that the conflict on the border is a serious threat to the country’s security and territorial integrity, and Rwanda is obliged to defend itself. 

Angola, Tanzania, Malawi and Burundi are all involved in the DRC conflict, but Africa and the world are waiting for South Africa to provide leadership. 

And this can only happen if the SANDF contingent in the DRC is strengthened to such an extent that it commands any respect. 

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Max du Preez

Editor in chief of Vrye Weekblad and founding editor of the original Vrye Weekblad.

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