Why are we sending our troops to fight — and die — in other people's wars?

The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions. South Africa could find itself embroiled in an intractable civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), or worse, a regional conflict involving a belligerent Rwanda.

This week two South African soldiers were killed and three others injured in the eastern Congo when a mortar bomb exploded in their base. The attack happened shortly after an announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa this week that a contingent of almost 3,000 South African troops would be dispatched to the DRC as part of a Sadc mission to help the Congolese army fight rebels in the eastern part of the country, which borders Rwanda. It is not yet clear whether the victims of this week’s attack were part of that deployment.

The government has not been open with the public on why it is necessary to send South African troops to trouble spots outside the country. Under what conditions are these soldiers deployed? Why are we sending our soldiers as sacrificial lambs to fight other people's wars? Shouldn't the public, or parliament, be informed before such a momentous decision is taken?

The public is often kept in the dark when our soldiers are spirited out of the country. And it's only when disaster strikes that the public becomes aware that our troops are engaged in a war. In this regard, this government has something in common with its predecessor. Almost 50 years ago the National Party government sent troops to fight the Cubans in Angola, where 2,500 servicemen are said to have died without the public knowing anything about it.

Thirteen South African soldiers were killed and 27 wounded in the Central African Republic (CAR) in March 2013, in what was termed the Battle of Bangui. It was the highest death toll suffered by the army since the dawn of democracy. Until that tragedy, the public was not aware its soldiers were involved in a civil war in a distant country. South Africa had 200 troops stationed in the CAR to prop up the tottering regime of Francois Bozize. Jacob Zuma, president at the time, boasted that the troops were engaged in a nine-hour “high-tempo battle” against 1,000 rebels in which the South Africans inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy. Whose enemy, one may ask.

Shouldn't the public, or parliament, be informed before such a momentous decision is taken?

All that loss of life proved in vain. The rebels took over the capital and the government. Bozize fled to neighbouring Cameroon. Innocent lives were needlessly lost for no apparent benefit. One wonders whether those taking such fateful decisions ever have sleepless nights. You can bet they won't send their children or relatives to war zones.

The cost of this deployment will apparently be in the region of R2bn, on top of what it has already cost over the years. Every president from Nelson Mandela has had to grapple with this conflict. The country had hardly settled into its new democracy when it got involved in trying to bring peace to the then Zaire. Mandela chaired ill-fated talks in May 1997 between former Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko and rebel leader Laurent-Desire Kabila. Kabila knew he was winning and was therefore not in the mood for a compromise. He had the support of Rwanda, which was still bitter that Mobutu had accommodated the Hutus responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The talks collapsed. Kabila shot his way to Kinshasa without any resistance from government forces. Mobutu fled, first to Togo, then to Morocco, where he died five months later.

No African leader invested more time and resources to resolving the DRC conflict than Thabo Mbeki. Among other efforts, he hosted the country's political parties in two conferences at Sun City in 2002. The first conference went on for three months, with South Africa paying for the accommodation of 360 delegates. Some of them apparently spent more time partaking in the delights the resort had to offer than talking peace.

South Africa spent $15m (about R280m today) towards the cost of running the DRC elections in 2011. But president Zuma seems to have got his pound of flesh. It emerged later that his nephew, Khulubuse Zuma, had procured lucrative mining contracts. Etienne Tshisekedi, who was the loser at the time, accused South Africa of assisting Joseph Kabila to rig the elections. Tshisekedi's son Felix, now the beneficiary of our largesse, won disputed elections in December last year and Ramaphosa, who attended his inauguration, advised him to talk to his rival, advice which he seems to have ignored.

The South African troops are replacing an East African force led by Kenya which Tshisekedi has booted out of the country because he says they are reluctant to take on the rebels. He has also asked a UN force that's been in the country for years to leave by the end of the year. He obviously enjoys the idea of foreigners sacrificing their lives for his own peace and comfort.

But this time South Africa could be sleepwalking into a disaster. This week, Rwanda appealed to the UN Security Council not to authorise the Sadc mission to the DRC. It is calling for the parties to thrash out their differences around a conference table. The M23 rebel group, which killed the South African soldiers, is armed and supported by Rwanda.

The question is: why are we sending our troops to fight — and die — in other people's wars? What is the endgame? The DRC civil war requires a political, not a military, solution. Is it not ironic that a country that talked its way out of a possible civil war should now be sending soldiers to fight in another?