The bodies of 14 South African soldiers finally arrived home this week after they were mowed down by M23, a Congolese rebel group assisted by the Rwandan army, three long weeks ago. That it took this long to repatriate their remains attests to the utter shambles this expedition has become. The situation must have been so dire that the government wasn’t even able to get the fallen troops home in time for burial before they decomposed.
Referring to the government’s handling of the tragedy, one grieving father ruefully observed that even spaza shops were better run. It’s quite an indictment and it’s hard to disagree with him.
There’s been a lot of talking heads since their deaths — from the president himself, the army and the defence minister and her coterie of incompetents. None could offer a cogent explanation to a nation crying out for answers. Angie Motshekga made a belated appearance before a parliamentary committee, and — not for the first time — simply waffled. President Cyril Ramaphosa says it’s our duty to be there. The questions, however, remain. How did the soldiers die? Are there going to be consequences for those responsible for their deaths, or are they simply going to be sacrificial lambs on the altar of so-called African solidary? Why did it take so long to bring them home? What’s the fate of those who survived? The absence of any convincing explanation from government has merely helped to encourage speculation. For instance, if true, claims that our troops are literally being held hostage by M23 or the Rwandan army could be very damaging to the country’s international standing.
But the more fundamental issue has not yet been adequately addressed: Why are we there? What is the objective of this mission? If, as the government says, the troops are there to support the current regime in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, then it can’t be a peace-keeping force. We are on one side against the other. In other words, we’ve decided to insert ourselves in another people’s civil war. It’s still incomprehensive how people’s lives could have been put in danger on a mission whose purpose is still so opaque. The grieving families — and the country — deserve a sensible explanation. Even parliament is in the dark.
South Africa has been involved in the DRC imbroglio for as long as the ANC has been in power, but has little to show for it, except the needless deaths of its troops.
Heads of state from Sadc and the East African Community met in Tanzania last week in the wake of the latest attacks, and decided to simply plough on regardless. South Africa has just lost its troops and invested more in the DRC than in any other country, and yet Ramaphosa saw fit to simply go along with the views of people who have no skin in the game. Zimbabwean President Emerson Mnangagwa, for instance, is Sadc chair and one of the key drivers of this initiative, and yet Zimbabwe has no troops in the DRC, having withdrawn them more than 20 years ago. There seemed to have been no point in the summit, except grandstanding. None have children or loved ones in harm’s way. Wars are, after all, deadly games concocted and played by the rich and powerful with the poor paying with their lives.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame must have been pleased with comments by former president Thabo Mbeki. In a recent speech, Mbeki seemed to heap all the blame for the conflict on the government in Kinshasa, which he said was treating Rwandan-speaking Congolese as foreigners and claimed that Rwanda has every right to be concerned about the Hutus allegedly responsible for the genocide in 1994 now residing in eastern Congo. That should have been music to Kagame’s ears. But, of course, Mbeki’s remarks are in stark contrast to the stance of the South African government and flies in the face of international opinion which regards Kagame as the aggressor who seeks to plunder — or may already be doing so — the mineral rich region. Mbeki also complained that nobody (meaning the government) had consulted him on the conflict, and announced, almost with a hint of defiance, that he’d be attending the 30th commemoration of the Rwanda genocide in Kigali later this year.
Ramaphosa may be reluctant to consult him, but the Mbeki doctrine, which is the propensity to rush in to save Africans from their own folly, remains the guiding principle of the current government. And Mbeki believes the government should carry on with the policy despite its obvious failures. South Africa has been involved in the DRC imbroglio for as long as the ANC has been in power, but has little to show for it, except the needless deaths of its troops. In Sudan we managed to participate in the partitioning of the country. Zimbabwe degenerated into a murderous thugocracy on our watch. Even tiny Lesotho, stuck right inside our belly, proved to be a bridge too far for us, becoming a lawless looters’ paradise for as long as our troops were there. At one point we even had our sights set on trouble spots in West Africa. Our appetite for intervention seemed to know no bounds.
To be fair to Mbeki, although many of these military escapades happened during his stay in power, he now says sending South African troops to quell foreign hostilities is not the answer. But he still believes South Africa is the only country capable of silencing the guns of war and bringing belligerents to the negotiating table. Many on the continent would disagree, and the evidence certainly doesn’t support such a claim.
Our leaders need to learn that occupying forces have never been able to successfully bring about that elusive peace. Such adventures always end in embarrassing failure. The US, the greatest military power on earth, has been forced to leave with its tail between its legs — whether from Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq or Afghanistan. It always takes one event to tip the scales. The sight of the body of a dead US marine being dragged down the streets of Mogadishu, for instance, sent such shock waves through the public that the US government was forced to withdraw its troops from Somalia.
Events, like more people coming back home in body bags, will eventually force a change of policy whether the government likes or not— to use Ramaphosa’s favourite phrase.
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