After the prodigal spending of huge resources and sacrificing many innocent young lives in the DRC debacle, South Africa this week finally bowed to the inevitable.
The troops, who in the past months have literally been held hostage by the M23 rebel group, are coming home with tails between their legs — leaving politicians with egg all over their faces.
Whichever way one chooses to slice it, it was a complete and unmitigated disaster — a shambolic end to what our cocky politicians had naively thought would be a show of South Africa’s military prowess. Utter humiliation. South Africa had no business being in the DRC. We asked for it. There was no plausible national interest except the notion that it’s “our duty” to respond when Africa calls. All those innocent lives were sacrificed to gratify the magnanimous inclinations of our leaders.
They didn’t even have adequate weapons to defend themselves, let alone to defeat the enemy. It’s outrageous, but even more shocking is the fact that the country seems to simply shrug its collective shoulder and move on. President Cyril Ramaphosa, who would normally call a so-called “family meeting’ at the drop of a hat to talk about mundane issues, has conveniently kept his counsel.
And so, unfortunately, those responsible for this fiasco, who sent young men and women — almost unarmed and defenceless — to needless slaughter, won’t be held to account. They’ll continue pocketing their huge salaries and enjoying their tax-funded perks. They may even get promoted. Because that’s how we roll. You get noticed — and often rewarded — when you stuff up.
Angie Motshekga, our listless defence minister who announced the capitulation this week, made it seem as though the withdrawal was all part of a cordial agreement between what she called state and non-state actors. She’s spinning a yarn. South Africa was sent packing by the M23 guerrilla army, who in January killed 14 South African soldiers, overrunning their camps in Sake and Goma in North Kivu province. The troops who survived the onslaught were completely surrounded by the rebels and had to raise a white flag to avoid further harm. If that’s not capitulation, I don’t know what is.
It took South Africa almost a month of negotiations to get its fallen troops home. Humiliating what is arguably one of the continent’s military powers is a massive victory and psychological boost for M23, and must have sent shock waves through the halls of power in Kinshasa. But it’s also a feather in the cap for Rwandan President Paul Kagame, the organ grinder who’s stoking the conflict. This victory has lifted his already inflated ego to such an extent that he publicly called Ramaphosa a liar, something unheard of on the continent. His underlings have followed suit, weighing in with their own insults.
We’ve aligned ourselves with despots and some unsavoury characters for no reason other than the fact that they’re African, or they look like us
Kagame and his henchmen must have on occasion chortled with glee at the sight of our defence minister shambling in to meetings armed with a handbag. Ramaphosa always seems to have a preference for flawed and clearly unsuitable individuals for the defence ministry. Motshekga of course had, in her previous portfolio as education minister, introduced the brilliant idea of a 30 percent pass mark, thus consigning an entire generation of learners — and the country — to a bleak future.
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, now a corruption accused, was promoted to speaker of the National Assembly despite having been tardy, as defence minister, in deploying the military to stop the rioting and looting in July 2021. Before that she had used one of the South African air force jets to smuggle her son’s lover into the country from Burundi. All that didn’t to count against her.
Thandi Modise starved her pigs to death. What the unfortunate hogs had done to cop such a tragic ending, nobody was telling. But that didn’t do Modise’s career prospects any harm. She prospered instead, moving from chairing the pointless NCOP to heading the defence ministry. The president is a generous man.
But these blundering ministers should not take all the blame. They merely walked into a template that is a holdover from the Thabo Mbeki era. South Africa almost prowled the continent in search of disputes or discords. And it hasn’t come across a conflict it didn’t regard as an opportunity to either prove its prowess or its love for Africa. It was always the first to raise its hand and no resources would be spared, despite the immense social challenges we face here at home.
The African renaissance meant that South Africa would do all the heavy-lifting. Mbeki arrogantly saw himself as not only the voice, if not the leader, of the entire continent, but of the African diaspora as well. He forgot one cardinal principle: all politics is local. Like Jan Smuts before him, he neglected to tend to his backyard, and, in an act of utter madness, was soundly rejected by his party in favour of a shameless degenerate who proceeded to fragrantly help himself to the country’s resources.
Mbeki’s successors have stayed in line and have regarded any deviation from the policy almost as akin to a dereliction of duty.
Our weapon shouldn’t be arms, but something more potent than that — our values. That should define not only our interests but who our friends or adversaries are. We should live up to our ideals as a constitutional democracy, which respects human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to dissent and so on. Those are the values we should champion, the armoury we should be brandishing.
We should be engaged in a battle of ideas, not sending naïve, unarmed and unprotected young people to foreign lands to be slaughtered by brigands who, unlike us, have every right to decide their own fate. South Africa, in this one instance, has lost more than its face. We’ve been humbled.
We’ve aligned ourselves with despots and some unsavoury characters for no reason other than the fact that they’re African, or they look like us. We so desperately want to belong that we’re prepared to sell our soul or betray our own values. African countries don’t need a nanny or a big brother. They can take care of themselves. Most of them can’t abide us anyway, even as their people, fleeing the nirvana meticulously nurtured by corrupt and oppressive leaders flock to our shores.
If anything is to come out of this sorry affair, it would perhaps be to dampen our misplaced enthusiasm as Africa’s self-appointed Mr Fix-it.
For opinion and analysis consideration, e-mail Opinions@timeslive.co.za
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