Defence experts who have weighed in on the withdrawal of the 700 SANDF troops from the Democratic Republic of the Congo said it would have happened sooner rather than later as the defence force is running out of money.
The announcement of the withdrawal was made on Saturday. The president’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, said the decision to withdraw came after a telephone conversation in early January aimed at realinging the defence force’s resources.
The arrival of the troops back in the country will be a long process, as the withdrawal has to be carefully planned and executed, said defence force spokesperson Siphiwe Dlamini.
“It’s still early days as this is a massive operation and requires proper planning in line with the UN prescripts, so I would not want to speculate about the withdrawal process. This is not a day’s work,” he said.
African Defence Review director John Stupert said the withdrawal announcement was expected.
“It’s ultimately just a sad conclusion to an otherwise horrible story about the SANDF in general. This is really just the logical next chapter in the South African military’s decline. So yeah, that was probably my initial thought.
“We’re talking about around 700 soldiers ... the aircraft and capabilities required to keep that operation going, not to mention the funding, just aren’t there.
“So as a consequence, it’s actually a good thing in the short term that we’re simply calling a bad job a bad job and ending it,” he said.
Stupert added that the soldiers made a difference despite the withdrawal after 27 years in the region.
“The average South African soldier actually made a tremendous difference. Obviously not in ending the ongoing conflicts in the eastern DRC, but certainly in helping contain a lot of that chaos.
“The M23 and most serious Congolese rebel groups in the region viewed the South African soldiers as their main concern. That’s been the case for most of our deployments as part of MONUSCO (United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo) and its other iterations,” he said.
Stupert said in the state the defence force is in, it’s not fit to go on any peace mission anytime soon.
“The SANDF is in such a state that I don’t think it can even fulfil its primary mandate of national defence, let alone undertake expeditionary peacekeeping missions.
“A case in point was the recent flooding in Mozambique, where we could only deploy a single helicopter. Compare that to the floods about 12 years ago, when we were able to intervene meaningfully,” he said.
Patrick Kadima, international relations expert at Wits University, said the impact of the withdrawal would be heavy.
“South Africa is one of the largest troop contributors to the MONUSCO mission in the East of the DR Congo. The withdrawal will be felt heavily by the UN and the DR Congo, especially given the volatile situation.
“Above all this, it is the vulnerable population, the women and children, who will feel the impact,” Kadima said.
However, the decision to withdraw was wise, given the financial constraints.
“In the past few months, we have seen reports of the SANDF not being up to capacity and the budget not being sufficient to address its day-to-day operations. Given these constraints, it was a wise decision by the Presidency.
“The SANDF needs to address the challenges it faces before undertaking any regional peacekeeping efforts. This is surely not the end of SANDF’s intervention in the region, it’s just a pause but this pause will surely be felt,” Kadima said.
Sowetan
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