DRC and South Africa on Tuesday held a joint press conference where they revealed they are going to conduct joint military operations against the M23 fighters.
The SANDF was deployed on 13 December 2023 to lead a SADC military mission to eastern DRC to replace the UN’s MONUSCO whose mandate has not been renewed.
Kigali is quietly following the ongoing developments as critics argue that FARDC, SANDF in coalition with FDLR, Mai mai militia is a dangerous formation that threatens the safety of Kinyarwanda speaking congolese.
The president of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa has been criticised for sending troops to Congo, a decision critics label as “reckless” and a “politically expedient military intervention”.
This was the blunt reaction of Democratic Alliance (DA) shadow defence and military veterans minister Kobus Marais to South Africa’s commitment to the three-nation SAMIDRC (SADC Mission in DR Congo).
Marais backs his no-holds barred approach to what is seemingly a further SA National Defence Force (SANDF) deployment to the troubled central African country with a call to Commander-in-Chief Cyril Ramaphosa to rescind the decision and recall South African troops when MONUSCO obligations finish.
He said the reality is the SANDF does not have the capacity to effectively pursue any anti-insurgency campaign against the M23 rebel grouping.
“Perhaps the greatest risk the SANDF faces is their adversary – M23 – has operated in eastern DRC for many years and is familiar with the terrain. Unless the intervention force, apparently led by the SANDF, is well constituted in terms of size and rapid mobility it would be at the mercy of M23 rebels adept at guerrilla tactics.
“This is precisely why MONUSCO and the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) failed to end the M23 rebellion in eastern DRC.”
According to Thomas Mandrup, an expert in African security governance and South African military and foreign policy, the SANDF will lead the SADC intervention force. However, the SANDF is overstretched and underfunded and has been for a long time.
“There is a discrepancy between what the politicians want it to do and the resources available for this. In addition, the South African government has increasingly used the military for domestic security and policing tasks while also deploying soldiers and equipment in complex international peace missions, including combat missions in the DRC and Mozambique and ad hoc shorter international deployments,” he wrote.
