The SADC has officially terminated its DRC mission, but the timeline for SANDF troops’ return remains unclear.
Picture: Jacques Nelles
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) peace mission has been aborted, but it is not clear when the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) members will return home.
The decision to abort the DRC mission was communicated yesterday in a meeting in Zimbabwe, chaired by Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa and attended by the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
According to a communique: “The summit terminated the mandate of the SADC Mission in the DRC (SAMIDRC) and directed the commencement of a phased withdrawal of the troops from the DRC.”
It did not give details of the withdrawal or when the mission will be aborted.
SANDF spokesperson Siphiwe Dlamini refused to comment about the troops’ withdrawal and did not respond to questions about the R5 billion budget allocated to the DRC mission.
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Military experts welcomed the termination of the mission.
Helmoed-Römer Heitman, an independent security and defence analyst, said: “The force was no longer serving any purpose. They were cut off, and could not conduct any operations in terms of their mandate but were at risk.
“The mandate was to neutralise M23 and other armed groups, instead of which the SADC force was itself neutralised by M23.
“The mission should never have been launched. The idea that 5 000 SADC troops without air support would be able to do what 15 000 UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DRC troops with some air support could not achieve in more than 15 years was fantasy.
“I agree SA should help stabilise the region – it is in our interests, but then you need the military capability to do so. We do not have that capability.
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“The situation of the SADC troops in the eastern DRC is untenable, surrounded by the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group,” he said.
Defence expert Dean Wingrin said it was a good decision.
“It was good to wait for a formal SADC decision, not to have a knee-jerk reaction of suddenly withdraw the SA troops as M23 would not allow them to leave with their substantial equipment,” said Wingrin.
“Now, the difficult negotiations start as the mission is terminated. Hopefully, M23-Rwanda will allow the SADC troops to leave with their equipment.
“However, this still requires the use of the Goma Airport runway, which M23 has been reluctant to allow, saying it has been damaged.
SA National Defence Union Secretary Pikkie Greeff said: “There is a long road ahead in terms of the practical execution of the withdrawal – the how and when. The detail remains unclear.
“We are grateful that some relief is in sight for the troops who endured much hardship over the past two months.”
Hundreds of SAMIDRC troops, including from SA, remain under M23 control in Sake and Goma. Efforts to extract them are expected to move forward now SAMIDRC’s mandate has been officially terminated.
African Defence Review director Darren Olivier said: “Although this has taken far too long, South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi did the right thing to bring SAMIDRC’s ongoing status into the East African Community-SADC negotiation process along with a formal SADC mandate termination.
“It’s been clear since M23 captured Goma that SAMIDRC’s mandate was no longer viable.”
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