South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is in Angola today (Thursday, 8 August) with the “situation” in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on the agenda for his meeting with President João Lourenço.
A Presidential advisory has it, in addition to the DRC, regional and continental efforts to resolve conflicts “plaguing the continent” will be up for discussion.
In the DRC, South Africa has military personnel on the ground in a Southern African Development Community (SADC) mission – SAMIDRC – and the United Nations (UN) MONUSCO mission.
The advisory makes no mention of UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2746, adopted on 6 August, authorising the MONUSCO mission to assist the SADC one.
A more sceptical stance on the regional bloc mission came from respected South African defence and military analyst, Helmoed Heitman. “Minds were not applied” when deciding on the SAMIDRC mission, he maintains.
To support his words Heitman notes – again – “the parlous state of the SANDF (SA National Defence Force), revealed by failure to provide air support and a maritime interdiction element to the Cabo Delgado mission (SAMIM – SADC Mission in Mozambique)”.
“Had people applied their minds they would have realised this [SAMIDRC] is a pointless mission because the force is simply too small to achieve anything lasting, even if we assume the FARDC (Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo) have somehow magically become effective,” he told defenceWeb.
MONUSCO, by way of Bruno Lemarquis, Deputy Special Representative of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Acting MONUSCO Head, re-affirmed the world body mission’s readiness to work with all partners to achieve the goals of peace, security, and civilian protection in the DRC. In this context, with a ceasefire in effect since 4 August, he called on all stakeholders to uphold their commitments and give the Angolan-led political process a chance.
A somewhat different view came from Ambassador Robert Wood, the US (United States) Alternative Representative for Special Political Affairs at the UN.
Noting the US voted in favour of Resolution 2746, he said his country “remains concerned”. This with regard to provision of air assets and armoured vehicles which he told the UN Security Council “could inflame regional tensions at a fragile moment in the eastern DRC conflict”.
Wood repeated the oft-stated phrase of “no military solution” in the troubled central African country, appealing for a focus on ending the violence, and re-engaging and promoting accountability for human rights abuses rather than expanding military operations in eastern DRC, the SAMIDRC theatre of operations.
In light of the ceasefire between Rwanda and the DRC, “we were very disturbed by reports immediately following the ceasefire announcement of continued actions by M23 to expand their control of Congolese territory, in blatant disregard of the humanitarian truce,” Wood said, adding that “Rwanda must immediately cease its support for M23 and withdraw its troops from eastern DRC.”
In addition, the DRC must take action against both FDLR leadership and Congolese officials who collaborate with the FDLR.
“Furthermore, we are alarmed by reports of GPS signal interference, which can be traced back to Rwandan positions and which significantly impacted UN and humanitarian air operations in eastern DRC. These and other threatening and violent actions by RDF and M23 against UN peacekeepers, equipment, or positions are entirely unacceptable.
“As a leading contributor of troops to UN peacekeeping, Rwanda should know better than to put MONUSCO personnel at risk. Should this irresponsible behaviour continue, this Council should consider effective response measures,” Wood concluded.
