Last week, in a strange turn of events, leaders of countries making the Southern African Development Community (SADC) unanimously decided to pool the entire combined force that was operating in Mozambique to concentrate on offensive missions in DRC.
The SADC Mission in Mozambique also known as SAMIM, was initially deployed in July 2021 with a mandate to combat terrorism and acts of violent extremism that had wrecked Mozambique – mostly perpetrated by a radical Islamic group known as Ansar al-Sunna.
But since the deployment of SAMIM in Mozambique there has been little or zero mission success. The terrorists continued to invade different region in Southern-Eastern Mozambique, killing people and committing all sorts of violence. It wasn’t until the arrival of Rwanda Security Forces (RSF) in Mozambique that peace and safety was restored.
It would be appropriate to say that SADC forces in Mozambique have delivered only sheer failure for the past three years.
To think that they will be different in DRC, where they are facing a very determined armed force (M23) fighting for the rights and survival of its people, is a delusion and grave miscalculation.
By deploying more foot soldiers in DRC under SAMIDRC with an offensive mandate, SADC is simply doing the pile-up of armed men in a senseless war where only egocentric leaders like Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa are more focused on personal gain than restoring peace and security in Eastern DRC.
Unfortunately the SADC force, whose mission in DRC will be partially supported by African Union as was resolved by its Peace and Security Commission, ruled out the provisions of peace process mechanisms. SADC, more specifically South Africa, has chosen to work alongside the FARDC, a rabble of looters and rapists that pass for a national army in DRC, who commit massacres and ethnic cleansing of Congolese Tutsi citizens.
Reinforcement of troops in DRC following a blatant mission failure in Mozambique implies the SADC force is becoming more of a mercenary force, as opposed to being a principled governmental army tasked with restoring security.
Going by the nature of conflicts in DRC, SADC’s services are more about individual interests than peace missions.
As Monusco prepares to leave DRC, it is becoming clear that SADC wants to impose itself as a substitute – though that alone will step up destabilization in eastern Congo, which already is at crisis levels! Genocidal groups like FDLR are also in the mix, with SADC forces, imagine!
History will remember Monusco as a force initially tasked to protect civilians in security prone areas that later turned into their perpetrators.
Like Monusco, a force that ravaged DRC and is leaving it in a more tattered form, SADC force (SAMIDRC) is hastening to tear DRC further, in the name of supporting President Felix Tshisekedi – the main culprit in his country’s insecurity.
In short, SADC is fighting very hard to go in DRC bad books of history.
But the highly corrupt Ramaphosa (Mr La Mordida himself) has bitten off more than he can chew.
Watch this space!
ellenkampire