Cape Town - “Sitting here, I’m still wondering how we lost it. What happened? Is it that indeed the information was not there, or is it that we underestimated the extent?”
Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula seemed genuinely puzzled as she confronted the question on Thursday of whether the deaths of 13 South African troops in the Central African Republic (CAR) last month were the result of a catastrophic intelligence failure.
Briefing Parliament’s joint standing committee on defence, she admitted the SANDF had not seen it coming.
“Because we never knew that we could be a target of the rebels. People may say that was very naive. Maybe it was. But we believed that we were doing what was right and that what was happening there really had nothing to do with us.”
She said the regional peacekeeping force, Fomac – comprising between 700 and 800 soldiers from Congo Brazzaville, Gabon and Chad – had been directly involved in supporting the CAR defence force and had been expected to stop the rebel advance.
The SANDF mission had been a training one only and the recent signing of the Libreville peace agreement, bringing the rebels into a government of national unity, had lulled the South Africans into believing all was back on track following renewed fighting in December last year.
(http://www.theinfostride.com/polopoly_fs/defence-minister-1.1495820!/image/509293699.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_300/509293699.jpg) Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula at the joint standing committee on defence. Photo: Parliament
Parliament of the RSA
Lieutenant-General Derrick Mgwebi, SANDF chief joint operations officer, said the Fomac troops had drawn a red line at Damara, a town 75km from the capital Bangui, where the South Africans were based.
The understanding was they would stop any rebel advance beyond this point. Behind them were the CAR government troops and after that, the SANDF base stood between Damara and President Francois Bozizé’s palace, the rebels’ prize target.
Mysteriously, neither the Fomac nor the government troops engaged the rebels as they stormed Bangui, leaving only the 200-odd SANDF troops in their path.
Even more sinister was the sudden emergence of a large number of foreign fighters, swelling the ranks of the rebels from the anticipated maximum of 500 to “thousands”.
They were heavily armed, spoke a language not understood by the locals, and were much better organised.
General Mgwebi insisted the SANDF had carried out the necessary intelligence assessment and knew who the rebels were, how many fighters they had, their level of training and the equipment they had at their disposal.
On this information, the South Africans had taken the “relevant steps” and were “ready to engage”.
“What was not visible is the intervention and the movement of the other forces which are not part of the region,” said General Mgwebi.
“You look at the uniform, you look at the boots, you look at the level of equipment they had and the speed at which they moved, then you realise who you are confronting.”
He declined to elaborate.
Mapisa-Nqakula took up the baton and sketched the emergence of a shadowy force on the continent that had yet to be properly analysed.
This should “worry us”, the minister said, “because of where the CAR is, the strategic nature of its location”.
“It happened in Mali, we’ve now seen something, we may not be able to pinpoint exactly what it is, in the CAR… Which means that 1,2,3 it’s possible that the intervention force that SADC is talking about and the AU may be confronted with this thing.”
Responding to a question from IFP MP Albert Mncwango on why the South Africans had been singled out when the French had been stationed nearby, she said: “Why were the French not attacked? I don’t know. I need these answers too.”
DA MP David Maynier said he and a team of researchers had spent two nights researching questions to put to defence officials on Thursday on the SANDF mission in the CAR.
Of the 35 questions he prepared, these are some he couldn’t ask because the meeting was ended:
* Was President Jacob Zuma advised to withdraw the “trainers” from the CAR? If so, why was this course of action rejected?
* Why was the SANDF not withdrawn following the signing of the Libreville peace agreement on January 11 (including the political agreement, a ceasefire agreement and a declaration of principles), which required the “retreat of foreign troops”?
* Was an assessment of the risk of deploying the “protection force”, without any close air support, light armoured vehicles and logistical supply capability, carried out by the SANDF? If so, what were the risks and was Zuma informed of them before making the decision to deploy the SANDF?
* Was the SANDF deployment in line with policy (the White Paper on South Africa’s participation in international peace missions) which provides for clear “principles of participation” including a “clear mandate”, “adequate means” and an “exit strategy”?
* Why was the Department of International Relations and Co-operation “iced out” of decision-making in the CAR?
Political Bureau
IOLSA