CAR: Timely Warnings Were Ignored

28th March 2013

The South African government is sending more soldiers to the Central 
African Republic, potentially exposing them to a looming civil war.

The government was warned three months ago by South African soldiers 
on the ground that the situation in the CAR was volatile and deteriorating, 
according to sources in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).

The rebels, who describe the SANDF soldiers deployed in the CAR to protect 
that country's deposed President François Bozizé as "mercenaries" and should 
be treated "accordingly", are themselves not united.

Cracks began showing on Tuesday when Nelson N'Jadder, president of the Seleka-
allied rebel group, the Revolution for Democracy, said he would fight a fellow rebel 
leader, Michel Djotodia, who declared himself the CAR president on Monday.
 N'Jadder told Associated Press he had "enough soldiers loyal to me to attack 
Djotodia".

According to reports, some South African soldiers were captured by rebel forces.

But the SANDF spokesperson, Brigadier General Xolani Mabanga, refused to 
comment on this and dismissed reports that badly injured soldiers were still in the 
CAR. He said it was "nonsense".

Poor resources

"All our injured soldiers have been evacuated and are receiving medical 
attention," he said.

The government knew for several months that the security situation 
in the CAR was deteriorating. 

Soldiers deployed there complained to their seniors as early as 2011 
about poor resources assigned for their mission. President Jacob Zuma 
himself was again warned on Friday March 22 that things were getting 
out of hand.

He (Zuma) knew by that Friday morning that South African troops were likely to 
be caught in fighting with the rebels, according to SANDF sources.

Bozizé called on Zuma, apparently to seek direction on how to tackle the rebels 
that were about to take 

the capital, Bangui.  Bozizé told Zuma that the rebels had given him a 72-hour 
ultimatum to vacate the presidential palace.

In addition to this, Zuma and the South African government knew from as early 
as the beginning of December last year that the Seleka rebels, a coalition of 
several rebel groups opposing Bozizé, had launched an offensive against the 
CAR government.

By the middle of last week, the United Nations was told by French representatives 
that Seleka already controlled three-quarters of the country and that fighting had 
reached the town of Damara, 75km from Bangui, by last Friday.

This raises questions about whether South Africa was negligent and shirked its 
responsibility for the deployed soldiers; and why, with the information in 
hand, Zuma's administration failed to provide the company of soldiers with
 more resources, given the prospect of a looming battle.

Reinforcements

"The rebels had given him [Bozizé] 72 hours to give up power. He came to see Zuma 
to ask him what to do," the SANDF source said.

"Zuma apparently said 'I can't be part of this, it has become too political. Go back 
to your regional 

members [the Economic Community of Central African States] who know your politics
 better'."

The United Democratic Movement leader, Bantu Holomisa, a former army general 
himself, said Bozizé probably came to South Africa to seek refuge because, by Friday, 
it was too late to ask Zuma for reinforcements.

By choosing Pretoria as the first place to run to backs up talk that, in the months 
leading up to Bozizé's 

fall from power, Zuma remained one of his few reliable friends.

Helmoed-Romer Heitman, a military analyst and a Jane's Defence Weekly 
correspondent, said there  was little South Africa could do when Bozizé told 
Zuma on Friday last week about the impending battle of Bangui.

"By the time he came here, it was already too late. If South Africa had military 
transport aircraft, we could have been able to fly in more reinforcements," said 
Heitman.

Even deploying fighter jets such as the Rooivalk and Gripen was not an option 
South Africa could afford, Heitman said.

"For us to fly fighter jets to CAR, we would need to stop in another country and 
refuel, then stop again in another country. That's not good for the military's 
security."

On Monday, Zuma, the SANDF commander-in-chief, told journalists that the 
South Africans would stay on in the CAR. "There is no reason for us to leave … 
we are looking at how to reinforce our forces and how to move forward," he said.

A joint statement by Parliament's portfolio committee on defence and military 
veterans and the joint standing committee on defence expressed support for 
Zuma's decision to keep the troops in the CAR.

Conflicting reports

"We support the resourcing of SANDF personnel based in that country and 
are hopeful of the safe return of the rest of our troops as soon as their mission 
is accomplished."

As conflicting reports surfaced about the battle of Bangui, Mabanga refused to 
say whether any soldiers were killed by CAR government forces rebelling 
against Bozizé.

Mabanga also refused to say  whether reinforcements had been sent 
in to assist the deployed soldiers. 

"It would be a security risk to provide that information," he said.

The television station eNCA reported on Wednesday that more SANDF
 troops were seen arriving at Uganda's Entebbe airport and the station's 
Uganda correspondent said the soldiers did not fly in from the CAR.

 Pikkie Greeff,

The South African National Defence Union general secretary, 
Pikkie Greeff,told the M&G that soldiers said they had not been 
in the CAR to do any training of the CAR army.

"Soldiers who were on the ground have told us that they never 
trained anybody. 
All along they were there to protect assets and President Bozizé," 
he said. "We should not be in CAR. At the very least, the SANDF 
misled Parliament about their intentions, which was to guard and 
not to train. Why else would you send parachute and reconnaissance 
soldiers when you foresee a conflict?"

Although the competence of South African soldiers is not in question, the 
force was ill-equipped for war, unlike the rebels. This forced them to move 
their base to an area next to the Bangui M'Poko International Airport after 
Sunday's tense ceasefire, where French troops are based, so that they could 
get some backing should they be attacked again.

Leaders of the SANDF knew from as early as October 2011 that the 
troops deployed in the CAR needed weapons for combat.

When Major General Duma Mdutyana of the SANDF's joint operational 
headquarters visited peacekeeping missions in the CAR in October 2011, 
the soldiers told him about their problems.

Military co-operation agreement

The SANDF's in-house Soldier magazine reported in January last year 
that a Colonel Ramoshaba, who presented a situational analysis to the 
delegation, complained about "the lack of medical evacuation 
procedures and the poor serviceability of vehicles".

A member of the SANDF delegation said they were "waiting for J Ops 
[joint operations] to initiate a formal tasking for an air ambulance for air 
medical evacuation".

But 17 months later, the troops' requests had not been fulfilled.

This week, opposition parties called for a debate in Parliament about the 
mission and are particularly concerned about the reasons why South Africa 
saw fit to deploy troops to the CAR.

A former defence minister and now the Congress of the People leader, 
Mosiuoa Lekota, who signed the first military co-operation agreement with the 
CAR, called for the soldiers to be withdrawn.

Reports that the department of international relations and co-operation
 (Dirco) was not informed about the sending of an additional 200 soldiers 
to CAR in January this year represents a serious break in protocol makes 
the situation even more difficult for Zuma.

According to sources with detailed knowledge of events, the department should 
have been informed because it is standard practice that foreign diplomatic 
relations must be worked out before troops are sent to another country, such as  
the CAR.

"For some reason, this time was quite different and Dirco woke up to find that 
South African troops had been deployed to CAR," said a source.

Irritation

It appears that the reinforcement of the CAR mission in January was 
neatly sealed between Minister of Defence and Military Veterans 
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and Zuma.

Holomisa said the speed with which Zuma authorised the additional 
deployment of soldiers on January 2 was suspect. 
Parliament was still in recess.

"In December, Bozizé made an appeal to say, please help," Holomisa said. 
"Nosiviwe was sent to CAR to speak to him; she came with a report that she 
presented to the president who then decided to deploy more troops.

"There was then this rushed-up process to approve 400 soldiers."

Holomisa said South African soldiers were "an irritation" to the people of the CAR.

"The people we were fighting [rebels] are now in charge. Why are we still there? 
We didn't sign an agreement with the rebels; we signed with Bozizé, who's now out. 
So we can't still continue with the mission," he said.

Lekota said South Africa was interfering in the domestic affairs of the CAR.

"When you are supporting a country, the people in that country are in the front line. Not a 
single French soldier appears to have been shot," Lekota said.

The Ministry of Defence has denied that there was any truth in claims that Zuma went 
against the advice 

of Mapisa-Ngakulu in sending troops to the CAR in January.

Source