South African troops are not welcome in Angolan peacekeeping operations. Stefaans Brummer reports
SOUTH Africa will not be part of the United Nations peacekeeping operation in Angola because Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos won’t play host to countries previously involved in his country’s war.
Zimbabwe Defence Minister Moven Mahachi this week attacked South Africa for its apparent failure to respond to requests for troops to participate in an envisaged 7 500-strong UN force to monitor Angola’s tenuous peace.
At a regional peacekeeping seminar in Harare, attended by army officers of 19 African states including South Africa, Mahachi said that if South Africa failed to respond to UN requests for troops, it would cast “serious doubt on its commitment to peace”.
Zimbabwe — whose President Robert Mugabe is reportedly keen to regain the initiative as top regional peacemaker from President Nelson Mandela — has already promised a battalion of troops to join the UN Angola Verification Mission (Unavem) force.
South Africa has indeed been churlish, to an extent, in responding to the UN request for assistance, made by the world body when Dos Santos’ Frelimo government and Jonas Savimbi’s Unita rebels agreed to a ceasefire in November.
The South African position, decided by the cabinet in early December, boiled down to an agreement to be part of Unavem, but without troops in a combat role. South Africa would provide only logistic support, such as air transport and engineers, the cabinet decided.
Explained Defence Ministry publicity officer Major Muff Andersson: “It would have led to tensions in the new integrated force … People in the South African National Defence Force used to be on different sides in Angola.”
But even the engineers and the aviators, it seems, will now have to stay at home.
Andersson said: “The cabinet accepted that we cannot turn our backs on Angola. But when we got as far as drawing up plans on when we could send people and where, that’s when we heard we would be unwelcome.”
Despite Zimbabwe’s criticism, South Africa could do nothing but wait, she said. “The guests want us to go but the hosts are ambivalent. If Angola decides we are an important country to have there, we will be there. But for now, we will just stand and wait politely.”
A Department of Foreign Affairs official this week said Dos Santos’ stance, contained in a letter dated December 5 to UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Gali, came to South Africa’s attention only about a week later, after the cabinet had approved the limited involvement.
The official said he interpreted the letter — which stated that countries which previously were “directly or indirectly involved in the conflict in Angola” would not be welcome as part of the Unavem force — as meaning that a country such as Zaire, whose President Mobutu Sese Seko has backed Unita, would also not be welcome.
Other countries affected by Dos Santos’ exclusion may be the United States, Cuba and Russia.