Howard Barrell
Foreign policy experts are cautioning President Thabo Mbeki against committing South African forces to peacekeeping efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo which could result in troops being bogged down there.
South Africa has been coming under increasing pressure from other African countries to play a bigger role in Congo peace efforts. The United States has also been urging the country to assume the lead in policing conflicts on the African continent.
This week several Southern and Central African leaders took advantage of their presence at Mbeki’s inauguration in Pretoria to push for a breakthrough in peace efforts on the Congo conflict. Mbeki delayed the announcement of his Cabinet on Thursday to play a hands-on role in the peace talks in Pretoria.
The forces of seven neighbouring countries have already been drawn into the war between President Laurent Kabila and rebel forces. They are Angola, Chad, Namibia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, which are supporting Kabila, and Rwanda and Uganda, which are backing the rebels.
Current peace efforts are being mounted mainly under the auspices of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and chaired by President Frederick Chiluba of Zambia. Chiluba, who was at Mbeki’s inauguration, convened a meeting of other African leaders in Pretoria on Thursday.
Richard Cornwell of the Institute of Security Studies in Pretoria cautioned Mbeki and other South African foreign policymakers against what he called “mission-creep” in peacekeeping – where a country ended up bearing a great deal more responsibility for a mission than it initially intended.
This would be a particular danger in a country like Congo, which was nearly four times the size of France, had poor communications and a multiplicity of rebel and bandit groups. The potential for getting drawn into the Congo conflict were considerable, Cornwell said. “I would issue a caution about this.”
Professor John Stremlau, head of the department of international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, agreed there was a danger South Africa could get bogged down in Congo.
“But I think Mbeki is no fool and knows this very well. He knows from the Lesotho operation that things can become more costly than was initially envisaged,” Stremlau added.
In a peace plan he drew up shortly before Christmas last year and circulated to Rwanda, Uganda and South Africa’s SADC partners, Mbeki proposed the setting-up of a peacekeeping force that would be made up largely of elements from the warring factions themselves and brought together under neutral command.
Mbeki’s thinking was evidently that an unsustainably large force would be necessary to police the peace in Congo – a United Nations study estimates it would take about 100 000 troops – and that it would be better to set up a peacekeeping operation on a “willing partner” basis between the combatants.
Mbeki’s plan has not, however, quashed the more conventional notion of an international peacekeeping force. This has meant continued pressure on South Africa – which has probably the best organised military apparatus in the region and on the continent – to take on the lion’s share of responsibility.