President Thabo Mbeki took down the “House Full” signs on South Africa’s peacekeeping operations this week when he committed troops to the multinational force in Liberia.
The South African navy is champing at the bit to make good on the president’s promise, but it has a limited window in which do so.
Military experts say South Africa is at full stretch, or even overextended, with its military commitments to peacekeeping in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Politically, however, they concede that as the continental powerhouse, South Africa has to go the extra mile in helping damp Africa’s fires.
In Monrovia this week, where he went to see President Charles Taylor go into exile, Mbeki was reminded of his obligation by Ghana’s President John Kufuor, the current chairperson of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) and Mozambican President Joachim Chissano, who last month took the reins of the African Union from Mbeki.
The president has to get Cabinet and parliamentary endorsement of his decision to send troops to Liberia. He will argue that it is not a question of whether South Africa can afford to do so, but rather that it cannot afford not to.
If South Africa is serious about advocating sustainable development and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development it has to support measures to create the stability vital for these. Whatever political opposition he might encounter, Mbeki is assured of the support of his stretched military.
“We have to put as much muscle as words into the ‘African renaissance’,” Lieutenant General Siphiwe Nyanda told Jane’s Defence Weekly last year. “There can be no ‘African renaissance’ without the military.”
The South African correspondent for that authoritative publication, Helmoed Römer-Heitman, says this commitment was underlined in this year’s budget speech by Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota, who was probably also running up a flag for extra funding for peacekeeping.
The United Nations will refund South Africa for any participation in Liberia, but there is a lead time of at least six months on this. The South African operation in the DRC is being similarly financed.
For the Burundi exercise, however, South Africa can only hope eventually to be refunded by the AU.
The navy has responded quickly to a request for a feasibility study. It has the capacity and the funds to respond rapidly to the requirements of the Liberian crisis.
The navy has not played a part in South African peacekeeping exercises and wants to do so. The logistical support ship, SAS Drakensberg, is available until its scheduled refitment later this year. The ship supports a hospital and two Oryx helicopters.
In addition, the navy proposes sending between 200 and 250 men, with two strike craft and two Namakura harbour patrol boats, to keep open the ports of Monrovia and Buchanan to allow the free flow of emergency and humanitarian aid.
This is the most feasible option open to the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) with the army fully committed and the air force lacerated by spending cuts.
Admiral Rolf Hauter, chief director of strategy and planning at the SANDF, told a seminar in Pretoria this week that South Africa needed 18 battalions to meet the commitments to African and domestic operations. Instead of working the recommended six months out of 36 on African duty, they were doing six out of 18 to 24 months.
“This kind of rotation puts pressure on men and their families,” says Römer-Heitman.
“In addition to the foreign service, they are away on border duty and other national operations. An army stands and falls by its training and this is also being affected. Between leave before and after posting and domestic operations there is not enough time left for training.
“Without training you lag behind, standards fall and people cannot go for promotion courses. You eventually pass critical mass and start losing core abilities. That is something you cannot buy off the shelf,” Römer-Heitman said.
“At present South Africa has three battalions deployed in Africa and three inside the country. For every battalion deployed you need three more on rotation, leave and training.”
At a push, the army’s strength is 11 battalions, including civilian volunteers.
Römer-Heitman says the defence cuts have reduced South Africa’s ability to deploy troops without chartering aircraft. “This is expensive, but it really becomes a problem when you need to hot evacuate men. Charter companies get quite particular about sending their planes in under fire.”
He believes, however, that as the economic giant of Africa, South Africa has no option but to get involved in creating stability and order.
The problems of South Africa and Africa cannot be solved with foreign investment, he says. Investors’ perceptions of South Africa cannot be divorced from those of Africa.
“From the north, South Africa is seen through a filter of instability and misery in the rest of Africa. No matter how bright the light burns here, it seems very dim from Europe,” he said.