Major General Derrick Mgwebi (48) last week became the first South African to head a United Nations peacekeeping mission when he assumed the command of the UN Operation in Burundi (Onub).
Mgwebi last Tuesday donned a UN blue beret at a ceremony in Bujumbura to mark the end of the African Union mission in Burundi, of which he had also been the military head.
The AU mandated the deployment of the African mission in Burundi (Amib) on April 2 2003 for an initial period of one year. The mandate was extended for an additional two months to allow the UN the opportunity to arrange for the establishment of a UN peace mission.
On May 21, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1545 (2004) to create Onub, as from June 1. UN deputy emergency relief coordinator Carolyn McAskie, of Canada, was appointed as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s special representative and chief of mission.
Mgwebi was identified as the force commander for Onub.
Onub is operating under a Chapter VII mandate and troops will be deployed for a period of six months from June 1 ”with the intention to renew the mandate for further periods”.
The force has a variety of tasks — including disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration, electoral assistance (which should take place before October 31 this year) and facilitation of the voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced people.
Onub will have a mandated troop composition of 5 650, including 200 observers, 125 staff officers and 120 civilian police.
About 2 700 Amib troops, made up of contingents from South Africa, Ethiopia and Mozambique, were incorporated into Onub. Troops from Pakistan, Nepal and Angola are expected to join in due course.
Mgwebi, who is on detached duty to the UN, is currently also the general officer commanding of the awkwardly named ”joint operations operational headquarters” within the South African National Defence Force’s (SANDF) joint operations division (JOD).
The division was created during the defence reforms of the late 1990s in light of international practice — such as the United States Goldwater-Nicholls reforms — and local experience.
Prior to the change, joint operations were conducted in an ad hoc manner with the highest-ranking officer of the service contributing the most forces being appointed the ”executor” for a specific operation and other services being placed ”in support”.
Initially JOD staff officers took care of both the policy and planning as well as the operational-level command and control. When the increasing number of peace missions and other tasks made this impractical, Mgwebi’s post was created.
Mgwebi’s headquarters controls nine tactical headquarters — one per province and a number of temporary joint task force headquarters for external missions.
Within the JOD, Mgwebi’s headquarters and that of the general officer commanding special forces are responsible for executing operations while the chief of joint operations and his staff are responsible for strategic-level planning and policy.
The nine tactical headquarters control SANDF elements assigned to border protection and police support while the ad hoc external task forces are in effect the South African contributions to peacekeeping missions in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The South African slice of Onub includes the army’s 46 Brigade as well as South African Navy, South African Air Force and South African Military Health Service and logistics elements.
While Mgwebi is away, his deputy, Brigadier General Jan Hougaard, who won South Africa’s then-highest award for bravery, the Honorus Crux, as a captain in action in southern Angola in 1982 with the now much-maligned 32 Battalion, is standing in as acting general officer commanding.
Mgwebi, born December 28 1956, grew up in the Eastern Cape.
He was commissioned in the Transkei Defence Force (TDF) in 1978 and rose to command its special forces regiment from 1987 to 1989. Until 1994 he was the TDF’s director of operations and training.
After integration into the SANDF in 1997, he was military secretary to former minister of defence Joe Modise before becoming general officer commanding for the Mpumalanga command.
He became the first general officer commanding of the Infantry Formation on April 1 1999, a post he held until March last year.
He was posted to the JOD in April last year.
Mgwebi also holds a diploma in defence management from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and is currently doing a degree in public administration at the University of South Africa in Pretoria, a distance learning institution.
He is also a graduate of the senior command and staff course and the joint staff course. — Sapa