THE South African government should, instead of avenging its 13 soldiers killed in the battle between the Democratic Republic of Congo arms and M23 rebels, work on strengthening its relationship with Rwanda.
These were the views of risk analyst Kingsley Makhubela, who is concerned about the “frosty” diplomatic relationship between President Cyril Ramaphosa and his Kigali counterpart President Paul Kagame, whose army is believed to be backing M23.
“South Africa should not overreact on this matter, instead it should send a special envoy to Rwanda to start rebuilding the relationship between the two countries,” said Makhubela.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Extraordinary Summit of Heads of State met on Friday to discuss the crisis.
The soldiers were killed while taking part in the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) and the Southern African Development Community Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (SAMIDRC).
The frosty relationship was sparked by Ramaphosa’s reaction to the killing of the members of his army, which Kagame claimed was in the DRC to assist DRC President Félix Tshisekedi’s army.
Kagame accused Ramaphosa of pretending to be playing peacemaker while fighting M23 under the instruction of Tshisekedi.
He said Ramaphosa threatened him and said “of course, we will see what threats they are talking about”.
Makhubela said that Ramaphosa’s reaction to the killing of the soldiers was misunderstood by Kagame.
He said Kagame’s statement showed a lack of quality control of the statement “which is badly written”.
“There is no way that the president (Ramaphosa) would threaten another leader of a state,” said Makhubela.
Calling for calm, Makhubela told family members of the fallen soldiers and the South African public who might be angry about what happened that “retaliation is not a resolution to the situation”.
“It would not help. The only thing is to ensure that what they (soldiers) went to do in the Congo would end up achieving the objective of resolving that conflict because that is what they sacrificed for.
“I don’t think the retaliation would help because there would be more bloodshed,” he said.
When asked if South Africa has the military strength to fight against Rwanda, Makhubela said: “I don’t think we should be contemplating to start to analyse the military as the focus, and energy should be spent on putting the relationship between Rwanda on good footage.”
International Relations and Cooperation Minister, Ronald Lamola, had on January 29 urged Rwanda to stop its support of the M23 group and to withdraw its forces from the DRC.
“We would also like to condemn Rwanda for its support of the M23 as clearly proven by various United Nations reports of experts.
“The current conflict in the eastern DRC will not stop without the concerns of both the DRC and Rwanda being addressed through mediation and negotiations,” Lamola had said.
Lamola appealed to the African Union to allocate funds to the SAMIDRC, “through the Crisis Reserve Fund of the Peace Fund”.
“Currently, this mission requires urgent financial and material support to overcome the current situation in the DRC.
“We also wish to call upon the United Nations to provide more support to SAMIDRC in line with Resolutions 2719 and 2717,” he said.
The South African National Defence Union (SANDU) blamed the killing of the soldiers on the government’s failure to provide the army with sufficient equipment.
“This crisis highlights the severe risks our soldiers are facing without sufficient support and resources,” the union told the media in a statement.