South Africa’s military intervention in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which just over a year ago was winning praise, is instead now provoking suspicion.
The Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) of which South Africa’s battalion is a key component, played a decisive role in helping the DRC army, FARDC, defeat the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels towards the end of 2013.
Then FARDC and the FIB – which is the sharp end of the UN peacekeeping force Monusco – were supposed to go after the FDLR rebels. That was important for several reasons; one was political balance.
The FDLR is in a sense the flipside of the M23.
While the M23 was created by ethnic Tutsis (hence the support from the Tutsi-led Rwandan government), the FDLR was established by Rwandan Hutus who fled Rwanda in 1994 after participating in the genocide largely against their Tutsi compatriots.
The other reason for FARDC and the FIB to go after the FDLR is that it remains one of the most destabilising armed groups in the eastern DRC. For more than a year, though, the DRC and the FIB dragged their feet over the FDLR.
When FDLR leaders agreed to surrender, Monusco and most observers were convinced they were just playing for time.
But in July last year South Africa and other southern African and Great Lakes countries gave them six months to do so.
After the FDLR missed the January 2 deadline to lay down arms, the FARDC chief of staff, Didier Etumba, announced late last month he was launching military operations against FDLR and Monusco quickly pledged support.
But then it emerged that the two generals whom FARDC had put in charge of the operation, General Bruno Mandevu and General Fall Sikabwe, were on a Monusco red list for suspected human rights abuses during past operations.
Under general UN protocols, this meant Monusco could not provide support to military operations the two generals were involved in.
Monusco gave the DRC government two weeks to replace the generals but the DRC said it would only do that if they had been convicted by a DRC military court, which they hadn’t.
The deadline for Kinshasa to respond to the Monusco ultimatum expired on Saturday with no DRC government response.
And so UN officials said Monusco would now inform Kinshasa it was pulling out of the operation against the FDLR – although it would continue to support FARDC operations against other armed groups. This all seems too convenient. The DRC had always been less enthusiastic about taking on the FDLR than the M23 because of the latter’s backing by Rwanda, the DRC’s foe.
And there was a suspicion the FIB – comprising only troops from Southern African Development Community countries, namely Tanzania, Malawi and South Africa – was also less enthusiastic about taking on the FDLR.
And so Rwanda and others suspect the FIB has always seen its role in the eastern DRC as pursuing the interests of its fellow-SADC member, the DRC, rather than fully executing the mandate given to it by the UN Security Council, to neutralise all armed groups.
There are now grave doubts the FARDC on its own will pursue the FDLR with determination, if it does so at all.
And if it does, the UN will not be there to help ensure there are no human rights violations.
Some suspect that Kinshasa deliberately appointed Mandevu and Sikabwe to head the anti-FDLR operations, knowing they were on the UN red list and so Monusco and the FIB would be forced to pull out.
Apart from the danger to civilians which the FDLR will pose if not neutralised, it will also continue to be a provocation to Rwanda and provide a reason to intervene.
As a vital component of the FIB and a key ally of Kinshasa’s, did South Africa try to forestall this unfortunate turn of events?