Cape Town - To reinforce the South African Army unit in the Central African Republic could be interpreted as a de facto declaration of war against that country’s new leadership, according to South African Defence Force Union secretary general Pikkie Greeff.
He said the mandate of the South African troops to be in the CAR lapsed as soon as that country’s government fell, and the unit still in the country was effectively surrounded by an adversarial force who had attacked them in the first place, and did not want them there.
Greeff on Wednesday said South African troops in the Central African Republic were not defending South African military assets when attacked, but commercial business interests, contrary to the reasons given by the government for their presence in that foreign country.
Troops who were in the action apparently told their union representatives they had never been used to train CAR soldiers, but had been deployed all around the capital city at commercial and state installations.
They were attacked at their guard positions, they were alleged to have told the union representatives.
“If this is so, the government has lied when they said the troops were there to train CAR soldiers and protect our military assets there,” Greeff said.
“Internationally, there is nothing wrong with having a country’s soldiers defend their own country’s commercial interests, as the French are doing there at the moment, but our constitution demands that the decision to do so has to be cleared with parliament. This was never done.””Why did the government not say the soldiers were going to protect South African commercial interests? Is it because those commercial interests were too close to the government itself,” Greef asked.
“Soldiers told us they were never used to train locals. Who are the companies whose interests they were protecting? Were our soldiers being used as a free security service for certain individuals’ business interests?”
When asked whether a reinforcement of troops, as promised by President Jacob Zuma on Thursday, would be considered a declaration of war, defence analyst Helmoed Romer-Heitman said he was “not really sure”.
“If it (the deployment) was a government-to-government agreement, one could say the prime minister appointed by the toppled president (Francois Bozize) had been retained by the rebel force for the sake of continuity (and) the agreement could still be binding.
“The Bozize government is also still the only one recognised by the African Union and the UN, which also could mean the SANDF presence is legal.”
Heitman agreed that the fact that Bozize had fled and that the unrecognised rebels were in charge did put the SANDF force in a difficult position, politically and militarily.
“I doubt the rebels would take our soldiers on again after the losses they suffered at the weekend.”
Greeff said that if the government did reinforce the SANDF contingent it would be a declaration of war, because they would be viewed as an occupation force with clear links to the presidency the rebels had overthrown.
Cape Argus