EFF Member of Parliament Carl Niehaus is calling for Defence Minister Angie Motshekga to resign in the aftermath of the latest deadly attack on members of the South African National Defence Force in the DRC in which nine soldiers were killed.
In an interview with IOL, Niehaus who serves on Parliament’s portfolio committee on defence and military veterans and the joint standing committee of defence said Motshekga has turned a blind eye to SANDF’s state of affairs and operational capabilities for demanding missions like the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“She must go, she must resign. She spoke on SABC last week, where she told us that everything is fine and that the SANDF is capable of dealing with anything that it can be faced with, it can protect the nation and everything is fine in the DRC. At that time, this tragedy we are now aware of, was already playing out,” said Niehaus.
“Why was she presenting a false impression of the situation? The minister has known, for a long time, on the basis of information that is available to all of us – myself, her and other members of the portfolio committee on defence and military veterans and the joint standing committee on defence … we all know that the SANDF is collapsing.”
Niehaus said the SA Defence Force is critically under resourced and lacks critical equipment which paralyses its capability to form part of Southern African Development Community Mission in the DRC (SAMDRC) and the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission (MONUSCO).
“We do not have an air force to speak of. Our army is under resourced, without necessary equipment which can protect SANDF soldiers in the DRC. The sad thing is that the M23 rebels are far better equipped, with technical equipment and training than what the SANDF troops are. This is not something we learned yesterday. We knew it all along, so to have sent the troops there, was to send them to a killing field,” said Niehaus.
“For the minister to have recently said on an SABC show that all is well, it is misleading and a lie. The minister is out of her depth, she is incompetent and she must resign.”
The SANDF troops, deployed in DRC were engaged in days of battle, seeking to prevent the M23 rebel group from advancing towards Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu.
On Monday morning, the M23 rebels claimed to have overrun the city of Goma.
However, SANDF spokesperson Siphiwe Dlamini said South African troops who are part of SADC peacekeepers deployed to DRC are safe in their bases.
He also confirmed that Motshekga is back in South Africa, and the minister would brief President Cyril Ramaphosa on what she gathered during her tour of DRC last week.
“Yes, she did travel, and she returned on Saturday,” said Dlamini.
Niehaus criticised Motshekga’s trip, which coincided with the tragic demise of the SANDF members in battle within DRC.
“The tragedy is that the minister goes to the DRC, but what I understand, and there are many sources telling us this, is that part of the SANDF troops deployed to DRC were withdrawn from their camps to provide security to the minister. Her presence in the DRC was a counter-productive move. She actually directed critical, scarce resources from the theatre of operations, from the war, to protect her,” he said.
Over the weekend, the SANDF had said the M23 rebels launched a full-scale assault with the objective of seizing Goma, but South African forces, alongside their regional counterparts, had mounted a determined resistance, ultimately repelling the insurgents.
"The M23 hostile forces had launched a full-scale attack on our troops with the intention of taking over Goma but were unable to advance due to the heroic resistance put up by our gallant fighters. Our forces were not only able to halt the M23 advancement but were able to push them back," the SANDF said in a statement.
jonisayi.maromo@iol.co.za
IOL