Troop contributors to Congo mission grapple with withdrawal dilemma
Members of the M23 rebel group stand guard, amid conflict between them and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Goma, on January 29, 2025.
Citizens of Southern African Development Community partner States, which have troops in eastern Congo are pressuring their leaders to withdraw their soldiers from the war zone after recording rising numbers of casualties in the ongoing war in Kivu.
Malawi's President Lazarus Chakwera has buckled to pressure and ordered his military to prepare to move out of the volatile eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after his army lost three soldiers.
The calls in South Africa are louder, especially after losing 14 soldiers.
At least 20 peacekeepers were killed as the M23 rebels captured the key city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, last week.
The 14 South Africans and three Malawians were among at least 773 people killed in and around Goma, as fighting intensified between DRC government forces backed by regional forces and the M23 rebels, backed by Rwanda.
South Africa’s parliament has been calling for withdrawal of the National Defence Force (SANDF) from Congo and, on Tuesday, the joint meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans, and the Joint Standing Committee on Defence implored SANDF to ensure that the remains of South African troops who died in eastern DRC are repatriated.
“It is important that our gallant soldiers come home and be given dignified funerals. This is vital to ensure that families are afforded an opportunity to mourn, and the assurance that repatriation is imminent should be welcomed,” said Dakota Legoete, chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema wants the soldiers to go home.
“Our soldiers have been sent to be glorified bodyguards of the mines in the DRC, and this mission has been disguised as a pursuit of peace and a defence of democracy. Bring our soldiers home, because our army should not be a pawn in a game of capitalists, which has now exposed the weakness of our military capacity,” Mr Malema charged.
The Malawian, South African, Tanzanian, and Burundian troops are part of the southern African regional bloc's military mission (SamiDRC) deployed to Congo to help tackle armed groups.
Now, the troop contributors are having second thoughts about the deployment, especially now that diplomatic efforts are in top gear to seek political resolution, which would make military intervention unnecessary.
But then the calls come just a month after the mission’s mandate was renewed for another year.
The UN mission, Monusco, which was also to leave in 2024, has had its mandate extended for another year of peacekeeping.
A statement from the Chakwera presidency said he had ordered the Malawi Defence Force commander to “begin preparations for the withdrawal of Malawian troops from eastern DRC to honour the declaration of a ceasefire by the warring parties there and to pave way for their planned negotiations towards a lasting peace that will bring stability to the SADC region,”
The SAMIDRC mission was authorised by the bloc to have 5,000 troops from South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania.
South Africa, which leads the mission, was to deploy 2,900 troops and the rest to be shared between Malawi and Tanzania, although it is not clear how many troops are currently there.
The SADC presidents held a summit in Harare on January 31 over the situation in Congo, and they called for “the immediate dispatch of ministers of defence, chiefs of defence and troop-contributing countries to DRC to ensure that the SamiDRC troops are safe and facilitate immediate repatriation of the deceased troops and those who are injured.”
They also resolved that the ministers of defence from SADC’s Troika on Defence and Politics would travel to DRC to oversee the repatriation process.
But there has been no official word about whether or when such a mission might take place.
A section of East African Community leaders are accusing SADC of taking the wrong approach in dealing with the Congo crisis.
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame accused the South African forces of working alongside militias in Congo with ties to perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and "threatening to take the war to Rwanda itself."
"If South Africa wants to contribute to peaceful solutions, that is well and good, but South Africa is in no position to take on the role of a peacemaker or mediator," Kagame wrote on X.
"And if South Africa prefers confrontation, Rwanda will deal with the matter in that context any day."
Peace process
In Nairobi, former President Uhuru Kenyatta, facilitator of the Nairobi Peace Process, on thursday highlighted the effectiveness of the EAC Regional Force, which he said was doing a good job before the DRC ejected it and invited the SADC force.
“The Nairobi Peace Process was structured around two key elements; political dialogue and military intervention. The political aspect focused on engaging all stakeholders including armed groups, political factions, civil society, and regional partners in an inclusive conversation aimed at resolving the conflict and fostering long-term peace,” Mr Kenyatta said in a statement read on his behalf by his press secretary Kanze Dena.
“The military element involved the deployment of the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) to provide peacekeeping and peace enforcement support, complementing the political dialogue efforts,” he said, arguing that the progress through June 2023 “was encouraging.”
The EACRF created a buffer zone that saw the reduction of hostilities in the region only for President Felix Tshisekedi to refuse to renew their mandate in preference for a combat “peace force,” thereby paving the way for SADC troops deployment, a move that is now subject of the joint EAC-SADC summit this weekend in Dar es Salaam.
“These efforts, supported by UN and Monusco led to a noticeable reduction in hostilities and a return of displaced persons, and significant withdrawals by armed groups from strategic areas in North Kivu,” Mr Kenyatta said.
His successor William Ruto, now chairman of the EAC summit, while announcing the joint EAC-SADC summit, argued that the move was meant to ensure all the protagonists meet at the table to discuss peace, therefore watering down the need for a military solution in the Congo crisis.
“National cohesion is key to our collective destiny. We must work together for peace,” he stated.
The Church further plans to engage with political leaders, civil society, the opposition, and African heads of state to build a collective front against the instability plaguing the region, lending credence to the idea of withdrawing troops to allow for peaceful process to resolve the crisis in the DRC.
Tshisekedi asked the houses of parliament to hold an extraordinary session to formulate political and diplomatic proposals for ending the crisis.
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