A humiliating misadventure in the DRC has left South African peacekeeping troops trapped by rebels, exposing longstanding problems.
JOHANNESBURG—Deadly clashes in a balmy, rundown mining town in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have confirmed what defense experts have known for a long time: South Africa’s army, once the continent’s most respected fighting force and backed by its only military-industrial complex, is in shambles.
The reputation of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) is smothered under the mud and blood and shattered concrete, melted inside smoldering buildings and burnt-out armored vehicles, in the streets of Goma near the DRC–Rwanda border.
Here, M23 rebels recently defeated the Congolese army and a United Nations-mandated “peacekeeping” force consisting mostly of 2,000 South African soldiers.
The DRC government says 7,000 people have been killed and 450,000 displaced in eastern Congo since January.
Over the past few months, the SANDF’s decline has been emphasized by the offloading of more than 20 body bags at an airbase near Pretoria.
Now, surviving South African troops are hunkered down near Goma airport, 15 miles from the town, rapidly running out of food and ammunition.
“We are being held hostage,” a South African soldier told The Epoch Times from the force’s base.
“Some of us are wounded. We are rationing food and medicines. The M23 [allows] us out in small groups. But not often. It is a mess. A big mess,” he said, requesting that his name not be used as the troops are prohibited from speaking to the media.
The M23 was formed in 2012, claiming to defend the interests of Congolese Tutsis, who share ethnicity with Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
Political analysts say the real battle is for eastern DRC’s critical minerals, many of which are essential to the manufacture of electric vehicles and batteries, cell phones, computers, and many other electronic devices.
The U.N. Security Council says Rwanda’s armed forces are in eastern DRC to support the M23 rebels. But even as international television news channels showed Rwandese troops pouring over the border into eastern DRC in recent weeks, Kagame told CNN he didn’t know if his soldiers were there.
