SA troops face "delicate mission"

South African troops deployed in Burundi to protect politicians participating in the country's multiparty transitional government are faced with a very "delicate mission", analysts told IRIN on Tuesday. Speaking from Burundi, independent analyst Jan Van Eck said the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) soldiers were going into a "very unhappy environment" but should be "okay" if they kept their mandate limited. "The troops will be okay if they perform the task of going in there and serve as a protection force. If they stick to this then they are unlikely to encounter any problems. The difficulties could arise if they are forced, through circumstances, to deviate from the mandate," Van Eck said. "The problem could come if the troops are forced in any way to engage in some kind of fighting and the last thing everybody needs is for South Africa to become embroiled in some kind of conflict on foreign soil." A spokesman for the SANDF told IRIN that in total about 701 soldiers would be deployed. The first group of 204 left South Africa on Sunday, with another 204 leaving on Tuesday. The remainder were likely to leave before the end of next week Colonel John Rolt said. He said the troops would be stationed in the capital Bujumbura, and "will be armed so that they can defend themselves if need be". The soldiers were sent to Burundi at the request of former president Nelson Mandela, official facilitator to the peace process. At a regional summit on Burundi held in Pretoria on 11 October, agreement was reached between the Burundian government and seven opposition parties on the legal framework and structure of the multiparty transitional government. The participants called for the deployment of an impartial multinational presence. The multiparty government is due to be formed on Thursday, 1 November. An official from the department of foreign affairs told IRIN that the deployment of the South African troops was an interim measure and it was not clear when they would be joined by troops from Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal who would make up a multi-national force, called for under the 11 October agreement. "The mediator, former president Nelson Mandela felt that it was important that the SANDF guys go in as soon as possible and hence their deployment," he said. He emphasised that the South African troops, and later the multinational force, were not a United Nations force but did have United Nations support. On Monday the UN Security Council passed a resolution saying that it "strongly supported the establishment of an interim multinational security presence in Burundi to protect returning political leaders and train an all-Burundian protection force". Van Eck said that sending a foreign force to Burundi had always been a controversial subject. "The biggest problem confronting them is that they are in many respects not wanted. Sending in a foreign force has always been a very controversial issue and Burundians will be watching the South Africans very carefully," he said. "Most Burundian would have been more open to an international police force rather than a foreign army. Burundians are very protective of their independence and their sovereignty." He explained that some Burundian parties had already publicly stated their objection to foreign troops in the country. "Extremists on both sides have not welcomed the deployment," said Van Eck. Analysts also raised concerns about operational aspects of the deployment, pointing out that many deployed soldiers do not speak French or many of the other regional languages, and were given no language lessons before being deployed. "No we did not give any kind of language lessons. The troops will have some time on their hands during their mission and hopefully during this time they will learn the language," Colonel Daan Boshoff from the SANDF told IRIN. "We did however give our guys a thorough intelligence briefing giving them a review of the geographical terrain, the current political situation and a sketch of the main political role players." Earlier this year South Africa sent a small contingent of support personnel to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The group were part of a United Nations initiative and included paramedics and traffic controllers. In 1998 South Africa, as part of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), sent troops into Lesotho to try and reverse what was described as an iminent military coup. The intervention was initially resisted by elements of the Lesotho army which had earlier mutinied, and the capital Maseru was pillaged by looters as lawlessness took hold. For more details