SA peacekeepers waiting for UN clarification

In reaction to a UN decision on Monday to put on hold the deployment of Tunisian troops to the DRC, George Rautenbach at the foreign ministry’s DRC desk told IRIN that the South African support team was trained and ready, “but South Africa is basically waiting for the go-ahead from the Secretary-General and the UN.”

The South African contribution to the planned UN mission of 500 unarmed military observers, with 5,000 troops sent in alongside to protect them, is a 120-strong technical team to assist with the logistical side of the deployment. The team would include personnel from air traffic control, airfield crash rescue, fire-fighting, air cargo handling, logistics and medical units.

On Monday Fred Eckhard, the spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said that the United Nations had delayed the deployment of a Tunisian headquarters support unit. “The unit would have been the first armed unit to deploy as part of the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Eckard said.
The announcement was in response to comments at the weekend by DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila that the UN mission in the DRC could not dispatch armed troops to Kinshasa or Mbandaka in the west.

Claude Kabemba, an analyst with the Centre for Policy Studies in Johannesburg told IRIN that Kabila’s comments could possibly stem from the fact that Kabila believed that he could still find a military solution to the conflict with Ugandan and Rwandan-backed rebels. “In his mind Kabila might believe that he can still push the rebels back,” Kabemba said.

Kabemba added that he believed both parties - Kabila and the rebels - were not 100 percent committed to the peace process. “As far as the rebels are concerned they are probably watching the situation in Zimbabwe very carefully,” he said in reference to the domestic political problems surrounding Kabila’s main military backer, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

“Increasingly Mugabe is coming under pressure at home to withdraw Zimbabwean troops from the DRC as the economic situation in Zimbabwe worsens. If this does happen, the Zimbabwean withdrawal will create a vacuum and a possible opportunity for the rebels to mount a new offensive against Kabila,” Kabemba said.