Troops home soon, say military

All of Zimbabwe's troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will be home "as soon as we can manage", a military spokesman told IRIN on Thursday. The Zimbabwe Defence Force spokesman, Col Mbonisi Gatsheni, said about 200 troops had arrived in Zimbabwe from the DRC on Wednesday. Although he said roughly 3,000 troops remained in the DRC, independent estimates range from 9,000 to 12,000. The troops are being withdrawn as part of a recently signed peace agreement. Col Gatsheni said the troops would "go back to routine activities in peace time like most regular armies do". Zimbabwe deployed troops in the DRC in 1998 to support the government of the late Laurent-Desire Kabila, and subsequently his son Joseph. Since 2 August 1998, Uganda and Rwanda have been involved in armed opposition to the Kinshasa government. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia backed Kabila. The DRC recently signed separate agreements with neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda providing for the withdrawal of their remaining troops in the DRC. The UN Mission in the Congo, known as MONUC, has confirmed that Uganda has begun withdrawing its soldiers. Angola, which contributed significant military support to the government, now maintains 500 policemen in the DRC capital Kinshasa. Namibia has completely withdrawn from the DRC. Henri Boshoff, military analyst with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), told IRIN it was unlikely that Zimbabwe would withdraw all its troops immediately. "Zimbabwe is a back up for Kabila. [If they withdraw completely] and the deal goes sour, Kabila has nothing to fall back on, the Rwandan-DRC deal is not very solid," he said. Domestically, the return of troops from the DRC would mean thousands of soldiers back in a country that is very different from the one they left. Zimbabwe's economic and political crisis has been compounded by food shortages that threaten six million people. "It's very much the same position as Angola [after the ceasefire with UNITA rebels], that country is now sitting with soldiers who they cannot just disregard. These guys [troops] were doing a very hard job and they are expecting something from the government," Boshoff said. A benefit of its involvement in the DRC was that Zimbabwe gained concessions on diamond and gold mines in the DRC. "The military has privatised [the mining operation] into a private company, so they're running the mines there. Possibly they could take troops out of uniform and turn them into security guards to protect their interests, but there's no threat there [in Mbuji Mayi, southern DRC]," Boshoff noted. He stressed that the soldiers returning from the DRC would need to be kept happy. "Internally, Zimbabwe's got more than enough troops, maybe these soldiers will go on holiday and start retraining. As to whether Zimbabwe can afford to have them back? It is a burden but the government is getting a lot of money from the mines in DRC, [President Robert] Mugabe's spending a lot on police and the defence force because they are his biggest supporters. They will be taken care of, maybe get nice medals and all that," said Boshoff.