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Members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) seen outside one of the organisation’s offices.
The South African National Defence Union (SANDU) has backed comments made by SANDF Lieutenant General Peter Ntshavheni Maphaha over the weekend. Maphaha accused the government of running a “Mickey Mouse” defence force.
This comes after 14 SANDF soldiers were killed in clashes between the DRC armed forces and the M23 rebels last month in the eastern Congo.
Maphaha was speaking at the funeral of Staff Sergeant Ishmael Molahlehi in the Free State. He warned the government that borders were not being protected, leaving South Africans vulnerable.
SANDU National Secretary Pikkie Greeff says he supports Maphaha’s remarks.
“Everything that the Sergeant General said there is factual. There’s no argument there. It needed to be said, and people don’t always like what they hear, but the ones who don’t like it are the ones who made it the way it is. And that’s the politicians,” says Greef.
“The politicians bear the brunt of this. They are the ones who did the budget vote after the budget vote cutting. Defence budgets and, as he rightly pointed out, dispersing the budget elsewhere and we’ve said it many times before, that the Defence Force is this country’s right to exist. And without the Defence Force that’s effective and capable, we might as well give up our sovereignty and all of these other things that we try to look after,” adds Greef.
Evacuation
Meanwhile, the process of evacuating injured South African soldiers from the eastern DRC is underway. It is not clear how many of them will be brought back to the country.
The M23 is insisting that the only route that will be cleared for evacuation will be through the Rwandan border. South Africa was not keen to go through Rwanda fearing humiliation by the Rwandan authorities.
The United Nations will be responsible for this process and it is not clear how many soldiers will leave Goma when evacuation starts.
DRC Conflict | Evacuation of injured soldiers underway:
