South Africa: Speaking to reporters Monday, Mr. Zuma said the casualties came after rebels attacked a South African military base in the Central African Republic, where the troops had been based since January amid that nation's deepening political turmoil. Mr. Zuma said South African troops successfully defended the base, but in heavy fighting over the weekend, 13 soldiers were killed and 27 injured. One soldier is still missing.
"They fought a high-tempo battle for nine hours defending the South African base, until the bandits raised a white flag and asked for a cease fire," Mr. Zuma said. "Our soldiers inflicted heavy casualties among the attacking bandit forces."
The bloodshed has raised questions about why South Africa intervened in a country where Pretoria didn't appear to have vital interests and whose government was on the brink of collapse.
Rebels criticized South Africa's meddling in a regional crisis. Analysts say South African firepower—about 250 troops were in the Central African Republic at the time—wasn't sufficient to stabilize the country. The loss of life amounts to a black eye for South African diplomacy, according to Paul-Simon Handy, research director of the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria. "All in all, South Africa got it wrong," he says.
South Africa's intervention in the Central Africa Republic is already the bloodiest since the end of its white minority apartheid government in 1994. Until this weekend, the worst casualties the South African army had sustained were in a short but violent incursion into tiny Lesotho in 1998, when nine soldiers died.
In recent years, though, Pretoria has stepped up its involvement in crises far beyond southern Africa, under the slogan "African solutions for African problems." The results of its mediation—from Madagascar to Ivory Coast to Libya—have been mixed.
Still, South Africa has sought to buttress the continent's fledgling democracies. In 2007, it signed a military cooperation agreement with the Central African Republic for training, logistics and infrastructure support. The two countries renewed the agreement in December 2012, just before South African troops arrived in January.
By then, the government of Central African Republic President François Bozizé had come under pressure from a coalition of rebel groups. A January peace deal between them proved short-lived. As rebels entered the capital over the weekend, Mr. Bozizé fled, possibly to Cameroon, according to a senior United Nations official and an NGO worker in the capital Bangui.
That left South Africa to bear the brunt of the rebel attack. In a statement Sunday, the South African National Defence Force Union, who represent soldiers in labor talks, criticized its government for leaving ill-equipped troops in a country after the president "jumped ship like a coward." The union called for Mr. Zuma to withdraw troops immediately, "even it entails launching a military offense to relieve our troops in distress."
Despite the country's missing president, Mr. Zuma insisted South African troops would stay for now. He said the South African government was in contact with the country's prime minister, who was at the airport in an area of the capital that French troops controlled. A number of South African soldiers also have been received in the sector of Bangui airport, according to Colonel Thierry Burkhard, a spokesman for the French army.
Over the weekend France sent a further 300 troops into the Central African Republic, in addition to the 250 already stationed in the country, according to a release from the French defense ministry. Along with South Africa, soldiers from Chad, Gabon, the Republic of Congo and Cameroon are in the country as part of a regional peacekeeping force.
On Monday, the nation's security situation remained volatile. Many residents in the capital Bangui hunkered down in their homes, as sporadic gunfire rang out across the city.
Michel Djotodia, the leader of the disparate rebel alliance, known as Seleka, intends to become president, according to Eric Massi, the Seleka spokesman. He said the prime minister, Nicholas Tiangay, will retain his position in a government that eventually will pave the way for new elections.
"The duration of his term will depend on how long it takes to secure the country and lay the foundations for a durable political system," said Mr. Massi. |
