Rumble in the wrong jungle

Bafana's qualification mission to Bangui in June was always going to be hard. It is now considerably harder, following the death of 13 SANDF troops in that city.

Whatever happens to SANDF's dubious "away fixture" and the rebel regime that has seized power in the Central African Republic, a chilling shadow will be cast over the national side's away trip.

In the event the coup triggers a protracted civil war, there is a chance the CAR national football team will be forced to play its home games in neutral territory, which would certainly help Bafana's cause.

A worse scenario - though less likely - would see CAR withdrawing from the World Cup qualification campaign entirely. That would spare Bafana the stress of a difficult game - but it would also rob them of the hard-earned victory they collected in Cape Town at the weekend. All points and goals garnered in games involving a withdrawn team are discarded when calculating the group rankings, according to CAF rules. That would leave Bafana with only two points as things stand - an eventuality that would put qualification in serious jeopardy.

Group A leaders Ethiopia are well capable of overcoming Bafana in a fiercely intimidating atmosphere in Addis Ababa - leaving Bafana with a total of five points if they win against Botswana at home. Ethiopia would have six points and progress to the play-offs.

It would be a bitter irony if Bafana's World Cup prospects were inadvertently doomed by the government's ill-advised military adventure in CAR. Pretoria's objective, it seems, was to prop up the dodgy regime of President Francois Bozize in pursuit of "influence" in the region, or minerals, or both. Why the hell did the government wager South African lives in a bid to control events in a distant "phantom state" with a turbulent history of coups and conflict, whose security has no bearing on ours?

But this kind of militarist recklessness - even when dressed up in the sheep's clothing of "peacekeeping" - is not merely strategically foolish. It's also an affront to the battered ideals of 1994, and a betrayal of South Africa's brief possession of genuine "influence" in international relations.

For a few years after the advent of democracy, South Africa exerted a potent moral weight on the global stage. The brilliance of Nelson Mandela and the ANC's negotiation strategy - and the government it forged - lay in using dialogue as a weapon.

The new government illustrated the force of peace to the world - until, that is, the signing of the arms deal inscribed a foul moral toxin in our body politic.

May the 13 SA National Defence Force soldiers rest in peace.