Ramaphosa will be at Dar es Salaam summit on DRC as SAMIDRC faces uncertain future

President Cyril Ramaphosa will be in Dar es Salaam on Saturday for the jointly hosted summit on the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the future of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) Mission in the DRC will be high on the agenda.

Confirmation of his attendance comes at the same time reports have it Malawi, one of three Sadc troop-contributing countries (TCCs) to the regional bloc mission SAMIDRC, will withdraw its military contingent. When this takes place it will leave South Africa and Tanzania as the lone TCCs to the mission, now extended to December this year after an initial 12-month mandate that started on December 15 2023.

Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera “has ordered the Malawi Defence Force commander to begin preparations for the withdrawal of Malawian troops to honour the declaration of a ceasefire by the warring parties there and to pave [the] way for their planned negotiations towards a lasting peace”, a Malawian government statement said.

At least 20 peacekeepers, including 14 South Africans and three Malawians, were killed as the M23 rebels captured the key city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, last week.

The Dar es Salaam summit will see the eight-nation East African Community and its 16-member Southern African counterpart attempt to “find workable solutions to the long-standing impasse [in DRC]” as stated by joint standing committee on defence (JSCD) co-chair Malusi Gigaba. He acknowledged efforts to date by both regional blocs to halt fighting in the eastern DRC, with deaths in the ranks of all three troop-contributing countries.

Briefing media in Cape Town before Thursday’s state of the nation address, Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya confirmed Ramaphosa’s attendance at Saturday’s Dar es Salaam summit. The joint summit, according to Magwenya, follows extraordinary summits of both regional blocs and will “deliberate on the way forward regarding the security situation in eastern DRC”.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame — accused of backing M23 rebels in the DRC — and his DRC counterpart Felix Tshisekedi are also due to attend Saturday’s summit.

Malawi’s withdrawal from SAMIDRC puts pressure on Tanzania and South Africa to follow suit but Ramaphosa has vowed to keep South African troops in the DRC, saying they are subject to the SAMIDRC mission “which has operational time frames and an end date”.

The mission was authorised by the southern African bloc to have 5,000 troops from South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania, with South Africa mandated to deploy up to 2,900, though it is believed less than half of that number is in the DRC.

In South Africa, parliament will on Monday debate the DRC situation, specifically regarding the 14 recent soldier deaths and an apparent lack of logistic support for South Africa’s commitment to the Sadc peacekeeping mission. The debate was called for by Chris Hattingh, DA point man on defence and military veterans, and acceded to by speaker Thoko Didiza.

The debate will take place in parliament’s second temporary “home” — the huge marquee used for the Nelson Mandela funeral in December 2013 and christened “The Dome” — now erected on the Nieuwmeester parking ground opposite the parliamentary precinct and the parliamentary chamber for the first sitting of the year and beyond.

Tuesday’s parliamentary briefing to two of its three defence oversight committees saw an appeal for a closed session follow up on specifically, the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) in the eastern DRC. It came from the JSCD and portfolio committee on defence and military veterans (PCDMV) wanting detail on “operational issues that could not be traversed in an open meeting to protect the security of those deployed” a parliamentary communication services statement read, in part.

A committee member, preferring anonymity, pointed defenceWeb to the PCDMV first-term programme which provides for a closed meeting on February 26. Tagged “closed meeting with the minister of defence, chief of SANDF and the standing committee on appropriations on the fiscal challenges of the SANDF”, the committee member said “the DRC/SANDF situation could and should be accommodated as funding is a major part of what happened in and around Goma”.

M23 break ceasefire

While the Congo River Alliance, which includes the M23, on Tuesday declared a ceasefire for humanitarian reasons, rebels on Wednesday launched a new offensive. They seized a mining town in South Kivu province, resuming their advance on Bukavu — which they earlier said they would not target.

On Wednesday, the M23 and Rwandan forces are reported to have seized Nyabibwe, about 100km from Bukavu and 70km from the province’s main airport.

“This is proof that the unilateral ceasefire that has been declared was, as usual, a ploy,” DRC government spokesperson Patrick Muyaya told AFP. The M23 in 2024 had said it was not interested in capturing Goma, yet did so in January.

The rebel group has appointed top officials including a governor of North Kivu to administer Goma and surrounding territory.

This article was first published by defenceWeb