WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-10-30 Time: 20:00:07 Posted By: Jan
By Hans Pienaar and Graeme Hosken
Renewed fighting in eastern DRC could re-ignite the civil war and undo years of progress towards democracy in the country.
South Africa’s focus should now be on protecting the troops who are part of the peacekeeping force, Monuc, said Henri Boshoff, DRC expert at the Institute for Security Studies.
Crack rapid reaction forces 121 Infantry Battalion in Mathubathuba in KwaZulu-Natal said they would not relinquish the city of Goma.
However, defence analyst Helmoed Romer-Heitman said the seriously under-equipped South African troops would find it extremely difficult to hold their own.
Government forces were fleeing from the key city of Goma ahead of General Laurent Nkunda’s advancing rebels, said military sources and residents on Wednesday.
The UN has evacuated most civilian staff from its headquarters.
“We were based just 15 kilometres from town, but Monuc engaged us with their helicopter gunships,” said Amani Babu, a senior officer in Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP).
Boshoff said the “political problem is going to explode”. Nkunda, who is fighting with backing from Rwanda to safeguard minority Tutsi communities, is a brilliant strategist, and is using civilians to shield his advance.
Boshoff didn’t believe that Monuc would be able to save Goma. The biggest issue facing it now was “force protection”, ensuring that its own members didn’t become victims of the conflict.
“South African troops are right in the middle of the chaos,” he said.
It is believed that among those DRC troops who have fled are some of the recently trained rapid reaction deployment battalion, trained by the South African National Defence Force and handed over to the DRC government earlier this month.
The 940 members of the rapid reaction force, which was armed with various light infantry weapons such as AK-47s, had been trained to be quickly deployed to flash point areas and incidents such as the one that was happening around Goma.
South Africa has more than 700 troops from 121 Infantry Battalion deployed in the eastern parts of the DRC.
Romer-Heitman said questions needed to be asked about why South African troops were in light armoured vehicles such as Caspirs, when other forces such as the Ghanaian army were using vehicles such as the heavily armoured Ratel 20 and Ratel 90 and Indian and Pakistani forces were using the BMP2 armoured infantry vehicle.
“Our people are better trained than the DRC army or the rebels and will be fine until they come across a couple of tanks.”
President Kgalema Motlanthe will travel to the DRC tomorrow for the annual bi-national commission. Department of Foreign Affairs officials declined to say whether the eastern DRC crisis was on the agenda.