Platitudes will not ease our concern over CAR mission

OME years ago I found myself in conversation with a senior British military man who had been commanding his nation’s forces in parts of Iraq.

He waxed lyrical about Britain’s armed forces — which he characterised as the greatest, most efficient and well-oiled fighting machine in the history of mankind (something I have also heard Americans claim about theirs, by the way) — as he recounted the exploits of his men in the desert battlefields.

But, after a while, he became more sombre and less gung-ho. He was, after all, a thinking man.

He told me how, as he was rising through the ranks, he had been involved in most of Britain’s foreign military forays. He was there in the Falklands in the early 1980s when Margaret Thatcher presided over Britain’s defence of the islands, which Argentina was trying to claim as its own.

He was also there during Nato’s intervention in the Balkan conflict and had been at the nerve centre during the British operation to end the Sierra Leone conflict, both in the 1990s. His résumé was impressive and he had gripping stories to tell from his many ventures.

What made him turn sombre was the British public’s negative attitude towards the Iraq war, something he had never experienced previously in his career. As he put it, not all wars are legitimate, but a country always finds it within itself to put aside differences and stand by its men and women in uniform.

“But they just don’t believe in this war. I have never been in a war that people

Shated so much,” were his words, more or less.

Every time he went home and interacted with friends, relatives and associates, he would be met with the same question: “What the heck are we doing over there?”

More disheartening was that his men would experience the same thing back home. This had a massive demoralising effect and the top brass had to put extra effort into motivating them. As he explained, it was a tall order to convince soldiers that they were fighting for their country when most citizens not only didn’t appreciate their mission, but actually opposed it. The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) finds itself in exactly the same predicament at the moment as politicians and the military brass try to convince the nation that our troops need to be in the Central African Republic.

Countless times this week we have heard the question: What the heck are we doing over there?

It is the first time this question has been asked so repeatedly, so consistently and so loudly since we rejoined the international community.

President Jacob Zuma, his ministers and the governing party spin doctors have tried to whip us into patriotic fervour by going on about the heroic feats of the few hundred men at the South African base who held off a 3 000-strong rebel force for hours, losing “only ” 13 men. This has been used to try to blackmail citizens into feeling they would be dishonouring the memory of the fallen if they question the mission.

They have also patronisingly tried to lecture South Africans about their international obligations.

“South Africa cannot be an island of peace in a sea of conflict,” has been the refrain as they have tried to justify Operation Vembezela, as the mission is known. South Africans know this. That is why — save for the rantings of a few insomniac loonies on late-night talk radio — there has been no outrage over the deployment of troops in peacekeeping missions in places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Sudan. The people of this country understand that being a regional power and a fullfledged member of the human family carries certain duties and responsibilities.

These include putting the nation’s resources at the disposal of multilateral organisations and placing the lives of your soldiers at risk. South Africans accept that some of these young people will come back in body bags and some will come back disabled and traumatised. That is reality.

What is different about the Central African Republic mission is that our leaders have relied on bamboozling the nation into believing that it is “in the national interest” for the SANDF to be there. When that magical phrase is uttered, everybody should shut up and fall into line. The mission in that republic and the handling of the fallout has done great damage to the credibility of South Africa’s legitimate interventions beyond its borders.

To restore and further build on South Africans’ commitment to the country’s international duties, we need to put this debacle behind us. The president and his sidekicks have to be honest with the country about how we got entangled in that conflict, what these “assets” are that our troops are protecting, who they belong to, how they were acquired and who they benefit — and why a mother from the Northern Cape should be proud that her son or daughter puts his or her life on the line for them.

Lies, spin and appeals to patriotism just won ’ t do it.