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Africa Renewal (United Nations)

Africa: Reforming Security Forces

Ernest Harsch

29 April 2009

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South African transformation

One of the most far-reaching and successful military restructurings in the continent took place in South Africa. It was so fundamental and sweeping that South Africans prefer to call it a "transformation," not just a reform. Previously the South African army, supported by several pro-government ethnic "homeland" military forces, concentrated on defending the country's white supremacist political system against movements for liberation among the African majority. But with the end of apartheid and the first democratic election in 1994, virtually all government institutions were slated for overhaul.

South African peacekeeping troops in the Congo: After a thorough restructuring, South Africa's armed forces are now oriented towards defending democracy at home and peace abroad.

The guiding principle of South Africa's new approach, according to a 1995 defence strategy, was to ensure that the military, police and other security institutions took as their "paramount concern" the "security of people," to protect their freedom, peace and safety. Not only was that orientation radically different from that of the previous security system, it could only be realized through changes to these institutions' "racial, ethnic, geographic and gender composition," notes Major General Roland de Vries, a key figure in the early defence transformation process.

Accordingly, a new South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was created, starting in 1994, through the integration of seven different armed forces: the guerrilla wing of the victorious African National Congress (ANC), a smaller liberation group, the regular army of the previous regime and four "homeland" armies. That process was accompanied by steps to strengthen civilian control, including the establishment of parliamentary oversight and the "demilitarization" of the Ministry of Defence. The country's various police forces were similarly unified, as was the court system.

With further restructuring and training in subsequent years, the SANDF and the national police have been crafted into highly professional forces dedicated to combating crime and other forms of insecurity at home and contributing to African and international peacekeeping operations abroad. According to the late Colonel Rocky Williams, a former commander in the ANC's military wing, a number of factors contributed to the relative success of this transformation: a strong state, a robust economy and "the fact that South Africans themselves managed the transition."

Congolese minefield

As in South Africa, the conflict in the DRC ended with an agreement among the belligerents to bring their forces together into a new national army. But the results so far have fallen short. As Congolese Minister of Defence Charles Mwando Nsimba acknowledged in January, the army remains riddled with "widespread indiscipline at all levels, links with criminals, violence against women and the diversion of soldiers' pay."

The war in the DRC had been especially destructive, and it was also complex, involving numerous domestic factions and the armies of a half-dozen neighbouring states. In 2002 the main contenders signed a peace agreement. It established a power-sharing transitional government and included a commitment by the factions to demobilize some troops and merge the rest into a single army. After some delays, the country's first democratic elections were held in 2006.

The new constitution specified that "the armed forces are republican. They are at the service of the entire nation." According to Professor Mwayila Tshiyembe, a Congolese expert in international and military affairs, this notion of an army that does not only protect the government, but that also "defends democracy" and "guarantees the security of people and property," was the most innovative idea to come out of the peace accords.

Unfortunately, during the transition period partisan infighting led each faction to exaggerate the numbers of its troops. Many of these numbers were actually fictitious. Surveys by South African and European advisers later eliminated 130,000 "ghost soldiers" from the initial rolls of 340,000. Some 75,000 real troops were also subsequently demobilized.

More seriously, there was very little screening of troops. They included commanders of factions suspected of war crimes, and their patterns of behaviour have carried over into the new army.

Unsteady 'integration'

Creating unified structures for the new army proved especially troublesome. In theory there were to be 18 "integrated" brigades, in which troops from the different factions were merged, retrained and then posted to areas outside their home zones. This process, known by the French term brassage ("intermixing"), was intended to break down the old chains of command and forge loyalty to the new national institution.

A UN peacekeeper instructs Congolese troops: Training has also sought to promote human rights awareness and counter sexual violence.

General Gabriel Amisi, head of the army's ground forces, told assembled troops in August 2008 that they should not resist serving outside their home areas. "There are no soldiers of Katanga or soldiers of Kivu. You are all troops in a national army."

But some did not see it that way, especially in the eastern DRC. General Laurent Nkunda, a civil war commander, initially brought his troops into the army, but resisted their full integration or deployment to other areas. He claimed they had to remain in North and South Kivu to defend his ethnic group. As tensions revived, troops loyal to General Nkunda's Congrès national pour la défense du peuple (CNDP) deserted their "integrated" brigade in 2006 and resumed armed actions, including against government forces.

With such incidents in mind, Lieutenant General Babacar Gaye, force commander of the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC), remarked to Africa Renewal in 2007 that the decision at the peace talks to amalgamate the different groups into a single army "was a really good idea" for ending the war. "But unfortunately, it didn't produce a good military."

In October 2008 fighting between the national army and General Nkunda's CNDP escalated into major confrontations. Some army units rapidly crumbled, and only a prompt deployment of MONUC peacekeepers prevented General Nkunda's fighters from taking Goma, the capital of North Kivu.

General Nkunda was arrested in Rwanda in late January, paving the way for a ceasefire. The government started talks with the remaining CNDP forces on their incorporation into the army. Father Apollinaire Malumalu, a leading Congolese mediator, welcomed the integration move as a possible step towards peace. But he also insisted that protecting civilians must come foremost and cautioned the authorities to not "fall into the errors of the past."

UN Secretary-General Ban, during a visit to the eastern DRC at the beginning of March, also urged care. He cautioned that no one accused of sexual violence "be integrated into the national army or police."

Meanwhile, MONUC instructors and other experts have stepped up the professionalization of the army's integrated brigades, in addition to improving the discipline of the national police. Hundreds of army officers have been trained in civilian-military relations and combating sexual violence. Enhancing the military's public image somewhat, hundreds of troops of the army engineer corps have been mobilized for reconstruction projects, to rebuild roads, bridges and other essential infrastructure.

The abuses by government troops during the Kivu fighting have also met with a prompt response. A number of soldiers and officers were tried and sentenced by military courts, some to life in prison. The army prosecutor in Goma reported in December 2008 that some 400 troops were under detention awaiting trial. There have been several cases elsewhere in the country, including of officers accused of embezzlement.

At a January seminar on reforming the army and police, Minister of Justice Luzolo Bambi Lessa emphasized the need to strengthen both the chain of command and the military courts in order to "quickly eradicate the flaws of corruption, embezzlement of state funds, sexual violence and violence against vulnerable civilians." The Congolese national police force has adopted a guiding "vision" statement committing the police to protect human rights in the country and vowing to sanction any police personnel who engage in abuses.

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