A South African defence expert, Helmoed Heitman, says the Southern African Development Community mission in DR Congo (SAMIDRC) is a complete failure and the bloc should negotiate its withdrawal.
Writing an op-ed in a South African newspaper, Business Day, Heitman said the fall of Goma - after United Nations' Monusco, DRC government and SAMIDRC forces failed to stop the AFC/M23 - represents complete mission failure, and SADC and South Africa need to understand and accept this as the starting point in considering what to do next.
Also read: Timeline of events before and after M23 entered Goma
Heitman is a South African author and commentator on military affairs. He was a member of the South African army reserve from 1970 to 1994.
He said options for what to do next include negotiating an "elegant withdrawal" of the South Africa-led SADC contingents from DR Congo, or mount a major operation to relieve the SADC forces at Sake and Goma and resume the original mission after that.
However, Heitman, said, given the failure of the mission, the limited availability of combat forces and the difficulty of any quick deployment for such an operation, a negotiated solution seems to be the better part of valour in this case.
Also read: Malawi orders troops out of eastern DR Congo
He added that deploying additional SAMIDRC forces - which is unlikely given its currently limited deployment - could put trapped soldiers in Sake and Goma at risk.
Meanwhile, Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera ordered the withdrawal of his troops from the SAMIDRC on February 4.
"The Southern African Development Community (SADC) force in the Democratic Republic of Congo was supposedly deployed to "support [DR Congo] to neutralise negative forces and armed groups in the eastern DR," Heitman wrote.
"Instead, the SADC force has itself been neutralised by the M23 rebel group ... Its troops are essentially confined to their base in Sake and the base at Goma airport. That represents complete mission failure, and SADC and [South Africa] need to understand and accept this as the starting point in considering what to do next," he said.
The SAMIDRC was deployed in December 2023 to shore up the coalition of Congolese armed forces, European mercenaries and the genocidal FLDR, Burundian forces and Wazalendo militia in the war against the M23 rebels.
The coalition fortified Goma as the M23 rebels pushed towards the North Kivu provincial capital. However, their defence of Goma collapsed resulting in the Congolese soldiers surrendering to the M23 rebels.
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About 300 mercenaries from Romania fled Goma and crossed into Rwanda where they were given safe passage back to their homeland.
Reports from Goma suggest that South African soldiers are confined to their bases in Sake and Goma airport with the M23 controlling their movements and those of other forces from the SAMIDRC mission.
Given the failure of the South Africa-led mission, Heitman said the country does not have sufficient capability to undertake any major operation.
"We must therefore, for the time being, give up any pretensions to being a regional or even subregional power," Heitman said.
He wrote as the East African Community (EAC) and SADC leaders are meeting on Saturday in Dar es Salama, Tanzania to find a solution to the crisis in eastern DR Congo.
Meanwhile, another scholar, researcher, and public intellectual Adam Habib believes a military solution for South Africa "is not on the table, least of all because we do not have the capability to impose our will."
