RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Nearly 3,000 people have been killed in Goma in recent days” reported Vivian van de Perre, Deputy Head of the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in central Africa. Goma is the capital and largest city of the DRC’s North Kivu Province.

In the final week of January, 17 South African National Defence Force (SANDF) soldiers in the Congo were killed, and many more wounded, in battle with the rebel group M23 (which is backed by Rwanda), when the M23 captured Goma from DRC government’s forces. It is believed that “M23 seeks to set up an administration to govern Goma as it has in other areas under its control in the eastern DRC.”

This was no local skirmish. It was, rather, a geopolitical confrontation. The South African soldiers had formed part of a multilateral UN and Southern African Development Community (SADC) peacekeeping force. Their mission was to prevent the M23 rebels from occupying and permanently controlling large areas of the Congo — known for rich deposits of vital minerals, essential for the global electronics industry. M23’s progress has “strengthened the group’s control over critical mineral resources in eastern DRC and its supply lines to Rwanda,” reported Liam Karr of the Critical Threats website.

The conflict has potential to become a fully-fledged central African war. Burundi actively supports the DRC government, while Rwanda and Uganda stand behind the M23 rebels, hoping to benefit from the rich spoils. Meanwhile, the war continues, causing “a humanitarian crisis for hundreds of thousands of Congolese refugees in the eastern DRC” – yet another crisis overlooked by the rest of the world.

M23 has lofty ambitions. It pledges to compel a regime change in the DRC. To achieve this, the groups aims to “continue the march of liberation” to DRC’s capital city, Kinshasa. US President Donald Trump has described the crisis as a “very serious problem.”

The deadly outcome of the battle for Goma indicates a catastrophic failure in political and military leadership. It turns out that while the South African soldiers were fighting for their lives in what might now be considered a “suicide mission”, their military leaders were busy playing golf thousands of kilometers away.

While some of their men lay dying and injured during the desperate week-long combat in the Congo — and the remainder surrounded by the enemy and running short of supplies, including food and water — South Africa’s Army chief Lieutenant-General Lawrence Mbatha and the Air Force chief, Lieutenant-General Wiseman Mbambo, enjoyed leisure-time back home. The generals’ celebration of the scheduled “Air Force Week” continued during a horrific time for their soldiers on the battlefield in an alien land, and for a somewhat uncertain cause.

Chris Hattingh, spokesman of South Africa’s Democratic Alliance opposition party, called upon President Cyril Ramaphosa, as commander-in-chief, to cancel the ongoing festivities. Ramaphosa, however, remained silent, possibly dependent like most African leaders for their precarious positions, upon the military’s goodwill. Hatting wrote:

“Not only is the President silent, but he is also allowing a military festival to take place at a time when our military is facing a catastrophic crisis…. While our soldiers are risking their lives in a foreign conflict, senior officers are celebrating and enjoying festivities. High-ranking officers reportedly even traveled to the event in Air Force transport.”

Darren Olivier, a military expert at African Defence Review commented in a similar vein

“For the chiefs of the air force and army, the two services most directly connected with the fate of the beleaguered South African troops in the DRC, to be spending most of a day laughing and joking around a golf course while soldiers call desperately for support from home is beyond callous and tone-deaf.

“This is a moment where we needed the President, minister of defence, and the most senior military staff officers to stand up and show leadership, but they failed both that test and our soldiers.”

The deadly outcome of the battle at Goma highlights a catastrophic failure in leadership, equipment and training.

South Africa’s Minister of Defence Angie Motshekga – transferred from the Ministry of Education in mid-June 2024 – has no training or expertise in military matters at all, and likely minimal knowledge whatsoever of defence affairs. Race-based DEI initiatives continue to thrive in South Africa’s dominant party, the African National Congress (ANC). Motshekga approves of the Congo mission, which was hastily commissioned in 2023, and will endure for the foreseeable future.

Although South Africa has sent peacekeeping troops to the DRC for more than 20 years, the website News24 reports that political commentator Sikonathi Mantshantsha “asks why are they dying in a perpetual conflict in an open-ended deployment of no obvious strategic gain”. “No obvious strategic gain” is a valid point, as nothing concrete has resulted from the long-term deployment of peacekeeping forces in a region that has “seen decades of conflict involving multiple armed groups.” Many peacekeeping force members have needlessly been killed by rebel groups during this period.

South Africa’s military authorities would be well advised to recall Major-General John F.C. Fuller’s (1899–1933) criticism of poor leadership at times of war:

“In the World War nothing was more dreadful to witness than a chain of men starting with a battalion commander and ending with an army commander sitting in telephone boxes, improvised or actual, talking, talking, talking, in place of leading, leading, leading.”

Unfortunately, the ineptitude of South Africa’s top military echelon and ministers of defense is only a symptom of abysmal political rule by the ANC, governing the country for the last 30 years. It seems that almost every decision they make is a catastrophe.

The conditions of the country are ruinous. Once-bustling country towns are now relegated to ghost towns; sewage flows everywhere, water shortages proliferate even in major cities along with power shortages and the total failure of all state-owned entities to function effectively or at all. The dangerous levels of unemployment with youth joblessness exceeds 50%.

Journalist Malcolm Libera last month described the condition of Johannesburg:

“South Africa’s most important city collapsing in front of everyone’s eyes…

“Professor Mark Swilling of Stellenbosch University has highlighted entrenched corruption, particularly within Gauteng’s Department of Health, as a key contributor to the province’s financial instability.

“He described the department as controlled by a “syndicate” deeply embedded in state structures, draining public coffers.

“Finance leaders have proposed strategies to stabilise Johannesburg’s finances, including improved tax collection and investment initiatives.

“However, experts warn that these efforts will not be enough to prevent a full-scale collapse without addressing corruption, mismanagement, and infrastructure decay.

“The effects of this crisis are most evident in three critical areas: road infrastructure, electricity supply, and water provision.”

Added to this systemic incompetence is wide-spread corruption among politicians. It is so bad that many ANC ministers have periodically been accused, charged, or faced allegations of it. In 2024, for instance, the previous Minister of Defence Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula was charged with corruption relating to defense contracts. Other high-ranking defense officials were also charged. Moreover, the ANC regime still retains a blatant racist program against minorities, particularly the white citizens –- most of whose families settled there more than 300 years ago, and the wretched social, political, and economic condition of the “new” South Africa continues to deteriorate dramatically.

Trump, apparently aghast at the South African situation, places the blame firmly at the door of the ANC. He has, accordingly, suspended aid to the country and recognized the precarious plight of white farmers who suffer ongoing murderous racial attacks, in which hundreds have been brutally murdered over the last 30 years.

White farmers are murdered at a rate four times the national average – one every five days. In 2019, for instance, more than 1,000 individual farmers were attacked. Some political parties allege that farm killings “can justifiably be viewed as genocide” and have accused the police of suppressing official figures that indicate a “drastic increase” in farm assaults and murders.

Trump now plans to offer these farmers refugee status and an opportunity to find safe haven in the US. Under terms of his February 2025 executive order, the US “cannot support the government of South Africa’s commission of rights violations in its country” and will withhold assistance “as long as it continues these unjust and immoral practices.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote last month:

“I will NOT attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg. South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change.”

The crucial importance of South Africa’s immense trade benefits granted by the US under the African Growth and Opportunity Act comes under close scrutiny, and jeopardy, as the September renewal deadline looms. In the current atmosphere, it is possible the US may not renew the current agreement. South Africa’s economy will be severely impacted by the loss of these lucrative trade advantages. Even so, the ANC echelon does not seem to be particularly concerned. Instead, it is irrationally demanding to “engage as equals” over the issue with Trump’s team.

Along these lines, in his February 6^th State of the Nation address, Ramaphosa declared:

“We will not be bullied. We will stand together as a united nation. We will speak with one voice in defence of our national interest, our sovereignty and our constitutional democracy.”

However, there is no “one voice” supporting him. The ANC at the last election received only roughly 40% of the national vote, and is ruling the country in a fragile coalition. In criticizing Trump publicly, it is not exactly clear which planet Ramaphosa and the ANC believe they live on. Adopting that attitude, as the world witnessed last week during the US president’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, might be self-destructive and highly detrimental to the people of South Africa.

South Africa’s defiant attitude escalated further when the ANC indicated an intention to increase its nuclear power capacity and permit Iran and Russia to tender for the project – in blatant violation of US law. “We can’t have a contract that says Iran or Russia must not bid,” South Africa’s Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe explained; “we can’t have that condition. If they are the best in terms of the offer on the table, we’ll take any [country].”

David May, a Senior Research Analyst of the US-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote in a response on February 18:

“South Africa’s corrupt ruling party is determined to plunge the country further into the abyss of alliances with autocrats. The African National Congress has drawn the country closer to Russia, China, and Iran and doubled down on serving as Hamas’s lawyer on an international stage.”

Welcome to an increasingly dysfunctional and fervently socialist South Africa – not a nation the world anticipated after the end of apartheid, and certainly not a friend to the West.

Nils A. Haug is an author and columnist. A Lawyer by profession, he is member of the International Bar Association, the National Association of Scholars, the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Dr. Haug holds a Ph.D. in Apologetical Theology and is author of ‘Politics, Law, and Disorder in the Garden of Eden – the Quest for Identity’; and ‘Enemies of the Innocent – Life, Truth, and Meaning in a Dark Age.’ His work has been published by First Things Journal, The American Mind, Quadrant, Minding the Campus, Gatestone Institute, National Association of Scholars, Jewish Journal, James Wilson Institute (Anchoring Truths), Document Danmark, and others.