Since the Southern African Development Community (SADC) took the decision to deploy troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), political analysts have wondered whether the development will solve the decades long security crisis in the east of the country, or will lead to splitting DRC apart.

The SADC bloc said that the mission of its forces was to work with the Congolese armed forces to fight the M23 rebels.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) Member of Parliament, and shadow Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, MP Kobus Marais, termed the deployment of South African troops in DRC reckless, and called on South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa as the Commander in Chief to reverse the decision.

“The deployment of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) as part of the SADC’s military intervention force to the eastern DRC is a reckless decision that will potentially place the lives of our uniformed forces at severe risk,” Marais said.

The deployment of the SADC Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (SAMIDRC) was approved by the Extraordinary SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government held in Windhoek- Namibia, on May 8, 2023, as a regional response to address insecurity in eastern DRC.

However, the decision by SADC to replace the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) that was already on ground, but sent packing by Tshisekedi, played out like a coup and a vote of no confidence by SADC against the EAC-led Nairobi Process aimed at resolving the conflict in eastern DRC.

When SADC claims that the deployment of SAMIDRC was decided in accordance with the principle of collective self-defence and collective action as outlined in the SADC Mutual Defence Pact (2003), it gives an impression that SADC was misled and does not understand the nature of the conflict in eastern DRC.

Although there are more than 260 armed groups operating in eastern DRC, some of which are created and sponsored by Congolese government, SAMIDRC has been invited to fight only one group, the M23 rebels.

This begs the question: does SADC fully understand the root cause of the M23 rebellion and probably its difference with other armed groups?

The conflict is not an external aggression because M23 rebels are Congolese fighting for their denied rights as legitimate citizens of DRC.

Such an internal conflict does not require collective SADC military action, but regional mediation efforts could help to address the root causes of the conflict.

It is absurd to see Angola which is supposed to be the mediator in the DRC conflict, supporting use of arms as the best option to provide a solution, knowing very well that a military option also supported by SADC did not work 10 years ago.

Lack of cooperation and common understanding between SADC and the East African Community on the nature of the conflict in eastern DRC spells disaster for the great lakes region.

The SADC bloc risks escalating the conflict which is likely to split DRC apart.

The Congolese Tutsi population is being targeted and killed by the Congolese government and armed militia when the world is watching. The M23 rebels have vowed to fight on until their grievances are heard and addressed or else they will be forced to set up their own governance structures to protect their communities.

The Congolese government under Joseph Kabila signed a peace deal with the M23 rebels in December 2013, ending an 18-month insurgency against the Kinshasa government.

The DRC government spokesman at the time, Lambert Mende, confirmed that three agreement documents were signed at State House in Nairobi, Kenya. The failure by Kinshasa to honor the agreements, largely, resulted in the continued M23 rebellion.

Tshisekedi has even gone to an extent of saying that M23 does not exist and lying that the conflict is an external aggression by Rwanda.

Instead of deploying troops to support the Congolese government to fight its own citizens, SADC would do better by supporting a peaceful political settlement of the conflict through dialogue as the proposal put forward by the EAC-led Nairobi Process.

Refusing to bring the warring parties to the table to reach an agreement by peaceful means will only lead to an endless crisis.