Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

African peacekeeping force SA STRETCHED TO ITS LIMITS With the eastern Congo rapidly sliding into one of the world's biggest disasters and the war-ridden Darfur region in the Sudan already a humanitarian crisis, attention has again turned to the peacekeeping missions in Africa.

SA's commitments have been stretched to the limit, with troops or observer missions deployed in four of Africa's hotspots.

SA and Nigeria currently carry the brunt of Africa's peacekeeping burden and the demand is likely to increase, according to Henri Boshoff of the Institute of Security Studies. This weekend, defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota said his department needs at least R4bn/year more to cover SA's growing peacekeeping operations in Africa. The department has budgeted R700m this year alone for this purpose.

SA has a full battalion and a number of support staff in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and just short of two battalions in Burundi. It also has observers and staffers in Liberia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

A further 10 high-ranking military observers have been earmarked for the Sudan to monitor a peace accord there. The African Union (AU) request awaits approval from cabinet, which is expected to give Lekota the go-ahead.

All missions, except for the Sudan, are under United Nations (UN) control.

"When you make this kind of commitment to the UN, you have to maintain it," says Boshoff.

A single battalion is made up of between 700 and 1200 personnel and support staff, as well as weaponry and transport. According to Boshoff, the SANDF's resources have been stretched to the limit by its peacekeeping obligations, prompting a review of current policy.

Most countries deploy their armies into peacekeeping missions on a 1:4 ratio. This means that for every battalion deployed, at least four have to be on standby and these are rotated. SA is operating on a 1:1 ratio.

"As things stand, if we are called on again, we would have to cut back on operations elsewhere," says Boshoff. Any additional operations will have to be limited to short-term assistance (not more than a month) and anything more would require dipping into the country's natural reserves, "And you definitely don't want to do that," he says.

But the demand for peacekeeping on the continent is unlikely to ease.

On Monday the UN warned that eastern Congo was fast turning into one of the world's biggest disasters, with 3,3m people, including 4500 malnourished children, out of reach of relief groups.

UN emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland says most of the 10m people in the world living in conflict areas are in the DRC. Relief groups have only recently gained access to Darfur, where Arab militia have conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing, "So there is a tremendous race against the clock there, too," he says.

The fighting around the DRC town of Bukavu resulted in 130 international aid workers relocating to Goma, leaving hundreds of thousands without food aid, health care, clean water and sanitation. The UN says the peacekeeping force in the DRC is too small to stop all the abuses. Thousands of refugees are crossing the border into Burundi, and 5000 more are at a transit camp in Rwanda, which has now closed its borders.

Human Rights Watch says government soldiers as well as dissident forces have carried out "war crimes" in Bukavu in their battle to control the city.

The DRC government last weekend made an urgent call for the UN multinational force to be strengthened. The DRC has specifically asked SA and Mozambique for assistance to integrate the various rebels forces into a single army so that they can defend their own country. SA's special envoy to the DRC, provincial & local government minister Sydney Mufamadi, says a military delegation from the DRC will meet the SANDF this weekend to discuss training and security sector reforms. Mufamadi returned from a fact-finding mission to the DRC last Friday.

Boshoff says the meeting this weekend could have a significant impact on the integration of the armies fighting in the DRC conflict and contribute to the formation of a "supreme defence council", an essential ingredient for peace in the region.

On Friday, the UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution for a UN-led peacekeeping operation in southern Sudan and called for a halt to fighting in western Darfur. All of which heightens the pressure on the continent's peacekeepers.

Last week leaders at the G8 summit in the US endorsed a plan to train and equip 75000 African peacekeepers by 2010. US president George W Bush is expected to ask congress for US$660m to help fund the initiative over the next five years, during which at least 50000 troops can be trained and equipped.

The initial trainees, all expected to be drawn from African nations, could include an additional 25000 peacekeepers if the need arises. However, because of age and medical fitness, SA is struggling to meet the numbers needed for deployment.

SA is reviewing its entire defence force and expects to implement an overhaul by 2010. Boshoff says this will entail a significant "re-sizing" of its personnel, which will see older members being retrained or phased out, and an annual intake of about 3000 new recruits.

The new recruits will be brought in on two-year contracts (some may be extended for a year), trained as soldiers and then released to form a citizen force. These recruits will then be called upon when they are needed. Canada uses this method effectively and SA believes it can be adapted here.

The need for a standby peacekeeping force has increased substantially with the establishment of the AU's Peace & Security Council in May.

The first aim of the council is to have a standby force in place that can be dispatched to hotspots on the continent at short notice. It requires that each of Africa's five regions must have at least one battalion on standby that can be swiftly mobilised into a peacekeeping force. The AU want this to be fully operational by 2010.