Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

African peace burden cannot be SA's alone, warns Lekota Minister wants neighbours to help out Parliamentary Editor CAPE TOWN - SA could not shoulder the burden of African peacekeeping alone, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said yesterday.

Other countries had to contribute troops to deployments on the continent, he told a media briefing at Parliament.

Lekota said government was working hard to finalise a brigade from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as part of an African Standby Force. The SADC brigade and, ultimately, the standby force would take the pressure off SA.

"SA cannot continue to singlehandedly shoulder the burden of peacekeeping deployments," said Lekota.

In recent weeks President Thabo Mbeki and then acting president Jacob Zuma have notified Parliament of extra deployments of soldiers to Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo, with total deployments now costing millions. The South African NationalDefence Force (SANDF) has also said it will have to make savings in other areas to fund deployments.

The international ideal for deployments is to have a ratio of six soldiers in reserve for every one deployed. This means training can go ahead and rest and leave periods can be given to soldiers as they are replaced. SA is running on a ratio of three to one, leaving precious little space for training.

In response to a question, Lekota said most of the soldiers in the SANDF showing a lack of commitment to the force and to the country were white and male. This was also shown by the fact that most of those soldiers moonlighting as security personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan fitted this description.

Lekota said that there had been no reports of South African soldiers involved in crimes in Congo. There have been reports of soldiers under United Nations (UN) command being accused of rape and other abuses. "They have been there for a very long time, and it is very pleasing that there are no negative reports about them," he said. They had been reminded that the foreign image of SA was their responsibility.

Experts say the costs of troop deployments are one price SA has to pay for its quest to be a force to be reckoned with in Africa, and possibly for a UN Security Council seat.

Analyst Ross Herbert of the South African Institute of International Affairs said the UN's slow reimbursement of nations that participated in peace-keeping mission had discouraged many countries from deploying troops on time.

As SA often responded to UN calls for peacekeeping forces, it would have to learn to cope with the problem as a nation prepared to bear the brunt of peacekeeping initiatives in the continent.

Herbert also cited what he called government's "bad judgment" in choosing to spend billions on heavy warfare equipment, when all indications showed that SA's foreign policy would increasingly need small batches of deployment of troops for peace missions, rather than a large-scale war.

Analyst Prof Shadrack Gutto said countries such as SA had to find innovative ways to generate resources to help shoulder the responsibility of sustaining peace initiatives on the continent through mechanisms such as the African Union.