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Africa Subsaharan

SADC to send troops to restore peace in Eastern DRC

2023-05-11

[GOOBJOOG] The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has announced plans to deploy troops to the Democratic Republic of the Congo

...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
to help quell disturbances in the Eastern part of the country.

President Felix Tshisekedi of the DRC on Tuesday flew to Botswana where he is scheduled to meet his counterpart president Mokgweetsi Masisi to discuss details of the deployment with other leaders from the regional bloc.

Namibian president Hage Geingob who spoke after a special SADC meeting in the country’s capital Windhok said the security situation in eastern DRC needed urgent attention.

"The summit reiterated SADC’s solidarity to assist the government and people of the Republic of Congo in its efforts to restore peace and stability in the eastern part of the country, particularly in light of the upcoming national elections scheduled for December 2023," said Geingob, who serves as chairperson of the SADC Organ on Politics, Security and Defense.

SADC Executive Secretary Elias Magosi added that the meeting resolved to send troops to the DRC to assist in ending hostilities.

"Summit approved the deployment of a SADC Force within the framework of the SADC Standby Force as a regional response in support of the DRC to restore peace and security in Eastern DRC. Summit approved a SADC Common Position to have a more coordinated approach, given the multiple deployments under multilateral and bilateral arrangements in the eastern DRC, and urged the Government of the DRC to put in place the necessary conditions and measures for effective coordination amongst sub-regional forces and bilateral partners operating in the DRC," said Magosi.

Posted by:Fred

#2 When have troops ever restored peace?

Posted by: Skidmark 2023-05-11 07:58

#1 Awaiting articles on Shinkelobwe and other 'closed' mines in southern Congo. Chinese must be all over the place. Last good article, Scientific American, 3/27/2009: Shinkolobwe is now considered an official nonplace. The provincial governor had ordered a squad of soldiers to evacuate the village and burn down all the huts in 2004, leaving nothing behind but stumps and garbage. A detachment of Army personnel was left behind to guard the edges and make sure nobody entered. The government had been embarrassed by a series of accidental deaths inside the mine. Some men were digging inside a jerry-built tunnel when it collapsed on them. Eight were killed, and thirteen injured.
Fatal accidents are all too common in the illegal mining trade of the Congo. Abandoned mines like this one are scattered all over the southern savanna and most of them are still being picked over by local farmers hoping to boost their income by selling a few bags of minerals on the side, usually copper and a smattering of cobalt. Shinkolobwe was different. This was the pit which, in the 1940s, had yielded most of the uranium for the atomic bombs the United States had dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ...

But it was more than historical curiosity. The pit had been clo

Posted by: Slavising Unineting5672 2023-05-11 07:21

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