Speaker, one month ago soldiers from 5 Special Forces Regiment were caught in an ambush outside Bangui in the Central African Republic. So began the battle of the Bangui which caused the lives of 13 of our soldiers all of whom served in the elite 1 Parachute Battalion. These soldiers fought well when the fighting began, killing scores of rebels according to the terrible logic of battle which is: Kill or be killed. We extend our condolences to the families of the soldiers who lost their lives in the Central African Republic, CAR.
But, we must now begin to ask the hard questions about why 13 of our soldiers died in the country so strategically insignificant, that not one of our 126 ambassadors and not one of our 39 defence attaches, were even located in the CAR. We began asking hard questions about this deployment and calling for special hearings weeks before the authorisation letter from the President was published in Parliament. We were told that the deployment was in fulfilment of an international obligation.
However, the memorandum of understanding which the exchange of diplomatic notes signed on 31 December 2012 purported to be extending, had already lapsed on 11 February 2011 - ten months previously. The exchange of diplomatic notes, also surprisingly, contained no replying diplomatic note from the CAR as required for bilateral international agreements. This raises the very serious questions about whether the bilateral agreement, in terms of which the SA National Defence Force, SANDF, was deployed to the CAR, was even valid.
We were not told the truth about the reasons for the deployment of the SANDF in the CAR. First, we were told that the reason for the deployment was to assist with capacity building, disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration. But, the forces which were deployed, including 5 Special Forces Regiment and 1 Parachute Battalion, were elite combat units and hardly suited to this task. But then we were told that the soldiers were in fact not trainers, they were in fact, deployed as a protection force to provide protection to the 26 trainers already in the CAR. But, the 26 trainers did not seem to want protection. They reportedly were elected to remain in their offices in Bangu and were eventually protected not by the SANDF protection force, but by French armed forces stationed in Bangui.
The real question however is not why the SANDF was deployed in the CAR, but why was it not withdrawn from the CAR. The Minister, herself, stated in an interview on 25 February 2013 that:
... if anything, in fact, we should be thinking about reducing the numbers once there was stability in the CAR.
The answer to the question as the Minister has told us here today was that Margaret Vogt, head of the United Nations, UN, in the CAR, requested the SANDF to stay in the CAR to create a firewall to protect Bangui. The SANDF, it appears, was also deployed or ended up being deployed in the CAR trying to prevent the Seleka rebels from entering Bangui and seizing power in the CAR. That is the truth. This seems to be confirmed, rather obliquely, in the exchange of diplomatic notes in which South Africa clearly undertook to, amongst other things, save lives in Bangui. This is what Parliament and the public were not told about the SANDF deployment in the CAR.
The deployment, no matter how you look at it, was a monumental failure. Francois Bozize, the former President of the CAR, who we supported, has fled the country. Michel Djotodia, the Seleka rebel leader, who we opposed, has assumed power in the CAR. The CAR's defence force, who we trained, turned against us and may have been responsible for luring soldiers into the first ambush which triggered the fire fight. Military equipment, including weapons, ammunitions and vehicles which we were supposed to be protecting, have been abandoned in the CAR. In the end, South Africa was outsmarted, outmanoeuvred and outgunned in the CAR. That is why we need a full scale parliamentary inquiry to investigate the deployment.
We need to know how it is that President Francois Bozize, who was a dubious character at best and a very unlikely convert to ubuntu, became the mainstay of our foreign policy. How it is he became our most important client in the region? We need to know how is it that the International Relations and Co-operation Minister, who increasingly seems to have been relegated to playing the role of social secretary for the local diplomatic corps, was isolated from decision-making on the CAR.
We need to know the real reason the SANDF was deployed in the CAR. But, above all we need to know how it is that we were drawn into a battle which we could not supply, without the right equipment, despite desperate requests for armoured patrol carriers, light aircraft, transport helicopters and attack helicopters. The fact is that our soldiers were left dangling with both hands tied behind their backs in a deadly fire fight which eventually led to the loss of 13 of our soldiers in the CAR.
In the end, Parliament is responsible for oversight of the deployment of the SANDF. We were told that the SANDF was being deployed to assist with training in the CAR. But we were not told that the SANDF was being deployed to provide protection in the CAR. And, we were definitely not told that the SANDF was being deployed to prevent the Seleka rebels from seizing power in the CAR.
This is incontrovertible evidence that President Jacob Zuma, who is the commander-in-chief of the SANDF, did not fully inform Parliament about the reasons for the deployment of the SANDF in the CAR. If there is a full scale inquiry and we have access to all the relevant documents including the presidential minutes, the employment papers and force directives the full horror of what happened in the CAR would be exposed here in Parliament. I thank you. [Applause.]