Mozambique: SADC counting on EU funding to send troops to Cabo Delgado – analyst

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Mozambique: SADC counting on EU funding to send troops to Cabo Delgado – analyst

3:39 CAT | 28 Apr 2021

File photo: Lusa

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is counting on funding from the European Union to send 3,000 troops to Cabo Delgado, the state in northern Mozambique that has been wracked by violence, according to Andre Thomashausen, professor emeritus of international law at the University of South Africa (UNISA),

“I think that major financial support from China, Russia or India, or from another partner of the [global] South, Brazil, can be ruled out, but they will seek funding from the European Union, first of all, and then from the United States,” Thomashausen told Lusa, noting that gas exploration in northern Mozambique is led by Total, which is based in France and majority-controlled by US investors.

A SADC technical assessment mission will propose sending a military intervention force of around 3,000 troops as part of its response to help Mozambique combat the “jihadist insurgency” in the northern region, according to a report prepared after a week-long SADC visit to the country, from April 15th to 21st, including one day in Cabo Delgado, to assess the needs of the regional neighbour.

In terms of military assets, the SADC assessment team proposes that 16 be sent to Mozambique, namely two patrol ships, a submarine, a maritime surveillance plane, six helicopters, two drones and four transport planes.

“The technical conclusion of this analysis is that the insurgency in Cabo Delgado cannot be controlled simply with a little support in training or in consulting to the FADM [Armed Forces for the Defence of Mozambique],” Thomashausen says.

The retired University of South Africa (UNISA) professor says that “the logistical set up” of the “considerable force” proposed by the SADC technical assessment team “is very clearly aimed at South Africa”.

“It is the only country which has naval capacity, with submarines and military air transport of great reach, among other means. It can also be understood that the forces and logistical support that South Africa has been maintaining in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the context of a United Nations peacekeeping mission, and which must now, at the request of the Congolese government, leave that country, could find a new mission in northern Mozambique, which would be very convenient for South Africa,” he adds.

The government in Pretoria, Thomashausen argued, “is desperately seeking” ways to strengthen and rehabilitate its military operational capabilities through the intervention in northern Mozambique, noting that “the SADC is wanting this entire operation to be funded by support from the European Union and, to some extent, also the United States.

“The SADC is envisaging a role for the European Union of financial rather than logistical or human resources support,” he posited.

Armed groups have terrorised Cabo Delgado since 2017, with some attacks claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State, in a wave of violence that has already caused more than 2,500 deaths, according to the ACLED conflict registration project, and 714,000 people displaced, according to the Mozambican government.

The most recent attack, on March 24, was carried out against the town of Palma, causing dozens of deaths and injuries in numbers yet to be ascertained.

Mozambican authorities regained control of the town, but the attack led oil company Total to indefinitely abandon the main construction site of the gas project scheduled to start production in 2024 and on which many of Mozambique’s expectations for economic growth in the next decade are based.

Source: Lusa