Fake: SANDF duo’s DRC ‘surrender’ is baseless

We have been reminded in recent weeks that sometimes the greatest enemies we face are the ones we cannot see and that the greatest threat lies closest to home.

On Tuesday, a little-known news platform, National Security News, reported that two South African National Defence Force (SANDF) members had surrendered to M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

It was nonsense, of course.

The unnamed Washington correspondent who had written the article did not even observe the basic tenets of corroborating the information and seeking a response from the entities in charge – the SANDF and the department of defence.

It’s clear to see why the article was rushed into publication – it is a thinly disguised polemic rehashing of all the reasons SA and its southern African partners should not be in the DRC in the first place.

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It ignores the fact that this mission is rooted in a request by the DRC to the South African Development Community.

But the article does dwell on the tragedies this mission has endured. The question is to what end and the answer is all too clear.

If those who want us out of the DRC cannot shake our determination, they will do so by spreading fear and doubt in South African minds.

There is nothing more insidious than the weaponising of heartfelt concern and the corrosive drip feed of doubt of untested and unverified rumour as fact.

There are many South Africans who do not believe in the rationale for this mission.

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Those who will not have this mission take place and some with a vested interest, were quick to pounce on the report as emblematic of a greater malaise in the SANDF, casting aspersions upon its leadership and the quality of its members.

This battle is one we must fight with all our might. Any deployment is fraught with danger, it is the nature of the military, and particularly something as complex as peacekeeping when the foe is as cruel and as intransigent as the M23 rebels.

To suggest that our soldiers had surrendered plays havoc with the hearts and minds of those left behind.

It’s difficult to stay in contact with soldiers on deployment, even in an era of internet and cellphones – and when people can’t make contact, panic sets in, which was precisely what the authors of this misinformation wanted to create. Sadly, they almost succeeded.

Propaganda is not new, it was perfected by autocratic and despotic regimes before, during and after World War II.

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All that has changed is the method of delivery as we have seen in the recent disinformation wars in the northern hemisphere which have even tried to alter the outcomes of democratic elections.

The defence department issued a statement denying the article the day after the website published it. Its response? To double down on the original libel.

We have nothing to hide, we can prove that all our members deployed in the DRC are present and accounted for.

All the platform can do is to repeat its claims, which are attributed to unnamed sources in an article written by an unnamed journalist.

This is journalism of the basest kind. Being a foreign entity, we cannot follow the usual channels of taking our complaint to the press ombud for redress, but we can declare war on another front.

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It is not something we have the time nor the energy to do, but the war for the truth is as important as the low-intensity war we have committed to ending in the DRC.

And lest we forget why we are there, we deployed our soldiers there because of our commitment to our responsibilities as a continental leader.

It was also to help find African solutions to African problems by capacitating ourselves and our African brothers and sisters, particularly when it comes to bringing peace to a continent that has rarely known it.

The other reason, quite frankly, is enlightened self-interest. If we don’t step in now and resolve an issue several thousands of kilometres away, we will wake up to see it being played out in our townships and suburbs with catastrophic consequences.

The beating of a butterfly’s wings in Goma or Kivu could well be the tsunami in Durban or Cape Town.

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This is not an easy deployment and is certainly not an easy mission, but it is a critical one and we cannot ignore that. We must identify the propagandists and agents provocateur and expose them for what they are.

We are fortunate that our media are better than that. We should be grateful for that, just as we should be grateful for the possible sacrifices our men and women serving in the SANDF may well be called upon to make to protect us.

– Dlamini is head of communications for the department of defence