{"id":3064,"date":"2012-10-26T06:52:40","date_gmt":"2012-10-26T06:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=3064"},"modified":"2012-10-26T06:52:40","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T06:52:40","slug":"sa-to-deploy-reservists-in-mali-drc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=3064","title":{"rendered":"SA to deploy reservists in Mali, DRC"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Civilians who have undergone military training could soon be called up for active service and be deployed on potentially deadly peace-keeping operations.<\/p>\n

The South African army – already overstretched by peacekeeping deployments across the continent – is fast preparing for the deployment of hundreds of additional troops, including civilian reservists, to peacekeeping missions. There are some 15000 army reservists.<\/p>\n

Prior to yesterday’s announcement, President Jacob Zuma said he would strongly consider deploying soldiers to Mali on an African Union peacekeeping mission. If Zuma gives the go-ahead, the deployment could happen early next year.<\/p>\n

Army chief Lieutenant-General Amos Masondo yesterday confirmed the urgent requests by Mali and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.<\/p>\n

“We are waiting to hear what needs to be done,” he said.<\/p>\n

Masondo said the appointment of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as AU Commission chair would lead to increased demands for South African forces to be deployed elsewhere Africa.<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately, we are limited by our numbers. If the request is approved, the forces will have to include lots of reservists.<\/p>\n

“We simply do not have enough permanent force members. We are already overstretched in Africa, with hundreds of our troops deployed internally on our borders.”<\/p>\n

Masondo said vast amounts of money were currently being spent on training, and that the upgrading of equipment was a priority.<\/p>\n

Mali’s government is currently embroiled in violent confrontations with al-Qaeda linked groups trying to overthrow the state.<\/p>\n

The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, along with the UN, is currently involved in bloody battles against rebel forces who are armed with heavy artillery and tanks.<\/p>\n

The proposed deployments are being considered while 3000 South African soldiers take part in an exercise at the combat training centre in the Northern Cape.<\/p>\n

A senior officer – deployed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2010 – said the missions would require more than just a few hundred troops.<\/p>\n

“These rebels are not playing around. They have serious numbers and serious fire-power. They are battle-hardened and have been at war for years. If we don’t do this right we will be bringing body bags home,” he said. – timeslive.co.za<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Civilians who have undergone military training could soon be called up for active service and be deployed on potentially deadly peace-keeping operations. The South African army – already overstretched by peacekeeping deployments across the continent – is fast preparing for the deployment of hundreds of additional troops, including civilian reservists, to peacekeeping missions. There are … Continue reading “SA to deploy reservists in Mali, DRC”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[1665,949,1855,1968,1967,772],"class_list":["post-3064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-au","tag-drc","tag-mali","tag-peacekeeping","tag-reservists","tag-sandf"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/sandf.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3064"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3067,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3064\/revisions\/3067"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}