President Cyril Ramaphosa has been invited to a high-level meeting of regional leaders following an attack by Islamic State-linked insurgents that killed dozens of people, including a South African, in the northern Mozambique town of Palma.
The SA Development Community (Sadc) summit will assess the situation and decide on possible interventions.
Ramaphosa said on Friday that the SA National Defence Force was evacuating South Africans who were stranded in Mozambique.
The attacks have put the spotlight on the insurgency in Cabo Delgado, an impoverished province on the border with Tanzania, where companies such as Sasol to Total are developing one of the biggest gas finds in recent years.
The evacuees were reportedly accompanied by the remains of Durban construction worker Adrian Nel, who was killed when insurgents attacked the gas hub town of Palma.
Sadc has been stalling in its response to the attack, but the possible spread of the insurgency seemingly triggered the regional leaders into action.
The Sadc organ on politics, defence and security vowed last week to take action if the terrorist insurgency continued.
The attacks have been increasing since 2017, when they were initially dismissed as isolated incidents.
In a letter to the foreign affairs ministers of SA, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Botswana and Zimbabwe, dated April 4, Sadc executive secretary Stergomena Lawrence Tax writes that a double troika summit has been convened to be held in Maputo on April 8. It “will deliberate on measures to address terrorism and will be preceded by organ troika summit, and supporting technical meetings”, the letter read in part.
On Wednesday there will be a senior officials’ meetings and a ministerial meeting, Tax wrote in the letter, which Business Day has seen.
Security and defence analyst Helmoed Römer Heitman said that what should come out of the meeting is “a decision by the regional leaders to do something” about the insurgency.
“What I’m afraid will happen is that they will talk and make recommendations. I will be very surprised if they do anything concrete,” he said. "If governments are willing they could do something about this, including us.
“But it will take a lot of money to get things together.”
Heitman said that to put a “useful force” in Cabo Delgado province, “you’re going to need to airlift troops and hire a lot of ships to move vehicles in because you can’t move vehicles — it’s too slow and costly and vulnerable to ambush.
“The bulk of the vehicles will have to be shipped in and none of that will come cheap or easy. Look, if you gave the SA Navy some money, they could close sea access for the insurgents. But you need troops on the ground to secure villages and towns and protect the people.”
Big problem
Heitman stressed that fighting insurgents in Mozambique should be a long-term goal.
“We are looking at a 10-year programme because insurgents are difficult to stop. You’ve got to have troops on the ground for a long time, or otherwise they [insurgents] will come back,” he said.
“At the moment we are not affected but if the insurgents move south, they will capture the gas fields, which will affect us. If we don’t deal with this this year, it will become a big problem for all of us.”
Hennie Strydom, a professor at the University of Johannesburg’s department of public law, said there was an obligation on the Sadc bloc to combat terrorism as provided for in treaty laws.
“There is a responsibility on them to effectively counter terrorist acts, and that will set the standard for them for which they will have to act. It will be interesting to see what kind of solution they come up with.”
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