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By Shannon Ebrahim 
19h ago
Cabo Delgado, Mozambique – Dismembered, beheaded and massacred men, women and children litter the villages and towns of northern Mozambique, their bodies often decomposing where they lie. Attacks by Islamist insurgents have been savage, bloody and brutal, and in the six months since the last meeting of the SADC Policy, Defense and Security Body, the situation only appears to have gotten worse.
The number of civilians killed has now exceeded 2,000, the number of displaced 430,000 and the Mozambican government has lost control of three coastal districts.
These gross human rights violations are precisely what the purpose of an AU standby force was supposed to address. There has been talk of the urgency of an AU standby force for 20 years or more, with the justification of having a highly trained African rapid reaction force that could immediately intervene with the military force to stop serious human rights abuses. In the continent. Had there been an AU Reserve Force, it could have intervened in Cabo Delgado long ago to neutralize the insurgency.
The SADC Extraordinary Troika Summit held on Friday discussed the terrorist threat in Cabo Delgado and ordered the completion of a comprehensive regional response and accepted the UN proposal to realign the current strength of the Forces Integration Brigade troops. to create space for the Rapid Reaction Forces (QRF). and generate two QRFs from troop-contributing countries to SADC.
To date, the Mozambican government has brought in mercenaries from Russia and South Africa to do the job that an AU reserve force should have done, and former apartheid military officers are being touted as mercenary leaders to tackle the carnage in the northern Mozambique. Former Rhodesian “war dogs” have also resurfaced, claiming to be ready and willing to confront insurgents in northern Mozambique, as well as members of the former 32 Battalion. These dynamics make it even more essential that SADC’s QRF intervene quickly and effectively in Cabo Delgado to secure African solutions to Africans.
The raging heroin trade off Mozambique’s north coast is likely filling insurgents’ coffers, along with proceeds from rubies, ivory, lumber and other resources. Mozambican defense personnel have also long been involved in criminal syndicates that transport drugs, ivory, and precious stones. For the third time since June, the President of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, has singled out unidentified security elements whom he has accused of profiting from the insurgency or of “serving the evildoers.” The involvement of elements of the security forces working with the insurgents is complicating what is already an intractable conflict.
The recent drama of several Iranians caught for allegedly smuggling 1.5 tons of heroin off the coast of Mozambique suggests that the ongoing illicit trade is lucrative and likely fuels the conflict, securing financial flows to insurgents who then purchase sophisticated weaponry. The lack of coordination between the security forces and intelligence agencies in Mozambique and Tanzania has been puzzling given the escalation of the conflict this year. Just a week ago, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the two countries to share information and reinforce patrols to stop the insurgents.
A total of 516 suspected terrorists or collaborators of insurgents who have been detained in prisons in Tanzania will now be extradited to Mozambique. The shocking reality is that these insurgents not only hail from Tanzania and Mozambique, but come from a plethora of other African countries such as Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Burundi, and even Rwanda. Few would have thought that Rwanda also had Islamic State supporters, but last year alone the Rwandan authorities sentenced 13 people to jail after convicting and supporting them of belonging to extremist groups such as Islamic State and the Shabaab. The tentacles of the Central African province of the Islamic State have spread rapidly across the African continent. ISIS recently claimed credit for killing DRC soldiers in the village of Kokola in Kivu province.
With the Americans paying close attention to developments in Mozambique, the last thing Africa needs is for the US military to get involved in curbing the spread of IS in East and Central Africa. In August, the commander of the US Special Operations Command in Africa, Major General Dagvin Anderson, told reporters that the US would intervene militarily in Mozambique “as a last resort” if the situation continues to deteriorate. Any form of US military intervention in Cabo Delgado would set a dangerous precedent for US military action in the southern African region, further consolidating its military footprint on the continent.
The SADC Troika Summit, which ordered the completion of a regional response on Friday, may be long overdue, but rejects any plans by outside powers to intervene militarily in the southern African region.
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