JOHANNESBURG—Deadly clashes in a balmy, rundown mining town in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have confirmed what defense experts have known for a long time: South Africa’s army, once the continent’s most respected fighting force and backed by its only military-industrial complex, is in shambles.
The reputation of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) is smothered under the mud and blood and shattered concrete, melted inside smoldering buildings and burnt-out armored vehicles, in the streets of Goma near the DRC–Rwanda border.
Here, M23 rebels recently defeated the Congolese army and a United Nations-mandated “peacekeeping” force consisting mostly of 2,000 South African soldiers.
The DRC government says 7,000 people have been killed and 450,000 displaced in eastern Congo since January.
Over the past few months, the SANDF’s decline has been emphasized by the offloading of more than 20 body bags at an airbase near Pretoria.
Now, surviving South African troops are hunkered down near Goma airport, 15 miles from the town, rapidly running out of food and ammunition.
“We are being held hostage,” a South African soldier told The Epoch Times from the force’s base.
“Some of us are wounded. We are rationing food and medicines. The M23 [allows] us out in small groups. But not often. It is a mess. A big mess,” he said, requesting that his name not be used as the troops are prohibited from speaking to the media.
The M23 was formed in 2012, claiming to defend the interests of Congolese Tutsis, who share ethnicity with Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
Political analysts say the real battle is for eastern DRC’s critical minerals, many of which are essential to the manufacture of electric vehicles and batteries, cell phones, computers, and many other electronic devices.
The U.N. Security Council says Rwanda’s armed forces are in eastern DRC to support the M23 rebels. But even as international television news channels showed Rwandese troops pouring over the border into eastern DRC in recent weeks, Kagame told CNN he didn’t know if his soldiers were there.
The DRC has been riven by conflict for almost 30 years, and the violence has killed about 6 million people, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. In 2013, a peace deal ended battles between the M23 and Hutu militias, who Kagame has accused of orchestrating the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda.
But the M23 resumed fighting in late 2021, accusing Kinshasa of reneging on agreements. It promised to overthrow President Felix Tshisekedi’s government.
In February 2024, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the deployment of 2,900 soldiers to eastern DRC to help Kinshasa’s troops halt the M23 advance.
The announcement sparked an outpouring of warnings from defense experts.
Darren Olivier, director of African Defense Review, an organization that monitors conflicts on the continent, was one of several analysts who predicted that the South African force would wilt in the event of a major rebel attack on Goma.
“Anyone could see that this wasn’t the ragtag M23 of old,” he told The Epoch Times. “Rwanda, which has one of the most powerful militaries in Africa, has supplied the M23 with sophisticated weaponry including missile systems and drones and plenty of ammo.”
Olivier said a joint force of South African, Malawian, Tanzanian, and Congolese troops defeated the M23 in 2013 because it was supported by a fleet of 12 Rooivalk, or Red Falcon, attack helicopters.
The weapon is used by top militaries around the world, including the British army.
On its website, the Rooivalk’s manufacturer, Denel Aeronautics in Pretoria, describes the helicopter as “providing unrivalled firepower, mobility and protection from the air.”
South African military analyst Helmoed Heitman told The Epoch Times the Rooivalk’s main strengths are the ability to operate in extremely bad weather and its “heavy firepower,” including turreted guns, 70 mm rockets, air-to-ground missiles, and air-to-air missiles.
“In military circles, the Rooivalk is considered to be the only rival to America’s famous Apache helicopter,” Heitman said.
Siphiwe Dlamini, spokesperson for South Africa’s Ministry of Defense, confirmed to The Epoch Times that the reason the helicopters aren’t in DRC at this time is because they haven’t been maintained and also “due to contract issues.”
Sources at Denel who spoke to The Epoch Times said the government stopped paying the firm for maintaining the aircraft in late 2023.
One manager said: “Denel’s contract with the government is supposed to cover expenses for technicians and engineers who are experts with regard to the Rooivalk. But Denel was never paid so we walked away.”
“That’s disgraceful,” said Olivier in response. “The Rooivalk is being used across the world except in the country where it’s made. Its grounding symbolizes the rot that has set into South Africa’s armed forces. Everywhere you look there’s decay and low morale. We also have warships and submarines that are in dry dock because they haven’t been serviced in years.”
Dlamini said “budget constraints” are responsible for this.
“We have so many priorities in a country where millions are poor,” he said. “The government is forced to spend billions of rands on health and education and social grants. Cuts need to be made. Unfortunately, the army and navy are victims of these cuts.”
But the Democratic Alliance (DA), a main partner in South Africa’s coalition government along with the African National Congress (ANC), said poor leadership, mismanagement, and corruption are chiefly responsible for the country’s waning defense capabilities.
“How ... do we send our troops into the eye of a storm knowing full well that they don’t possess the weaponry and ammunition needed to mount a successful attack or defense?” asked Chris Hattingh, the DA’s spokesperson on military matters.
“I’ve never seen such a pathetic failure in military planning.”
Kobus Marais, a former colonel in the South African army, said the root of the SANDF’s “meltdown” lies in ANC “cronyism.”
“Ever since 1994 our fighting forces have been led by people who simply shouldn’t be there,” he told The Epoch Times. “There’s a big difference between leading a bunch of guerrillas through the bush and actually running a country’s army.”
After apartheid, the ANC government merged the armed wings of liberation movements with the official military that had helped impose white minority rule.
“Not everything was good about the old South African Defense Force (SADF) but not everything was bad,” Marais said.
“Standards were extremely high. We had the best weapons and training. When we went to the borders to fight what we then called terrorists, and to fight communist Cuban forces in Angola, more often than not we were victorious because we had proper supplies and weaponry and—importantly—air support. And we were led by highly experienced battle-hardened commanders. These standards have disappeared from the SANDF, mostly because the force doesn’t have the support of government.”
Dlamini described Marais’s assertions as “plain wrong.”
“The government has full confidence in the people it has chosen to lead South Africa’s armed forces,” he stated. “It’s discriminatory to say that these men and women are poor soldiers just because they were once members of liberation forces. But I do agree that the SANDF needs more funding and we’re working on that.
“Just because our troops submitted to the M23 doesn’t mean they were badly equipped. No one could have foreseen such a rapid and well-armed assault on Goma.”
No one but experts including Olivier, Heitman, and independent conflict analyst Dean Wingrin.
“Look, our troops were poorly led on the ground and at home by the politicians who sent them into harm’s way surely knowing they weren’t equipped for the mission,” he told The Epoch Times. “There was clearly no plan to get them out of DRC should things go wrong. If there was, they wouldn’t be imprisoned in their base right now.”
Dlamini said negotiations with M23 leaders to secure the release of the trapped South African soldiers are proceeding well.
“We’ve flown reinforcements and aircraft to Lubumbashi (620 miles from Goma) and we’ll fly in to extract our troops as soon as we reach a deal with M23,” he said.
This week, however, the United Nations, in cooperation with rebel leaders, stepped in to evacuate more than 100 ill and wounded South African soldiers, including three in critical condition.
“Our rescuers are on standby to help extract another group of our brave fighters very soon,” Dlamini said.
Whatever happens going forward, Olivier said, the DRC mission represents a “humiliation” for South Africa.
“If we want to contribute forces to whatever conflict going forward, we’re going to have [to] pour money and skills into our armed forces if we want truly world-class defense capabilities,” he said.
But Wingrin said the opposite is about to happen.
“The 2025/26 defense budget is just over 50 billion rands ($2.7 billion). That’s less than 0.7 percent of GDP. That’s not nearly enough to take the SANDF forward. It means that in the future its missions will be severely compromised, just like in the DRC,” he said.
The SANDF has been unable to pay for critical spares, maintenance, upgrades to equipment, and new weapons for the past three years, Wingrin said.
“Given these circumstances, it’s foolhardy to deploy our troops anywhere,” he said. “The navy’s budget is down. The air force budget is down. If any country invades us now … well, let’s not go there for now.”
