Keyword: central african republic

The People Shall Obey

Picture: President Jacob Zuma speaking at the memorial service of SANDF soldiers who died in the Central African Republic courtesy GovernmentZA/Flickr. Richard Pithouse - In his speech at the memorial service for the soldiers who were killed in the Central African Republic Jacob Zuma presented us, and not for the first time, with the idea that we should receive another accumulation of bodies – of black bodies – as a tragedy, as a cruel consequence of the random movement of the wheel of fortune. Thabo Mbeki, watching our steady accretion of 'tragedies' from the sidelines, might, perhaps, have recalled a line from Shakespeare: “Our remedies oft...

South Africa's Military Adventurism: A Dangerous Shift in Foreign Policy

Picture: SANDF soldiers courtesy Cpl. Jad Sleiman, U.S. Marine Corps/Wikimedia. Glenn Ashton - The role of the military in Africa has morphed from the established model of supporting strongmen, to that of projecting economic power and influence. This has recently been placed in sharp focus by the questionable intervention of South African National Defence Force (SANDF) troops in the Central African Republic (CAR). The opacity around South Africa’s presence in the CAR has been tragically emphasised by the statistically unsatisfactory outcome of 13 dead and 26 declared injured...