The deployment of a SADC force in Mozambique was initially supposed to take three months.
It was under that clearly spelt-out deadline that Botswana Defence Force was dispatched by its commander in chief.
Last week the SADC leaders met in South Africa and decided to extend the stay of the mission. They did not say how long the forces will now remain in Mozambique.
The fact that the leaders did not state a renewed deadline is particularly telling.
They too do not know how long the forces will stay in Mozambique.
If the commanders in chief have no idea how long their armies will stay in a war zone, then that is indeed worrying.
We can only hope that our leaders are not falling victim to collective naivete.
They clearly are wary to set a new deadline which over time they will be forced to extend again and again.
For countries that have volunteered to help execute the war in Mozambique, that expedition is now entering a dangerous phase.
Under the latest circumstances a ground has been set for mission creep which now seems inevitable.
There is a real risk of losing the reason why the armies were ever deployed in the first instance.
When that happens the countries involved will end up getting sucked in an endless vortex of Mozambique conflict.
The soldiers went into Mozambique to fight and quell insurgency, terrorism and violent extremism.
According to the leaders, the mission has been successful.
No update has been given as to what still remains to be done as to give the armies an extended and one dare say open-ended fresh mandate.
BDF should not get involved in Mozambique’s internal politics.
We know that upon arrival the soldiers started with jungle warfare which would have been relatively easy for them.
Soon they will have to switch to urban warfare which is immensely sophisticated, dangerous and guerrilla-like.
A bigger question is how long can Botswana sustain a foreign military operation without financial assistance from elsewhere given the dire economic circumstances citizens are facing back home.
Mozambique has a checkered history of a brutal civil war that in the end divided the country along regional lines.
Neglect and inequality in Cabo Delgado are some of the reasons why there is extremism in that part of Mozambique.
As long as that neglect persists, a fertile ground for recruitment will exist and insurgents will continue to attract huge numbers of young and potentially more violent adherents.
That cannot be resolved by BDF or any guns for that matter.
SADC leaders should be careful not to get stuck in a permanent conflict that is, militarily speaking, not winnable.
Mozambique government, particularly president Felipe Nyusi should start levelling up his country and investing more on social services in the province of Cabo Delgado.
The province is home to Africa’s single largest infrastructure investment.
That gas project by the French flagship Total is the reason why the government of Rwanda is involved knee-deep in the conflict.
They are acting as proxies for the French.
The government of Mozambique should genuinely and honestly reassure the people of Cabo Delgado that they stand to benefit from such investments.
The leaders that converged in Johannesburg included Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana, Hage Geingob of Namibia and Filipe Nyusi of Mozambique.
It is important that Nyusi attended the meeting. How long the government and people of Mozambique will be prepared to put up with the SADC forces will be crucial to the direction and overall effectiveness of the mission.
Mozambique’s welcome of these regional forces will not be open-ended.
Mozambique cannot forever remain in the hands of foreign forces – no matter how well-meaning those forces might be.
A small mistake, a little accident, loss of life or arrival of body bags back home would also drastically change both the matrix and public sentiment in Mozambique and also the home countries of participating armies.
Extremism and violence we have been seeing play out in Cabo Delgado are bad.
But they are symptoms rather than causes of all the unrest in that province of Mozambique.
Cabo Delgado needs social and economic intervention to run parallel with military intervention.
While tackling these symptoms might give some level of pleasure to SADC leadership, the government of Mozambique has to fully appreciate that the solutions to the problems they face are not military.
Government of Mozambique needs to understand that the military assistance it receives is meant to allow them space to sort out the mess that they created.
Mozambique will forever be seized with those problems unless it tackles the causes which include poverty, squalor, deprivation, exclusion and neglect.
One of the biggest lessons learnt from the Cabo Delgado deployment has been that Rwanda under Paul Kagame is a rising power in Africa – economically but also militarily.
And Kagame is ever ready to project that power as part of his growing influence.
As his army is fighting insurgents in Mozambique, Kagame has also sent his soldiers to South Sudan and also the Central African Republic.
Rwandan soldiers are renowned for their discipline and efficiency.
And corruption is not a big issue – not even at society level.
As a percentage of the gross domestic product, the Rwanda’s military is easily among the continent’s biggest spenders – ahead of even Nigeria and Ethiopia.
The little Rwanda, as Robert Mugabe once called it, as his forces locked horns against Rwanda
in the Democratic Republic of Congo war, does not share a border with Mozambique.
And unlike Botswana, Rwanda is not in southern Africa and is not even on SADC.
Kagame says he in Mozambique at the invitation of Nyusi. He is right, but that is not the whole story.
French investment completes that story.
From the beginning there has been a huge split on how to respond to Mozambique insurgency.
It is clear that the government of Mozambique has been more receptive to the Rwanda military than to SADC forces.
And president Nyusi has already hinted that the Rwanda army will stay for as long as they are needed.
The local community too has welcomed them with both hands.
Nyusi’s unease with SADC mission is clearly understandable.
He does not want to cede too much power and with that sovereignty to a multilateral force.
Dealing directly with Rwanda under bilateral arrangements gives him much more assurance.
For president Masisi, the sooner he brings the BDF back home, the easier it will be for all involved.
The BDF should leave Mozambique while they are still a solution, before they get viewed as part of the problem.
