One of the questions that President Mokgweetsi Masisi had to tackle at his press conference last Wednesday was why only the presence of Rwandan troops in Mozambique and not that of the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) is being acknowledged internationally.
One part of the answer that Masisi gave (that Rwandan war correspondents are embedded with Rwandan troops) was incorrect. Firstly, since the operation to rid the Cabo Delgado region of insurgents began, the Rwandan press has been reproducing press statements from the Rwandan army’s public relations office. Secondly, reporting from the battlefield would be prohibitively expensive for an African media organisation.
The correct answer is that all media organisations that have been able to deploy reporters to the battlefield are western and framing their reports in a manner that responds to western interests. The insurgency in Cabo Delgado is at least four years old and western media only had passing interest in it until insurgents overran a multi-billion-dollar gas project that is being undertaken by Total, a French company.
According to Deutsche Welle, a German media outlet, France had wanted to send its own troops but Mozambique balked at such suggestion. In the end and as a result of the latter, President Emmanuel Macron of France held a meeting with Mozambican President Felipe Nyusi and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame on the sidelines of the Financing of African Economies in France that was held in Paris. This meeting fatefully and tellingly excluded SADC and Masisi – who at the time was the chairperson of the SADC’s defence and security arm.
Darren Olivier, a South African conflict research consultant, says that while SADC despatched a technical task team to Cabo Delgado to study the situation on the ground and draw up a battle plan, Mozambique rushed in Rwandan troops who immediately went into the battlefield. The latter had done very little orientation, intelligence-gathering or any sort of on-the-ground preparation. Macron essentially contracted Rwandan troops for what Charles Matseke and Koffi Kouakou have described as “a state mercenary role for France and Total to secure the multibillion-dollar oil and gas project.” Both are based in South Africa and offered their insights in a piece they co-wrote for Sunday Times.
Only France and Total have been mentioned with regard to the gas project but there are some other (mostly western) countries and companies – including some of the world’s most powerful banks – which also have a stake in the project. Rwanda is doing their bidding and it is understandable why western media organisations, some of them owned by western governments and companies, are interested in how Rwanda is doing in that regard.
At the press conference, Masisi said that the BDF is doing a “sterling job.” On the other hand, westerns news channels wouldn’t be interested in any sterling job done outside the area they are most interested in and in military operations that don’t place western interests front and centre.
