Multinational wargames in SA

2009-08-19 20:34

Pretoria - Close to 6 500 troops, police and supporting staff from the Southern African Development Community will descend on the Northern Cape next month to take part in a military exercise, the SA National Defence Force said on Wednesday.

Briefing the media on Exercise Golfinho, Admiral Philip Schoultz said 11 of the SADC countries would be participating in the exercise which had been in the planning stages since July last year.

"Now it's time to walk the talk," he said.

Fictional country

The exercise is based on a fictional country called the Republic of Lohatlha which suffers from internal stabilisation.

Troops on land, in the air and sea will attempt to infiltrate and stabilise the rebel group.

For the exercise South Africa as the host country would be providing between 800 and 1 500 "dissidents" to play this part.

Schoultz said in total around 3 100 personnel would be coming into South Africa for the larger part of September to take part.

The area mapped out for the "conflict zone" is about 50km long and 35km wide and is a restricted area.

However South African police and their foreign counterparts would also conduct road blocks and general crowd control in the outer lying areas.

Testing peacekeeping abilities

The purpose of the exercise - which will also be acted out in Namibia's Walvis Bay as the port of entry - is to test the SADC's abilities to conduct a peacekeeping mission.

Schoultz would not be drawn on how much the exercise would cost saying the money would be reallocated from another exercise that had since fallen away.

Each country taking part would also foot their own bill for salaries, equipment and the like.

However ration packs for the troops and fuel would be a collective purchase that would be reconciled by the SADC at a later stage.

"We agreed there would be shared costs based on proportionality."

The exercise was "nothing new" and not the biggest one South Africa had hosted.

However it was largest joint multi-national exercise since post-1994, Schoultz said.
 

- SAPA