The quiet town of White River in Mpumalanga province had become the centre of unexpected international controversy. A detachment of ninety-five Libyan soldiers who were disparagingly labelled "troublesome" by their commander, General Khalifa Haftar, was taken into custody last week at a training facility.
This has sparked serious questions about South Africa's role in the ongoing Libyan conflict and possible infringements of global law. As members of Haftar's Tariq Ben Zeyad brigade, the soldiers had been shipped to South Africa for rehabilitation after exhibiting disciplinary issues and substance abuse problems.
They were scheduled to undertake a rigorous thirty-six-week military training program through Milites Dei Security Services, but their stay rapidly transformed as their Libyan intermediary vanished without notice leaving them without any funds. The soldiers then resorted to selling off their meagre possessions to locals in exchange for alcohol and drugs out of desperation and that is what led to a police raid that uncovered cocaine and precipitated the current dilemma.
The startling revelation about the camp's genuine intention, which was to rehabilitate Haftar's troubled youth, has pulled back the curtain on a complex web of deception possibly in violation of international laws.
While Milites Dei presented paperwork confirming registration with relevant South African officials, the organization that transported the Libyan soldiers is Alama Alowla and it appears to be an imaginary front without credible evidence of lawful existence beyond a Gmail contact. This raises serious issues regarding the vetting process for approving the Libyans' visas after they applied at the South African embassy in Tunisia claiming to need "security instruction".
Security sources believe Alama Alowla serves as a convenient cover for Haftar's forces to obscure training operations in foreign nations. This suspicion is further strengthened by the fact that the scheduled instruction itself seems purely military in nature and it conflicts with the Foreign Military Assistance Act and the National Conventional Arms Oversight Committee's regulations.
The existence of the isolated camp has inevitably provoked questions regarding the instruction supplied by Milites Dei. The company's administrators who are Bardo and Barnard Buys, also do not have any noticeable military experience. However, several Libyan troopers had already undergone sophisticated preliminary military training elsewhere. This raises the question of whether Milites Dei's training was merely a cover for more advanced military instruction. If this is the case, then it would be a violation of South Africa's international obligations.
Adding to the complex situation was the fact that Haftar, who is a former Gaddafi loyalist who currently leads the Libyan National Army, is facing international sanctions for his involvement in the Libyan civil war.
He is seeking to win the forthcoming Libyan elections and become the country's Minister of Defence. His brigade has been involved in several attempts to overthrow the current government which they accuse of being notorious for corruption. The UN's sanctions against Libya prohibit any military assistance to Haftar and this makes the training of his soldiers in South Africa a potential violation of international law.
The South African government has remained silent on the matter which has since become a diplomatic embarrassment for the Southern African nation.
However, the leader of the Freedom Front Plus (FFP) who is also the Correctional Services Minister, Pieter Groenewald, has expressed his concern and said the White River incident provides "irrefutable evidence" that President Ramaphosa's government may be hiding something.
