Zimbabwe mum on military casualties in DRC and Mozambique

Over 20 years since Zimbabwe assisted the Mozambican government repel the Renamo insurgency, government has remained tight-lipped on the human loss the country suffered during the incursions.

Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi in a rare uninhibited wide-ranging interview with journalists in the capital last week refused to divulge details of the number of causalities the country suffered.

Zimbabwe was also involved in military operations in Angola and the contentious Operation Sovereign Legitimacy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1997-1999, to prop-up the late Laurent Kabila in which media reports claimed thousands had lost their lives.

"I am sorry we cannot provide those figures. They are really not necessary, suffice to say that the losses we had were minimal," Sekeramayi said in response to questions from The Zimbabwe Mail.

"If we had suffered the kind of loses that the media reported then we would have held parades across the country to bury and pay our respects to those soldiers."

Quizzed if any economic benefits had accrued to the country given the degree of participation by Zimbabwean troops particularly in Mozambique and the DRC, Sekeramayi said the country had not benefited.

"It is a paradoxical situation that we created peace in the countries you mentioned but did not benefit from that peace. Our people just do not have the financial muscle required to invest in those countries.

"We did not have the ability, after 1992 in Mozambique black Zimbabweans simply did not have the ability and capacity to go into that country and set up business but the people there expected a flood of our businesspeople," he said.

There were reports of massive troop loses in the DRC, in particular, following clashes at Inga Dam with rebels.

Zimbabwe helped the Frelimo government in Mozambique repel Renamo bandits from about 1982 to 1992 and sustained the Rome accord that brought the warring parties to the negotiating table, according to the defence minister.

He said since 1992, the country had deployed over 5 198 troops, among them 52 women, in various countries but could not provide the current figures.