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The construction support vessel Boka Northern Ocean IMO was a recent caller at Durban, taking bunkers before proceeding towards her next call at Las Palmas, where she is expected on 20 April.
The ship has a gross tonnage of 11, tons and deadweight of 8, tons. Her length is metres As visible in the photographs, the vessel has a helideck positioned ahead of the bridge. With the planned deployment of up to 2, troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo DRC and the planned visit of a frigate to St Petersburg, the South African Government has hit a new low in its approach to national security, going well beyond its by now routine overstretch and underfunding of the Defence Force.
A new low because those taskings show an abysmal failure to prioritise. There are good strategic, political and economic arguments for helping the DRC stabilize the east of the country β if there was a credible plan, if we had the military resources and if there were not other, more pressing, security issues demanding attention:.
There is no credibility there. Even less when the force seems likely to lack any serious air support in a large area of operations with difficult terrain and few β mainly bad β roads. The Army is short of deployable troops and serviceable equipment and the Air Force lacks trooping and attack helicopters to provide tactical air support, reconnaissance aircraft to build an operational picture, and the airlift to deploy any useful force, let alone carry out a quick reinforcement or hot extraction.
