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The Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, seems determined to ensure that the truth about the circumstances surrounding the deaths of fifteen South African National Defence Force (SANDF) soldiers in the Central African Republic (CAR) is never made public.

Replying to a parliamentary question on the findings of an internal inquiry into the deaths of SANDF soldiers in the CAR, the minister claims:
  
   
“The report of the Board of Inquiry contains security sensitive information that pertains to operational matters that can only be disclosed in the closed session of the Joint Standing Committee on Defence when it is duly convened.”
 
   
Moreover,replying to a parliamentary question on equipment left behind by the SANDF in the CAR, the minister claims that:
  
   
“The operational report on the Central African Republic operation in question is classified. Only training equipment was left behind; the retrieval and transference back to South Africa would not be cost effective.”
  
The reply, in itself, raises questions because it suggests that the SANDF's Gecko rapid deployment vehicles, captured by the Selka rebels, must somehow have been retrieved.
  
Whatever the case there is absolutely no reason why after more than a year we should not be told the truth about the circumstances surrounding the deaths of fifteen SANDF soldiers in the CAR.

   
After all, the Chief of the Defence Force, General Siphiwe Nyanda, together with the Force Commander Colonel Ronnie Hartslief, provided a full briefing to an open meeting of inter alia the Joint Standing Committee on Defence on the disasterous 1998 SANDF invasion of Lesotho, called “Operation Boleas”.
   

We have to get to the bottom of how it is that that the Force Commander, Colonel William Dixon, and soldiers from 1 Parachute Battalion and 5 Special Forces Regiment, appear to have been left dangling without the necessary support in a deadly firefight, which resulted in the deaths of fifteen SANDF soldiers in the “Battle of Bangui”.
  
   
I will, therefore, be submitting a motion to establish an ad hoc committee of parliament, comprising of members of the Joint Standing Committee on Defence, Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans and the Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the fifteen SANDF soldiers in the CAR.