M23's Top Commander Is Rwanda's Defense Minister And Group Also Backed By Uganda; Says Final UN Report
Black Star News Editorial
11-20-12
UN Report says M23 chain of command leads through Rwanda's chief of military staff to Rwanda Defense Minister Gen. Kabarebe, shown here
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[Black Star News Editorial]
UN Report Says M23 Totally Controlled By Rwanda And Uganda
The escalation of conflict in Congo by M23 may signal a panic by Rwanda over its failed bid to get the United Nations to alter the final version of a damning report over its control of the insurgents.
Rwanda has total control of M23's chain of command and direction of military operations, according to the UN report. Both Uganda and Rwanda have been accused in other past UN reports of massive plunder of Congo's mineral and natural resource wealth.
Fighting flared up over this past weekend with M23 marching towards the Congo city of Goma, pushing back Congolese troops and forcing United Nations peacekeepers to use helicopter gunships to pummel insurgent positions. M23, so-called "rebels," is very much a conventional army and rained artillery fire to clear a path towards Goma, according to media reports. Why the suddenly escalation of fighting by M23, a violent fully-equipped army, which the United Nations in the group of experts' report says is actually under the total command of Rwanda's defense minister Gen. James Kabarebe. After an interim report by the UN group of experts earlier this summer accused Rwanda and Uganda of recruiting, backing, arming, training, and providing sanctuary for M23, both Kigali and Kampala denied the findings. The U.S. shortly after announced cut in some aid to Rwanda and an Obama administration official, Stephen Rapp, who heads the U.S. Office of Criminal
Justice, said Rwanda's President Paul Kagame could be exposed to war crimes charges. Uganda recently sent a senior government minister Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda to New York where he lobbied member countries of the UN Security council to alter the final version of the report which is due to be released shortly.
Rwanda also protested.
But after the UN group of experts met with senior Rwanda government officials and after Rwanda's written protest the group refused to budge.
The group of experts says after it "took into consideration" Rwanda's "written response" to the addendum of the earlier interim report "the Group has found no substantive element of its previous findings it wishes to alter."
Indeed, a copy of the final version of the report reviewed by The Black Star Newsshows that the lobbying effort by both Uganda and Rwanda failed.
Uganda had threatened to pull out its troop from peacekeeping in Somalia. The U.S. foots the bill since Washington is concerned that war-torn Somalia could become a haven for al-Shabab, and other groups the U.S. says are affiliated with al-Qaeda.
The flare-up in M23's Congo fighting could be Rwanda's own way of trying to blackmail the UN before the official release of the final report.
Rwanda may want to show that it's the only country with the ability to stop the rampage. In return, Kigali may, cynically, hope to be embraced as "peacekeepers" by taming M23, an army that the UN says it actually controls, directs, and commands.
According to the final version of the UN report, the chain of command of M23 passes through Bosco Ntaganda, the M23 titular leader, who has been indicted on war crimes charges, and ends with Rwanda's minister of Defense Gen. Kabarebe.Ntaganda receives "direct military orders from RDF Chief of Defense Staff General Charles Kayonga, who in turn acts on instructions from Minster of Defense General James Kabarebe" says the report. RDF is a reference to Rwanda Defense Forces. The report says a Rwandan general, Emmanuel Ruvusha, manages military ground support for M23, while Permanent Secretary in the Defense Ministry, Gen. Jacques Nziza, provides strategic advice and oversees logistical support. The Black Star News sent a written inquiry to the United States Mission to the United Nations asking, in light of the flare-up of fighting by M23 and the UN report, whether Washington would call for sanctions on the Rwandan and Ugandan officials named in the
report. Kathleen Herrera, a spokesperson at the US Mission did not respond to the questions by publication deadline, after providing an email address where to submit the questions.
According to the UN report Uganda has directed military operations by M23 and also provided heavy weapons to their fighters.
M23 also openly recruits in several Ugandan cities, and refugee camps, accompanied by members of the Ugandan military, the Uganda People's Defense Force (UPDF), says the UN report.
As recently as July, an M23 colonel, Innocent Kaina, traveled "from Bunangama to Kasese, Uganda, to recruit with the assistance of UPDF officers" according to the UN report.
M23 leaders consult in Uganda with Gen. Salim Saleh, Uganda's Presidential Advisor on Military Affairs and brother of the president, Gen. Yoweri K. Museveni, and with Uganda's Inspector General of Police Gen. Kale Kayihura.
The U.S. Mission to the UN also didn't respond to questions from The Black Star News whether the U.S. would also call for sanctions against Gen. Saleh and Gen. Kayihura.
The report found that "General Saleh has been principally responsible for UPDF support to M23."
M23 operates so openly in Uganda that it rents two houses in Kampala, the capital and the UN group of experts actually visited one of the houses, according to the report.
Ntaganda, wanted on war crimes charges, also travels to Uganda, in violation of a UN travel ban and purchased a house in Uganda, contravening an asset freeze, says the report. Ntaganda speaks regularly with top Uganda army commanders, says the UN report.
The report says the Ugandan training of M23 continued even after the interim report was published this past summer and that, as recently as September, Uganda was arming M23.
According to the report Uganda and Rwanda also provide diplomatic and political advice to M23; and, Rwanda's Gen. Kabarebe even unilaterally nominated a "cabinet" for M23, including its political leader.
Gen. Kabarebe's control is so total that when the "cabinet" met some of its members didn't even know about their nomination as ministers.
The report says M23 fighters recruited in Rwanda who flee Congo and return home are captured by Rwandan soldiers and returned to Congo where they are either executed or subjected to "horrible" punishments.
According to the report, child soldiers are sometimes sent to the frontline by M23 after only week's training.
This past summer after the interim report was issued the U.S. cut some aid to Rwanda. The report says Rwanda's regular army troops still operate in Congo.
The Black Star News inquired whether the U.S. would continue any military assistance to Rwanda and Uganda in light of the attack on Goma by M23 and the final version of the United Nations report.
The U.S. Mission to the UN did not respond by publication deadline.
The reputation of the UN Security Council is at stake if the world body fails to make it clear that Rwanda and Uganda are responsible for the M23 triggered bloodshed in Congo.
The Rwanda and Uganda governments have received heavy U.S. and U.K. support through the years.
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