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Sunday, 30 December 2012

Region sucked into conflict as eastern Congo becomes theatre of war again - News - www.theeastafrican.co.ke


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Region sucked into conflict as eastern Congo becomes theatre of war again

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M23 rebels withdraw through the hills having left their position in a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on November 30, 2012. Hundreds of Congolese rebels left their frontline positions around Goma following a regionally brokered truce. Photo/AFP

M23 rebels withdraw through the hills having left their position in a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on November 30, 2012. Hundreds of Congolese rebels left their frontline positions around Goma following a regionally brokered truce. Photo/AFP 

By Edmund Kagire, Rwanda Today

Posted  Friday, December 28  2012 at  19:03

IN SUMMARY

  • The timeline of arguably Rwanda's big story of 2012 as it unfolded.
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It all started in April with a group of soldiers formerly under National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) — who had been integrated in the national forces under a March 23, 2009 agreement — mutinying and launching a rebellion against the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The fighting would spiral into a full-scale war. Soon, Rwanda was being accused of lending support to the rebels against the government of President Joseph Kabila gaining momentum from June.

However, till the end of the year, Rwanda remained defiant amid intense pressure from the international community — and despite the consequences that came with the accusations, mainly donors withholding vital aid.

The following is the timeline of arguably Rwanda's big story of 2012 as it unfolded:

April 29, 2012: Soldiers, mainly Kinyarwanda-speaking, formerly aligned to Gen Laurent Nkunda's CNDP which had been integrated into the national forces FARDC stage a mutiny in eastern Congo. According to the rebels, about 600 men are part of the mutiny.

Early reports suggest that the mutineers are linked to Gen Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes. The group's spokesperson, Lt-Col Jean Marie Vianney Kazarama, however distances the rebels from the fugitive general.

May 8: In a press release, the mutineers announce that they have set up a new rebel movement known as M23, named after the date, in the month of March, of a 2009 peace deal which they accuse President Kabila and his government of failing to honour. The new rebel group also names its leader, Col Sultani Makenga.

May 28: Reports surface that Human Rights Watch (HRW) has a report in which it implicates Rwanda in the fresh conflict. BBC is the first to report it. Rwanda responds by labelling the rumours about its involvement in the conflict as "categorically false and dangerous."

June 4: HRW releases a report which, for the first time, accuses Rwanda of supporting the rebels and implicates top government and military officials in the fighting. The rebels launch an offensive, triggering an exodus of refugees crossing into Rwanda and Uganda.

July 6: M23 fighters capture the DRC-Uganda border town of Bunagana after two days of fighting that see some 600 Congolese troops flee into Uganda, according to the Ugandan People's Defence Forces (UPDF). An Indian peacekeeper with the UN Mission in DR Congo (Monusco) is killed in the fighting.

June 19: In a presidential press briefing, President Paul Kagame for the first time speaks about the renewed conflict. The Rwandan leader says the problems of governance in DRC are to blame, as well as the hypocrisy of the international community, which called on Rwanda to intervene and resolve the crisis but later turned around and accused the same country of fomenting the conflict.

June 20: A leaked draft report of a UN Group of Experts on the DRC crisis implicates Rwanda in the conflict but Rwanda condemns what it refers to as the leakage of a "one-sided preliminary document based on partial findings and is still subject to verification."

July 11: International Conference for the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) member countries meet in Addis Ababa on the sidelines of the African Union summit to discuss the conflict. Rwanda welcomes the development, saying a "regional solution" is needed to resolve the crisis.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Next Page»

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Region sucked into conflict as eastern Congo becomes theatre of war again - News - www.theeastafrican.co.ke


HomeRwandaNews

NEWS

Region sucked into conflict as eastern Congo becomes theatre of war again

SHARE BOOKMARKPRINT
RATING
M23 rebels withdraw through the hills having left their position in a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on November 30, 2012. Hundreds of Congolese rebels left their frontline positions around Goma following a regionally brokered truce. Photo/AFP

M23 rebels withdraw through the hills having left their position in a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on November 30, 2012. Hundreds of Congolese rebels left their frontline positions around Goma following a regionally brokered truce. Photo/AFP 

By Edmund Kagire, Rwanda Today

Posted  Friday, December 28  2012 at  19:03

IN SUMMARY

  • The timeline of arguably Rwanda's big story of 2012 as it unfolded.
SHARE THIS STORY
  
 
0

Share


It all started in April with a group of soldiers formerly under National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) — who had been integrated in the national forces under a March 23, 2009 agreement — mutinying and launching a rebellion against the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The fighting would spiral into a full-scale war. Soon, Rwanda was being accused of lending support to the rebels against the government of President Joseph Kabila gaining momentum from June.

However, till the end of the year, Rwanda remained defiant amid intense pressure from the international community — and despite the consequences that came with the accusations, mainly donors withholding vital aid.

The following is the timeline of arguably Rwanda's big story of 2012 as it unfolded:

April 29, 2012: Soldiers, mainly Kinyarwanda-speaking, formerly aligned to Gen Laurent Nkunda's CNDP which had been integrated into the national forces FARDC stage a mutiny in eastern Congo. According to the rebels, about 600 men are part of the mutiny.

Early reports suggest that the mutineers are linked to Gen Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes. The group's spokesperson, Lt-Col Jean Marie Vianney Kazarama, however distances the rebels from the fugitive general.

May 8: In a press release, the mutineers announce that they have set up a new rebel movement known as M23, named after the date, in the month of March, of a 2009 peace deal which they accuse President Kabila and his government of failing to honour. The new rebel group also names its leader, Col Sultani Makenga.

May 28: Reports surface that Human Rights Watch (HRW) has a report in which it implicates Rwanda in the fresh conflict. BBC is the first to report it. Rwanda responds by labelling the rumours about its involvement in the conflict as "categorically false and dangerous."

June 4: HRW releases a report which, for the first time, accuses Rwanda of supporting the rebels and implicates top government and military officials in the fighting. The rebels launch an offensive, triggering an exodus of refugees crossing into Rwanda and Uganda.

July 6: M23 fighters capture the DRC-Uganda border town of Bunagana after two days of fighting that see some 600 Congolese troops flee into Uganda, according to the Ugandan People's Defence Forces (UPDF). An Indian peacekeeper with the UN Mission in DR Congo (Monusco) is killed in the fighting.

June 19: In a presidential press briefing, President Paul Kagame for the first time speaks about the renewed conflict. The Rwandan leader says the problems of governance in DRC are to blame, as well as the hypocrisy of the international community, which called on Rwanda to intervene and resolve the crisis but later turned around and accused the same country of fomenting the conflict.

June 20: A leaked draft report of a UN Group of Experts on the DRC crisis implicates Rwanda in the conflict but Rwanda condemns what it refers to as the leakage of a "one-sided preliminary document based on partial findings and is still subject to verification."

July 11: International Conference for the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) member countries meet in Addis Ababa on the sidelines of the African Union summit to discuss the conflict. Rwanda welcomes the development, saying a "regional solution" is needed to resolve the crisis.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Next Page»

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Rwanda schemed M23 war - UN expert


Rwanda schemed M23 war - UN expert

SHARE BOOKMARKPRINTRATING
M23 rebels in Kivu recently.
M23 rebels in Kivu recently. PHOTO BY AFP 
By Steve Hege

Posted  Sunday, December 30  2012 at  02:00
IN SUMMARY
The investigation. Rwandan involvement and orchestration of the M23 rebellion becomes more comprehensible when understood as a determined and calculated drive to spawn the creation of an autonomous federal state for eastern Congo.
Since the outset of the M23 rebellion, the government of Rwanda has provided direct military support to the rebels, facilitated recruitment, encouraged desertions from the Congolese army and delivered ammunition, intelligence and political advice to them.
Rwanda, in fact, orchestrated the creation of M23 when a series of mutinies led by officers formerly belonging to the group's predecessor, the Congrèsnational pour la défense du people (CNDP), were suppressed by the Congolese armed forces in early May.
But Rwanda continues to deny any involvement and has repeatedly claimed it was not consulted or given a right of reply to our investigations. This is not true. Despite the government of Rwanda's refusal to receive us during our official visit to Kigali in May, we purposefully delayed the publication of the addendum to our interim report in order to give the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs an opportunity to clarify the information. But she declined to do so and claimed her government was not privy to our findings.
Response without substance
Following the publication of the addendum on June 27, we met again with the government of Rwanda in Kigali and took into consideration its written response to our interim report. However, we found no substantive element of our previous findings that we wished to alter.
In our final report, we also documented support for the rebels from the government of Uganda. Senior Ugandan officials provided the rebels with direct troop reinforcements in Congolese territory. 
They also supported the creation and expansion of the political branch of M23 permanently based in Kampala even before President Joseph Kabila had ever authorised any interaction between the rebels and the government of Uganda.
Kampala acknowledged this support was indeed taking place in a meeting with the Group of Experts in early October. An appointed senior police officer said they would investigate and arrest those involved. 
The DRC government is aware of this support but has chosen not to denounce it in the hope of convincing the Ugandans they have more to gain by working with Kinshasa than with Kigali in this crisis.
What is Rwanda's motive?
Throughout our work, the question most often posed to us was: Why would Rwanda undertake such a politically dangerous endeavour? Some of the motives behind this war are as follows: 
As per their name, the rebels have claimed that the government reneged on the March 23, 2009 peace agreements.
However, this accord was merely an afterthought to formalise a bilateral deal between Kinshasa and Kigali which was predicated on affording the latter with immense influence in the Kivu in exchange for arresting CNDP chairman Laurent Nkunda, and forcing the rest of the group to join the national army under the leadership of Bosco Ntaganda.
M23 has also made many claims about human rights, even though nine of its members and associates have been designated for sanctions by both the US government and the UN's Sanctions Committee, most for egregious violations of international law, including recruiting child soldiers and violent land grabs.
Nevertheless, M23 similarly demands good governance, though they have attacked and appropriated numerous state assets provided by donors, including recently, 33 vehicles previously donated to the Congolese police.
M23 also claims they are fighting for the 50,000 Tutsi refugees who remain in Rwanda. A rebellion which displaces over 500,000 can hardly defend the rights of 50,000 refugees.
In recent months, M23 has increasingly claimed that they want a review of the discredited 2011 presidential elections, in an attempt to attract the sympathies of a broader constituency and further weaken President Kabila.
Finally, Rwanda and M23 have said the Congolese army's military operations against the Rwandan Hutu rebels of the FDLR have failed and the group remains a threat. However, not only did the Rwandan Minister of Defence recently say the FDLR could never threaten Rwanda, but the rebels are currently at all-time low numbers after thousands were demobilised by the UN.
Objectively, the greater security threat to Rwanda is represented by Tutsi political opponents who have fallen out with President Kagame in recent years.
Rwanda's regional strategy
Rwandan involvement and orchestration of the M23 rebellion becomes more comprehensible when understood as a determined and calculated drive to spawn the creation of an autonomous federal state for eastern Congo. 
Prior to the November 2011 elections, a senior intelligence officer within the Rwandan government discussed with me several possible scenarios for the secession of eastern Congo.
He said because the country was too big to be governed by Kinshasa, Rwanda should support the emergence of a federal state for eastern Congo. He said: "Goma should relate to Kinshasa in the same way that Juba was linked to Khartoum," prior to the independence of South Sudan.
During several internal meetings of M23 for mobilisation, senior government officials, including the Minister of Defence's special assistant, openly affirmed that establishing this autonomous state was in fact the key goal of the rebellion.
Several M23 commanders and allies have also openly confirmed this in interviews I conducted as part of the Group of Experts. Even senior Ugandan security officials also acknowledged this was the aim of the Rwandans in this M23 war.
One officer, who helped support M23 in co-operation with the Rwandans, told us: "They're thinking big ... you need to look at South Sudan." The objective of federalism also helps to explain in part, the involvement of individuals within the Ugandan government. If Rwanda achieves its goal, then Ugandans would need to ensure that their own cultural, security, and economic interests in the eastern DRC were not jeopardised.
Steve Hege is the former co-ordinator of the UN Group of Experts on the DRC. This is Hege's testimony to the US House of Representatives House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights on 11 December 2012
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Rwanda schemed M23 war - UN expert


Rwanda schemed M23 war - UN expert

SHARE BOOKMARKPRINTRATING
M23 rebels in Kivu recently.
M23 rebels in Kivu recently. PHOTO BY AFP 
By Steve Hege

Posted  Sunday, December 30  2012 at  02:00
IN SUMMARY
The investigation. Rwandan involvement and orchestration of the M23 rebellion becomes more comprehensible when understood as a determined and calculated drive to spawn the creation of an autonomous federal state for eastern Congo.
Since the outset of the M23 rebellion, the government of Rwanda has provided direct military support to the rebels, facilitated recruitment, encouraged desertions from the Congolese army and delivered ammunition, intelligence and political advice to them.
Rwanda, in fact, orchestrated the creation of M23 when a series of mutinies led by officers formerly belonging to the group's predecessor, the Congrèsnational pour la défense du people (CNDP), were suppressed by the Congolese armed forces in early May.
But Rwanda continues to deny any involvement and has repeatedly claimed it was not consulted or given a right of reply to our investigations. This is not true. Despite the government of Rwanda's refusal to receive us during our official visit to Kigali in May, we purposefully delayed the publication of the addendum to our interim report in order to give the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs an opportunity to clarify the information. But she declined to do so and claimed her government was not privy to our findings.
Response without substance
Following the publication of the addendum on June 27, we met again with the government of Rwanda in Kigali and took into consideration its written response to our interim report. However, we found no substantive element of our previous findings that we wished to alter.
In our final report, we also documented support for the rebels from the government of Uganda. Senior Ugandan officials provided the rebels with direct troop reinforcements in Congolese territory. 
They also supported the creation and expansion of the political branch of M23 permanently based in Kampala even before President Joseph Kabila had ever authorised any interaction between the rebels and the government of Uganda.
Kampala acknowledged this support was indeed taking place in a meeting with the Group of Experts in early October. An appointed senior police officer said they would investigate and arrest those involved. 
The DRC government is aware of this support but has chosen not to denounce it in the hope of convincing the Ugandans they have more to gain by working with Kinshasa than with Kigali in this crisis.
What is Rwanda's motive?
Throughout our work, the question most often posed to us was: Why would Rwanda undertake such a politically dangerous endeavour? Some of the motives behind this war are as follows: 
As per their name, the rebels have claimed that the government reneged on the March 23, 2009 peace agreements.
However, this accord was merely an afterthought to formalise a bilateral deal between Kinshasa and Kigali which was predicated on affording the latter with immense influence in the Kivu in exchange for arresting CNDP chairman Laurent Nkunda, and forcing the rest of the group to join the national army under the leadership of Bosco Ntaganda.
M23 has also made many claims about human rights, even though nine of its members and associates have been designated for sanctions by both the US government and the UN's Sanctions Committee, most for egregious violations of international law, including recruiting child soldiers and violent land grabs.
Nevertheless, M23 similarly demands good governance, though they have attacked and appropriated numerous state assets provided by donors, including recently, 33 vehicles previously donated to the Congolese police.
M23 also claims they are fighting for the 50,000 Tutsi refugees who remain in Rwanda. A rebellion which displaces over 500,000 can hardly defend the rights of 50,000 refugees.
In recent months, M23 has increasingly claimed that they want a review of the discredited 2011 presidential elections, in an attempt to attract the sympathies of a broader constituency and further weaken President Kabila.
Finally, Rwanda and M23 have said the Congolese army's military operations against the Rwandan Hutu rebels of the FDLR have failed and the group remains a threat. However, not only did the Rwandan Minister of Defence recently say the FDLR could never threaten Rwanda, but the rebels are currently at all-time low numbers after thousands were demobilised by the UN.
Objectively, the greater security threat to Rwanda is represented by Tutsi political opponents who have fallen out with President Kagame in recent years.
Rwanda's regional strategy
Rwandan involvement and orchestration of the M23 rebellion becomes more comprehensible when understood as a determined and calculated drive to spawn the creation of an autonomous federal state for eastern Congo. 
Prior to the November 2011 elections, a senior intelligence officer within the Rwandan government discussed with me several possible scenarios for the secession of eastern Congo.
He said because the country was too big to be governed by Kinshasa, Rwanda should support the emergence of a federal state for eastern Congo. He said: "Goma should relate to Kinshasa in the same way that Juba was linked to Khartoum," prior to the independence of South Sudan.
During several internal meetings of M23 for mobilisation, senior government officials, including the Minister of Defence's special assistant, openly affirmed that establishing this autonomous state was in fact the key goal of the rebellion.
Several M23 commanders and allies have also openly confirmed this in interviews I conducted as part of the Group of Experts. Even senior Ugandan security officials also acknowledged this was the aim of the Rwandans in this M23 war.
One officer, who helped support M23 in co-operation with the Rwandans, told us: "They're thinking big ... you need to look at South Sudan." The objective of federalism also helps to explain in part, the involvement of individuals within the Ugandan government. If Rwanda achieves its goal, then Ugandans would need to ensure that their own cultural, security, and economic interests in the eastern DRC were not jeopardised.
Steve Hege is the former co-ordinator of the UN Group of Experts on the DRC. This is Hege's testimony to the US House of Representatives House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights on 11 December 2012
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-“The root cause of the Rwandan tragedy of 1994 is the long and past historical ethnic dominance of one minority ethnic group to the other majority ethnic group. Ignoring this reality is giving a black cheque for the Rwandan people’s future and deepening resentment, hostility and hatred between the two groups.”

-« Ce dont j’ai le plus peur, c’est des gens qui croient que, du jour au lendemain, on peut prendre une société, lui tordre le cou et en faire une autre ».

-“The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.”

-“I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile.”

-“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

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