23 07 13 DRC/ North Kivu: Waiting For The Intervention Brigade – By Kris Berwouts
From the very beginning, a central part of these initiatives was the
deployment of an international brigade ‘to “neutralize and disarm” the
notorious 23 March Movement (M23), as well as other Congolese rebels and foreign
armed groups in strife-riven eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.’ After long
discussions between African institutions (ICRGL, SADC, AU) on the one hand and
the United Nations and the United States on the other, a final decision was
taken to give it the status of a specialized “intervention brigade”
within Monusco’s existing 19,815‑strong force. It will mainly consist of
Tanzanians, South Africans and Malawians, all together 3,000 men.
Trench
war with rumors
It
was immediately very obvious clear that the presence of the brigade would
fundamentally change the military power balance in the field. Even after M23 had
left Goma, it remained the most coherent, best organized and most performing
military actor in the Kivus. Nobody expected that this would still be the case
once the intervention brigade deployed. Already in December, the brigade
-still in its conceptual phase- became the focus of a trench war with rumors
and disinformation as ammunition instead of bullets and grenades.
The
Congolese government had been humiliated by the fall of Goma and had given
evidence of its inability to control its eastern provinces, so Kinshasa expected
a lot from the intervention brigade and tried to accelerate its arrival by
strengthening all rumors about Ugandan and Rwandan troops on Congolese soil.
Rwanda had been very actively present when M23 took Goma but it had withdrawn
its troops immediately after. Since then, Uganda and Rwanda are being monitored
very closely, with very little space left for direct intervention. The leaked
mid-term report of the UN Group of experts recently confirmed that Rwanda is
now only providing limited” support to
M23 and Uganda none at all.
On
the other hand, Rwanda and M23 tried to delay or even avert the arrival of the
intervention brigade through a very aggressive discourse against the UN and
targeted messages meant to influence and intimidate public opinion in Tanzania
and South Africa. No country in the world wants to see its soldiers sent back
from peacekeeping missions in a body bag. Rwanda accused the UN of cooperation
with FDLR, culminating last week in the letter sent to the U.S. ambassador to
the UN (and currently chairing the Security Council) in which these allegations were
once more emphasized.
New
confrontations
The
most important military event since m23 left Goma is without any doubt the
internal power struggle within M23, leading to the victory of the wing lead by
Sultani Makenga over Bosco Ntaganda’s people. These events have weakened M23
considerably: the Group of experts estimates that more than two hundred M23
fighters of both sides were killed in the Makenga/ Ntaganda war, even more were
injured and many others surrendered, totally discouraged, to MONUSCO and the
Congolese army. At this moment, M23’s operational capacity is not much more than
1,500 men.
At
this moment, there is no indication that the direct negotiations between the
Congolese government and M23 that were launched in December 2012 will provide
concrete results in the short run. In February a joint statement was
paragraphed (not even properly signed) a technical document acknowledging that
23 of the 35 points both parties agreed on in 2009 have been implemented, while
the 12 others have not been executed. But since then, no result or even
progress has been materialized.
New
fighting broke out on Sunday July 14th between M23 and the FARDC at
10 kilometer from Goma. It is not easy to have confirmed and double-checked
information about who started the hostilities and why, but after a few days it
was clear that the Congolese army is on the winning side, although the exact
size and impact of their military domination remains hard to
estimate.
It
seems totally excluded that M23 would take Goma back in these circumstances
without direct support from Rwanda. But also a quick military victory of the
FARDC seems unlikely. The army found a new impetus which is probably the result
of improved chains of supplies, better logistics
and salaries that
have effectively been paid. That might be a good start but the bulk of the work
to build up a performing, disciplined and unified national army from scratch
still remains to be done. But the new impetus of the army mobilises a wave of
sympathy and solidarity with the army within the population, and that in itself
is a new factor.
High
expectations but…
The
Congolese army considers that time runs in its advantage. Soon (within a few
weeks?) the intervention brigade should be fully operational. The authorities
in Kinshasa continue to see the brigade as Aladdin’s lamp which will solve their
problems they can’t deal with themselves, but you can’t exclude neither that the
brigade opens Pandora’s box: it will be a new military actor in a political and
military landscape which already is extremely complex. It will probably create a
new dynamic but that might turn out negatively. It will depend on the way the
communities and armed groups will perceive the brigade. Pieter Vanholder, DRC
country director of the Life & Peace Institute in Bukavu, said on
Al Jazeera that
the brigade could have a deterrent effect, but “if some things go wrong, which
they are bound to, the brigade may be seen as a kind of occupation force. As a
consequence it could become a push factor for some to join armed groups, adding
to local resistance.” A brigade of 3,000 well trained soldiers might be enough
to handle an armed group or two, but the military configuration of Kivu is far
more complex than that. It will not be easy to fight armed groups and protect
communities in those cases where it is difficult to draw the fine line between
an armed group and the community from which it originates. There are many
pitfalls on the bumpy road ahead of the intervention brigade. But once again,
this is Congo. All roads are bumpy, often with pitfalls as large as the road
itself…
The
expectations are high. Everybody believes that the full deployment of the
intervention brigade will seriously change the military power balances in Kivu,
but at the same time it is hard to imagine why and how it will make a real
difference in the field, being part of a UN structure which never made much
difference despite its 13 years of existence. In any case, the outbreak of
recent violence has put everybody in a state of alert. The UN has expressed its
deep
concern and
observers who traveled between in the last days between Kigali and Gisenyi
reported an increased concentration of Rwandan troops on the border.
Kris
Berwouts has, over the last 25 years, worked for a number of different Belgian
and international NGOs focused on building peace, reconciliation, security and
democratic processes. Until recently, he was the Director of EurAc, the network
of European NGOs working for advocacy on Central Africa. He now works as an
independent expert on Central Africa.