05-11-12 Daily Monitor (Uganda) Congo crisis: Making sense of Kabila, United Nations and M23 insurgency
The Congo
File
On January 20 2008, Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) troops crossed into the DR
Congo territory to undertake joint operations with the Congolese army (FARDC).
Code named Umoja Wetu (Our Unity), the operation was a major offensive against
Rwandan armed rebels with bases in the Congolese provinces of Nord Kivu and Sud
Kivu.
This unity though was not to last: civil and political groups in
Kinshasa
protested against President Kabila’s decision to invite Rwandan troops to
operate on Congolese soil.
As high a personality as the Speaker of the Lower House in Kinshasa (hitherto a
President Kabila ally) made public his discontent over Rwandan troops on the
DRC soil. Four legislators also threatened to resign their seats in protest.
President Kabila, realising his tenuous hold on power in Kinshasa could unravel
over the issue, had to do something: Rwandan troops had to leave Congolese
soil. And so, on February 26 2008, RDF troops left the DRC.
But then, the departure of the RDF was actually the beginning of
the current M23 crisis: because these Rwandan troops remained (or returned
during the night) in the DRC under some secret agreement (at summit level)
between Kabila and Kagame.
In the spirit of Umoja Wetu, the two presidents agreed that
Rwandan troops would ‘secretly’ continue carrying out joint operations with
Congolese troops under a new operation code named Amani Leo (Peace Now).
However, Kabila demanded that Kagame should remove Gen. Laurent
Nkunda, the leader of the rebel National Congress for the Defence of the People
(CNDP), from the political and security equation of eastern DRC.
And as it were, a mutiny broke out in the CNDP. Gen. Laurent was
ousted and replaced by Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, who readily accepted to be
integrated into the Congolese army. CNDP as a rebel group wound up.
A man who keeps his word, President Kagame arrested and detained
Gen. Nkunda on Thursday January 22, 2008. However, he was clever enough not to
hand Gen. Nkunda over to Kinshasa
where he was the subject of an international arrest warrant. To date, Gen.
Nkunda is still under detention in Rwanda.
The arrest of Gen. Nkunda was an unambiguous response to the
December 2007 UN report accusing Kagame of arming and supplying men, arms and
ammo to Gen. Nkunda. It also recast Kagame as an enabler of peace in the
region.
Enter ICC
On March 14, 2012, Thomas Lubanga became the first person to be convicted by
the ICC. Gen. Ntaganda is alleged to have committed war crimes and crimes
against humanity while serving under Gen. Lubanga in Ituri Region in eastern
DRC.
Lubanga’s guilty verdict was hailed by international civil
society organisations as a legal landmark in the fight against perpetrators of war
crimes. Geraldine Mattioli-Zeltner of Human Rights Watch, said: “With Lubanga
found guilty, (Gen. Bosco) Ntaganda’s continued freedom from arrest is a
shameful betrayal of the victims. The Congolese authorities should immediately
arrest Ntaganda and turn him over to the ICC.”
Anthony Lake, Unicef’s executive director
was also quoted as saying that “the conviction of Thomas Lubanga by the ICC
sends a clear message to all armed groups.” Energised by the success of the
Lubanga case, the prosecution arm of the ICC has been on the prowl. And a
non-state player like Gen. Ntaganda, with no background in ideological
pursuits, is good game.
And so, in spite of all the assurances that he would never hand
over Gen. Ntaganda to the ICC, Kabila buckled; he agreed to co-operate. In
response to the rumour of an impending arrest, Gen. Ntaganda resorted to
mutiny, citing unpaid salaries and inhumane living conditions for soldiers
under his command.
However, on April 4, what had been hitherto been classified as a
mutiny became a full-blown rebellion when Ntaganda loyalist soldiers attacked
Congolese troops at Mwesa.
And on April 11, President Kabila officially issued ‘the long awaited’ arrest
warrant for Ntaganda. To complicate matters, Kabila said he would not rule out
transferring Gen. Ntaganda to the ICC. Incidentally that was the route that
took Lubanga in The Hague.
Gen. Ntaganda went into hiding and all of a sudden, what had began as a mutiny
morphed into a full scale ‘liberation movement’ complete with a name: the March
23 Movement or M23 as we now know it). Gen. Ntaganda claimed he was not their
leader.
Political Diplomatics
The first indication that things were not going to be easy was what was
described by Ugandan media as President Kagame’s ‘secret visit’ to Kampala on June 12.
The situation became even clearer when two days later on June 15, the UN
Security Council issued a statement calling for a full investigation following
reports of external support to armed groups in the DRC.
Three days later on Monday June 18, Ms Louise Mushikiwabo, Rwanda’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, went to Kinshasa to discuss the
situation in eastern DRC. However, very uncharacteristic of the Congolese
government, they also engaged in a concerted diplomatic offensive. Mr. Raymond
Tshibanga, Congo’s Foreign Minister, came to Kampala, went to Dar-es-Salaam,
Bujumbura and Angola to discuss the security situation in eastern DRC and ‘the
involvement of a neighbouring country’.
Frustrated, President Kagame threatened to release Gen. Nkunda
from the leash holding him in Rwanda.
He even made a revelation to local and foreign journalists in Kigali
that some foreign powers had planned to topple the Kinshasa regime.
Kabila beats Kagame
All over a sudden, President Kabila looks and sounds ‘smarter’ than hitherto
thought. He could even afford to call one of his colleagues “the bad boy of the
region”. Of course that sounds like a line dropped by a western diplomat.
And when he told Ugandan journalists that the Ugandan government
was going to make a better response than dismissing the UN report as rubbish,
indeed formal explanations were issued by Kampala.
Which brings us to the question: what has turned Kabila’s
diplomatic stock with western powers? The answer is Gen. Ntaganda. The western
powers want Ntaganda in the The Hague
and anyone with (or thought to be with) the capacity to obstruct his arrest is
likely to have issues with them (western powers).
But Gen. Ntaganda knows a lot; the smell from his trial is
likely to pollute some regional capitals. That’s why he is more likely to die
before he reaches The Hague.
His appearance in The Hague
could cause more trouble than is expected to cure.
Asuman Bisiika is the Executive Editorof East Africa Flagpost
The Independent (Kampala)
(04-11-12)
East Africa: If DR
Congo Wants Peace, Their
Best Friend Is Uganda
INTERVIEW
Henry Okello Oryem, the Minister
of State for Foreign Affairs spoke to The Independent's Haggai Matsiko about
the allegations that Uganda
is backing the M23.
After the press conference in which you refuted claims in the
United Nation's experts report that Uganda and Rwanda were supporting the M23,
President Kabila called journalists and told them that what you had said was
because of the press, that it was not the real situation on the ground?
No. It was not because of the
press. I said it was 'rubbish' because I was confident of what I was saying.
The information I got from those who were alleged to have gone to DRC, my
technical people, and other arms of government assured me that the information
in that report was absolute rubbish that is why I articulated it with
confidence. So it wasn't just for the press.
Uganda has been leading efforts to resolve conflict in Kabila's
house, he now says Uganda is partly responsible for the conflict because it is
supporting the M23, what is going on?
He has not said we burnt his
house, in fact the Congolese government has not said anything.
But Kabila said that he believed that what was in the report was
a true reflection of what has been happening in the last eight months. And the
report accuses Uganda
of supporting the M23?
Yes, but what is the total sum
on the government of Uganda
and President Museveni? If he says it reflects what has been happening on the
ground, what does it amount to? Do we still enjoy the confidence or not? If we
still enjoy the confidence, then it begs the question what is really on the
ground. If we are there, then why do we still enjoy the confidence?
I understand President Kabila sent an emissary to the government
of Uganda,
what message did the emissary carry?
They still expect us to continue
with our role, to mediate the process through ministry of Defence, which is
good. They are seeing the big picture.
So what is the problem, is it the Congo government, some elements
somewhere or the UN?
There are two problems in this
process. There are parties who profit and gain from the confusion in DRC. There
are some in the DRC, some outside DRC. So they cannot accept stability in the
region. So when Uganda
comes and has the capacity to stop M23, and we say hey stop it, let us sit down
and talk we are hitting right where it hurts them because once we bring peace
and stability. They are in no position to continue profiting. So they go
tarnish the name of Uganda,
provoke a situation where Uganda
might want to withdraw, provoke a situation where Uganda loses credibility, the
process collapses, confusion continues and they continue gaining.
In his statement, Kabila said there could be elements in Uganda or the
UPDF that support the M23?
If there were elements in the
UPDF that support the M23, I would not have rubbished the report, no. I would
have qualified my report saying, yes the report in general is rubbish but
partly it is true. We can explain the allegations in the report and we are
going to respond to the actual report systematically and comprehensively,
allegation by allegation.
There are those that believe that the wish to maintain the
billion dollar MONUSCO is partly behind such claims?
It could be; there are many
players. These people have been there for over ten years, the biggest UN
budget, the biggest UN operation, the biggest number of people to have access
to travel through Eastern DRC. But nobody has
done an audit on whether they have achieved anything, whether they are not
violating the human rights of Congolese, whether there is value for money on
the ground. But we innocent Uganda
who have the capacity to do more than MONUSCO with even not a single soldier having
to go to DRC, but we are able to stop M23 and we have done it. But how do they
thank us? By putting us in the UN report, maligning us, putting our name in the
mud.
There have been situations in the past where regional efforts to
resolve conflict have been circumvented by international players like in the
case of Libya.
Do we see conflict between international players like the UN and the
International Conference on the Great Lakes
Region (ICGLR)?
No, we have no conflict with the
UN. These are individual powerful states who think Uganda is peddling too much
influence in the DRC and bringing peace and stability in that region. They wish
to continue having that confusion so that they can continue gaining and
extending their authority there, wrongly or rightly, they want to continue
peddling their authority because they think that by Uganda being able to
control M23 and bring stability there, they think that Uganda is trying to
extend their tentacles to have influence there, which then erodes their influence
of Eastern DRC.
You say these are powerful states and elements. Do you see Uganda getting
its way with these powerful elements?
We do not have to engage them;
we have no interest in the DRC. It is up to DRC, what do they want? If the
people of DRC want stability and peace, their best option, their best friend,
their best comrade, is Uganda.
We are very straight forward about this. We were in the DRC for a purpose, we
finished our operations in the DRC, we finished what we wanted to in the DRC,
we admit, it is not a secret; we were there in the national interest, not
through the backdoor, not at night but in the day time. So if we want to go
back to the DRC, why are they saying we went at night through the backdoor? No,
we do not. Yet, the ADF which is a direct threat to our security, ADF who
maimed and killed thousands of our people are 20 miles from our border
in the DRC. What has MONUSCO done about it? Nothing. What has the DRC done
about the ADF, nothing. But we are patient, we are watching, we have told them
that ADF is a threat to our national security. We have told MONUSCO to do
something. They have failed. We have told the DRC to do something. They have
failed. But we are reserving our rights, if threatened to hit the ADF.
As a person who has been part of the process to pacify DRC, what
is the final bullet to the Congo
crisis?
The solution is very simple, the
government of DRC has got to get its act together; it should stop blaming
others for problems in its country. It should form a strong army and take
control and charge of Eastern DRC. It should
be capable of controlling eastern DRC and not allow all these negative forces,
all these thugs to move up and down in eastern DRC. That is what we wanted,
strong, capable, powerful institution to manage eastern DRC, then they put
development, roads, trade and all the other things that we see in other places.
But provided that they are not a hundred percent in charge of controlling and
managing and establishing a system that they can control, we will always have
this problem in eastern DRC.
But realistically, that can only be in the long run. Where do
you see a short term solution?
An army can be built in five
years. In 1979-1980, when we came back from Tanzania, the entire army of Idi
Amin was pushed out, but within two, three years, a strong army was built, it
was the UNLA army that was fighting President Museveni in the bush. So it is
very possible to build a strong army, have the right people, the right caliber
and the right attitude as an army.
Some people say that without a strong army in DRC and with the
M23 growing, the solution is in dividing DRC as happened to Sudan?
DRC does not have to be divided.
DRC is not like Sudan.
Sudan
was divided because of Arab chauvinism; the Arabs wanted to change the black
people to be Arabic. DRC is not like that, we are talking about one people,
same people, same background, blacks. I do not believe in splitting DRC. It is
just a question of them getting their act right; dealing with the challenge.
But within DRC, some people who are said to be Rwandese claim
they are mistreated and this is where the problem stems from, no?
Yes, but they are very small
proportion compared to the population in eastern DRC, the majority of them are
Zairwa's.
How have these developments affected the pacification process?
(Defence Minister Crispus)
Kiyonga was in Goma last week to continue with the programme of setting up the
neutral international force and make sure the verification process is taking
place. So the process is still going on, it is not being cutoff or suspended
and we are happy that DRC is supporting it and we hope that eventually we will
be able to achieve something by the end of the year.
So we see an international force in DRC very soon?
Yes, a joint international force
provided that the countries that pledged start sending the troops on the
ground, we shall soon see the force, which Kabila also supports.
How about the money that the UN was supposed to put on table for
the maintenance of this force?
I think when they start seeing
results of this force on the ground, I am sure they will start sending the
money but for now they are still suspicious. They are not confident.
Is Uganda
really considering pulling out of Somalia because of the allegations
in the UN experts report?
Yes. We made it very clear. This
is not a secret. These allegations we found are unfounded, mischievous and
deliberately meant to tarnish the good name of the government of Uganda. They
have incensed us, we are not happy; we are disappointed and as such we are
reviewing our entire international engagement in the region in enforcing peace,
bringing stability in the region, we are re-examining it as our foreign policy.
So we re-examining our interests in Burundi,
Southern Sudan, Central African Republic,
and Somalia,
to see whether it is worth it because we are doing something and we are being
abused on the other side.
So have you received any reaction from the UN about this move?
No, we haven't. We sent a
special envoy Ruhakana Rugunda to New
York to meet the Secretary General and present it to
him. Once he has presented it, we will be able to know.