Gazing in the Congo (DRC): the dark heart of Africa (2006-2017)

[Tom Odom]

In Congo, an Exodus of Militiamen
U.N. Unit Overwhelmed as Rwandan Hutus Lay Down Arms, Seek Repatriation

by Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, February 4, 2009; Page A10

GOMA, Congo, Feb. 3 -- With their wives and children, the Rwandan militiamen are arriving from the bush here in eastern Congo by the truckload. Skinny and tired, they have voluntarily surrendered their weapons and say they are ready to go home.

too early to tell how this goes; but those who stay in the bush are likely to face a rougher go of it. Been too long. This has taken 15 years and millions of dead. we should have done it in 1994.

Tom

[Stan]

Hey Tom !

too early to tell how this goes; but those who stay in the bush are likely to face a rougher go of it. Been too long. This has taken 15 years and millions of dead. we should have done it in 1994.

Tom

Much like you opined, I certainly welcome this long-awaited "repatriation" and so-called end. Perhaps I'm still a smiggin skeptical these days, but the article does attempt to strike a few points worth thinking about and a few welcomed surprises.

... so we decided to go back to Rwanda," said Antoine Uwumukiza, who fled across the border to Congo 15 years ago along with hundreds of thousands of other Rwandan Hutus and was waiting here the other day in a dirty white tent to be repatriated.

No doubt Antoine was but a kid when we were in Goma and other than some mild brainwashing, he was but a child. I often wondered just how many of those kids would actually make it to adulthood, and would they wonder, or would they continue in their parents footsteps killing for no apparent reason. I reckon that will soon become clear with their repatriation.

A small military team from the United States is in the region and is expected to assist with psychological operations aimed at FDLR fighters. U.N. officials say the U.S. government could also help by arresting Rwandan militia leaders who, according to Rwandan and U.S. officials, are now living and working in the United States. Other top leaders live in Germany and France, Rwandan officials say.

"One of the keys to getting these fighters to surrender peacefully is to break the leadership," said Bruno Donat, who heads the demobilization program. "We have to separate the leaders from the rank and file."

Rwandan authorities have asked the United States to arrest Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro, a professor at Western New England College in Springfield, Mass., and Félicien Kanyamibwa, who was recently working for Hoffmann-La Roche, a pharmaceutical company based in Nutley, N.J., according to an October 2008 letter from the Rwandan government to U.S. officials. Higiro and Kanyamibwa are accused of financing the militias and being "politically responsible" for war crimes committed in eastern Congo. The letter also names five Rwandans wanted for participating in the genocide.

"Instead of being apprehended," the letter states, "the FDLR leaders are walking scot-free, employed in the U.S."

Glad to see we're again stepping in, but was really surprised with those purported "politically responsible" still residing in CONUS at perhaps a point where our administration was almost using the "G" word in concert with Rwanda. Well, following this WAPO article, they may have already disappeared

How's that advisory pay going

Stay safe and Best, Stan

[Culpeper]

Also aboard was Alison Des Forges, one of the world’s foremost experts on the 1994 Rwanda genocide and its aftermath, said New York-based Human Rights Watch. Des Forges had served as a senior adviser to the organization’s Africa division for almost two decades.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...efer=worldwide

[Tom Odom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...efer=worldwide

I saw that and it was a tragedy. She will be missed at HRW.

Tom

[Tom Odom]

I found the following assessment on RUSI. The author does a great job of explaining what happened with Nkunda, an explanation I accept because one of my closest Rwandan contacts, BG Frank Rusagara is on sabbatical at RUSI.
Best
Tom

Nkunda’s arrest: What Now for the Congo?

The remarkable alliance between the Rwanda and the Congo governments and the arrest of Laurent Nkunda offers hope for the future, but internationalising the conflict further may prove problematic.

By Dr Knox Chitiyo, Head, Africa Programme, RUSI
The arrest of the Congo’s rebel leader Laurent Nkunda on 22 January is an extraordinary turnaround in the military and diplomatic situation of the Great Lakes region of central Africa. Nkunda, who was arrested by the Rwandan military on the Congo–Uganda border, was seen as Rwanda’s foremost proxy; his arrest by his erstwhile ‘handlers’ is a sign of a diplomatic revolution.

The new military and diplomatic partnership between the Congo and Rwanda governments is meant to end decades of mutual antipathy. It will certainly weaken the rebel groups in the Congo. However, there are questions as to how long this alliance will last and whether direct Rwandan military intervention in the Congo can have long-term benefits in that strife torn country. The role of the UN mission in the Congo (MONUC) and its relations with the Congo’s new power-brokers also remains unclear.

[Michael F]

Interesting article indeed....

A few factors need to be added:

* Nkunda's flamboyance may have been more a disadvantage than an advantage...By attracting media attention to him, he made Rwandan's support to his cause more embarassing (especially since documented in a UN report).
* Bosco's indictment by the ICC played a major role...Bosco was keener than Nkunda to be involve in a complete remapping of relations in the Kivus and to play a proeminent role in it in exchange of an amnesty. He was actually the easiest to corrupt with promises.
* The financial pressure on Rwanda was huge. When the UN report on Nkunda's support was published (see one of my previous posts), it feared to lose financial aid (60% of Rwandan budget) and had to do something to smoothen its relation with the IC. For DRC, the financial crisis meant the "rebuilding of the nation" was to be postponed....Kabila had to find somtehing rapidly to give the Congolese something positive to chew on (arrest of Nkunda).
* The CNDP was never Nkunda and Bosco alone....It was financed and supported by local tutsi businessmen as well as Rwandan officials. The Tutsi businessmen are only interested in securing their assets in North Kivu...A deal was surely struck between Kagame-Kabila and those businessmen to secure tutsi and Rwandan economical interests in the future.

Something not to be underestimated is the resiliance of these groups... It will take a lo6t more time to neutralize the FDLR or Tutsi congolese grievances....

[Tom Odom]

Seems strange to realize that it has been 15 years.

Tears mark 15th anniversary of Rwanda genocide

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- The 15th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda brought American U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to tears as she reflected on her personal memories surrounding the slaughter.

Rice visited Rwanda as a staff member in former President Bill Clinton's National Security Council six months after the ethnic cleansing. She explained how even months after the violence she encountered decomposing bodies at one of the massacre sites.

"For me, the memory of stepping around and over those corpses will remain the most searing reminder imaginable of what our work here must aim to prevent," she said Tuesday at a special commemorative event at United Nations headquarters in New York.

15 years later, Rwanda remembers the massacre

By David Ariosto
CNN

(CNN) -- Crowds gathered in somber reflection near the Rwandan capital of Kigali on Tuesday, marking the 15th anniversary of the start of a 100-day genocidal massacre in Rwanda in which an estimated 800,000 people were brutally killed.


Rwandan President Paul Kagame, right, meets with former South Africa President Nelson Mandela in March.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame addressed thousands during an emotional candle-lighting ceremony, criticizing the international community for not doing more to prevent the bloody wave of violence.

No doubt we will get a dose of hate propaganda that posits remebering the genocide is merely a ploy by President Kagame.

I am glad that Susan Rice spoke...15 years, wow.

Tom

[Tom Odom]

Why the US didn't intervene in the Rwandan genocide
After a disastrous peacekeeping mission in Somalia, the US vowed to stay away from conflicts it didn't understand.
By Scott Baldauf | Staff

Johannesburg, South Africa - The Clinton administration and Congress watched the unfolding events in Rwanda in April 1994 in a kind of stupefied horror.

The US had just pulled American troops out of a disastrous peacekeeping mission in Somalia – later made famous in the book "Black Hawk Down" – the year before. It had vowed never to return to a conflict it couldn't understand, between clans and tribes it didn't know, in a country where the US had no national interests.

From embassies and hotels in Kigali, diplomats and humanitarian workers gave daily tolls of the dead, mainly Tutsis but also moderate Hutus who had called for tribal peace. The information came in real time, and many experts say that the US and the Western world in general failed to respond.

'We knew before, during, and after'

Yes we did. And when President Clinton vowed "never again" in 1998 we knew the damn war was still going on.

Tom

[Tom Odom]

I truly am amazed by the simple minded responses given. At least Clinton offered a mea culpa.

A phone call?

The irony is that the US did make such phone calls and halfway expected them to have an effect.

So in bringing up phone calls as a defense of his "brother" President Clinton, President Bush actually got it right as he got it wrong.

I wonder if either of them caught that. Somehow I doubt it.

Tom

Bush Defends Clinton's Record on Genocide in RwandaPresident Bush, at one point calling President Clinton "brother," defended his predecessor's record on Rwanda during the former U.S. leaders' face-to-face discussion Friday on a range of issues in Toronto.

The event's moderator had asked Clinton whether he had done enough to stop the genocide in Rwanda that occurred early during the Clinton administration, the CBC reported.

"We couldn't have saved all of them," Clinton said, but he lamented that "we could have saved as many as 300,000 lives. ... I have no defense."

But Bush added that it was "not realistic" to think that the Rwandan genocide could have been stopped with a mere phone call by the U.S. president, the CBC reported.

[carl]

Here is a link to an item on the BBC internet site today.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8104984.stm

Some FARDC troops fired at a UN base, part of a series of little mutinies. The fellows are upset because they don't get paid and they don't get fed. The UN says something must be done quickly because there is a risk of the "disintegration of the Congolese army."

The everready bunny metaphor is a good one.

[Tom Odom]

Shooting in the air

The BBC's Thomas Fessy in the region says 27 soldiers have been arrested after firing on the UN base about 100km (62 miles) north-west of Goma.

In another incident on Wednesday morning, soldiers in Ngora village (200km north-west of Goma) refused to pursue Hutu rebels from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) into a neighbouring village.

They fired in the air for an hour-and-a-half, our correspondent says.

I always called that a Zairian firefight--shoot in the air while looking very mean

the more things change the more they stay the same...

Tom

[Stan]

I always called that a Zairian firefight--shoot in the air while looking very mean

Did a real number on most of the corrugated roofing too

the more things change the more they stay the same...

Yep, and I wonder if we learned much since September 91 when the Zairois military went from offsetting income to looting and rioting. Should have been indicative of a serious problem Even Mobutu managed to keep his Les Hiboux fed and paid regularly

[Tom Odom]

Yep, and I wonder if we learned much since September 91 when the Zairois military went from offsetting income to looting and rioting. Should have been indicative of a serious problem Even Mobutu managed to keep his Les Hiboux fed and paid regularly

Apparently not, Stan. Note the US logistical support in the following:

Fresh Nightmares in Congo's Drive Against Rwandans
Villagers Describe Atrocities on Both Sides of Conflict

MINOVA, Congo -- A Congolese military operation against Rwandan rebels who have caused years of conflict in eastern Congo is unleashing fresh horrors across this region's rolling green hills.

The mission, backed logistically by U.N. peacekeepers and politically by the United States, aims to disband the remaining 7,000 or so Rwandan Hutu rebels who fled into eastern Congo after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

[Stan]

A new twist to an old problem... Removing the pay chain from the chain of command !

EUSEC delivers the payroll and EUPOL works on fixing the police in this EURONEWS video dubbed slightly in English.

What's next ? Biometric fingerprints on ID cards for the Congolese military

24.06.2009 - EUSEC at work

Presentation of activities of the mission on the ground, illustrating in particular the organisation of the chain of payments, handing over of identity cards and organisation of activities for the families of military personnel.

[Tom Odom]

What's next ? Biometric fingerprints on ID cards for the Congolese military

I have visions of large scale finger amputations....

[Tom Odom]

Now this should make the fringe cringe.

Zakaria: Africa's biggest success story

NEW YORK (CNN) -- President Obama reached out to Africa earlier this week with a wide-ranging address praising the continent's steady achievements, but he called its persistent violent conflicts "a millstone around Africa's neck."

"Despite the progress that has been made -- and there has been considerable progress in parts of Africa -- we also know that much of that promise has yet to be fulfilled," Obama said in a speech to the Parliament of Ghana, a western African nation seen as a model of democracy and growth for the rest of the continent.

Ghana, with a population of 24 million, was once a major slave trading center. Obama visited the Cape Coast Castle, a British outpost where slaves were held until shipped overseas, along with his daughters.

CNN spoke to author and foreign affairs analyst Fareed Zakaria about Obama's trip and the status of Africa.

CNN: "When President Obama was in Africa last week, he visited Ghana, but you think there's another country that's a bigger and better success story?"

Fareed Zakaria: He was smart to focus on a success story, of sorts, like Ghana. But I would say the biggest success story out of the continent is Rwanda.

[Tom Odom]

And yet again, more fighting and more refugees in the Congo, although 35,000is a minor blip

U.N.: 35,000 displaced by new fighting in Congo

CNN) -- A new outbreak of fighting in the embattled eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has forced 35,000 people from their homes, the U.N. refugee agency said.

Thousands of people have fled parts of South Kivu province and have relocated to Congo's borders with Rwanda and Burundi, the agency reported.

The mass exodus was spurred by this month's new offensive by the Congo government against the ethnic Hutu militia, Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.

This latest uprooting brings the total number of civilians displaced in South Kivu since the start of the year to about 536,000 people, according to Ron Redmond, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees

[carl]

What's next ? Biometric fingerprints on ID cards for the Congolese military

In 2006, I was staying in a hotel in Kisangani and there were several South African soldiers there. One of the things they were working on was a program that dealt with the Mai-Mai. I don't remember if they were de-mobbing them or incorporating them into the FARDC, but the program did involve issuing ID cards and I think they may have incorporated some kind of biometric.

Tom and Stan: I have an opinion question. Do you think the FDLR will be removed from east Congo by anything other than old age and infirmity?

[Stan]

Hey Carl,
"Removed" may be too strong a word (at least in physical military actions in the DRC). If this year's Umoja Wetu military operation was even remotely the success story the governments officially labeled it, the FDLR would be nearly extinct. The only thing I have noticed about all these "military operations" (more recently OPS Kimia I & II) is how they create refugees and more importantly, how the FDLR retaliate against the civilian population (thus allowing the Congolese military to join the free for all).

I was reading about the Congolese conducting PSYOPS to isolate the command from the FDLR (my gut still hurts just thinking about it ).

My opinion is old age and widespread disease will be more effective than attempting to demobilize them.

Regards, Stan

Tom and Stan: I have an opinion question. Do you think the FDLR will be removed from east Congo by anything other than old age and infirmity?

[Tom Odom]

In 2006, I was staying in a hotel in Kisangani and there were several South African soldiers there. One of the things they were working on was a program that dealt with the Mai-Mai. I don't remember if they were de-mobbing them or incorporating them into the FARDC, but the program did involve issuing ID cards and I think they may have incorporated some kind of biometric.

Tom and Stan: I have an opinion question. Do you think the FDLR will be removed from east Congo by anything other than old age and infirmity?

let me answer that indirectly...

After first visiting Zaire in 1984 as a FAO trainee, the next year as a new member of the history department at CGSC--CSI--I decided to write a study on the 64 crisis in Stanleyville. In doing so, I studied this amazing cast of dime-store novel characters that included Belgian officers who had spent decades in the country, mercs of all stripes including the self-promoting Michael Hoare, CIA types, State, US military, and of course the Congolese who ranged from Moise Tshombe to "general" Olenga as the military commander of the Simbas. I wrote the book at the right moment: many were of advancing age and wanted to tell their stories--certainly that applied to Fred Vandewalle and Charlie Laurent.

In 1993 returning to Zaire, I was amazed to see the same names floating around on the fringe. Tomas Kanza was still there as was Antoine Gizenga, Patrice Lumumba's deputy PM in 1960 and later leader of the Simba "government". They were still players--not important players--but still there. Jump forward to present time and voila there is Antoine Gizenga, as Prime Minister while he was in obvious mental decline. In 2008 he resigned and "

On 30 June 2009, it was announced that Kabila had designated Gizenga as a National Hero, the DRC's highest honor. His admission to the Order of National Heroes made him its only living member and entitled him to a "monthly payment equivalent to the earnings of a prime minister, a residence, a garage with six vehicles, a guard including 12 members of the national police"."

So while I think disease and age will reduce the ranks of the FDLR, I don't think they will disappear. Daddy Kabila was a Simba leader at one stage. He survived openly simply because the Congo was too large and too wild to police. It was, is, and will be the Oklahoma territory on steriods of Africa.

And that is why we love it and hate it...

Tom