Spectacular turn of events as DRC forces crush foreign-backed M23 rebels

Antoine Roger Lokongo, Pambazuka

The Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC), as the Congolese armed forces are known in French, and the Rwanda- and Uganda-backed M23 rebel movement made up of Rwandan and Ugandan demobilized soldiers, other Tutsi and Hutu insurgents and some Congolese, had not clashed since August 2013. The two sides were awaiting the outcome of the peace talks paid for by the Congolese government in Kampala and overseen by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni (who also backs the M23). Uganda had assumed the rotating presidency of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region.

However, during the talks, apart from acts of terrorism, rapes, massacres and mineral looting (they have made $500 million since the launch of the insurgency last year, according to a report by Enough Project NGO), the M23 who occupied a huge portion of eastern Congo since May 2012 kept on militarily harassing the FARDC, applying Museveni’s and Kagame’s well-known tactic: “talk and fight”. Kinshasa could not tolerate it anymore, and the Congolese government suspended participation in the talks and the Military High Command ordered an all-out offensive against M23 launched on 25 October 2013.

Just within a week, the FARDC, supported by the intervention brigade made up of Tanzanian and South African troops within the UN Mission for Stabilisation of Congo (MONUSCO) recaptured all the key strongholds occupied by the M23, drove them out of eastern Congo, inflicted heavy losses on them (including the seizure of many weapons) and had many of them surrender, 27 in Rutsuru alone. This spectacular string of victories by the Congolese armed forces and defeats for the M23 started with the recapturing of the town of Kibumba, 30 kilometers from Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, on 25 October 2013 where three mass graves were discovered.

On 27 October 2013 the FARDC recaptured the town of Kiwanja, 70 kilometers north of Goma after heavy fighting. Local people welcomed the Congolese armed forces with shouts of joy. Unfortunately, a Tanzanian peacekeeper was killed during the fighting, as the Congo-based UN-sponsored Radio Okapi reported. Just a few hours later the army took control of the city of Rutshuru. The M23 rebels were just fleeing the advance of the FARDC. The people of this city greeted the arrival of the FARDC and encouraged them to pursue the rebels into their last strongholds. On Monday 28 October 2013, the army continued its advance. After Kibumba Kiwanja and Rutshuru, it was the turn of Rumangabo, one of Congo’s biggest military base located 50 kilometers from Goma, to pass under the control of the FARDC. Another mass grave was discovered there. On Wednesday, 30 October 2013, the Congolese military took control of Bunagana, a Congolese town near the border with Uganda which the M23 turned into its political headquarters.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo: Where hell is just a local call away

Dan Snow, The Independent

African nation is rich in resources – yet its people know only famine, war and disease. Dan Snow examines why

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the size of Western Europe, blessed with resources that ought to make its 70 million inhabitants very wealthy.

Yet it sits at the very bottom of the UN Human Development Index and for a generation has reliably been the worst country on earth in which to be born.

We are headed north to try and find out why. We can’t travel by night because the countryside swarms with the lawless; refugees from the sudden implosion in the neighbouring Central African Republic have fled here with machetes and empty bellies. We stay in a guest house which has not had running water or electricity for two years. It’s plantain and scrawny chicken for dinner, a feast by local standards.

The Land Cruiser rumbles off at 4am, its tyres bald, the windscreen wipers non-existent. The 300km journey will take eight hours if we are  lucky. This vast country has fewer than 2,000 miles of paved roads, and the World Bank estimates that 90 per cent of the entire network is impassable. It is so bumpy that I get seasick.
Hordes of kids roar as we pass but we see only children and pregnant women, no old people. The average life expectancy here has collapsed from 60 in 1960 to 48 today. It is late when we reach Gbadolite, the jungle folly of one of Africa’s most infamous leaders, President Mobutu. The town centre is quiet: modern street signs and traffic lights hang limp and corroding above carless streets.

We are here to film Mobutu’s jungle Versailles. We pass an airport with a runway built for Concorde, which Mobutu would hire for his shopping trips. The marble-clad terminal building is derelict; where the French President François Mitterrand once sipped champagne, families live in lean-tos. We eventually reach the palace to which Mobutu retreated as the Congo collapsed and undiagnosed cancer tore at his insides. Its swimming pool is empty but for a puddle of green sludge, his sunken bed a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Fragments of Chinese porcelain vases lie scattered across the cracked floor.

Democratic Republic of Congo: UPR Submission September 2013

Human Rights Watch

1. Summary
Violent conflict has continued in the Democratic Republic of Congo, mostly in the east, with the Congolese army and non-state armed groups responsible for horrific attacks on civilians, including killings, rapes, and forced recruitment of children. Presidential and parliamentary elections in 2011 were characterized by a violent crackdown on the opposition. Government authorities have sought to silence dissent by targeting human rights activists, journalists, political leaders, and political party supporters who criticized government authorities or participated in peaceful demonstrations.

While the challenges for the Congolese justice system remain enormous and most perpetrators of serious abuses in Congo go unpunished, there are signs of a greater government commitment to fighting impunity for grave human rights abuses. Since 2012, government officials have repeatedly called for leaders of the M23 – a Rwandan-backed armed group responsible for widespread human rights abuses – to face justice, and have stated clearly that the government will neither provide an amnesty to those allegedly responsible for war crimes or crimes against humanity nor reintegrate them into the army. The government’s insistence on accountability may have contributed to the surrender of M23 leader Bosco Ntaganda to the US embassy in Rwanda in March 2013. He is now awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court for charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in north eastern Congo in 2002 and 2003.

This submission focuses on the human rights record of the Congolese government and security forces since 2009, when the last UPR on Congo was held.^[1]

2. Killings, Rapes, Recruitment of Children, and other Abuses by the Congolese Army

DR Congo: Outspoken Lawmaker Gets 3-Year Sentence

Human Rights Watch 

(Kinshasa) – Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo should immediately drop the apparently politically motivated case against a member of parliament. Muhindo Nzangi was sentenced to three years in prison over comments he made on a radio program in proceedings that did not meet international fair trial standards. His prosecution reflects a broader government crackdown on free expression in the country.

On August 13, 2013, two days after speaking on a radio program in the eastern city of Goma, Nzangi was tried, convicted, and sentenced for endangering internal state security. On August 20, police violently disrupted a peaceful sit-in by dozens of Nzangi supporters outside the North Kivu governor’s office in Goma. The police beat several protesters and arrested five, who were threatened with rebellion charges, though all were released by the next day. Nzangi is a member of the Movement for Social Renewal (Mouvement social pour le renouveau, or MSR), one of the largest political parties in the ruling presidential majority (Majorité présidentielle, or MP)coalition.

“A member of parliament was arrested, summarily tried and sent off to prison solely for expressing his views,” said Ida Sawyer, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This sadly is just the latest attempt by government officials to use the courts to silence dissent.”

Congolese authorities should drop their questionable case against Nzangi and end the crackdown against his supporters, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch has documented 84 cases since May 2012 in which politicians, political party activists, journalists, and human rights activists were arrested or threatened by the authorities because of their political views or published opinions.

Rwanda defends military deployment along Congo border

Nicholas Kotch, BDlive

RWANDA has responded to regional criticism about its military deployment along the frontier with the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo saying its territory had been repeatedly hit by cross-border shelling.

"Rwanda did not deploy along the border for the sake of it. During a 10-day period our country was shelled 34 times," Rwanda’s ambassador to South Africa, Vincent Karega, told BDlive on Monday.

"That was an invitation for Rwanda to intervene," he said, suggesting that the stray shelling was not accidental but a ploy to try to suck Rwanda into the continuing conflict. It pits Congolese troops, supported by United Nations (UN) "peace enforcers", against the Rwandan-backed Congolese rebels called M23.

Rwanda first complained about the shelling during August’s intense fighting in areas north of the eastern Congo city of Goma. The M23 rebels were forced to retreat and there have been no reports of cross-border incursions by Rwanda’s army, one of Africa’s best.

But Rwanda was criticised at a special summit of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) in Windhoek last Wednesday. Rwanda is not a Sadc member.

A Meditation on Violence Against Women and Nature

Laura K Kerr, laurakkerr.com

He says that woman speaks with nature. That she hears voices from under the earth. That wind blows in her ears and trees whisper to her. That the dead sing through her mouth and the cries of infants are clear to her. But for him this dialogue is over. He says he is not part of this world, that he was set on this world as a stranger. He sets himself apart from woman and nature.

— Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature

Inspiration: A Colloquium

Earlier this month, I had the honor and pleasure of being part of a colloquium at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. Titled, “Violence in/and the Great Lakes: the thought of VY Mudimbe and beyond,” this colloquium was hosted by the Thinking Africa project of the Department of Political and International Studies at Rhodes.

VY Mudimbe was born in Belgian Congo, and is the Newman Ivey White Professor of Literature at Duke University. He is the author of many books and articles of philosophy and cultural critique, as well as novels and poetry, and is an esteemed scholar of African thought, culture, and history. Professor Mudimbe is also a person of great compassion yet realism. As both our guide and inspiration, he brought not only wisdom and experience to the colloquium, but also a commitment to safeguarding the humanity and dignity of life. With Professor Mudimbe as a mediating presence, our collective meditation on violence in the Great Lakes region was both sensitive and critical, which is not easy to do when the topic is violence.

My initial plan for this post was to give a summary of the colloquium. Yet I am still thinking about what was shared, still reflecting on the different perspectives and approaches to the topic of violence. I was also moved by discussions with students and faculty at Rhodes about violence, poverty, and exploitation in South Africa. Thus, to give a summary would feel dishonest, putting artificial limits on something that is not yet done for me, as well as somehow doing violence to a shared experience and others’ voices. This is both the beauty and curse when philosophy is enlisted in the service of problematizing the seeming nature of things: such reflective awareness has a way of suspending action. And yet it is often an impulsive and thoughtless drive that leads to violence.

Instead, I will share some ideas that have resurfaced for me and taken on new forms as a result of my participation in the colloquium. These ideas are rough sketches about relationships between men, women, and nature explored through the lenses of mythology, ecopsychology, and early civilizations. I am hoping to understand violence in ways that might lead to healing the wounds of the Congolese and other peoples exposed to the destructive underbelly of modernity. And I am still searching.

Democratic Republic of the Congo: Communities in fear and uncertainty

ICRC 

Operational Update

While the outcome of diplomatic, military and political initiatives currently under way remains uncertain, the humanitarian and security situation in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo continues to be a major concern. The presence of numerous uncontrolled armed groups is still causing massive displacements of people fleeing hostilities and abuse. As a consequence, there is a critical need to protect civilians and to ensure that they have access to health care, water, food and other basic necessities.

Over the past month, fighting has continued between armed forces and groups in both North and South Kivu, in particular in the territories of Niyragongo, Masisi and Beni in North Kivu, and on the Ruzizi plain and in Shabunda Territory in South Kivu. Fighting erupted recently around the city of Baraka in Fizi Territory, South Kivu, and also in the Ituri and Tshopo districts of Eastern Province.

The ICRC has been adapting its response to a very volatile environment in order to meet the needs of conflict victims in the best way possible and to overcome problems of access. "Communities in the most unstable areas of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo live in constant fear. Some are even forced to move away to escape the fighting, threats and looting," said Alessandra Ménegon, head of the ICRC delegation in the country. "Our staff remain on the ground, close to the hardest-hit communities. Civilians are suffering many kinds of trauma, both physical and psychological."

Wounds that take long to heal

Two ICRC surgical teams are carrying on with their work together with the staff of NDosho Hospital in Goma, North Kivu, and of the provincial general referral hospital in Bukavu, South Kivu. Serious war injuries often require specialized surgical procedures spanning a number of weeks or even months. In some cases, physical rehabilitation and psychological support need to be provided. Since the beginning of July, 66 war-injured civilians and military personnel have been admitted to the two hospitals, where more than 250 operations have been performed.

The Allied Democratic Forces: Moving beyond popular narratives

Lindsay Scorgie, Al Jazeera


A little known rebel group, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), is suspected of being behind attacks on a town called Kamango in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on July 11 - attacks which have resulted in a humanitarian emergency as more than 60,000 refugees have streamed into eastern Uganda over the past week and a half.

Civilians being uprooted and forced to flee is of course not a rare occurrence in the DRC and wider Great Lakes region these days. What is more unusual in the case of events this past week and a half, however, is the astounding lack of information and understanding about both the attacks on Kamango, and the rebel group that stands accused of committing the violence. Media, regional governments, and international actors and observers, are unable to explain the motivations behind the attack - or even confirm that it is indeed the ADF that has caused the violence.

Such a dearth of information is a persistent pattern when it comes to the ADF. This is a trend that has resulted in descriptions of the group being riddled with inaccuracies, ultimately confusing any attempts of appropriately dealing with the rebels.

An Islamic, foreign armed group?
The United Nations Group of Experts on the DRC continually describes the ADF as a “Ugandan-led Islamist rebel group”. This is similar to how the majority of reports on the ADF characterise the group. There are two misleading assumptions showcased in such descriptions, however: the ADF is neither foreign to the DRC, nor is it necessarily a predominantly Islamic rebel group.

Congo-Kinshasa: In Eastern Congo, M23 Rebels Battle for Hearts, Minds

Gabe Joselow, All Africa

M23 rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are trying to strengthen their grip on areas under their control as they come under attack by the Congolese army. The residents of rebel-held towns in eastern Congo, however, are growing weary of the ongoing conflict.

At a church in eastern Congo, the faithful pack the pews in what looks like a regular prayer service. But this is not about religion. It's a lesson in rebellion taught at the M23 rebel group's military academy.

The people here, gathered from nearby towns, are being taught the ideology of this group of disaffected soldiers that has controlled territory in eastern Congo since breaking away from the army last year.

M23 rebels are trying to cement control over this area, which they say has been neglected for too long by the government in Kinshasa.

War's strife
Outside the academy walls, though, the rebels have been losing ground to the Congolese army in a week of fighting a few kilometers from the economic hub of Goma, which was held by the rebels for 10 days last year.

Understanding Conflict in Eastern Congo (I): The Ruzizi Plain

International Crisis Group

Africa Report N°206 23 Jul 2013

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The February 2013 framework agreement signed by the UN, African organisations and eleven regional countries, as well as the deployment of an intervention brigade, represent yet another of many attempts to end the crisis in the Kivus. Conflicts in this region, however, stem mainly from competition between communities for land and economic opportunities and require tailored, grassroots solutions that should go beyond a military response and promote local conflict resolution. Those seeking to secure peace in the Kivus should gain sound knowledge of local dynamics and design strategies to tackle the root causes of violence and improve relations between communities.

The imperative of pursuing local responses to the crisis is illustrated by the longstanding conflict in the Ruzizi plain, located in Uvira territory at the border of South Kivu and Burundi. In a context of impunity and distrust, the assassination on 25 April 2012 of the Ruzizi plain traditional leader, who belongs to the Barundi community, sparked renewed violence between it and a rival community, the Bafuliro. Despite several reconciliation attempts by the central government and the UN Stabilisation Mission in Congo (MONUSCO), tensions persist in 2013.

The Bafuliro and Barundi have fought over land and traditional leadership in the Ruzizi plain since colonial times. Tensions remain high because of socio-economic underdevelopment, the mismanagement of land affairs and poor local governance due to weaknesses in provincial and central administration. Instead of acting as secondary figures, traditional chiefs play a leading role in Congo’s politics and administration. Perceived as influential during elections, they are part of political patronage networks and have support in national and provincial institutions.

Rape of the Congo

Adam Hochschild (July 15, 2009)
The New York Review of Books


As if eastern Congo had not already suffered enough, seven years ago Nature dealt it a stunning blow. The volcano whose blue-green bulk looms above the dusty, lakeside city of Goma, Mount Nyiragongo, erupted, sending a smoking river of lava several hundred yards wide through the center of town and sizzling into the waters of Lake Kivu. More than 10,000 homes were engulfed. Parts of the city, which is packed with displaced people, are still covered by a layer of purplish rock up to twelve feet thick.

Far greater destruction has come from more than a decade of a bewilderingly complex civil war in which millions have died. First, neighboring Uganda and Rwanda supported a rebel force under Laurent Kabila that overthrew longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997. Soon after, Kabila fell out with his backers, and later Uganda and Rwanda fell out with each other. Before long, they and five other nearby nations had troops on Congo’s soil, in alliance either with the shaky national government in Kinshasa or with a mushrooming number of rival ethnic warlords, particularly here in the mineral-rich east. Those foreign soldiers are almost all gone now, but some fighting between the government and remaining rebel groups continues. For two weeks in June, I had the chance to observe the war’s effects, with the best of possible traveling companions: Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, whose reports have been an authoritative source of information on the country for years.

No one has been harder hit than Congo’s women, for almost all the warring factions have used rape as a calculated method of sowing terror. An hour and a half southwest of Goma on bone-jolting roads stand several low buildings of planks and adobe; small bleating goats wander about and a cooking fire burns on one dirt floor. There is no electricity. A sign reads Maison d’Écoute (Listening House). The office of the forty-two-year-old director, whom I will call Rebecca Kamate, extends from the side of one of the buildings; its other three walls are of thin green tarpaulin with a UNICEF emblem, through which daylight filters. The floor is gravel. Kamate pulls out a hand-written ledger to show to Anneke, her colleague Ida Sawyer, and me. Ruled columns spread across the page: date, name, age of the victim, and details—almost all are gang rapes, by three to five armed men. Since the center started, it has registered 5,973 cases of rape. The ages of the victims just since January range from two to sixty-five. On the ledger’s most recent page, the perpetrators listed include three different armed rebel groups—plus the Congolese national army.

“What pushed me into this work,” says Kamate, speaking softly in a mixture of Swahili and hesitant French, “is that I am also one who was raped.” This happened a decade ago; the rapists were from the now-defunct

Africa: 'Haze of Silence Over Rwandan Involvement in DRC' - Highlights of the Mid-Term Report of the UN Group of Experts

Kris Berwouts
All Africa


The Mid-Term Report of the sometimes controversial UN Group of Experts focuses on the major events of the conflict in eastern Congo since the beginning of the year.

Predictably, one of the main subjects is the fighting within M23 between Sultani Makenga and Bosco Ntaganda's factions. Tensions already existed in 2012 and came to the surface after M23 dramatically took Goma. Under international pressure Makenga wanted to leave town, while Ntaganda preferred to remain in the provincial capital. When they finally withdrew on December 1st 2012, Ntaganda and Makenga clashed over the division of the goods looted from the city. The leadership crisis also crystallized in the same period around appointments: both leaders wanted to place their officers and cadres in key positions within the movement.

The report describes how fighting broke out between the two factions on February 28th 2013. Two weeks later, Makenga defeated his adversary and on March 15th Ntaganda crossed the border into Rwanda using a small path in the Gasizi area. According to different sources interviewed by the Expert Panel, Bosco was brought to Kigali with the help of his family. He arrived at the United States embassy on March 18th where he requested to be transferred to the ICC. This entire operation took place, according to the report, without the prior knowledge of Rwandan authorities.

The report refers several times (without giving any details) to the role Rwanda played in the internal struggle. On the one hand, Makenga was supported by demobilized Rwandan soldiers from Rwanda. At the same time, Rwandan officials dismantled Ntaganda's network of support and recruitment in Rwanda. Three interviewees confirmed that groups of demobilized Rwandan soldiers had infiltrated into the DRC during the two weeks of fighting to assist Makenga.

After the confrontations had ended (the Group of Experts estimates that over 200 combatants from both factions died during the fighting), M23 has continued to recruit in Rwanda and to enlist demobilized Rwandan soldiers. Some Rwanda Defense Force (RDF) officers have also held meetings with M23 commanders and impeded the voluntary repatriation of M23 combatants to Rwanda.

CHRISTIAN SAVIORS & THE ADOPTIONS INDUSTRY IN CONGO EXPLOITING AFRICA'S MOST PRECIOUS RESOURCE: CHILDREN

Jennifer Fierberg & Keith Harmon Snow
Conscious Being

All those that are justified, God vouchsafed, in and for the sake of his only Son Jesus Christ, to make partakers of the grace of adoption, by which they are taken into the number, and enjoy the liberties and privileges of the children of God, have his name put upon them, receive the spirit of adoption, have access to the throne of grace with boldness, are enabled to cry Abba, Father, are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by him as by a Father, yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption, and inherit the promises as heirs of everlasting salvation.

The Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689

"The fact that people are starving to death, or unable to provide for their children, due to a system of international plunder, does not justify purchasing children from desperate people and trafficking them abroad into the homes of white people.  The wars in DRC are part of the global business where the most expendable are lives of poor Congolese."  

Congolese Professor in the USA (name withheld)

La Procure Saint Anne is a Catholic Monastery built in 1920 in what is today the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Abutting Kinshasa's first cathedral church, La Centre d'aceuil Saint Anne (in the local French) sits just off Kinshasa's main thoroughfare, the Boulevard 30 Juin, named for the date of the Congo's supposed independence from Belgium on June 30,1960.  

At La Procure Saint Anne you can see black Congolese 'orphans' meeting prospective white American 'parents' before these children are packaged for export, with all the requisite paperwork and necessary U.S. Government approvals, and trafficked into international commerce for transshipment to the United States. Cloistered behind 10-foot stone walls, with a lush tropical garden in front and a shady courtyard in back, La Procure sits just a few hundred feet from the United States Embassy. 

No longer a mainstay of the Belgian colonial enterprise, La Procure is now run like a tight profitable business.  The original, quaint, simple but truly charming colonial era furnishings, which were evident throughout the austere halls of the monastery even as recent as 2006, have been replaced by tacky furniture and cheap post-modern décor with as little character and as much charm as the cold business dealings of the head priest.  Listed today as a lower- to middle-range lodging option in the city, these days La Procure accommodates foreign couples for weeks at a time, generating substantial income, especially in Kinshasa.