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Delayed talks, military action: FDLR is here for the long run

Monday March 30 2015
EAFDLRII

An FDLR rebel stands surrounded by villagers in Miriki, eastern DR Congo. A combination of local, regional and international factors has ensured the group’s survival up to now and will continue to do so. PHOTO | FILE |

Late in February, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo launched the much-anticipated military campaign against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

In the DRC for the past 20 years, FDLR has not only wreaked havoc on the country and its civilian population but has also been at the centre of several violent conflicts.

Interestingly, the Congolese army — Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC) —chose to mount the offensive alone, without support from the UN stabilisation force, Monusco, and its Tanzania- and South Africa-led Force Intervention Brigade, which had been expected to be part of the action.

As would be expected, the campaign kicked off amid much fanfare and media hype. A month later, however, little is heard of what is happening or has happened since the attacks on the FDLR began.

Truth be told, hardly a seasoned watcher of the DRC and the wider Great Lakes region expected anything to come of it. Indeed, many dismissed it right from the beginning as the usual posturing the DRC government and its military have engaged in for years each time they are pushed to “do something” about the FDLR.

The offensive was preceded by what one analyst termed “some kind of war” between the DRC government and Monusco over a number of issues, including the alleged criminal record of the two senior officers DRC President Joseph Kabila chose to command the military campaign, Gen Bruno Mandevu and Gen Fall Sibakwe.

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The row and how the issue of indiscipline became so important caused some amusement. The two officers are hardly the only ones in the FARDC with questions of indiscipline hanging over their heads. Nor has indiscipline hitherto been an issue in as far as the UN and the FARDC working together is concerned.

READ: DR Congo rejects UN ultimatum to sack tainted generals

Which is why some analysts wonder if this was not yet another “excuse” for not acting decisively. Did the DRC government know in advance what reaction it would get if it appointed the two officers and still chose to do so in order to cause the standoff it did and keep Monusco out of the action?

Whatever happened, there is little reason so far to believe that the end of the FDLR has arrived. A combination of local, regional and international factors has ensured the group’s survival until now and will continue to do so.

READ: United Nations pulls support to DR Congo operation

Local factors

There are numerous degrees of co-operation between elements of the FARDC and the FDLR.

For example, the trade in minerals, charcoal, and other merchandise and sharing of the proceeds. If this is true, then within the FARDC, officers have incentives for not fighting against or eliminating the FDLR.

A longstanding joke in the Kivu region and elsewhere in the neighbourhood has FARDC officers telling their FDLR contacts, “We are coming after you; get out,” before planned offensives are launched.

The result is that FDLR fighters then run off into the forest until the threat has passed, return to their usual hideouts and carry on with their day-to-day activities, including harassment of Congolese civilians and disruption of local community life.

Also, some FDLR fighters have married into local communities and inserted themselves there, so much so that distinguishing them from ordinary civilians is difficult.

This, however, seems to be a rather minor factor. The bulk of the group live in organised camps in known places, where journalists have found and photographed them, even as both the DRC government and Monusco claim that they have no idea where the camps are located.

International dimension

The FDLR has been and remains a target of international condemnation, including arrest warrants and sanctions.

However, the group has influential friends, sympathisers, and backers. They include exiled Rwandan politicians and key personalities with connections to the government that planned and executed the genocide.

They live in several Western countries, mainly in Western Europe and, from there, continue to seek regime change in Kigali in order to reclaim the power they lost.

Alongside these are influential persons in some of the same European countries where they live, who had strong ties to the Juvenal Habyarimana government.

Under Habyarimana they had influence and were treated with the deference they felt they were entitled to, some of them having worked as advisers. With the collapse of the Habyarimana government, all that was lost.

While being careful not to appear to support genocidal forces openly, these two groups discreetly provide the FDLR with crucial financial, moral, public relations and other support. For example, they are among the originators of the claim that today’s FDLR are not genocidaires but young people who never took part in the planning or execution of the genocide in Rwanda.

For this reason, they urge talks between the government of Rwanda and the insurgents whose only interest, they argue, is to return to their country, emphasising that the problems of Rwanda can never be resolved through military means.

In this they have direct and indirect support from several NGOs and “rights campaigners” with their own grievances against the post-genocide government.

Some governments and international actors have been swayed by the above groups’ arguments that portray the FDLR as harmless. Consequently, they have joined those pushing for talks between the government of Rwanda and the insurgents.

As we shall see shortly, the argument that the FDLR poses no military threat to Rwanda is valid. However, those who repeat the argument usually disregard the Rwanda government’s contention that the FDLR poses an ideological threat emanating from commitment by its adherents to genocidal ideology.

Those who insist on resolving the impasse through talks therefore actively undermine the case for the FDLR’s neutralisation by military means, thereby contributing to the group’s preservation.

There are other sides to the international dimension of the FDLR’s longevity. Like Zaire before it, the DRC is a major arena of competition among the great powers.

Rich in minerals and other natural resources, many central to the continued existence and prosperity of major industrial sectors in the developed world, the DRC is worth controlling and influencing by all those who want a piece of the pie.

There are ways in which Rwanda is seen as threatening the interests of some minor and medium European powers. One of them is through the popular portrayal of Rwanda as a robber of the DRC’s wealth.

Indeed, Rwanda’s past attempts at eliminating the FDLR through military incursions into DRC have now come to be associated with Rwanda’s designs on DRC’s natural resources and its alleged desire to annex part of its territory. It is now easy to galvanise international action against Rwanda on the grounds that it is destabilising the DRC or seeking to steal its wealth.

As a result, with the DRC government showing neither keenness nor capacity to eliminate or disarm and demobilise FDLR combatants, and with Monusco mandated only to support action by government forces, for now the FDLR is guaranteed safety within the DRC borders.

There are reports suggesting for example, that South Africa-based Rwandan dissidents organised under the Rwanda National Congress led by former Rwanda Defence Forces chief of staff Gen Kayumba Nyamwasa, have sought to join forces with the FDLR in pursuit of regime change in Kigali.

Indeed, the government of Rwanda has accused the two groups of being jointly responsible for the grenade blasts that at one point rocked Kigali and other parts of Rwanda and led to the arrest and prosecution of several individuals. Which takes us to the regional dimensions of the FDLR’s survival, to which we shall return shortly.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the international dimensions of the situation are attempts at peace making through the United Nations and other multilateral arrangements.

However, there is a view, put across by a regional observer, that “if these people stayed away, a three-way solution” to the problem of the FDLR and that of Ugandan insurgents, ADF-NALU, also DRC-based, “could be arrived at.” This would not be necessarily easy, smooth, or straightforward.

However, the observer continued, if they were allowed space to engage each other directly without external interference, it is possible that Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC might arrive at workable compromises. However, “staying away” is difficult to contemplate.

The determination by international actors to play key roles has resulted in endless rounds of multi-actor talks that lead nowhere, that have left the FDLR free to organise, grow, and entrench its presence in the DRC, from where it continues to pose a threat to regional security and stability.

Regional dimensions

Post-genocide Rwanda’s determined pursuit of its security interests and its relentless search for long-term political stability have entailed engaging in actions that have won it many admirers and allies as well as detractors and enemies. Much has been written about the Congo wars of the 1990s and how the different protagonists positioned themselves.

The wars have left a mixed legacy. On the one hand, Rwanda is more secure than it was in the years following the genocide against the Tutsi, thanks to its willingness to assume responsibility, whatever the cost, for its own fate. The resulting peace and stability underlie the very rapid and largely unexpected progress it has made on many fronts since the late 1990s.

On the other hand, they earned it new enemies, further embittered already existing ones, and handed its detractors a platform from which they have wreaked havoc on its image in the popular imagination.

Among the enemies are regional actors with a particular reading and interpretation of the country’s assertiveness, which they see as pointing to a tendency towards expansionism and a desire to dominate the region. Anyone recall the allusions in the 1990s to a “Tutsi conspiracy” to take over and rule the Great Lakes region?

If the M23 uprising in the DRC in 2012 and the allegation that it was orchestrated by Rwanda elicited rapid military reaction from some regional actors while the FDLR, which was supposed to be next on the list, is still at large, it is partly because of this.

It is believed that actors angered by Rwanda’s assertiveness and offended by its “arrogance” have come to view the FDLR as victims of Kigali’s militarism.

Indeed, some call the FDLR freedom fighters. The net effect of all this is a reluctance to neutralise the group, thereby contributing to its preservation.

By way of illustration of how this works, spirited efforts by Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos in 2014 to cobble together a purely regional effort to neutralise the FDLR militarily were, according to informed sources, scuppered repeatedly by some regional actors seemingly intent not only on preserving the group, but also sanitising it in the hope that international pressure would force Rwanda to accede to demands for direct talks with them.

READ: UN forces ready to attack FDLR, as Luanda summit is called off

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With friends such as these, the FDLR cannot but continue to thrive.

Rwanda’s dilemma

The general view in Rwanda is that the FDLR does not pose a military threat, and that it is unlikely to do so soon. Of most concern is FDLR’s potential role as a vehicle for propagating and promoting anti-Tutsi genocidal ideology. Such an ideology, in a region with millions of Tutsis, will become a threat to regional peace, political and economic integration, and free movement.

Within Rwanda, the FDLR threat can also come by way of small-scale incursions designed to undermine security, social cohesion, and confidence in the government.

This would carry serious political implications for a government much of whose legitimacy rests on having presided over two decades of political stability, security, socio-economic progress and, above all else, a growing sense of national unity and togetherness.

For the RPF-led government, therefore, the imperative to neutralise the FDLR remains a constant preoccupation. A key strategy entails welcoming back combatants who desert the group. Tens of thousands of former insurgents have returned and been assisted to reintegrate into society.

This, however, will not solve the problem of FDLR hardliners who seek the military option. Some claim that Rwanda is unsafe for them. This is true for those who played active roles in planning and executing the genocide, for they will be taken to court to answer individually for their crimes.

Importantly, the government emphasises individual responsibility for crimes, which is why the wives and children of some of the insurgents live in Rwanda, enjoying the privileges available to all citizens and discharging the obligations required of everyone.

So, given the local, regional, and international environment, what options does Rwanda have? Clearly, unilateral action in the absence of a major FDLR incursion into its territory is out of the question.

According to informed sources, the government of Rwanda has opted for security measures designed to prevent such an incursion and small-scale infiltrations and leave the rest of the FDLR-related problems that do not impact its core interests directly and immediately, to the DRC government, Monusco, and the wider international community.

Related sources suggest that Rwanda has no interest in participating in more talks about FDLR, talks which some actors have turned into arenas for pleading for the group to be given more time to disarm or for sanitising it in the hope that it will acquire the status of a legitimate political actor, a prospect the government of Rwanda will not entertain.

All this suggests that, for now, the world and the region are stuck with the FDLR. Whether we shall see radical change any time soon will, to a large extent, depend on the extent to which certain actors are willing to change their attitude and conduct.

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