War Crimes: Rwanda government dragged again in DR Congo for supporting M23 rebels

Families flee fighting between the Congolese army and M23 rebels in Rutshuru territory, eastern Congo in May 2012.

© 2012 Human Rights Watch

By Manuel Odeny
The Rwanda government has been accused of committing war crimes after being dragged again in DR Congo conflict by supporting the M23 rebels.

In a new research by Human Rights Watch between May and September this year which interviewed 190 Congolese and Rwandan victims Rwanda has been implicated to be complicit in war crimes through continued military assistance to M23 rebels.

This new report collaborates the June United Nations Security Council by Group of Experts Democratic Republic of Congo which led to Rwanda being sanctioned and denied aid for supporting the rebels against sanctions.

The two findings accuse Rwanda of the following:

·         Direct assistance in the creation of M23 through the transport of weapons and soldiers through Rwandan territory

·         Recruitment of Rwandan youth and demobilized ex-combatants as well as Congolese refugees for M23

·         Provision of weapons and ammunition to M23

·         Mobilization and lobbying of Congolese political and financial leaders for the benefit of M23

·         Direct Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF) interventions into Congolese territory to reinforce M23

·         Support to several other armed groups as well as Forces armées de la République démocratique du Congo (FARDC) mutinies in the eastern Congo

·         Violation of the assets freeze and travel ban through supporting sanctioned individuals.3

This contravenes the Security Council resolution that states “all States shall take the necessary measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer, from their territories or by their nationals, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, of arms and any related materiel, and the provision of any assistance, advice or training related to military activities, including financing and financial assistance, to all non-governmental entities and individuals operating in the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo;”.

Following this report senior Rwanda official are at risk of facing ICC trials at the Hague for being party of the M23’s widespread war crimes, including summary executions, rapes, and forced recruitment.

“In July, several hundred Rwandan army soldiers, possibly more, were deployed to eastern Congo to assist the M23 take the strategic border post town of Bunagana, Rumangabo military base, the towns of Rutshuru, Kiwanja, and Rugari, and surrounding areas,” HRW says.

Witnesses, especially M23 defectors say Rwandan forces enter DR Congo through various footpaths near Njerima, Kanyanje and through Ugandan territory and vehicles around Sabyinyo volcano.

Ugandan media has reported Rwandan military arrested in the country as they head to DR Congo.

HRW says Rwanda “had directed, or helped to direct, military operations, provided weapons, or supervised the training of new recruits.”

M23 in Congo has forcibly recruited 286; of whom at least 68 were children under 18, 24 of them under 15 with Rwandan military recruits by-passing them with estimated 600 of its citizens by force to fight.

Most Rwandan recruits are “men and boys with no previous military experience and Congolese Tutsi refugees living in refugee or transit camps in Rwanda. Others targeted for recruitment included demobilized soldiers from the Rwandan army, the CNDP, and demobilized fighters from the FDLR who had returned to Rwanda.”

Sadly FDLR are a largely Rwandan Hutu militia group operating in Congo, some of whose members participated in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

“There are lots of children with [M23 ICC suspect General] Ntaganda now, and they send us to the front lines so we’re the first to die. It’s as if they take us to kill us,” a 17-year-old Rwandan boy who was recruited in June in Ruhengeri told HRW.

So why does Rwanda recruit its citizens for rebels? A M23 combatant is succinct, “We have a small number of soldiers, and Rwanda has many, we recruit everywhere in Rwanda. We look especially for those with families in Congo, former CNDP fighters, or demobilized soldiers. The street children are also very susceptible to recruitment.”

But Rwanda and M23 continue to deny such allegations. Earlier as an undergrad student I had published an OpEd in this blog, The EastAfrican, Daily Nation and other papers (read it here) on why Rwanda and Uganda who have pilfered Eastern DR Congo resources will not support any report in the country.

The two who claim DR Congo has been used to front rebels in their countries have their armies and presidents to be profiteers and glutton mineral thieves.

Rwandan president Paul Kagame has resorted to dictatorship by forcing the world to bend to his whims by using the genocide guilt card and economic development under his rule as the carrot and its army in UN peace keeping mission in the region as the stick for submission.

And following the same script the Rwandan defense minister, James Kabarebe (he was named in the June UN report, full list later) in an interviews with Belgian newspaper Le Soir on August 29 said, “Everyone knows that Rwanda does not have a single soldier amongst the M23 and does not give it any support.”

M23 leadership has also denied any report linking it to war crimes extensively.

About M23

Wanted: M23 General Bosco Ntaganda

The rebel M23 are soldiers who mutinied to protest the Congolese government’s failure to fully implement the March 23, 2009, peace agreement (hence the name M23), which had integrated them into the Congolese army and was started in late March and May.

Most M23’s senior commanders have well-known histories of serious abuses, ethnic massacres, recruitment of children, mass rape, killing, abductions and torture with some being blacklisted by UN and wanted by ICC.

General Bosco Ntaganda led the mutiny following Congolese government attempts to weaken his control and increased calls for his arrest and surrender to the ICC others are Sultani Makenga, Col. Innocent Zimurinda, Col. Baudouin Ngaruye and Col. Innocent Kayna.

HRW reports that with such tainted past both Ntaganda and Zimurinda have traveled to openely Rwanda since April to seek logistical support against international sanctions and arrest warrants on them.

“The Rwandan government’s repeated denials that its military officials provide support for the abusive M23 rebels beggars belief, the United Nations Security Council should sanction M23 leaders, as well as Rwandan officials who are helping them, for serious rights abuses.”  Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Africa researcher with HRW says.

According to the earlier report by UN the following Rwandan officials were extensively named and should be sanctioned and brought to justice:

·         General Jacques Nziza, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence he  supervises all military, financial, and logistic support as well as mobilization activities related to M23.

·         General James Kabarebe, the Rwandan Minister of Defence, with the support of his personal secretary Captain Celestin Senkoko for recruitment and mobilizing of political and military support to M23. Kabarebe has often been in direct contact with M23 members on the ground to coordinate military activities;

·         General Charles Kayonga, the RDF Chief of Staff, manages the overall military support to M23. Kayonga is frequently in communication with Makenga and oversaw the transfer of Makenga’s troops and weapons through Rwanda;

·         The military support on the ground, recruitment of civilians and demobilized soldiers for M23 has been channelled by General Emmanuel Ruvusha, RDF Division commander based in Gisenyi, as well as General Alexi Kagame and RDF Division commander based at Ruhengeri. Both facilitate

·         Colonel Jomba Gakumba, a native of North Kivu, who used to be an RDF instructor at the Rwandan Military Academy at Gako.

Kagame scorns UN report as DRC burns.

Paul Kagame, Rwanda's President

I read with interest several articles about DRC on this weeks issue of The EastAfrican. The UN leaked report implicating Rwanda and Uganda shows how DRC’s wealth has attracted plunder from the world stage to the detriment of the country.

Of course Rwanda was ingurgitated enough to threaten a withdrawal of its 3,500 army aiding in peacekeeping effort in Sudan. UN in a diplomatic twist (after realizing Rwanda’s potential in peace of the region) has pushed the publishing the report, with Rwanda’s reaction, on 1st October.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon flew unexpectedly in Rwanda last week for talk, showing the seriousness of the repercussions.

I wasn’t shocked on Rwanda’s reaction on the leaked report. Prolific writers and journalists covering DRC have got the same backlash on their work. Dutch journalist Ludo de Witte’s The Assassination of Lumumba (first published in Dutch, 1999) is a good example. The fuss it caused in Belgium, DRC former colony, made the Belgium parliament to accept its country involvement in Lumumba’s death.

The UN backed report on Illegal Exploration of Natural Resources and other forms of Wealth from the DRC published from 2001-2003 received the same backlash.

The allure of DRC’s vast mineral resources has brought to it’s doorstep the world stage like hounds picking on it carcass amid plundering, war inhumanities and smuggling.

The 1988-2003 conflict drew a score of African countries; Angola, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Namibia, Chad and all the way to the bloody diamond fields of Sierra Leone.

I tried looking at 50 years of independence on the land of rhumba and found interesting the world stage in DRC:

The colonial Belgium under Leopold II set the stage for the scramble and partition of Africa. With shrewd ambition and insatiable greed for wealth, Leopold hired Henry Morton Stanley in 1878 to unleash terror to 400 African chiefs to curve the ‘Congo Free State.’ Joseph Conrad’s account in Heart of Darkness about colonial DRC said ‘the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience’ made Leopold the richest man in Europe.

But the wind of independence blowing over Africa reached the country on 30th June 1960 bringing more world figure in -ism schism of the cold war.

Patrice Lumumba, the pm, leading a shaky coalition with Belgium unwillingness to concede power brought chaos. Moise Tshombe with Belgium support declared Katanga, the mineral hub, an independent state on 11th July 1960. UN and USA stepped in but when Lumumba wasn’t impressed by their service called in Russia and Czech personnel at the nadir of cold war.

This culminated into assassination of Patrice Lumumba by Belgium and CIA. The revolt in Kisangani (Lumumba’s stronghold) in 1964 was supported by China, Algeria, Cuba and Egypt, forcing the CIA ti aid Mobutu to power in 1965.

As the western ‘friendly tyrant’ Mobutu lead a kleptomaniac regime, but enjoyed $9Billion aid, US contribute $860Million of this. It is from the start on 1988 that DRC was engulfed in humanitarian crisis in four stages according to the report; 1993-1996; July 1996-July 1998; August 1998-January 2000 and the fina; transition of January 2001-June 2003.

In 1988 DRC was rotting over corruption, weak central government and huge debt. Mobutu was ‘dinasaur’ against the second democratic wind of change which tirned the world against him.

But not France which sided with him against ‘Anglo-phone ‘ encroachment in central Africa. In 1994 Franco-African summit Mobutu got a warm, French president Jacques Chirac gave amoment of silence in memory of Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana whom France supported against RPF.

The then current Rwandan president Pasteur Bizimungu was not invited.

The first stage started with Mobutu, in need of regional powerbroker, to meddle in Rwanda and Burundi’s conflict despite DRC hosting over 1.5 million Rwandan refugees like Interahamwe, Mayi Mayi and Banyamulenge.

Rwanda and Uganda resentful at cross border raid in Kivu and Eastern conge respectively chose to support Laurent-Desire Kabila. Angola too supported Katanga rebels to hit back on Mobutu’s support to Jonas Savimbi and Unita.

Interestingly, Kabila was dismissed by Argentinean revolutionary Ernesto ’Che’ Guevara and 120 Cuban fighters in 1965 as lucking any revolutionary seriousness. Algerian Ben Bella, china’s Zhou En-Lai blessed the expedition while Egypt’s Abdel Nasser had his reservation. Ernesto wrote the 1965 expedition in Dar es Salaam embassy in the book The African Dreams: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in Congo.

On 17th May 1997 Kabila become the president of DRC while Mobutu died four months later in morocco. Uganda’s Yoweri Museni remarked, as quoted by Times journalist Martin Meredith in State of Africa, capturing the all incident thus:

“The big mistake of Mobutu was to involve himself in Rwanda. So its really Mobutu who initiated the programme of his own removal. Had he not involved himself in Rwanda, I think ho could have stayed, just like that….”

The third stage (August 1998-January 2000) flared when Laurent Kabila dismissed Rwanda a country, as his advisers said to be so small to be found in the map.

With aims to control their borders, president’s otiose ambition for being regional kingmakers and unbridled greed for diamond, petroleum, gold , timber, Colton and other minerals, several countries joined the fray at this stage. DRC was a proxy with contracts used to buy loyalty.

Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda financed rebels because Kabila could not control the cross border raids. Zimbabwe and Angola aided Kabila with help from Namibia and Chad. The acme of this stage was in 2000 when Rwanda and Uganda turned against each other in three occasions to control Kisangani, the diamond hub!!

The last stage (January 2001-June 2003) saw the withdrawal of foreign armies after the July 2002 peace treaty by Joseph Kabila. There is no respite as rebels were and are still supported as a proxy war in rivalry in the region.

Published on the Thursday September 30th Issue of The Daily Nation and Syndicated online at: NewsFlavor