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President Kabila Getting Away With Crime

The Monitor (Kampala)
OPINION
December 9, 2004
Posted to the web December 9, 2004

By Ngango Rukara
Kampala
On December 4, 2004, a British Broadcasting Co-operation (BBC) correspondent,
Mr. Robert Walker, over-flying Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
territory in a MONUC helicopter, with United Nations peace monitors, reported
that the Congolese local population in Eastern DRC was being manipulated by
government soldiers and politicians, instilling fear into the people and
scaring them into abandoning their homes.
The BBC journalist went on to report that despite the fact that he had over-
flown the Congolese territory where alleged fighting between Rwanda Defence
Forces (RDF) and ex-Far/Interahamwe was taking place, " there was no sign of
Rwandan Defence Forces, there was no sign of fighting, there was no sign of
burnt houses".
Indeed this was two days after the Director of the United Nations Peace-keeping
department, Mr. Jean Marie Gehenno, had told the Security Council that all the
United Nations had heard were allegations and suspicions; that in-spite of the
massive presence of United Nations monitors, there was no evidence of the
presence of Rwandan troops in the DRC.
Effectively, the United Nations monitors in Eastern DRC, whose business it is
to verify the allegations of the presence of Rwandan forces on the Congolese
territory, agree with international journalists who have combed the area, that
there are no Rwandan troops in the DRC. The picture clearly emerging is that
President Kabila is manipulating, not only the people of the DRC, but also the
international community. Unfortunately many have bought into the ploy.
On the contrary, none of these observers or any other party for that matter
doubts the presence of ex-Far/Interahamwe on the DRC territory. There is no
doubt about their (ex-Far/Interahamwe) declared mission-which they have
attempted several times in the last decade: to attack Rwanda and complete the
genocide, from where they left in 1994; an act they consider an unfinished
business. On November 15th, 2004, they launched a sustained artillery attack
from their bases in Eastern DRC, severely wounding three women, one of them
pregnant, in Cyanzarwe district of Gisenyi province.
This was three months after they attacked a refugee camp in Gatumba in Burundi
where they massacred over 160 innocent refugees. In May 2001, they launched a
massive attack in the provinces of Gisenyi and Ruhengeri, until the Rwanda
Defence Forces stopped them, with thousands of their numbers taken prisoner.
While ex-Far/Interahamwe are a highly organised genocidal outfit whose mission
is to carry out another round of genocide in Rwanda, an objective they have
made categorically clear, and many of whose leaders are fugitives from
international justice, for the prominent role they played in the 1994 genocide,
the international community has unfortunately not taken the threat they
constitute to the Rwandan people seriously. Successive Congolese regimes, from
Mobutu to Kabila Jnr have not only allowed them free use of the DRC territory
and resources to attack Rwanda, they have also enlisted their units to fight
wars against Rwanda. For the last eight years, the Rwandan genocidal militias
have constituted part of the DRC fighting machinery.
The International community's reluctance to prevail on the regime in Kinshasa
to end its support for the ex-Far/Interahamwe has sent a signal to President
Kabila that he can get away with murder.
In his article: Punish Kabila for Breeding Anarchy! The East African, August
23-29, 2004 celebrated journalist Charles Onyango- Obbo, points out that the
withdrawal of Rwandan troops from the DRC territory in October 2002,"handed
Kinshasa an undeserved moral victory... As a result the DRC government became
used to getting away with not exercising its responsibilities.... That is why
it still allows the Hutu militia to operate freely.
Mr Onyango-Obbo goes on to suggest that due to President Kabila's
intransigency, Rwanda should create buffers inside the DRC to prevent rebel
attacks...If Kinshasa cares enough about the unity of Congo, that will force it
to deal decisively with rebel havens in the country". Rwanda has not created
these buffers, but has instead called upon President Kabila to resolve the
problem.
With the support of the African Union, a series of protocols and agreements
were signed with the aim of putting an end to the ex-Far/Interahamwe menace and
the support they enjoyed from the Kinshasa government. Prominent among these
was the July 30th, 2002 Pretoria Agreement signed between Presidents Paul
Kagame and Joseph Kabila. Effectively this agreement committed Rwanda to
withdraw her troops from the DRC territory, while President Kabila agreed to
not only cease his support to the Rwandan militia, but also to disarm and
repatriate them. Within less than three months, no single Rwandan soldier
remained on the DRC territory. While the Government of Rwanda has delivered on
its side of the agreement, the Kinshasa regime has behaved as if the Pretoria
agreement is not worth the paper it was signed on.
Meanwhile, the United Nations has been talking about voluntary disarmament of
ex-Far/Interahamwe. This is a bad joke and the UN, more than anyone else, knows
that this kind of approach has never worked with Interahamwe, It never worked
ten years ago with General Romeo Dallaire, as it has not worked in the
intervening period and the UN simply needs to abandon this attitude.
Five months ago, when President Kabila's troops started fighting among
themselves in Eastern DRC, the Congolese President declared war on Rwanda, as
it became clear that certain European Union member countries, which have
historically supported the ex Far/Interahamwe, were supportive of his
adventure.
Recently, the Congolese President has told the world that he is mobilizing the
Congolese public and deploying 10.000 soldiers to fight Rwanda. This clearly
demonstrates that President Kabila lacks neither the capacity nor the resources
to deal with the security threat against Rwanda, as required by the many
agreements he has signed. He simply doesn't want to. Otherwise, he would have
used the fighting units he says he wants to deploy against Rwanda, to deal with
the common border security problem created by the Rwandan militia, once and for
all. This would have put an end to the activities of ex-Far/Interahamwe,
ensuring the long-term stability of the region.
The most untenable position in this DRC/Interahamwe debate is the inviolability
of the Congolese territory. Indeed President Kabila was the first to violate
the sovereignty of his own country, when he turned it into the playing field
for the marauding Rwandan genocidal criminals. At the same time, by allowing
the Rwandan militias to use its territory to launch attacks on Rwanda, the
Kinshasa government is clearly violating its neighbour's territorial integrity.
The question, therefore, is why should Congo's territorial integrity be more
sacred than Rwanda's? What goes around comes around!
While the United Nations Security Council has never put President Kabila to
task over the support he has provided to the ex-Far/Interahamwe, it has
recently entertained the DRC's unsubstantiated allegations against Rwanda.
This is a demonstration of unprecedented and dangerous levels of double
standards that will only work to create instability in the Great Lakes region.

   

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