[allAfrica.com] Nkunda Took Advantage of a Power Vacuum The East African (Nairobi) ANALYSIS 6 November 2007 Posted to the web 6 November 2007 By Zachary Ochieng Nairobi When the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a Tutsi-dominated rebel group based in Uganda, defeated the Rwandan government in 1994, more than a million Rwandans fled to Congo (then Zaire). Among them were members of the Interahamwe militia and Rwandan army soldiers who had committed genocide in their country. Thousands of the militia and soldiers settled among civilians in refugee camps near the Rwandan border where they regrouped and rearmed to resume the war against the new government in Kigali. In 1996 Rwanda, sent its troops across the border into Congo to forestall any possible attack. Rwandan soldiers, together with their Congolese Tutsi allies, attacked the camps, killing many civilians as well as armed combatants. Hundreds of thousands of survivors returned to Rwanda, many against their will, and hundreds of thousands of others fled into the forest where many would finally be killed by Rwandan and Congolese Tutsi troops or die from lack of food, water and diseases. In the decade since the attacks on the refugee camps, Rwandan combatants have tried several times to reorganise their forces in eastern Congo. The Forces Democratiques de Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR), which is the result of the most recent such effort, comprises groups of combatants scattered in North and South Kivu. Although sometimes called Interahamwe from the infamous name of the 1994 genocidal militia, most FDLR combatants played no role in the genocide. Some are too young to have been active in 1994; others are Congolese who joined the combatant groups for the immediate profit to be gained from military activity. Some FDLR live in relatively harmonious relations with the Congolese communities around them, while others engage in ruthless exploitation and predatory attacks. Such relationships depend on the relative strength of the FDLR groups and of the local authorities, and are also subject to rapid change depending on military or political conditions. In the past decade, Congolese national governments showed general tolerance for the several Rwandan rebel organisations in eastern Congo. In 1998, Congolese national army soldiers joined forces with these Rwandan rebels, drawing on their latter's superior training and discipline to try to repulse soldiers of the Ugandan, Rwandan, and Burundian government armies. Since the Global and All Inclusive Accords ending the 1998-2003 war, the Congolese government has been nominally committed to disbanding Rwandan rebel groups and facilitating their return to Rwanda. Despite this engagement there have been frequent reports of continued Congolese government assistance to the FDLR in the form of weapons, military support, and collaboration. In late 2006, Congolese forces requested and received the assistance of FDLR troops in their battles against renegade general Laurent Nkunda's forces near Tongo in Rutshuru. In an interview with Human Rights Watch, one FDLR combatant who fought wiht them and later fled, estimated that about 80 FDLR combatants supported the Congolese army attacks. In early 2007, representatives of the national government renewed assurances that the Congolese army would help eliminate FDLR groups, but as ethnic tensions rose, Congolese soldiers once again refrained from attacking the FDLR. In August, the government was again accused by Rwandan military of providing arms to the FDLR and, on October 2, the BBC reported that one of its journalists had found evidence of continued military co-operation between the Congolese army and the FDLR. Meanwhile, attempts to integrate Nkunda's forces into the national army failed miserably. In early 2006 and again in August and November 2006, Nkunda's troops fought against soldiers of the national army, making plain their continued autonomy and refusal to enter the integrated force under the brassage arrangement. In an effort to avoid further military confrontation, Congolese army soldiers and Nkunda reached a compromise at the end of December 2006 involving a form of limited integration called mixage. This compromise collapsed by mid-2007, leaving Nkunda in a far stronger position militarily and politically than he had been at the end of 2006. The failure of the attempt at a political solution also undermined the efforts of national authorities to reassert administrative control in the region, and increased ethnic tensions. After military operations in November 2006 produced substantial losses for both sides and no clear winner, Gen John Numbi, then head of the Congolese airforce, arrived in Goma and began talks with Nkunda. The discussions were moved to the Rwandan capital, Kigali, on December 31 where they were facilitated by high-ranking Rwandan military officers, including Chief of Staff Gen James Kabarebe. Nkunda and Numbi reached agreement in the first days of January 2007, but the terms of the accord were not put in writing or made public. The limited and gradual integration with other units, meant to guarantee the security of Tutsi soldiers in the national army, the campaign against the FDLR, and the anticipated return of refugees from Rwanda appeared to meet the objectives of Nkunda's political movement, the CNDP. Implementation of the mixage agreement began through January and February. Within months, the arrangement would collapse, but even before that happened, participants presented different versions of what had actually been agreed between the parties. Nkunda told Human Rights Watch, for example, that he had never agreed to go to South Africa, an assertion backed in part by a Rwandan officer who said that it had been left unclear whether Nkunda would leave or would instead be appointed to a command in the national Congolese army, with the warrant for his arrest being withdrawn. On another disputed point - the supposed agreement to attack FDLR forces - Congolese military officers said that any such operations were to have been subject to the prior agreement of national authorities. As one Congolese observer concluded, it may have been that neither party to the mixage agreement was being completely transparent in their intentions. In many cases, Nkunda's troops operated, post-mixage, nominally as part of the national army in the same regions where they were previously known as renegade soldiers. And in many of these places, some of the same soldiers who committed serious human rights violations were supposed to be providing security to residents. In the village of Jomba, Rutshuru territory, for example, a woman who fled an attempted rape by Nkunda's soldiers in December returned to find soldiers from the same unit deployed in her town. She said, "I have been back for one week, but when I see the same soldiers passing I don't feel safe. People are scared. They just come here in the day, then they sleep in the forest, or they cross to Uganda." Similarly, in nearby Rutshuru town where Nkunda's troops committed human-rights violations while trying to seize the town in January 2007, a community leader told Human Rights Watch that people were distressed to see Nkunda's troops there as part of the national army. "People are very, very disappointed," he said, "and they don't know how to carry on. A few people are even leaving and some are too scared to go to their fields." Reflecting on the failure of mixage to bring Nkunda's forces under control, in August 2007 Lt Gen Kayembe Mbandakulu Tshisuma, now chief of staff of the Congolese army, announced at a press conference that all soldiers must go to brassage. Lt Gen Kayembe declined to say when that would happen, but said it was impossible for soldiers in a national army to decide to stay in their home regions to protect their "aunts and uncles," and that any who did not want to be integrated into the national force and serve wherever posted had no choice but to resign. It is claimed that hundreds of those once under Nkunda's command left the units to which they had been assigned under mixage and rejoined Nkunda's forces once fighting resumed between Nkunda and Congolese army troops in August 2007. By the end of May it was clear that the mixage agreement had failed and that, far from leaving, Nkunda was staying and had used the mixage process to increase his military strength and political clout. Nkunda had previously controlled two brigades. Mixage produced five new mixed brigades - Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo (formation of a sixth, Foxtrot, was never completed) - and many soldiers under Nkunda's command before mixage retained their ultimate loyalty to him even after their transfer to mixed brigades under the authority of the Congolese army. An Nkunda-affiliated commander was named to one of the top two leadership positions within each of the five mixed brigades. Lower down the ranks, some officers shifted their units of command, but the ordinary soldiers remained in their previous formations. Thus, within the mixed brigades, the battalions previously under Nkunda remained as units, often sharing a continued allegiance to him. In the Bravo brigade, for example, two of the four battalions - 2nd and 4th - were entirely made up of Nkunda-affiliated troops. Nkunda wanted to present the highest possible numbers of men under his command, in part to ensure the maximum amount of resources allocated to his units, and in part to ensure the greatest possible number of places be reserved for his officers in any distribution of posts in the integrated units. Given the inadequacies of the registration process, he may have succeeded in registering the same men several times over in different units. Furthermore, during the reorganisation process there was scant verification of the identity or credentials of men who presented themselves for registration in the newly constituted brigades, thus making it possible for Nkunda to enrol men not previously part of his forces or Congolese army units. For months Nkunda's representatives had been actively pressing young men to join his ranks. In some cases, Nkunda's recruiters used force or threats to enlist men, including those who had previous military experience. =============================================================================== Copyright © 2007 The East African. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). =============================================================================== [Click_to_learn_more...]