Tag Archives: M23

Too Soon To Cheer For “Intervention Brigade”

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When the M23 rebels marched into the city Goma in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo last year, many were shocked that the UN peacekeeping force (MONUSCO) just stood by and watched. So far, UN peacekeeping missions were essentially defensive and not allowed to directly interfere. This changed yesterday, when the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2098.

This resolution established the “Intervention Brigade” as part of the existing MONUSCO peacekeeping efforts. The force will be made up of slightly more than 3,000 troops with the task of “neutralizing armed groups, reducing the threat they posed to State authority and civilian security and making space for stabilization activities.” The majority of troops contributions will come from Tanzania, South Africa, Malawi and Mozambique. The Intervention Brigade is said to launch in July of this year.

The decision to respond with an offensive force for the first time in UN peacekeeping history comes after calls for action from the African Union, specifically from countries in the Great Lakes Region. The situation in the DRC is highly complex, partially also because it involves a multitude of actors, such as the M23, FDLR and other rebel groups.

Past efforts – locally and internationally – to stabilize the region have failed. The responses on social media platforms have generally been very positive towards the Intervention Brigade. There is definitely potential in sending this offensive force to the DRC. However, if one expects that this measure would finally solve the crisis, disappointment will likely follow soon.

Furthermore, there are numerous concerns connected with the deployment of an offensive UN peacekeeping mission. For example, Refugees International estimates that the number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) will increase and further pressurize the already overburdened humanitarian network dealing with the forced migration crisis in the DRC.

Some crucial concerns have also been addressed by members of the UN Security Council, where the resolution was passed unanimously.

“Despite the unanimous approval, several speakers expressed reservations about the text, with Guatemala’s representative questioning Council actions that could involve the United Nations in “peace-enforcement” activities.  Such a move might compromise the neutrality and impartiality so essential to peacekeeping work, he cautioned.  Indeed, the Organization should always be seen as an “honest broker”, he said, adding that, while he understood the logic behind the proposed deployment, he would have preferred the brigade to be a self-standing unit with specific duties distinguishable from those of MONUSCO’s other brigades.

Echoing the warning that MONUSCO now risked indirect conversion into a peace-enforcement mission, Argentina’s representative said that although the text stated clearly that the brigade would not set a precedent, the idea of “enforcing peace rather than keeping it” required deep reflection, certainly more than a week of negotiations.  Negotiations on the text had not been as broad as Argentina would have hoped, she said, adding that the resolution should have included a broader complement of troop contributors so that they could be better apprised of all the new brigade’s activities. [emphasis added]”

AfricaCanada.org definitely sees potential for this Intervention Brigade to be part of a stabilizing process. However, it is too early to praise or endorse this step as positive, since it remains to be seen what effects this will have on the local population and the dynamics of this multifaceted conflict situation.

Rwanda and the M23: New Year, New Challenges

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Recently, Rwanda was able to secure a seat on the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member.  This appointment has been met with some controversial reactions, especially in the wake of the recent violence in the eastern region of DR Congo, involving the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group, as well as the recent UN decision to slap sanctions on them.

Eastern DR Congo was embroiled in conflict in the past two months when the rebel group M23 seized Goma, the capital of the North Kivu region.  According to a recent UN report, the Rwandan government is accused of providing  the rebel group with considerable military support , as well as indirect support through medical care, and weapons during the November 2012 conflict. Despite being aware of the atrocious human rights record of the M23 rebel group, the Rwandan government’s assumed continued support has significantly damaged their reputation with the international community.  The Rwandan government has denied these allegations despite the widespread acceptance of these claims by analysts and experts on the region.

The international community, specifically the U.S., has also come under criticism for not only approving Rwanda’s appointment, but also because of the Obama administration’s willingness to turn a blind eye to Rwanda’s involvement in the conflict, a decision which many blame on the residual guilt of the Rwandan genocide. One of the main Kagame’s main defenders within the Obama foreign policy team is UN Ambassador Susan Rice, who was a senior member of the State Department’s Africa team both during the Rwandan genocide and the height of the Congo conflicts.

Rwanda’s support for the M23 – a rebel group that stems from a series of demobilized armed groups supported and allied with the current Rwandan leadership during the First and Second Congo Wars – can be be chalked up to several factors. Although the motives of the Kagame government are difficult to discern, academics and Great Lakes Region-watchers have presented a few theories. Perhaps, it’s due to Kigali’s economic interests in areas such as mining resources that necessitate propping up a rebel group like M23, or national security imperatives. Some have attributed Rwanda’s recent economic growth on the export of minerals such as Coltan, which are curiously found in the Eastern Congo but not Rwanda itself. Also, since the FDLR -some of whose leaders were involved in the 1994 genocide- are still based in the eastern DR Congo, the region can be seen as a threat to Rwanda’s stability where forces who seek to destabilize the country can congregate. The continued existence of M23, who seeks to undermine groups like FDLR, can thus be seen as Kigali to be politically advantageous. That is, only if the Rwandan government is willing to ignore the rebel group’s crimes against humanity.

With the recent peace talks in Kampala between the M23 rebels and the Congolese government progress, the UN security council has also put an arms embargo on the two rebel groups in the Eastern DR Congo, the M23 and FDLR on new year’s eve. () Despite these targeted sanctions, many fear that such a measure will prove inadequate in weakening the rebel groups and securing peace.  UN experts believe that as long as the M23 are able to receive external support, they will continue to pose a threat to Congolese stability. Many have called on the US to take stricter measures, such as threatening to cut aid from Rwanda in order to get Kagame to cut off support to the rebels. Perhaps, the suggestion that donors tie aid to Rwanda on the conditioned success of the peace talks should be taken into consideration. Considering that Rwanda is one of the top countries to receive military and development aid from the US government, international pressure on Kigali to reign in their support for groups like the M23 that are destabilizing the DR Congo may prove to be enormously beneficial.

As Rwanda gains more clout on the international stage through its appointment on the UN security council, we must still keep in consideration its stake and human rights record in the DR Congo. All in all, the New Year ushers in a newer and more volatile set of challenges for the Congolese government and stability in DRC, which not only call for the support and the involvement of the regional leaders, but also for the support of the international community.

Conflict is reaching a new peak point in the eastern DRC

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Africa Canada provides you with an accessible news update containing the most essential information. If you are interested in knowing more about this, we recommend some articles by the New York Times and the BBC towards the end. Other source recommendations are welcome – use the commentary section for that.

The UN peace-keeping forces Monusco have been supporting the Congelese government forces in protecting the city Goma from the M23 rebels (also known as Congolese Revolutionary Army).

Goma lies in the  North Kivu province in the resource rich eastern DRC and is by far the biggest city in that area. It is also in close proximity to the borders with Uganda and Rwanda. 400 000 people are said to live in Goma, however, about 60 000 of them have fled the city in these last five days since the M23 has been approaching.

Sunday night the rebels stated an ultimatum to the government forces – they were meant to leave the city within 24 hours. However, the Congolese government has promised not to give Goma up and did not meet the ultimatum.

Fights continued on Monday. Several sources state that the rebels managed to enter some parts of the city. Bomb explosions are heard near the airport. Details considering the advancement of the M23 and death tolls have not been confirmed.

The UN condemned the rebel advance. A citizen of Goma said in an interview with BBC that he felt abandoned by the UN forces, whose effectiveness has been doubted for a while in the region.

A UN panel report that leaked to Reuters accuses the Ugandan and Rwandan government of supplying the rebels with arms. It has been noted that the M23 forces are very well-equipped. Both governments have denied these allegations.

On Tuesday, the rebel forces entered Goma. Some fear that this might kindle a new war. The last one had caused about 5 million deaths.

 

This is a brief starting point for your research about this conflict.

This is the most recent BBC article.

Here are two New York Times articles about the recent events: 1 and 2.

Hot Topics – July 7

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New leadership at Canada’s aid agency

Bev Oda, resigned as Canada’s Minister of International Cooperation, the position in charge of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). It has been suggested that Oda resigned in a face-saving move responding to rumours of a small cabinet-shuffle in which she was set to be demoted. Oda had recently been the source of controversy. She had been criticized for her spending practices in a time of fiscal austerity, and for the inappropriate way in which KAIROS (a Canadian NGO) had their funding cut (the word “not” was written over a grant document). Oda also presided over important changes at CIDA, such as the shift to a list of 20 ‘priority’ countries for bilateral aid, the Muskoka Initiative and an increased emphasis on maternal health projects, untying some Canadian aid, creating new aid partnerships with Canadian companies working overseas, as well as tightening the regulations around CIDA-supported Canadian NGOs who do political advocacy. Click here for more on Oda’s  ‘legacy’. The new Minister for International Cooperation is Julian Fantino, the former Associate Defence Minister.

 Deconstructing language – Re-examining ‘Failed States’

The DRC, and other African nations experiencing armed conflict, are routinely described as being or nearing “failure”. Claire Leigh on the Guardian’s Global Development blog, criticizes Foreign Policy’s promotion of the Failed States Index and their ‘Postcards from Hell’ feature on failing states. She poignantly argues “…the label “failed state” implies no degree of success or failure, no sense of decline or progress….Failed means a binary division between those countries that are salvageable and those beyond redemption. It is a word reserved for marriages and exams. It does not belong in a pragmatic debate…What might appear to Foreign Policy readers as postcards from hell appear to millions of others as pictures of home.”

The latest UN report on the Congo – A smoking gun of Rwanda’s support to Congolese rebels?

The controversial (and nearly unreleased)  annex of the UN Group of Expert’s midterm report on the DRC conflict, points to senior members of the Rwandan military (RDF) having strong links to the leadership of the M23 rebel movement, as reported by Colum Lynch, over at Foreign Policy’s Turtle Bay Blog. The named Rwandan officials are cited as mobilizing political and military support for the rebels, providing logistics support, helping with recruitment, and supplying arms. Of note is James Kaberebe, the Rwandan Minister of Defense who has previously been a major actor in recent Congolese history. Kabarebe led Rwanda’s support of eastern Congolese rebel groups such as the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Democratie (RCD), the group which played a significant role in the sparking of the Second Congo War, and the AFDL during the First Congo War who overthrew Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. The Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Louise Mushikiwabo, has denied that Rwanda is again supporting Congolese armed groups.

In defense of Rwanda’s support to Congolese rebels, Mwenda claims things are more complex than they seem.

Take a look at this must-read piece by Great Lakes political analyst Andrew Mwenda. Mwenda offers a perspective that is kinder to the Rwandan leadership than the “poorly informed, often prejudiced international observers and `experts’, and local and international human rights groups [that give] a blanket condemnation of Kigali as the mastermind of the rebellion”. Mwenda looks at the recent crisis through the lens of Rwanda’s security concerns, arguing that the relationship between Rwanda and certain predominantly Banyarwanda (Congolese of Rwandan descent) rebel groups is more complex than many observers think. A common explanation for Rwanda’s support of these largely Banyarwanda Congolese rebel groups is ethnic solidarity and the common enemy of the FDLR. Mwenda proposes that the Rwandan government is more interested in security in the Eastern Congo than the Congolese government itself, as a stable east is key for Rwanda’s ambitious plans for development.  There is also this:

“Therefore, to understand the complexity of the current flare up in fighting in DRC is to first appreciate the fears and temptations people in Kigali face. First, the Tutsi militias in Congo, even without Kigali’s active support, act as a buffer between Rwanda and the FDLR. Second, they protect local Tutsi populations that face existential threats from the FDLR and other Congolese communities. Third, these militias and their warlords ensure order in a region where the Congolese state in almost absent. Therefore, their defeat would present a key security challenge to Rwanda. Hence Kigali finds itself in a position where it cannot support the Tutsi militias in Congo while at the same time it cannot condemn their cause.”

Malnutrition and food insecurity in the Great Lakes Region: Less sensational than war, but no less important.

The Congo Resources blog reminds us that one of the biggest issues facing the populations of the Great Lakes Region is not as sensational or widely reported on as refugees, war, and mass human rights abuses, but is nevertheless extremely important. Recently, banana wilt and cassava diseases, among other agricultural and livestock diseases, are negatively affecting food production and nutrition in the region at alarming rates. Read the post here for more.

Another issue rarely in the spotlight: Men as victims

Yovanka Perdigao, of Think Africa Press, examines how there is a dearth of services and attention and an abundance of stigma for Congolese men who are victims of sexual violence.

Check out this interesting piece at the Wall Street Journal which gives a  look into Bosco Ntaganda, and the history of the latest UN Mission in the Congo.

An ‘Arab Summer’ in Sudan?

Although not a part of the Great Lakes, over the last while there have been developments in Sudan that, if escalated, may have implications for South Sudan and consequently the Great Lakes Region. Omar Al-Bashir, the President of Sudan, has ramped up arrests of activists and journalists in response to increasing protests and popular discontent with his regime. Some have said that the rise in opposition to Bashir is driven by Sudan’s latest austerity measures. The Sudanese government is under increasing fiscal pressure after having lost extensive oil revenue when South Sudan became independent, and with large military spending on the continued conflicts in Darfur and South Sudan.

 

Hot Topics – June 17

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Could sub-Sarahan Africa prove fertile ground for an uprising?
Andrew Mwenda, Ugandan political analyst, offers an interesting opinion on why Uganda, despite having  “a long-serving president with potential for a family succession; an increasingly educated and urbanised yet unemployed youth; a dominant ruling party backed by the military; a government increasingly seen as corrupt, nepotistic and incompetent,” is not fertile ground for an Arab-Spring style uprising.

Canadians weigh in on security in the DRC

John Baird, Canadian Minister for Foreign Affairs said this week that Canada is “deeply concerned” about the worsening of security in the Eastern DRC and that Canada is “encouraging all neighbouring countries to work with regional and international partners in support of peace…efforts in DRC.”

Another high-profile Canadian commenting on the DRC is President of the International Crisis Group (ICG) and former Canadian Supreme Court Justice, Louise Arbour. Arbour sent an open letter to the United Nations Security Council, criticizing the UN peacekeeping mission in the Congo (MONUSCO) for failing to protect civilians during the new wave of violence, and ignoring the root and local causes of conflict such as land ownership. Most disparagingly though, was Arbour’s claim that by providing logistical and technical assistance to the DRC for the extremely controversial November 2011 presidential elections without addressing key issues of governance, MONUSCO “risks entrenching an unaccountable government and undermining its own eventual rule of law and peacebuilding efforts”.

… meanwhile, according to The Economist…

In contrast, an article about UN peacekeeping in this week’s edition claims that, thanks to UN peacekeeping missions, “Africa is at its most peaceful for decades”. That said, the piece also characterizes the Congo mission, one of the most expensive in the world, as “the biggest mess of them all”.

Important contributions to the conversation about sexual violence and violence against women

Association des Femmes des Medias-Sud Kivu (AFEM-SK), a local Congolese female-led media advocacy group based out of South Kivu is going to publish two documentaries about sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).

Also on the topic of sexual violence, over at the Council for Foreign Relations, several experts on sexual violence in armed conflict debunk common misconceptions about rape perpetrated by armed groups. The analysis is accessible but substantive, and definitely worth the time to read.

The Acholi Times has published a story on the struggles of women who were abducted by the LRA, particularly with respect to the lack of land rights for children born in captivity. Ketty Anyeko, of the Justice and Reconciliation Project and Evelyn Amony of the Women’s Advocacy Network are quoted.

More on the M23 movement

After a month-long hiatus, Laura Seay of the popular blog Texas in Africa posts about how we need to challenge two assumptions about the M23 movement: Firstly, that the Kinyarwanda/Tutsi community in the Congo is unified, and secondly, that the mutiny was caused by rumours that Bosco Ntaganda was to be arrested and handed over to the ICC. Also, her must-read new piece at Warscapes, examining the effects of the new wave of violence on the citizens of Goma, the supposed political grievances behind the rebellion, and the history of resentment towards Congolese of Rwandan descent can also be found here.

Reflections on Uganda’s Amnesty Act

In light of the lack of female and Northern voices in the conversation regarding the expiration of Uganda’s 2000 Amnesty Act, the Gulu-based Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) has carried out a briefing resulting from focus-group consultations with local communities in northern Uganda (specifically in the West Nile, Lango, Acholi, and Teso sub-regions) about the Act. The briefing provided for mixed reviews of the act, and analyzes how different experiences with armed groups by communities shaped perspectives. The consultations conclude a general consensus among community members that despite their disagreements, they supported  renewing the act, under which over 26,000 people have demobilized.

In other Amnesty Act news, Mark Schenkel at Justice in Conflict, speculates as to why the Ugandan government took the very unexpected decision against renewal. There is also rumours of a new ‘transitional justice bill’ which the government hopes to present next year and that will give amnesty to lower-ranking rebels.

And finally – A changing of the guard at the ICC

In international criminal justice news, on Friday Gambian native and former Deputy Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda was officially sworn in as the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, replacing the first ever prosecutor, Argentinean Luis Moreno-Ocampo. Ocampo’s nine year term resulted in only one conviction, that of Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, and was characterized by controversy, particularly with respect to the cases of Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and Joseph Kony, among others. Bensouda is the first African and the first woman to hold the job. Bensouda has rejected accusations of the court having an ‘African bias’.Her candidacy for the position was unanimously supported by the African Union (AU), suggesting that the AU had more of a problem with Ocampo’s handling of African cases than with the court as an institution.The ICC currently has cases open in the DR Congo, Uganda, the Central African Republic, Kenya, Libya, Darfur, and Cote D’Ivoire.