Surpris, les Congolais découvrent des interlocuteurs très informés.

TO BE NOTED: From le carnet de Colette Braeckman

le blog de notre envoyée spéciale en Afrique

"Congo-Rwanda: le premier succès diplomatique de Barack Obama

posté le 6 mars 2009 | catégorie actualité

Avec effusion, des officiers congolais prennent congé de James Kabarebe, le chef d’état major rwandais, hier encore considéré comme l’ennemi numero un. Des journalistes rwandais invités à Goma fraternisent avec leurs collègues congolais. Les deux pays vont échanger des ambassadeurs, normaliser leurs relations. Et surtout, le Rwanda garde en détention Laurent Nkunda, séquestré dans une résidence de Gisenyi, tandis que les Congolais assurent aux combattants hutus qui campent sur leur territoire depuis quinze ans que « le temps de l’hospitalité est terminé » et qu’ils sont bien résolus à les forcer au retour. Même si les opérations ne sont pas terminées, 1300 combattants et 4000 civils ont déjà été rapatriés au Rwanda et chaque jour le HCR enregistre de nouveaux candidats au retour.
Ce virage à 180 degrés, qui permet enfin d’espérer le retour de la paix dans les Grands Lacs, n’a pas fini de surprendre les Européens et il passera peut –être à l’histoire comme le premier succès diplomatique de Barack Obama.

Rwandan troops will start withdrawing from eastern Congo on Saturday and the entire force will have left by the middle of next week

TO BE NOTED: From Reuters:

GOMA, Congo (Reuters) - Rwandan troops will start withdrawing from eastern Congo on Saturday and the entire force will have left by the middle of next week, a Rwandan military spokesman said on Friday.

Rwandan soldiers have "achieved their objectives" in a joint operation with Congo's army to hunt Rwandan Hutu rebels in eastern Congo, even though the rebels have not been completely destroyed, Major Jill Rutaremara told Reuters.

Congo invited the Rwandan army to help it attack the rebels last month, in a sign of improved relations between the two countries after a 15-year period in which they fought two wars.

The rebels, known as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), have been central to these conflicts, which still simmer despite the world's largest United Nations peacekeeping mission and 2006 elections in Congo.

"Tomorrow they are going to issue (the orders). They will begin pulling back slowly," Rutaremara said on Friday.

"There will be a parade and then the troops will go back to Rwanda. All Rwandan troops will pull out," he added, saying the withdrawal would be completed by Wednesday.

Some FDLR rebels took part in Rwanda's 1994 genocide and then fled to Congo, sparking years of violence as Rwanda's powerful Tutsi-led army then invaded its mineral-rich neighbor.

Rwanda said it invaded Congo during the 1990s to hunt the Hutu force but it did not defeat them and, in the process, Rwanda was accused of plundering Congo's resources and backing other Congolese rebels.

Congolese President Joseph Kabila has also invited Uganda's army to hunt Ugandan rebels in northeast Congo.

Kabila said last month that the Rwandan and Ugandan soldiers had until the end of this month to complete their operations in Congo. Uganda is seeking an extension to its operation.

(Reporting by Hereward Holland; writing by David Lewis; editing by Tim Pearce)

in Congo after the 1994 Rwandan genocide and has been a principal cause of the deadliest documented conflict since World War II

From the Washington Post:

"Rwanda's Move Into Congo Fuels Suspicion
Some in Mineral-Rich Region See Broader Motives Than Disarming Hutu Militiamen

By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 13, 2009; A01

KIGALI, Rwanda -- With thousands of Rwandan troops fanned out across eastern Congo's green hills, many residents and international observers are questioning what is really behind the operation in the mineral-rich region and how long it is likely to last.

The official explanation, offered by both Rwandan and Congolese diplomats, is straightforward. After two wars and a decade of mistrust, the two nations finally agreed to deal militarily with a common menace -- the Rwandan Hutu militia known as the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, or FDLR, which reorganized in Congo after the 1994 Rwandan genocide and has been a principal cause of the deadliest documented conflict since World War II.

By some estimates, at least 5 million people died in multi-sided wars over more than a decade, mostly from disease, hunger and the collapse of human services associated with the fighting. The humanitarian catastrophe was largely ignored by the United States and other Western nations, while United Nations peacekeepers failed to halt the violence.

In acting now, Congo and Rwanda have in theory ended a proxy war that had played out for years in eastern Congo. Rwanda pulled the plug on rebel leader Laurent Nkunda, whom it arrested last month. And Congo abruptly turned on its longtime ally the FDLR, joining the Rwandans in an operation to hunt down the militia.

"Rwanda and Congo have decided to come together as neighbors," said Joseph Mutaboba, who was Rwanda's envoy during several rounds of talks. "And we have been able to tackle the problems that are ours."

But some observers see much broader economic and political motives behind Rwanda's military foray -- its third in Congo in the past decade -- that have more to do with Rwanda's regional ambitions than with the 6,000 or so FDLR militiamen. As recently as October, Rwandan officials had cast the militia as "a Congolese problem," saying it did not pose an immediate military threat to Rwanda.

"Is the FDLR now suddenly on the verge of becoming more militarily powerful? I don't think we've seen that," said Alison Des Forges, a Human Rights Watch researcher and leading expert on Rwanda. "And if they haven't, then what you have is Rwanda trotting out an old warhorse of an excuse to go in again. The question is, what is the intent?"

The stakes are high for the joint Rwandan-Congolese military offensive against the FDLR, given its potential to trigger more regional instability than it resolves. Rwanda's two earlier invasions succeeded in disrupting the militia's operations but also helped spawn more than a decade of conflict that at one point drew in as many as eight African nations in a scramble for regional supremacy and a piece of Congo's vast mineral wealth.

Although the two Rwandan invasions were devastating for the Congolese, they were hugely beneficial for Rwanda, which is still struggling to rebuild after the 100 days of well-planned violence in 1994 when Hutu extremists killed an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Many Rwandans became involved in the lucrative mineral trade out of eastern Congo after the genocide, and some observers speculate that the current military operation aims to solidify Rwanda's economic stake in the region.

"It was a period of great economic boom for Rwanda -- a lot of people got rich, including military officers," Des Forges said, adding that the current military operation could help Rwandan President Paul Kagame relieve internal pressures on his government, which allows little room for dissent. "Presumably, if the troops were back in Congo for a substantial period of time, they could expect to reap certain benefits. It could also be beneficial for Rwanda to have greater control over economic resources than they've had before."

On that score, unverifiable rumors abound about secret deals and gentlemen's agreements struck between Congo and Rwanda over mineral rights and mineral processing. At a local level, Congolese villagers who have long suspected Rwanda of wanting to annex a swath of eastern Congo say they are certain that their tiny but militarily powerful neighbor is interested in more than disarming the FDLR.

"Congo is rich," said Eric Sorumweh, who said he watched hundreds of Rwandan troops pass by his village last month. "So they just come to loot the wealth of Congo."

Those suspicions, along with Rwanda's messy history in Congo, have fueled criticism of Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who has been lambasted by political opponents for inviting an old enemy back into the country. Late last month, Kabila pledged that the estimated 7,000 Rwandan troops in Congo would leave by the end of February. This time, his supporters say, the situation with Rwanda is different.

While conspiracy theories swirl, Kabila's backers -- as well as a number of Western diplomats who support the joint operation against the FDLR -- say Congo's deal with Rwanda represents a mature realization by Kabila and Kagame that their interests are better served by working together officially, rather than through rebel proxies.

"I think the two presidents have understood that official contact can be to their advantage," said Julien Paluku Kahongya, governor of North Kivu province in eastern Congo. "Now we can start thinking together of how we can lift the economy. For agriculture and trading and other economic reasons, Rwanda will be coming here, and we will be going to Rwanda."

According to Kahongya and others, the downsides of the proxy war between Rwanda and Congo were becoming increasingly clear. Kabila was politically threatened by the stunning advance of Nkunda's rebels across eastern Congo last year. And Rwanda was embarrassed by a U.N. report in December that found it to be directly or tacitly supporting Nkunda. As a result, Rwanda's prized reputation as a darling of the aid world suffered, the Netherlands and Sweden cut off aid, and international pressure mounted for the government to solve its differences with Congo. The report also found that Congo was collaborating with the FDLR.

At the same time, hundreds of millions of dollars from the European Union, the World Bank and other donors -- for major road, railroad and power projects that would benefit both countries -- were largely predicated upon a detente between the two sides. That is supposed to become official when Rwanda and Congo restore full diplomatic relations, probably next month.

"Rwanda's interest is in a stable region, and you can't have that with multiple armed groups running around in eastern Congo," said a Western diplomat in the region who was not authorized to speak publicly. "Plus there's a whole system of militia taxes and corruption there, and none of that benefits Rwanda. They see their economic welfare as tied to greater integration in East Africa."

And so Congo and Rwanda devised a way to cut out the middlemen -- launching the joint military operation to disarm the FDLR, neutralize Nkunda's rebels and, in theory, fold an array of other, smaller militias into the Congolese army.

The entry of Rwandan troops into Congo also represents the failure of U.N. peacekeepers to tame the militias and rebels of eastern Congo. A deal signed in Nairobi in December 2007 called upon the peacekeepers to assist the Congolese army in disarming the FDLR, but that effort never got off the ground. A recent U.N. request for an additional 3,000 peacekeepers also fell flat, with only Bangladesh offering troops so far.

"Now things have turned in such a way that it's possible for the Rwandans to do it," said Philip Lancaster, a professor at the University of Victoria in Canada who has been involved in U.N. efforts to demobilize Congo's militias. "I think this is a clear case of two African states agreeing to solve their own problems, seeing that the international community can't."

According to a U.S. official who is in close contact with the Rwandan military, the goal is not to completely dismantle the FDLR, but merely to scatter it. Several of its key leaders are not even in eastern Congo, but are living in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, or in Europe.

So far, very little information is trickling out about the operation. According to U.N. officials, Rwandan forces were able in recent days to capture two villages that had served as FDLR bases. More than 40 FDLR fighters have been killed and 11 taken prisoner, and more than 500 fighters and their families have simply surrendered.

Several large groups of militiamen were fleeing west last week, deeper into Congo, the U.N. officials said, and Rwandan soldiers were pursuing them."

Me:

DonthelibertarianDemocrat wrote:

"The entry of Rwandan troops into Congo also represents the failure of U.N. peacekeepers to tame the militias and rebels of eastern Congo. A deal signed in Nairobi in December 2007 called upon the peacekeepers to assist the Congolese army in disarming the FDLR, but that effort never got off the ground. A recent U.N. request for an additional 3,000 peacekeepers also fell flat, with only Bangladesh offering troops so far. "

This is the sad fact. The UN troops were unable to stop the violence. Outside pressure forced Rwanda and the DRC to cooperate, as is happening with Uganda in respect to the Lord's Resistance Army.

I'm sorry, but it was indifference, not meddling, that allowed 5 million people to needlessly die.

Nkunda, once Rwanda's tool in keeping Hutu militias at bay, had become an embarrassment.

From Stop The War In North Kivu, some context:

"Diplomatic pressure and unknown deals In Analysis, News on January 25, 2009 at 3:43 pm

Last Friday, Chris McGreal provided a very comprehensive analysis of the recent events in The Guardian. Together with Foreign Policy, the Guardian points to diplomatic pressure pushing the deal, specially after Kiwanja and the Stearns report:

Kagame’s closest allies overseas, the US and Britain( ABOUT TIME ), which provide the bulk of Rwanda’s foreign aid and a lot of diplomatic cover, quietly made clear that the conflict in eastern Congo had to be brought to an end.

However, as Jason Stearns said last Friday on the NYT, Nkunda’s arrest is part of a broader realignment. As he underlines, the unknowns and risks over the horizon are many."

Here's the Guardian:

Rwanda: why former military hero was disowned after rampages in Congo
The arrest of Laurent Nkunda reflects a dramatic diplomatic shift after tiny but ambitious state found itself on receiving end of international criticism

• Chris McGreal, Africa correspondent
  
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 January 2009 13.41 GMT
• Article history

Laurent Nkunda: had become an embarrassment to Kigali Photograph: AP

Tony Blair happened to be in Rwanda at the time the Tutsi rebel general, Laurent Nkunda, was slaughtering his way through eastern Congo late last year.

Blair – who has taken on saving Rwanda as another of his post-premiership missions, inserting people into the offices of the president, prime minister and cabinet in Kigali to help run the government – was keen to talk up the prospects for the tiny central African nation that has made remarkable strides since the 1994 genocide that left about 800,000( 800,000 ) Tutsis dead.

But the world's attention was on a different aspect of Rwanda entirely. This time Rwanda was on the receiving end of international criticism for backing Nkunda amid the continuing horror of massacres, mass rape and perpetual refugees in Congo, where about 5 million( 5 Million ) have died as the result of more than a decade of war and its effects.

Nkunda, once Rwanda's tool in keeping Hutu militias at bay, had become an embarrassment. The rebel general had already spilled a lot of blood before the crisis flared again last October when his forces marched to the edge of Goma in eastern Congo. But on that occasion the world, for once, took notice when Nkunda's men went through the town of Kiwanja systematically killing hundreds of the remaining men, and some families.

In Rwanda President Paul Kagame's government was alarmed. His minority Tutsi-led administration, which drew much of its foreign support from the moral authority of having ended the genocide, was now seen more as perpetrator than victim.

Kagame's grand scheme to project his country as a rapidly modernising state embracing Anglo-Saxon liberal capitalism – even to the extent of switching the education system from French to English( WOW. OF COURSE, HE'S PROBABLY NOT FOND OF THE FRENCH. ) – was threatened by its support of Nkunda. Its involvement in Congo sent out the message that Rwanda was really run by another bunch of bloodthirsty warlords.

At that point Nkunda became more of a liability than an asset. His arrest yesterday, as he fled into Rwanda with large amounts of cash, gold and diamonds( HOW NICE ), is one part of a dramatic diplomatic shift as Kigali tries to detach itself from direct involvement in Congo that used to pay dividends in securing its frontier and vast profits from the plunder of minerals but which has become a political burden.

Nkunda's close ties to Rwanda go back to his days fighting in the rebel army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), that overthrew the genocidal regime and took power in 1994. He returned to Congo – or Zaire as it then was – and was again drawn in to collaboration with the RPF after it invaded Congo twice in the second half of the 1990s to fight the Hutu militias that had fled there after leading the genocide.

After Rwanda pulled out of Congo in 2003, it saw Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) as a buffer force against the Hutu force, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which had gained control of swaths of territory on Rwanda's border and kept up the mantra of genocide, threatening to exterminate Tutsis.

But Nkunda, in the name of defending Tutsis, was increasingly bloodthirsty. His forces rampaged through cities such as Bukavu, murdering and raping. They also got into the mining business, getting rich out of plundering gold, diamonds and coltan, a crucial but rare component of mobile phones.

Much of the world turned a blind eye to Rwanda's backing for Nkunda. Officially it had stopped because Kigali was embarrassed by his excesses but there was no doubt that links remained. Nkunda's soldiers included English-speaking Tutsis most likely drawn from Rwandan exiles who grew up in Uganda. The UN observed weapons being shipped through a triangle of land that linked Rwanda, Uganda and Congo. Above all, for a long time Nkunda served Rwanda's interests and Kigali declined to condemn him.

No more. Rwanda is trying to reshape itself as a modern, forward-looking country, far from the semi-fascist state that took hold during the three decades from independence to the genocide. The government's successes can be seen in how the capital has boomed since the genocide. Millions of dollars flowed in to build new hotels now filled with tourists and conferences. Kagame is talking up his country's prospects as a regional information technology hub.

But Congo increasingly threatened to wreck the new image, and Nkunda – who, as he grew more powerful, took to greeting visitors to his hilltop headquarters dressed in flowing white robes, like some messianic figure, with his white pet goat in tow – went from being an asset to a problem.

The political capital that the minority Tutsi-led government of Rwanda could draw on because of western guilt and sympathy after the genocide was increasingly overshadowed by the crimes being committed in Congo.

In December a UN report accused the Rwandan government of fuelling the conflict through covert support to Nkunda. The report also accused the Congolese government of ties to the Hutu militias threatening Rwanda, but that attracted less attention.

Rwanda vigorously denied the accusations but they were well documented and a further embarrassment after the crimes of Nkunda's forces a few weeks earlier. In response, some European governments cut off aid to Rwanda, emphasising to Kigali that it was now no longer viewed as the victim.

Kagame's closest allies overseas, the US and Britain, which provide the bulk of Rwanda's foreign aid and a lot of diplomatic cover, quietly made clear that the conflict in eastern Congo had to be brought to an end.( AT LAST )

Last week saw two dramatic and complementary developments. Nkunda faced a revolt within the CNDP, with some of his officers saying they had removed him from command and would no longer fight the Congolese government. At the same time, thousands of Rwandan troops moved across the border in agreement with the Congolese government to purse the Hutu militias controlling swaths of territory.

The deal was in place. Rwanda would neutralise Nkunda and the CNDP so long as the Hutu militias were also confronted. Tellingly, the rebel general fled across the border after he was confronted by a joint Rwanda-Congolese force. Nkunda's benefactor was allied with his enemy in pursuit of him.

Eastern Congo has been here before, and there is unlikely to be a complete halt to the violence for some time. There are still too many armed groups and mining groups with a vested interest in continued instability.

But dealing with the Hutu militia and Nkunda does confront the root causes of the conflict in eastern Congo for the first time, and gives its long suffering people the prospect of hope they have not had for many years."( GOOD )

From the NY Times:

A Congolese Rebel Leader Who Once Seemed Untouchable Is Caught

Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

Gen. Laurent Nkunda, shown in November 2008, was apprehended late Thursday by Rwandan troops. Rwandan authorities on Friday were tight-lipped about what they would do with him.

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

Published: January 23, 2009

KIGALI, Rwanda — Overnight, the battle in Congo has suddenly shifted.

Skip to next paragraph

Enlarge This Image

Benedicte Kurzen/VII Mentor

Gen. Laurent Nkunda, the leader of a group of rebels, with his pet goat Betty in the mountains of Congo in November.

Enlarge This Image

Benedicte Kurzen/VII Mentor

Mr. Nkunda at a training camp in North Kivu Province for the group of rebels that he leads.

General Nkunda was cornered near Bunagana.

Gen. Laurent Nkunda, the Congolese rebel leader whose brutal tactics and Congo-size ambitions have threatened to bring about another catastrophic war in central Africa, was arrested late Thursday, removing an explosive factor from the regional equation.

According to United Nations officials and Rwandan authorities, General Nkunda was captured by Rwandan troops as he tried to escape a Congolese-Rwandan offensive that has taken aim at several rebel groups terrorizing eastern Congo.

General Nkunda had seemed untouchable, commanding a hardened rebel force that routinely humiliated Congolese troops and then calmly gliding through muddy villages in impossibly white robes. But he may never have anticipated that his old ally, the Rwandan Army, would take him away.

The surprise arrest could be a major turning point for Congo, which has been mired in rebellion and bloodshed for much of the past decade. It instantly strengthens the hand of the Congolese government, militarily and politically, right when the government seemed about to implode. But it could also empower other, even more brutal rebel figures like Jean Bosco Ntaganda, General Nkunda’s former chief of staff, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes.

Still, analysts and politicians say they hope that General Nkunda’s capture at the hands of Rwanda means that the proxy war between Rwanda and Congo is finally drawing to a close.

A United Nations report in December accused high-ranking Rwandan officials of sending money and troops to General Nkunda, a fellow Tutsi who claimed to be protecting Congolese Tutsi from marauding Hutu militias. This cross-border enmity has been widely blamed for much of the turmoil, destruction, killing and raping that has vexed Congo for years.

John Prendergast, a founder of the Washington-based Enough Project, which campaigns against genocide, called it a “massive turn of events.”

“Finally the two countries are cooperating,” he said.

Kikaya bin Karubi, a member of Congo’s Parliament, said General Nkunda’s arrest “could be the beginning of the end of all the misery.”

“Look what happened at Kiwanja,” he said, referring to a small Congolese town where United Nations officials said General Nkunda’s forces went door to door, summarily executing dozens of civilians in November.

Now, if Congo gets its way, General Nkunda will have to face the consequences. The government is urging Rwanda to extradite General Nkunda so he can stand trial in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, where he could face a war crimes tribunal and treason charges, punishable by death.

But Rwandan authorities were tight-lipped on Friday about what they would do with General Nkunda. “I can’t speculate,” said Maj. Jill Rutaremara, a spokesman for Rwanda’s Defense Forces. All he would say was that General Nkunda was “in the hands of Rwandan authorities.”

Though General Nkunda never controlled more than a handful of small towns in eastern Congo, he was Congo’s No. 1 troublemaker. His troops have been accused of committing massacres dating back to 2002. General Nkunda recently began cultivating national ambitions to overthrow Congo’s weak but democratically elected government, which threatened to draw in Congo’s neighbors and plunge central Africa into a regional war, something that has happened twice before.

General Nkunda’s confidence may have been his undoing. On Thursday night, hundreds of Rwandan troops cornered him near Bunagana. Congolese officials said he refused to be arrested and crossed into Rwanda, where he was surrounded and taken into custody. It is not clear how many men he had with him at the time, but it appears he was taken without a shot.

Just a few days ago, Rwanda sent several thousand soldiers into Congo as part of a joint operation to flush out Hutu militants who had killed countless people in the 1994 Rwanda genocide and were still haunting the hills on Congo’s side of the border.

Few expected the Rwandan troops to go after General Nkunda. Not only is he a Tutsi, like Rwanda’s leaders, but he had risen to power by fighting these same Hutu militants. Several demobilized Rwandan soldiers recently revealed a secret operation to slip Rwandan soldiers into Congo to fight alongside General Nkunda. He had been trained by the Rwandan Army in the mid-1990s and was widely believed to be an agent for Rwanda’s extensive business and security interests in eastern Congo.

But it seems that the Rwandan government abruptly changed its tack, possibly because of the international criticism it has endured for its ties to General Nkunda. Several European countries recently cut aid to Rwanda, sending a strong signal to a poor country that needs outside help. Rwanda may have figured the time was ripe to remove General Nkunda, analysts said.

Earlier this month, some of General Nkunda’s top commanders split from him, saying they were fed up with his king-of-the-world brand of leadership. One of those commanders was Mr. Ntaganda. Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court have accused him of building an army of child soldiers, a war crime.

But Mr. Ntaganda suddenly switched sides, denouncing General Nkunda and saying that he and his men were now eager to join the Congolese Army, which they had been battling for years. Many analysts believe that the Congolese government promised to try to protect Mr. Ntaganda from being sent to The Hague.

According to Jason Stearns, an analyst who recently served on a United Nations panel examining the conflict: “It’s fairly clear that Kigali and Kinshasa have struck a deal. Kinshasa will allow Rwanda onto Congolese soil to hunt down” the Hutu militants, “and in return Rwanda will dethrone Nkunda.”

Congolese officials are now talking about restoring full diplomatic relations with Rwanda, which had been suspended for years, and reinvigorating economic ties. But many uncertainties remain, including a possible power scramble by other militant groups hoping to fill the vacuum.

“Nkunda’s arrest is part of a larger, radical realignment,” Mr. Stearns said. “There are, however, many unknowns and risks.”

From Enough Said:

Posted by Colin Thomas-Jensen on Jan 23, 2009

In a dramatic reversal of fortune for one of Central Africa’s most powerful warlords, Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda was arrested by Rwandan authorities last night along the Congo-Rwanda border. When my colleague Rebecca and I met with Nkunda in the town of Rwanguba on Thanksgiving Day, he seemed on top of the world. His rebel movement, the National Congress for the Defense of People, or CNDP, had routed the Congolese army, embarrassed UN peacekeepers, consolidated control of a large swath of North Kivu province, and threatened the regional capital of Goma. Nkunda shrugged off allegations that his lieutenant, Bosco “The Terminator” Ntaganda, had directed a massacre of civilians in Kiwanja, and confidently demanded direct negotiations with Congolese President Laurent Kabila. Journalists flocked to his compound, diplomats had him on speed dial, and the UN appointed a former president of Nigeria to mediate a solution. This morning, Nkunda was in Rwandan custody, and it sounds like he is already back in Congo and headed for detention in the capital, Kinshasa. What happened?

The power play orchestrated by the Congolese and Rwandan governments has been brewing for weeks. As Nkunda’s power and ambition grew, the governments of both Rwanda and Congo came to see him as a serious problem, albeit for different reasons. Unable to defeat Nkunda militarily and unwilling to treat him as a legitimate political actor, President Kabila needed Rwanda’s help to neutralize him. Rwandan President Paul Kagame was stung by Nkunda’s increasingly bold pronouncements (particularly his ambition to take his fight all the way to Kinshsa) and a U.N. panel of experts report documenting Rwandan support for CNDP and involvement with conflict minerals in eastern Congo. European donors began to threaten aid money and Rwanda no longer had plausible deniability that it was not involved with Nkunda.

Congolese officials sought Rwandan help to get rid of Nkunda. The quid pro quo: the Rwandan military would be allowed to re-enter eastern Congo to hunt down the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, a Rwandan Hutu rebel group led by commanders responsible for the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. In a fantastically cynical move, the two sides also agreed that indicted war criminal Bosco Ntaganda would replace Nkunda as head of CNDP, and that his forces would join in the offensive against the FDLR.

A week ago in Goma, Ntaganda announced that he had taken control of CNDP and would collaborate with the Congolese and Rwandan armies against the FDLR. As reported on this blog earlier this week, more than 3,000 Rwandan troops crossed into eastern Congo this past weekend, isolating Nkunda and ultimately arresting him. My colleague John Prendergast noted in the New York Times today, “Now the hard part begins.”

While the move to take more aggressive action to remove the FDLR from eastern Congo and arrest of Nkunda are welcome developments and could contribute mightily to a lasting peace in eastern Congo, there are lots of reasons to be profoundly apprehensive.

• The planned operations against the FDLR have the potential to be catastrophic for Congolese civilians. The Congolese army and Rwandan armies have abysmal track records in protecting civilians, and the FDLR will almost certainly not stand their ground and fight. As they have done in the past (and as the Lord’s Resistance Army has done in northeastern Congo), the FDLR may well melt into the bush, leave civilians to bear the brunt of the offensive, and return with a vengeance when the operation is over. Moreover, Congo and Rwanda have clear economic motive to assert control over valuable mines in FDLR controlled areas. This could be why the UN peacekeeping force charged with protecting civilians in eastern Congo has been kept deliberately in the dark and is now restricted from traveling to certain areas.
• The role of Bosco “The Terminator” Ntaganda sends a chilling message about the lack of accountability for crimes against humanity. Ntaganda is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, and the Congolese government, a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the ICC, is in full violation of international law by failing to arrest him. Human Rights Watch has documented his role in recent massacres.
• Even though Nkunda has been arrested, allowing Rwandan troops back onto Congolese soil is a dangerous gamble for Congolese President Kabila. Many people in eastern Congo loathe Rwanda for its behavior during the wars that ripped the country apart from 1996 to 2002, when they failed to dislodge the FDLR while looting substantial mineral wealth. The Rwandan military has been able to inflict substantial casualties on the FDLR on the past, but never to the point where they were able to break them as a force. The longer Rwandan forces remain in eastern Congo, the more vulnerable Kabila will be to internal challenges.
• Lastly, and as Enough has consistently argued, even a successful operation against the FDLR must be accompanied by a process to deal with the other major root causes of conflict in eastern Congo: the fight for control over lucrative natural resources, access to land, economic and physical security of ethnic minorities (particularly Tutsis), and contentious debates over citizenship and identity.

Events are unfolding rapidly on the ground, and Enough is preparing on a statement with recommendations for policymakers on how to help avoid the situation from spiraling downward. We will release the statement next week, but as a first step the Obama administration should immediately appoint a special envoy to the Great Lakes region. The administration has not yet named its Africa policy team, but the people of eastern Congo cannot wait another day for the United States to get engaged at a high level."( THIS POST IS MORE WORRYING )

In a related post from Reuters:

1 of 1Full Size

By Aaron Gray-Block

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga trained child soldiers to kill, pillage and rape, a prosecutor told the International Criminal Court at the start of its first war crimes trial on Monday.

Lubanga, 48, pleaded not guilty on the first day of the historic trial, which opened more than six years after the ICC was set up as the world's first permanent war crimes court.

Lubanga, an ethnic Hema, is accused of enlisting and conscripting children under 15 to his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) in Congo's eastern Ituri district to kill rival Lendus in a 1998-2003 war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

ICC prosecutors say child soldiers recruited by the UPC were involved in hostilities between October 2002 and June 2003, and that some of them were forced to kill, while others lost their lives in combat.

In an opening address to the Hague-based court, chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Lubanga committed the most serious crimes of concern to the international community -- crimes against children.

"Lubanga's armed group, recruited and trained hundreds of children to kill, pillage and rape. Hundreds of children still suffer the consequences of Lubanga's crimes. They cannot forget what they suffered, what they did, what they saw," he said.

"They cannot forget the beatings they suffered, they cannot forget the terror they felt and the terror they inflicted. They cannot forget the sounds of the machine guns, they cannot forget that they killed. They cannot forget that they raped, that they were raped."

Some of the children were now using drugs, some had become prostitutes, and others were jobless, Moreno-Ocampo said.

He said he intended to demand close to the maximum sentence, which court officials say is life imprisonment.

Moreno-Ocampo showed the court a map indicating where hostilities took place and videos he said showed Lubanga with child soldiers.

"At this stage, our client would like to plead not guilty," Catherine Mabille, lead defence lawyer, told the court.

Dressed in a dark suit and red tie, Lubanga looked impassively ahead as his charges were read aloud to him.

BUNIA LINK-UP

Some 400 people in Congo's eastern town of Bunia -- at the heart of the Hema-Lendu violence -- were watching the trial via video-link, including many UPC supporters, a Human Rights Watch official said.

She said the start of the trial is a signal to the world that there will be accountability for war crimes, but also urged the court to look into officials in Uganda and in Rwanda who armed and supported groups operating on the ground.

More than 30,000 children were recruited during the conflict in Congo, many given marijuana and told they were protected by witchcraft, according to Bukeni Waruzi, the Africa and Middle East coordinator for human rights group Witness.

Lubanga's trial had been due to start in June 2008, but judges postponed because the defence was unable to view some evidence against him.

The matter was resolved in November when prosecutors began releasing documents to the defence that had been provided on condition of confidentiality to protect sources in war zones.

But some procedural measures are still pending.

The three-judge court has allowed 93 victims to take part in the case and give evidence. They can also seek compensation.

Four of the victims are among the 34 witnesses that prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo will call during the trial, which is expected to be completed before the end of the year.

Ethnic violence in the Ituri region between the Hema and Lendu, and clashes between militia groups vying for control of mines and taxation, have killed 60,000( 60,000 ) people since 1999.

Lubanga was handed over to the court in 2006 after Congo referred the case to the ICC prosecutor in March 2004.

The defence will make its opening statement on Tuesday."

In case you want to hear him speak. From the Hub:

DR Congo rebel chief justifies his fight - 21 Nov 08

By: aljazeeraenglish

Posted: Jan 26 09

As the UN agrees to deploys more forces to halt the DR Congo conflict, Laurent Nkunda, the rebel chief, acknowledges partial responsibility for the upheaval in an interview to Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege at a secret location in eastern Congo. But insisting that there is "no life, no economy, no administration, no justice", he says "you cannot destroy what is not there".

Previous foreign occupations of Congo’s mineral-rich east have been justified by hunts for rebels. Is there a danger of history repeating itself?

From Stop The War In North Kivu:

"Stearns on today´s events In Analysis, News on January 20, 2009 at 4:56 pm

“This marks a major turning point in Kinshasa’s attitude toward the conflict in the east. It appears (President Joseph) Kabila’s government has decided to turn on what has been an ally, the FDLR.”

“This marks a serious change in Rwanda’s policy as well. For the first time since 2002, Rwandan troops are on Congolese soil.”

“They will now be working together against the FDLR, while the CNDP (Tutsi rebel group), which in the past has received support from Rwanda, will now join ranks with the Congolese army.

“This strategy hinges on the success of the military operations against the FDLR. These kinds of counter-insurgency operations are very difficult and always carry with them the risk of serious harm to the civilian population.”

“The other risk is that these operations could be protracted and Kinshasa has already gone out on a limb inviting back in what has been traditionally perceived as its biggest enemy.”

Not to miss the following Reuter´s dispatch."

"Now, from David Lewis on Reuters:

Tags: Africa Blog, Congo, AU, CNDP, Congo, FDLR, genocide, goma, Hutu, joseph kabila, kigali, kinshasa, paul kagame, peacekeeping, Rwanda, Tutsi, Uganda, UN

Rwanda sent hundreds of its soldiers into eastern Congo on Tuesday in what the neighbours have described as a joint operation against Hutu rebels who have been at the heart of 15 years of conflict. Details are still somewhat sketchy, with Rwanda saying its soldiers are under Congolese command but Kinshasa saying Kigali’s men have come as observers.

Evidence on the ground suggests something more serious. United Nations peacekeepers and diplomats have said up to 2,000 Rwandan soldiers crossed into Congo. A Reuters reporter saw hundreds of heavily armed troops wearing Rwandan flag patches moving into Congo north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province. The world’s largest U.N. peacekeeping mission is, for now, being kept out of the loop.( WHAT'S THEIR FUNCTION EXACTLY? )

Foreign soldiers in Congo are nothing new. Rwanda first invaded in 1996. A 1998-2003 war in Congo sucked in six neighbouring armies. But after years of diplomacy and billions of dollars spent on peacekeeping and Congo’s 2006 elections, analysts are frantically trying to work out what is going on. ( TRUE )

The current joint operation stems from an agreement signed in December between Rwanda and Congo to cooperate more closely after weeks of heavy fighting in North Kivu province. Although the fighting was officially between Congolese government forces and Tutsi rebels, most analysts saw it as an escalation of a proxy war between Rwanda and Congo that has continued despite 2003 peace deals.( YES )

U.N. experts have accused Rwanda of supporting the Tutsi CNDP rebels, formed in 2004 out of previous Rwandan-backed movements that fought against the government in Kinshasa. As on many occasions in the past, Congo was, in turn, accused of arming and using Rwandan Hutu FDLR rebels to boost the effectiveness of its fragile and chaotic army.

The fighting underlined the weakness of President Joseph Kabila’s army, which looted and raped civilians as they fled the CNDP. But it also refocused attention on the Hutu rebels, many of whom crossed into Congo when they were routed after taking part in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis and have long since been used by both Rwandan and Congolese Tutsi forces as justification for military operations in the mineral-rich east(NB ).

Rwanda and Congo have frequently agreed to resolve the FDLR problem. With talk of normalising relations, does Tuesday’s intervention by the Rwandan army mark the first concrete step in new a new relationship between the two countries? ( AND THE ANSWER IS? )

How will Kabila sell a Rwandan military intervention in Congo that is likely to be unpopular amongst many ordinary Congolese, who have long-accused Rwanda of entering their country to loot resources rather than remove rebel threats? How will a handful of Rwandans help Congo’s notoriously weak forces disarm the FDLR in 10-15 days after Kigali’s army failed to do the job during several years of occupation?

What is the international community’s role in all this? The U.N. has some 17,000 peacekeepers on the ground but they have largely been kept at a distance. What about the threat of reprisals on civilians? Over 600 people have been killed in recent weeks after another of Congo’s neighbours, Uganda, led an assault on its rebels in a another remote corner of the country.

Previous foreign occupations of Congo’s mineral-rich east have been justified by hunts for rebels. Is there a danger of history repeating itself?"( OF COURSE, BUT WHAT'S THE ALTERNATIVE? )

Can somebody explain to me what the UN soldiers do?

"triggered a conflict-driven humanitarian catastrophe that killed an estimated 5.4 million people."

From Reuters:

1 of 1Full Size

By John Kanyunyu

KIBATI, Congo (Reuters) - Rwandan troops crossed into eastern Congo on Tuesday in a joint military operation by the Great Lakes neighbours to disarm Rwandan Hutu rebels seen as a root cause of more than a decade of conflict.( WOW )

While both countries presented the operation as part of internationally-backed efforts to end conflict in Democratic Republic of Congo, analysts said allowing the Rwandan army in posed political risks for Congolese President Joseph Kabila.( TRUE )

The presence of the Rwandan Hutu FDLR fighters, who finance themselves by exploiting illegal mines( NB ) in the mineral-rich east, triggered two previous Rwandan invasions of Congo that led to a wider 1998-2003 conflict. It also helped cause a 2004 rebellion by Congo Tutsi rebels who went on the offensive late last year.

Diplomats and U.N. peacekeepers said that up to 2,000 Rwandan troops entered Congo's eastern North Kivu province on Tuesday under a December joint accord to act against the mostly Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

The FDLR's strength is estimated at around 6,000 fighters, spread across North and South Kivu.

"The operations are beginning. We have invited Rwandan officers with their security contingents for their safety. They are observers ... The operations to disarm the FDLR are planned for a length of 10 to 15 days," Lambert Mende, Congo's information minister and government spokesman, told Reuters.

But the size of the Rwandan deployment appeared to be more than a simple observation mission.

A Reuters reporter saw hundreds of Rwandan troops, wearing Rwandan flag patches on their uniforms and carrying mortars, rocket launchers and AK-47s, moving into Congo in the Kibati area north of the North Kivu provincial capital Goma.

Rwandan military spokeswoman Major Jill Rutaremara told Reuters in Kigali the details of the operation were "secret".

Rwanda's Information Minister, Louise Mushikiwabo, said the Rwandan forces would operate under Congolese command.

"This is a result of recent intense and sincere efforts -- diplomatic, military and other ... to bring peace and stability to the region." he told Reuters by text message.

U.N. peacekeepers also confirmed the Rwandan deployment.

"This morning between 1,500 and 2,000 RDF (Rwanda Defence Forces) crossed the border in the Munigi-Kibati zone," Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, military spokesman for the U.N. force, MONUC, said. MONUC, the biggest U.N. peace force, said it had not been involved in planning the operation.

Congolese army forces were on the move with tanks, armoured personnel carriers and mobile rocket launchers, Dietrich said.

FEARS OF ESCALATION

Analysts said the latest entry of Rwandan troops into Congo, at the same time as a Ugandan-led offensive against Ugandan LRA rebels further north in Orientale, were an acknowledgement by Kabila that he had failed to pacify his country( VERY TRUE ). He had promised to do this after winning 2006 elections.

"Look where we are, two years after elections, the Rwandan army back in Congo and the Ugandans are back in Congo ... and the Congolese get screwed again( SAD BUT TRUE )," one veteran foreign Congo analyst, who asked not be named, said.

The analyst recalled Congo's 1998-2003 war, when Rwanda and Uganda backed rival rebel groups.

"It's a confirmation of what everybody knows -- the DRC army has no control over its own territory( TRUE )," said a foreign diplomat.

The presence in eastern Congo of Rwandan Hutu FDLR rebels, many of whom participated in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, has been at the heart of more than a decade of bloodshed.

The 1998-2003 war sucked in the armies of half a dozen nearby countries, and triggered a conflict-driven humanitarian catastrophe that killed an estimated 5.4 million( 5.4 MILLION ) people.

Rwanda and Congo have agreed on several past occasions to cooperate to tackle the Hutu rebels, but have failed to carry this out amid accusations that ill-disciplined Congolese government forces have sided with the FDLR Hutu fighters.

Fighting flared again in North Kivu last October, when the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), a Congolese Tutsi rebel group led by renegade General Laurent Nkunda ended a ceasefire and launched an offensive against Goma.

The fighting, which killed hundreds and displaced around 250,000 people, prompted fears of a fresh regional war.

U.N. experts told the Security Council last month that the governments of both Rwanda and Congo had been backing rebel groups in the conflict, and recommended targeted sanctions such as travel bans and freezing of assets against some individuals( ANYTHING ).

Since then diplomatic efforts to achieve a peaceful solution have picked up pace with frequent high-level contacts between Kigali and Kinshasa, in the absence of formal diplomatic ties."

If they actually cooperate, this might be the right course of action to end this nightmare.

"The fate of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children living as IDPs will lie tomorrow on that table of negotiations."

An interesting situation in the Congo. From Reuters:

1 of 1Full Size

By John Kanyunyu

GOMA, Congo (Reuters) - A split emerged on Tuesday in Congo's eastern Tutsi rebellion after the movement's top military commander openly challenged founder General Laurent Nkunda in an apparent power struggle.( WOW )

Senior military and political representatives of the rebel National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) rejected an announcement by its military chief of staff, General Bosco Ntaganda, that he had deposed Nkunda as the group's leader.

Signs of a split emerged as the Tutsi rebel movement, whose attacks in east Democratic Republic of Congo in recent months have displaced a quarter of a million civilians, was preparing to resume peace talks this week with Congo's government.

In a statement to the BBC late on Monday, a spokesman for Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, said the CNDP's military commanders had decided to oust Nkunda because of his "bad governance".

This was quickly denied by other CNDP spokesmen.

"General Bosco Ntaganda does not have the authority to depose the chairman Laurent Nkunda. The CNDP remains one movement and one army," Col. Sultani Makenga, the group's military second in command, told Reuters. He said he did not know why Ntaganda had made the announcement.

Attempts to contact Ntaganda, known as "the Terminator" and popular among the rebel rank and file, were unsuccessful.

After launching a renewed offensive in late August, Nkunda's battle-hardened rebels routed President Joseph Kabila's army and captured large swathes of Congo's eastern North Kivu province before declaring a unilateral ceasefire in late October.

The fighting triggered a fresh humanitarian emergency in the border province, where conflict between rival rebels, militias and the government army has raged on despite a formal end to a wider 1998-2003 war in the former Belgian colony.

United Nations officials and human rights campaigners said the CNDP leadership may have planned to discipline Ntaganda over the massacre of around 150 civilians in the North Kivu town of Kiwanja, shortly after it was seized by the rebels in November.

Up to now, the CNDP has denied its fighters slaughtered civilians, blaming rival pro-government Mai-Mai militiamen.

U.N. PEACEKEEPERS ON ALERT

Officials from Congo's 17,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force (MONUC) said they were monitoring the situation closely in case of fighting within the CNDP.

"To the extent these events threaten to aggravate the situation on the ground, we are very concerned," said Kevin Kennedy, a MONUC spokesman.

Talks between the CNDP rebels and government representatives are due to restart on Wednesday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, under U.N. and African Union mediation.

CNDP political spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa said Ntaganda's announcement had no impact on the group's leadership structure, and negotiators still planned to attend the talks in Kenya.

"If an officer has demands, he must address them to the movement itself and not the media," he said. "Our disciplinary body is being activated to deal with this situation."

A spokesman for Congo's government said its negotiators were also planning to go ahead with the talks on Wednesday.

In April last year, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Ntaganda, accusing him of recruiting children under 15 to fight in a bloody ethnic-based conflict in northeast Ituri district.

Ntaganda is a former associate of Ituri militia leader Thomas Lubanga, who is in ICC custody in The Hague ahead of his own trial on charges of recruiting child soldiers.

Ntaganda returned to his native North Kivu in 2006, where he joined the CNDP led by Nkunda, who says his rebels seek to defend Congo's Tutsi minority against persecution by the government and by Rwandan Hutu militiamen in the east.

Nkunda has so far refused to hand over Ntaganda to Congolese or international authorities, demanding that the ICC first share evidence with the CNDP proving his guilt of war crimes."

Here's the take of Stop The War In North Kivu:

"According to different sources, Bosco Ntagana has replaced Laurent Nkunda as head of CNDP. It still has to be confirmed at the official webpage of this armed group.

Some Congolese media talk about Rwanda choosing Ntagana in order to harden peace negotiations, while other stress that his replacement is a consequence of the recent UN report released by a panel of experts on the DRC.

It is a worrying move taking place in a key moment. The replacement at the head of CNDP happens just before the beggining of the third round of the current peace talks.

The fate of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children living as IDPs will lie tomorrow on that table of negotiations. Unfortunately, I am afraid that none of the speakers sitting on both sides of that table will truly care about them."

It's hard to see how a war criminal taking over can help things.

“Democracy is not elections. Democracy is legitimacy. And legitimacy comes from what you are doing to your people.”

Here's a portrait of a War Criminal:

"BUNAGANA, Congo — At the entrance to this bustling border town is a most unusual sight: a speed limit sign. In fresh red, white and blue paint, it is a rare manifestation of order in a nation better known for chaos.

Skip to next paragraph

Enlarge This Image

Benedicte Kurzen/VII Mentor

Mr. Nkunda at a training camp in North Kivu Province for the group of rebels that he leads.

Multimedia

Lydia Polgreen on Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda

Related

Times Topics: Laurent Nkunda | Congo

Enlarge This Image

Benedicte Kurzen/VII Mentor

Gen. Laurent Nkunda, the leader of a group of rebels, with his pet goat Betty in the mountains of Congo. His aims include the removal of President Joseph Kabila, whose power has been waning.

Enlarge This Image

Benedicte Kurzen/VII Mentor

Gen. Laurent Nkunda after a meeting with the news media in November in the town of Kichanga in Congo.

The seemingly innocuous signpost is emblematic of the growing might and wider ambitions of Laurent Nkunda, the renegade Congolese general and warlord who now holds part of Congo’s future in his grip.

“I am fighting for the destiny of this country,” said Mr. Nkunda, offering up the orderly streets and neatly terraced farms of the surrounding countryside as evidence of what Congo might be like if he ran things. “What we want is to restore the dignity of this country and these people.”

But beneath the veneer lies a ruthlessness of a piece with Congo’s unbroken history of brutality. With a military campaign in October and November that was met with a feeble response( THIS IS A DISGRACE ) from both the Congolese government and United Nations peacekeeping forces here in eastern Congo, General Nkunda has pushed the nation to its most dangerous precipice in years.

Many here fear a new regional war or that an alliance of convenience between General Nkunda and other enemies of the president could lead to the ouster of Congo’s first democratically elected government in four decades.

That General Nkunda, who is suspected of committing a litany human rights violations, could be a leading figure in such a move is a chilling thought for many Congolese. A recent journey through territory he controls revealed a host of contradictions between the image he puts forward and reality, including evidence of mass killings, the extraction of onerous payments from residents, illegal profiteering from the mineral trade and the conscription of child soldiers.

General Nkunda’s campaign began as a local insurgency aimed at redressing the grievances of a Tutsi minority that felt threatened by the aftershocks of the Rwandan genocide. But it has grown into a rebellion with a broad set of aims that include the removal of President Joseph Kabila, who was elected in 2006 after more than 40 years( 40 YEARS ) of tyranny and war in this country. “We have national ambitions,” General Nkunda declared, a hint of triumph in his voice. “We are talking about Congo.”

Some of this talk may be grandiose bluster from a man fond of referring to himself in the third person( WHO'D WANT TO BE HIM ) and who prefers to be photographed holding a scepter capped by a silver-plated eagle’s head. General Nkunda is despised by many in eastern Congo for his brutal tactics. He is also widely perceived as a proxy for Rwanda, a country whose meddling is largely detested by Congolese citizens. The general claims that he does not want to replace Mr. Kabila, merely to sit down and have direct talks.

But his forceful new challenge poses grave risks for Mr. Kabila, who is weaker than ever. The national army was routed on the battlefield, retreating virtually without a fight, pillaging and raping as it went.

The country’s economy, once fast-growing, is in shambles as the prices of minerals have plummeted in the global recession, and Mr. Kabila is increasingly unpopular. In eastern Congo, many people are unhappy at his failure to halt General Nkunda’s relentless military advance. In the west, where he has never been popular, he is under threat from political opponents who see his government as intolerant of dissent.

One by one, those who oppose him have felt the violent wrath of his security forces, according to human rights investigators and political analysts. A Human Rights Watch investigation found that 500 people had died and 1,000 had been detained in these crackdowns.

In the face of Mr. Kabila’s plummeting stature, General Nkunda has cultivated an image as a disciplined crusader bent on bringing order to the country. He dresses in sharp uniforms or flowing, immaculate white robes. He has claimed to be an evangelical minister and at times wears a pin that reads, “Rebels for Christ.” General Nkunda and his top commanders say their fighters have a commitment to discipline as well: drunkenness, looting and rape are offenses punishable by imprisonment and possibly death, according to senior rebel officers.

But in 2002, when General Nkunda was a commander in a different rebel group, he participated in the mass killing of 160 mutineers in the city of Kisangani, human rights groups say. According to Human Rights Watch, “Forces under Nkunda’s command bound, gagged, and executed twenty-eight persons and then put their bodies in bags weighted with stones and threw them off a Kisangani bridge.”

Two years later, his men took the city of Bukavu, and days of killing and rape followed, investigators say. Since 2005, when he formed his own rebel group, known as the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or C.N.D.P., his forces have carried out a number of massacres, according to human rights investigators, most recently at Kiwanja, in early November, where 150 people were executed.

In Nkunda territory, the general says, civilians are never harmed and live without fear of violence or looting. His men offer up the endless, Eden-like valleys around this town as proof. Terraced into rows as tidy as seats in an amphitheater, the land bespeaks a kind of ordered plenty.

But farmers here say they are forced to hand over a precious portion of their harvest to feed the fighters: 45 pounds of beans or grain, and as much as $20 a season in taxes, an enormous sum in a place where most people live on far less than a dollar a day.

General Nkunda said his rebellion was not motivated, like so many others fighting here, by plunder of Congo’s natural resources.

“I am not here for minerals,” he said. Indeed, there are almost no mines in the areas under his control, and General Nkunda has avoided getting directly involved in mining, fearing the taint of blood minerals that has stained virtually every group fighting here, including Congo’s own army.

But his fighters collect taxes on virtually every commercial vehicle and bushel of crops that come out of territory they control, according to residents and a United Nations report released last week. They even take a cut of the $300 permits sold to tourists wishing to see Congo’s rare mountain gorillas.

“The money goes to the rebels,” said one of the park rangers who monitors the animals. “None of it comes to us( UNREAL ).”

General Nkunda’s men also profit from Congo’s minerals. Thousands of tons of tin ore, coltan and other minerals pass through the border crossing here to Uganda, headed to Kenya’s Indian Ocean port, and the rebels take a slice of the duties and taxes collected here, United Nations officials say. General Nkunda denied this, saying his men sent all taxes to the government.

According to rebel officials, in Nkunda territory children are never made to wield Kalashnikov rifles and kill. But boys like Eric, who is now 16 but says he has been fighting with armed groups since he was kidnapped by Hutu militiamen at the age of 9, say General Nkunda’s rebellion forces hundreds of children to fight.

“The strategy they use is this,” he explained. “When they met children on the road, they ask them to help them carry their goods.”

The boys are then taken to training camps, given guns and taught to fight, Eric said. His eyes are wide in permanent surprise, and he said he had headaches that did not respond to medicine. Loud noises terrify him.

“Too many bombs,” he explained in a soft voice.

For two years, from 13 to 15, he said he fought with General Nkunda’s troops.

“Many of us were boys,” he said. “They would send us out first, then the men.”

He lives in a shelter for boys separated from their parents by the war. In the next bunk is his friend Fabrice, a 14-year-old former Mai Mai fighter who used to do battle with General Nkunda’s forces.

“I always felt bad to kill other children, because I knew they had been forced to fight just like me,” he said.

General Nkunda seems to have little trouble drawing new recruits, because each man is issued a uniform, a gun and training, unlike Congolese soldiers, who can go months without salaries. Some fighters are drawn to the rebels for ethnic reasons, but many others simply want to fight on the side that wins. His force is more disciplined, General Nkunda says, because they are fighting for a cause they believe in.

General Nkunda seems determined to play the role of statesman in waiting, receiving visiting diplomats and emissaries like a chief of state. He rejects the legitimacy of the Kabila government, so the United Nations appointed the former president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, to cajole General Nkunda back to the negotiating table.

“What is democracy?” he mused, worrying his scepter, which has grown brassy over the years as his rebellion has flourished. “Democracy is not elections ( HERE WE GO ). Democracy is legitimacy. And legitimacy comes from what you are doing to your people( TERRORIZING THEM ).”

General Nkunda is all but certain to face an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for atrocities committed during his years fighting here, human rights investigators say, most recently in Kiwanja, where his men executed civilians and torched camps that housed 30,000 displaced people.

“Nkunda destroyed my life,” said Anorite Zawadi, 27, whose 8-year-old daughter disappeared when General Nkunda’s troops razed the camp in which her family lived. The girl has not been seen since.

“He has no mercy on us,” she continued. “He brings only death and sorrow.”

"the world could soon be living with a greater shame than the Rwandan genocide."

Thank God for Giles Foden in the Guardian:

"In 2001, I was in a bar in Kigoma, on the Tanzanian side of Lake Tanganyika. As I sipped my beer, I could hear the clipped tones of a South African speaking into a radio transceiver. He was ordering supplies for the United Nations peacekeeping mission known as Monuc, then operating out of Kalemie on the lake's Congolese side. At the time, Monuc's blue berets were just about managing to keep a lid on things in eastern Congo, but already the strain was showing.

Earlier that year Congolese president Laurent Kabila was shot by his bodyguard. He was replaced by his son Joseph, largely as a result of pressure brought to bear by Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe was one of a number of nations then taking part in the second Congo war (1998-2003). It was allying itself, along with Angola, Namibia, Chad and Sudan, with the Kabilas. On the other side, though sometimes fighting each other, were Uganda and Rwanda.

All sides in this many-phased conflict, which has claimed more than five million lives( PLEASE READ THIS NUMBER ) during the past decade, have been engaged in extraction of Congo's rich mineral deposits ( THAT'S RIGHT ). These have been a cause of bloodshed in the region right back to the 1960s, following Belgium's messy exit from its former colony. These riches are one reason why regional collaborations to end the conflict have so far failed; another is the historical effects of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Since the official end of the second Congo war, fighting has been concentrated in the eastern region - the Congolese borders of Uganda, Rwanda and Sudan - with mainly Rwandan proxies fighting a circumstantial alliance of the Congolese army and Hutus. The most recent focus is on the territorial ambitions of "General" Nkunda, a Rwandan-backed warlord accused of massacring 150 civilians in Kivu last month. ( THIS IS A PROXY WAR )

Last week Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, wrote to European leaders asking the EU to intervene in Congo. The recent collapse of the Congolese army in the eastern region has caused hundreds of thousands of people to be displaced and an eruption of mass killings and rapes. The letter was an admission that Monuc had failed, having too few troops to deal with a conflict that could potentially again spread over an area as large as the EU itself.

The UN has authorised more troops, but they will not be deployed for at least four months. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who met Ban yesterday in New York, has proposed four options to EU leaders: sending a rapid response "battle group" of 1,500 troops; dispatching within several months a 3,000-strong mission; simply reinforcing Monuc with forces from European countries; or achieving a concrete objective, such as securing the all-important Goma airport and other sites.

The second proposal has already been rejected by France. On Friday, Nicolas Sarkozy said African forces should reinforce Monuc. He also questioned whether an increase in the number of troops was the answer. Britain, too, is adamant the EU should not get involved, and Germany is not keen. These big EU players cite practical or tactical reasons, but underneath the shilly-shallying is a collective failure of moral leadership. The long-term lack of proper response to the scale of this fluid, deadly conflict is part of the same narrative that saw western governments fail to respond to genocide in Rwanda. It is eminently possible that a tragedy of a larger scale could now take place.( SOMETHING SHOULD BE DONE! )

Ordinary Africans are already suffering on a scale that dwarfs casualties from terrorist outrages and conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. In particular, the harrowing reports of mass rape in the Congo demand a response - a military one. There are good political as well as human rights reasons why stopping mass rape should be the platform for this intervention. Women are the "glue" in central African society. They are the carers, the food providers. If many in several generations of women are damaged, injured or killed, the chances of a return to civil society are extremely slim.

In the immediate term, pressure should be put on the Rwandan leadership itself to rein in Nkunda; in the short term, Monuc should be supplemented by a large EU force; in the longer term, as eastern Congo seems ungovernable from Kinshasa, I see no option but the creation of a buffer state on the western shores of Lakes Kivu and Tanganyika. This could be achieved by regional forces with Monuc-EU backup. ( GO FOR IT! )

Geopolitically, the Great Lakes region is a hornet's nest - but unless someone puts smoke in that nest, the world could soon be living with a greater shame than the Rwandan genocide. ( THE WORLD WEARS SHAME WELL )

"The findings portray a complex proxy struggle between the nations"

There can be little doubt about what's going on in the Eastern part of the Congo. Lydia Polgreen in the NY Times:

"GOMA, Congo — A report to the United Nations Security Council by a panel of independent experts found evidence of links between senior officials of the Congolese and Rwandan governments and the armed groups fighting in eastern Congo. The findings portray a complex proxy struggle between the nations, with each using armed forces based in the area to pursue political, financial and security objectives in a region ravaged by conflict.

The report, which was based on months of independent research in the region, gives the clearest picture yet of the underpinnings of the fighting in eastern Congo, revealing a sordid network of intertwined interests in Congo and Rwanda that have fueled the continuing chaos. Tiny Rwanda and its vast neighbor to the west, Congo, have long been connected by a shared history of ethnic strife. In the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Hutu militias that carried out the killing fled into Congo, then known as Zaire."

This is like the Sudan. It's never going to end.

"In 1996, Rwanda backed a rebel force led by Laurent Kabila that ultimately toppled Congo’s longtime president, Mobutu Sese Seko. The initial aim had been to capture the Hutu fighters who had carried out the genocide, but the fighting devolved into a frenzy of plundering of Congo’s minerals, spawning a conflict that drew in half a dozen nations and left as many as five million people dead. Most died of hunger and disease.

The report’s findings on the current conflict are likely to strain already tense relations between the countries, providing ammunition for each. Congolese officials have accused Rwanda of supporting Tutsi rebels led by a renegade general from the same ethnic group as much of Rwanda’s establishment.

Rwanda has accused Congo’s government of colluding with an armed group led by some of the Hutu militia who carried out the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. These are the fighters who fled afterward to Congo and eventually formed a group known by its French abbreviation, the F.D.L.R. It preys on Congolese civilians and enriches itself with the country’s gold, tin and coltan, a mineral used in making the tiny processors in electronic equipment.

The independent experts found extensive evidence of high-level communication between the government of Rwanda and the Tutsi rebel group known as the Congress for the Defense of the People, led by the renegade general Laurent Nkunda, based on reviews of satellite phone records.

The report said that the calls were “frequent and long enough to indicate at least extensive sharing of information.”

In interviews, several of General Nkunda’s fighters described Rwandan soldiers’ helping the rebels inside Congo, according to the report. Rwandan soldiers also helped bring recruits, some of them children, to Congo’s border to fight in General Nkunda’s rebellion, the report said.

It also investigated how General Nkunda was paying for his militia, documenting hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments for taxes in territory that he controls. The report also named prominent business executives who had backed him financially.

Congo’s military, meanwhile, has been collaborating with the Hutu militia that is led by the authors of the Rwandan genocide, according to the report. The weak and undisciplined Congolese Army has frequently relied on help from these fighters in battling General Nkunda’s troops.

In exchange for ammunition, the militia fighters have helped in numerous offensives, the report said, citing by name several senior Congolese military officers who had handed over matériel to the Hutu forces. According to satellite phone records, senior military and intelligence figures in Congo have spoken frequently with top Hutu militia leaders.

“It is obvious that Rwandan authorities and Congolese authorities are aware of support provided to rebel groups,” Jason K. Stearns, the coordinator for the five-member panel that produced the report, said Friday at a news conference at the United Nations. “They haven’t done anything to bring it to an end.”

He said the Congolese government said that it had no policy to aid the Hutu militia but that there might be support from individual military commanders. Both governments said that telephone records showing conversations between officials and rebels did not constitute support, he added. "

In other words, it's a proxy war in Eastern Congo over minerals and money that's also a continuation of the effects of the Rwandan Genocide.

I refuse to believe that more can't be done.