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.

MSF’s criticism rightly emphasizes MONUC’s current inability to protect civilians.

From Enough:

"Doctors Without Borders Spotlights MONUC’s Failures in LRA-Affected Areas

Posted by Rebecca Brocato on Feb 08, 2009

A recent statement from Doctors Without Borders, known by their French acronym MSF, deplores the failure of MONUC, the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Congo, to protect civilians from the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA.

Commented Marc Poncin, MSF’s operational manager for Congo:

“The conclusion we’ve reached day in and day out on the ground, is that the LRA is continuing its unspeakable violence against civilians…U.N. Security Council Resolution 1856, from this past December 22, makes protection of civilians the priority for the United Nations peacekeepers in (Congo). The MONUC must therefore take up its responsibilities and can no longer continue to be so absent for the inhabitants of Haut-Uele (northeastern Congo) when they are being systematically attacked.”

Alan Doss, the U.N. envoy in Congo, responded to MSF’s critique, saying that it is difficult “to protect civilians against a group like the LRA and that (MSF’s) report did not reflect the reality on the ground.”

MSF’s criticism rightly emphasizes MONUC’s current inability to protect civilians. However, Doss is also correct that without the resources it needs, MONUC – which has been waiting in vain for the additional 3,000 peacekeepers promised by the Security Council in November – is unable to fulfill its mandate. This again highlights the need for activists, as well as groups like Enough and MSF, to put pressure on troop contributing countries to do the right thing and contribute competent forces, and not just beat up on the head of a UN Mission for having inadequate resources."

Me:

Political Pressure

Submitted by Anonymous on February 8, 2009 - 11:18pm.

Is there any reason to believe that these forces ever would intervene militarily in a major way?

Don the libertarian Democrat

What makes Uganda think it can do the job now?

From Peter Eichstaedt:

"Dominic makes two

The French Press Agency is reporting that Dominic Ongwen, another deputy commander of the Lord's Resistance Army, also wants to surrender to Ugandan forces fighting in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The possible surrender of Ongwen follows last week's request by LRA deputy commander Okot Odhiambo, who is currently negotiating the terms of a surrender.

If true, the defection and surrender of these commanders would leave Kony largely isolated, yet still with the bulk of his army in the DRC, said to be some 600 or 700 men.

The surrender of both these men would be a huge success for the Ugandan army and theoretically for the international community since both are wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

"Dominic Ongwen is here with me, we are together," Odhiambo told AFP by phone from his jungle hide-out, adding they had 120 LRA fighters with them.

Meanwhile, word continues to trickle out about the possible surrender of the deputy commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, Okot Odhiambo.

According to the Daily Monitor newspaper in Kampala, the Ugandan army commander in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Brig. Gen. Patrick Kankiriho, has given Odhiambo a map sketching out where Odhiambo and his men can surrender.

The options are several locations, or any church or the United Nations Mission in Congo (MONUC) outpost.

“I sent him a sketch map of areas where he can report. I told him if he cannot report in those areas where the UPDF is, he can go to any church or the UN,” Kankiriho told the Monitor.

The church suggestion is ironic since Odhiambo and his men are thought to have been behind a slaughter in a church of about 50 people in the Doruma area in December.

This communique to Odhiambo is the first hard information that the negotiations, which began last week, are still on-going with the rebel unit, said to nubmer about 85 people, including about 45 soldiers, 20 abductees and non-combatants.

"If Odhiambo responds and says he is at point A, then we will know he is serious. We will not hurt him. We can even leave our guns behind and we get UN to escort us and we meet him,” Kankiriho said.

If Odhiambo surrenders, it will be a major success for the Ugandan military strike that began Dec. 14 and sent the LRA, lead by Joseph Kony, on a killing rampage that has taken the lives of nearly 1,000 civilians in the region.

But how long the Ugandan army can or will stay in northeastern DRC? Congolese officials have set today, Friday, Feb. 6, as the deadline for Uganda's withdrawal from the region.

The deadline makes no sense, of course, given the current negotiations, but the Congo is under pressure to rid itself of foreign forces. Neighboring Rwanda currently has about 2,000 troops in the Kivu provinces of eastern DRC, who are ridding the region of the Hutu militias.

The two situation are virtually unrelated, but problematic, none-the-less.

Certainly, simple logic dictates that Uganda should continue this operation against Kony and the LRA, since in both this situation and the Kivus, the DRC is incapable of controlling or solving the problem.

But this also raises the question whether Uganda can solve the Kony problem as well. Given the botched operation that began the current mess, there are serious doubts for any permanent solution.

The question also arises as to why Kony and his army are in the DRC in the first place. Why didn't Uganda solve the Kony problem sometime during the 20 years he fought in Uganda?

What makes Uganda think it can do the job now? "

Me:

Don said...

I'm wondering who supports Kony. Can he really survive without any base in a population? If he has no base, how come Uganda, the Congo, and Rwanda can't stop him?

Don the libertarian Democrat

February 6, 2009 9:49 PM

five Member States have agreed to send the required intelligence experts to MONUC, albeit without providing the necessary equipment.

From Stop The War In North Kivu:

"The blue helmets asked will never come In Uncategorized on February 4, 2009 at 9:20 am

Source: United Nations Security Council

Date: 27 Jan 2009

Letter dated 27 January 2009 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council (S/2009/52)

I have the honour to refer to the additional capacities for the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) which the Security Council authorized by its resolution 1843 (2008 ) of 20 November 2008 and which it recalled in its resolution 1856 (2008 ) of 22 December 2008.

I regret to inform you that, despite the Organization’s considerable efforts to generate the additional resources required, in particular through consultations in New York and in a number of capitals, troop-contributing countries have not been as receptive as we had hoped. In all, 49 troop contributors and 12 potential troop contributors have been asked to provide the Mission with the additional troops and resources authorized. The need for robust and highly mobile troops was particularly emphasized. Four countries that are contributing police personnel have also been approached.

The United Nations accepted an official proposal from Bangladesh to provide one infantry battalion, one engineer company and one formed police unit, as well as a proposal from Belgium to provide a C-130 aircraft to the Mission. In addition, five Member States have agreed to send the required intelligence experts to MONUC, albeit without providing the necessary equipment.

Four Member States have expressed interest in providing the second authorized battalion, while two others might provide the two special forces companies. Another Member State indicated that it might be able to provide the second formed police unit. Finally, I received a letter from the Economic Community of Central African States indicating that its member countries were willing to provide certain capacities to the Mission. The Secretariat will continue to assess the expressions of interest that most closely match the Mission’s resource requirements. While these expressions of interest are positive, I nevertheless have some concerns to communicate to the Security Council. More than two months after the adoption of resolution 1843 (2008), no formal offers have been made in response to these requests. I am especially concerned about the lack of formal offers of special forces companies.

Equally worrisome is the fact that there have been no commitments or expressions of interest regarding the remaining air assets (one C-130 and 18 utility helicopters) or the deployment of the 200 military training instructors/advisers needed. These resources are essential for the Mission’s mobility and rapid reaction capacity, which are vital if it is to fulfil the mandate set out by the Security Council.

Given the need to deploy the additional resources authorized for MONUC as soon as possible, I would like to renew my appeal to those troop- and policecontributing countries that have the necessary capacities to enable the Mission to discharge its mandate effectively, pursuant to resolution 1856 (2008). I will keep the Security Council regularly informed of the efforts made in this regard.

In the meantime, any efforts by the Security Council to encourage troopcontributing countries to provide the Mission with the necessary resources would be greatly appreciated."

---

Me:

You know, these blue helmets aren’t exactly getting a lot of good press. They’re either accused of aiding one side or doing nothing. It would help if we could get an idea of what and how well they’re doing in North Kivu. MONUC seems impotent from the outside.

And:

Hi Don,

They actually are doing very little, in spite of the cost of the mission (1 billion dollars per year). The people in Goma do not like them. They feel that the blue helmets do not do enough to protect them. In too many occasions (Kiwanja was one of the last ones) civilians were killed and the blue helmets did not intervene. If you are interested, this is one of the best reports I´ve found about the UN mission in the DRC (in French, sorry: http://www.grip.org/fr/siteweb/dev.asp?N=simple&O=625)

"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.

"consumers in the west do have the power to limit their funds."

Caroline Sourt in the Guardian about the East Congo, and what we can do about it ( which isn't much ):

"Caroline Sourt

• 
  
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 December 2008 17.00 GMT
• Article history

As Simon Tisdall has pointed out on Comment is Free, the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo looks intractable – and there is little appetite, in Britain or elsewhere, to send more troops there. But while the fighting is not going to stop as long as militias control the region's natural resources, consumers in the west do have the power to limit their funds( GOOD ).

One of the precious metals mined in eastern Congo is coltan. It is used in many common products: mobiles, computers, digital cameras, GPS equipment, airbags, hearing aids and even pacemakers. While 80% of the world's known coltan reserves are in eastern Congo, only about 1% of the metal sold on the open market is Congolese.

The reality is that most of Congo's coltan is sold illegally and the revenue, instead of going towards the country's development, is helping to fund the ongoing violence. The coltan mines in the east are controlled by various armed groups. One of the consequences is that civilians, including children, are recruited as forced labour. The mortality rate in these mines is high.

In a UN report discussed yesterday by the security council, the Congolese and Rwandan governments are accused of backing militias to fight a "war by proxy". All the groups, including the Congolese army, are accused of human rights violations that range from massacres and torture to widespread rape of women and children. In this on-off war, it's estimated that 45,000 people die each month( 45,000 ); since August, 250,000( 250,000 ) have been displaced.

The UN's force in Congo, Monuc, has so far failed to stop the fighting, despite being the largest and most expensive peacekeeping mission in the world( COME ON ). Democratic Republic of the Congo is the size of western Europe: 17,000 troops, or even the proposed increase to 20,000-strong force, are insufficient. The EU recently refused to send in soldiers, preferring to try political negotiations. What it should be doing is to regulate the international sales of Congolese minerals more efficiently( TRUE ).

Just as blood diamonds fuelled the civil war in Sierra Leone, the illegal trade fuels the DRC conflict. As long as militias and politicians continue to make money from minerals, there is no real incentive to find a lasting peace( I SUPPOSE THAT'S TRUE ). The companies involved in buying Sierra Leone's diamonds only located their consciences when consumers started asking questions about where their gems were coming from, and profits were threatened.

A certificate systemis supposed to detail the origins of any coltan, but it is not strictly adhered to. Many companies don't ask and if they do, they settle for vague answers and fraudulent papers because Congo's coltan is abundant and much cheaper than that of rival exporters.

Now, a break. From Reuters:

"By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo hopes to set up a scheme to certify columbite-tantalite produced within its borders in 2009, the country's Deputy Mines Minister Victor Kasongo said on Tuesday.

The illegal traffic of the rare metal, used in mobile phone chips and commonly referred to as coltan, helped fuel a 1998-2003 war and resulting humanitarian crisis in the central African country that killed an estimated 5.4 million people.

But a new G8-backed and German-financed pilot initiative aimed at creating a mineral fingerprint for coltan could soon help developing countries trace ore that is illegally exported and boost their profits from legal exports.

Kasongo said he hoped a global certification process aimed at ethically-minded consumers would follow.

"All the large companies are fighting for this. They'll be able to display a certificate to prove fair trade. You'll begin seeing many machines, many iPods, that are certified," he said.

Congo plans to use the data to set up its own certification process within the next eight months, which should help the creation of a global system similar to the Kimberley Process set up to end the trade in "blood diamonds" from war zones.

"We believe that in 2009 we should be able to enforce certification ... early next year," Kasongo told Reuters in an interview. "Licences. Centralised control. Certification. More revenues to Congo. More peace and stability. Those are the things we are aiming for."

A team from Germany's Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources is due to arrive in Congo on April 2.

Researchers will map the country's coltan producing areas and isolate unique characteristics of local ore samples to create mechanisms for tracing ore to its origin.

"BLOOD COLTAN"

Congo, believed by many experts to possess the world's largest coltan reserves, was one of the principal suppliers of the ore as demand from the mobile phone and electronics industries spiked in the late 1990s.

Much of the so-called "blood coltan" originating in Congo was illegally smuggled into Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi during a five-year war that saw the plunder of its natural resources by neighbours and foreign-backed militias.

Congo's coltan-rich eastern borderlands remain a patchwork of militia-controlled zones and rebel fiefdoms, where a United Nations Security Council-commissioned report recently said illegal armed groups still buy weapons with mining revenues.

Ethical concerns and more efficient industrialised mining have now made Australia the world's leading producer and exporter of coltan.

Congo hopes the certification process will rehabilitate the image of its coltan and help to stabilise its eastern reaches.

"We'll make sure that the coltan is not linked to any military activities. We understand that once we have control of the coltan itself, we'll have some control over the stability of the area," Kasongo said."

Back to our post:

The vast majority of those who donate to charitable appeals for Congo are unaware that their Christmas present purchases are probably feeding the conflict as fast as charities can alleviate it. Asking a few more questions about the gifts we buy would force the suppliers to come clean about their origins."

It's the least that we can do.

"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 )