DRC: Regrets After Cosying Up to Enemy

Despite a peace deal with rebels in March 2009 and better ties with Uganda and Rwanda, the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains dangerous and troubled. Predatory acts against the civilian population, from illegal taxes and looting to mass rape, are on the rise. Rebel groups are proliferating and forming alliances, showing just how helpful the insecure status quo is to those keen on grabbing resources and influence.


The greatest threat to Kinshasa's fragile balancing act comes from the army itself, which has spectacularly failed in successive attempts at reform. In 2009, troops of the Conseil National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP) leader, Laurent Nkunda, nearly took Goma, North Kivu's capital. He was later captured and is under house arrest in Rwanda. The government then integrated the Rwanda-backed, largely Tutsi CNDP rebels into the national army, the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC).


CNDP soldiers remain dissatisfied, saying the conditions of the peace deal have not been met: they do not have ranks equivalent to their rebel positions, and are not paid the same as other troops. They are keen to thwart all President Joseph Kabila's efforts to shift them from the eastern zones that they control. 


Despite saying that they abandoned a parallel administration and stopped all taxation in June, the CNDP continues to levy arbitrary fees, according to the UN and local villagers. CNDP officials and soldiers tax everything from wooden bicycles to tin ore. 


Observers say that the CNDP now controls more turf, including urban areas, than it did when it was a rebel organisation. That is not enough to keep the soldiers happy, however. When Kabila said that full integration into the army meant being dispersed throughout the country, the CNDP quickly retaliated with memos, interviews and press releases to say that its members were going nowhere.


Jean-Bosco Ntaganda, Nkunda's one-time number two, betrayed his former leader and agreed to the March 2009 peace deal with Kinshasa. He says the CNDP will relocate only when Tutsi refugees in Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, which harbour about 160,000 registered refugees, return to Congo and when the Hutu-led Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), comprising some former perpetrators of Rwanda's 1994 genocide, are pushed out of Congo. Ntaganda and his men know that neither is likely to happen.


Ntaganda, wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC), is under pressure too. Splits within the CNDP are rife and Nkunda supporters may pose the greatest risk. Human Rights Watch said Ntaganda was implicated in the assassinations of eight rivals in Congo and Rwanda in the first nine months of 2010 alone.

In an effort to keep the CNDP on board, the army made Ntaganda number two in joint military operations backed by the UN, a state of affairs that the army, the government and UN all deny. 


Ntaganda is making sure the world knows his real position to embarrass all three and ensure his survival. He is also attempting to reassert his influence in the CNDP. Kinshasa would like to carry out the ICC's arrest warrant, but it is not strong enough to do it yet.

Although 2,266 FDLR fighters have returned to Rwanda since 2009, those remaining in Congo still launch attacks on civilians and control gold-smuggling rings and territory. Few diplomats are keen to push Rwanda to negotiate with the génocidaires. Military operations are pushing them south and west, 
towards Maniema and Katanga, rather than towards Rwanda.


The rebels continued their mining operations while their attacks caused the displacement of 1.7 million people in the east in the 18 months following the peace deal. The FARDC also commits rapes, burns villages and continues to mine, despite a ban in the east imposed by the government in September. The Lord's Resistance Army regularly attacks villages across the northeast, killing, cutting off lips and kidnapping villagers. Government forces have also chased the Allied Democratic Forces/National Army for the Liberation of Uganda rebels into the mountainous border region, displacing some 90,000 people. 


Local militia groups, including the Maï-Maï, form alliances with the FDLR, CNDP dissenters and elements of the national army. Maï-Maï Cheka is responsible for raiding the landing strip of the Walikale district, which produces about 80% of Congo's tin ore, and for the rape of more than 300 women in a four-day attack in July and August.

There have been some successes, including the arrest in October of one of the suspected leaders of the mass rapes, Lieutenant-Colonel Mayele of Maï-Maï Cheka, and the arrest of FDLR executive secretary Callixte Mbarushimana in Paris. But UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says that, unless there are major changes, it is unlikely the violence can be stemmed