EALA Speaker Zziwa, and MPs Mbidde and Makongor.
Is it necessary? On March 28, the UNSC
approved Resolution 2098 which authorised deployment of an intervention
brigade which will target armed groups in eastern DR Congo.
A
seemingly ominous looming move by Tanzania to contribute troops to a
newly-formed UN Intervention Brigade, under the UN Mission in DR Congo,
or Monusco, among others, is raising eyebrows within the East African
Legislative Assembly (EALA), even though few lawmakers in the bloc’s
Assembly seem inclined to openly chastise the ‘mighty’ Jamhuri ya
Muungano wa Tanzania.
On March 28, the UN Security Council
approved Monusco’s new mandate. Changes, here, include deployment of an
“intervention brigade,” or a special force of battalions, to be based in
Goma, headquarters of the DR Congo’s North Kivu Province, to carry out
offensive operations against armed groups and to neutralise and disarm
them.
Numerous armed groups, including the M23 will, supposedly,
be targeted. However, there are concerns that the brigade is a result
of a dangerous misreading of conflict realities and could degenerate
into a war with disastrous and unwarranted consequences for the region.
This situation, it is feared, could suffocate the peace talks between
Kinshasa and the M23 rebels in the Ugandan capital Kampala.
There
are also allegations that only the M23 is ‘prime target.’ Reports
indicate that the M23 movement has asked Tanzania and South Africa to
scrap plans to contribute troops to the 3,000-plus strong UN Brigade.
Some
EALA lawmakers who spoke to The New Times on the sidelines of the
just-concluded two-week EALA session in Kigali, expressed fear that the
brigade would most likely wreck havoc than bring peace, and that, in the
first place, it is not intended to bring peace.
MP Fred Mukasa
Mbidde (Uganda), a member of EALA’s Committee on Regional Affairs and
Conflict Resolution, fears that only M23, which he says are “not
criminals” compared to the FDLR–remnants of the masterminds of the 1994
Genocide against the Tutsi–will be singled out.
Mbidde’s other
worry is that Tanzania, an EAC partner state, is moving away from a
unanimous accord to support the ongoing dialogue between the M23 and
Kinshasa, as the only viable way for sustainable peace.
Mbidde
says there is a misconception on matters to do with eastern DR Congo.
This is partly because the protagonists–the UN, “the pen holders France”
and others, are outside actors.
“The misconception is either
intended or unintended, but there is a lack of awareness by the actors
in terms of what is happening on the ground in eastern DRC and it has
resulted in many wrong decisions,” Mbidde said, adding, “If they are
aware, then it is a concerted effort to annihilate the people of eastern
DR Congo, which is not acceptable.
“We have a humanitarian
question that must be addressed,” the lawmaker adds, pointing to the
FDLR, who he says “continued with a genocide campaign against the Tutsi
communities in DR Congo.
“There is currently no difference
between the FDLR and the army of DR Congo. Their operations are
intended, one, to annihilate the Tutsi there who are indigenous DRC
citizens. Secondly, FDLR still has a plan to return to Rwanda and
complete their genocidal agenda.”
Giving FDLR a highway to Rwanda In
effect, what the UN Brigade will become, Mbidde warns, is “a raw
material” for the FDLR which wishes “to orchestrate genocide” because
the group’s aspirations had started to diminish but they lately got a
new lifeline.
“Congo does not have a substantive army. The
brigade will either be reinforcing FDLR or creating a safe haven for
FDLR, and in fact, thereby establishing a highway for the FDLR to
Rwanda,” he argued.
A December 2012 resolution of EALA on the
security situation in eastern DR Congo and EAC neighbours, proposed by
Mbidde and MP Christophe Bazivamo (Rwanda), welcomed initiatives and
resolutions of the Heads of State and Governments of the International
Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) on the security situation
in eastern DRC, at their three summits in Kampala.
The
resolution also reiterated the importance of regional dialogues to find
lasting solutions to the crisis and urged EAC partner states, the DRC
and the international community to deepen their analysis of the root
causes of the volatile situation in DR Congo for sustainable solutions
to peace and security in the EAC region.
Tanzanian MP Charles Makongoro Nyerere shares Mbidde’s sentiments on the latest developments.
Nyerere
said when the Dodoma government mooted the idea, Parliament thought it
was about peacekeeping, not offensive operations.
“If this
happens that way, these UN Force will be seen by the people as an
occupation Force–and these guys [M23] are going to have a sympathy with
the people who have been affected by criminals and it is going to be a
disaster! It is going to be a disaster because these rebels will be
given food and assistance.”
Tanzania is obliged to follow that
EALA resolution and I continue to urge the Government of the Republic of
Tanzania to revisit its decision, Mbidde said.
“Secondly, all
those that are in favour of the brigade should rethink and consider
putting such a decision in abeyance because it is not intended to bring
peace. It’s chaotic; it’s a recipe for war.
“Three, there is a
volatile humanitarian situation between DRC, Rwanda and Uganda in terms
of refugees. We are still administering staggering economies that would
want all human beings to be termed as labour and not consumers in
refugee camps.”
In certain terms, international actors should be
told to give a chance for homegrown solutions to problems facing
Africans. The M23 are “not a group of drama actors” and, they are
definitely going to defend themselves and that will cause unwarranted
deaths, the legislator said.
He also said the civil society in DR Congo want the peace talks to continue.
M23 not similar to FDLR Mbidde
argues that there is a deliberate ploy to create a similar description
of M23 and other militia such as the FDLR. He contends that M23 should
be looked at differently.
“M23 are persons who have originally
had agreements with Kinshasa. No government signs agreements with
criminals. These are partners. Those agreements have been breached. The
M23 are substantially a different force that can’t be the equated to
FDLR. In fact, you cannot have a uniform solution to this. M23 are part
of the DRC. FDLR are part of the criminals that left Rwanda after
perpetrating a genocide.”
Mbidde stressed that the problem is
that issues of eastern DRC and Genocide have not been given “the due
public relations requirement” that they deserve but handed over to
external actors, and “spin doctors” who instead, malign the ideology of
Genocide.
“The same thing applies to M23. Their voices are not
heard. In fact, we’ll propose a substantial international conference for
them to be heard. These are not bandits,” he said.
Mbidde said
the M23 are aggrieved intellectuals that includes a legislator, Roger
Lumbala, a former representative of the Rally of Congolese Democrats and
Nationalists in the DR Congo parliament, who quit to join the M23 and
is now one of their lead negotiators in the Kampala talks.
Tanzanian lawmaker: Crazy strategy, no God’s blessing MP
Charles Makongoro Nyerere (Tanzania) said he knew of his countrymen’s
imminent deployment, but was not aware that they would engage in what he
now calls a “wrong strategy” for peace, or better still, a move that
“will never be blessed by God.”
“Let me be frank and honest
here; I didn’t know that they are going to fight rebels. If this is it, I
think the strategy is wrong,” Nyerere, a former army officer, said,
appearing bewildered by the notion that his compatriots would be
deployed to fight M23 and protect Congolese government soldiers, who he
is convinced are raping people.
“It is a wrong move! This move
will never be blessed by God. If the [DRC] soldiers admit to the
atrocities they committed, why is the UN not taking them to an
international tribunal rather than bring in a brigade to fight the wrong
people? This is crazy!”
The MP said the Kinshasa-M23 Kampala
talks was the right approach. He also believes Western corporations are
fueling the myriad of conflicts in DR Congo and that the vast
resource-rich country’s problems have nothing to do with Rwanda as UN
alleged.
“Big western companies fuel the conflict as they
maintain ties with the militia in the region. The problems of Congo have
been there for more than 80 years and, one could say that the biggest
founder of these problems are the Belgians. But the Belgians are no
longer there. It is big European and American companies that are there.”
EALA Speaker: We should address root causes insteadEALA
Speaker Margaret Zziwa said because DR Congo is outside EAC, it
becomes a bit difficult for the regional parliament to get directly
involved beyond the EAC borders.
But one of the things the bloc’s legislative organ has done is supporting the ICGLR peace process, she said.
“We
have actually extended our solid support to the measures they have
taken to make sure that conflicts in DRC subside,” Zziwa said. “It is
one thing to suppress the conflict but if you don’t deal with causes,
then you are not sure that they will not recur or manifest, either in
another area or another form.”
The Speaker, like other EALA members, is firm on the House’s support of a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
MP
Nancy Lung’ahi (Kenya) said there is need to look at the root causes of
what makes people rise up against their governments.
“Those
people who are being referred to as rebels, aren’t they also human
beings? Don’t they also have rights? Have they been heard?” Lung’ahi
asked, pointing to how the Kenyan government has managed the Mombasa
Republican Council (MRC), a separatist organisation at the coastal town
of Mombasa.
“They [MRC] wanted to secede and said Kenya is a
republic without the coastal region. But I think they were just reacting
because they wanted to be heard. They had concerns. But was it enough
for government to send people to go and beat them up? The government
sent delegations of people to go and talk to them, find out their
concerns and find out how these problems can be addressed. I think that
is where we need to go. We need to find peaceful solutions and not
create opportunity for war.
“We don’t want it to turn out like
Somalia. I think war, and fighting, is never a solution. And it will
never be a solution. If you are sending peace missions, it is different
from going to reinforce the war.”
She said it would be more
feasible for the region to take a stand and see how they can bring the
warring factions together and resolve the conflict amicably.
Lung’ahi said military confrontation will only worsen the humanitarian situation in eastern DR Congo.
DR Congo debacle fuelled by Western interests The
new intervention brigade of about 3,069 troops with troops from
Tanzania, Malawi and South Africa likely to form its bulk, is expected
to be deployed by June or July. Under command of a Tanzanian general, it
will operate within the existing 20,000 strong Monusco operation,
which, despite being one of the UN's largest and most costly
peacekeeping forces, has for long failed to address the conflict.
The
brigade raises suspicions of hidden social, political and economic
agendas.Energy-strapped South Africa is intent on accessing around 2,600
megawatts of power from the Inga Dam hydro-electric projects, among
others, according to reports.
From the plunder of its rubber
and ivory by Belgium’s King Leopold II to the West’s Cold War
relationship with Mobutu Sese Seko, the history of DRC is largely a tale
of abuse by Western powers.
For example, in October 2002, UN
experts accused more than 80 OECD-based companies of violating the
guidelines for their direct or indirect roles in the illegal
exploitation of natural resources in DRC. It was claimed that elite
networks of political and military elites and businesspersons fuelled
the conflict in order to retain their control over the country’s vast
natural resources.
Belgian sociologist Ludo de Witte, in his
book, The Assassination of Lumumba, provided evidence that Western
interests in the Cold War and Belgian resentment condemned the DRC’s
first premier, Patrice Lumumba, to death.
On September 19, 1961, a
plane flying UN chief Dag Hammarskjöld to Ndola, Zambia, for peace
talks with the Katanga leaders was shot down, raising suspicion that he
was assassinated to curtail his decolonisation efforts as well as
maintain Western interest in African riches.
12:21
rwandaexpress
