[Debate] Crisis In Eastern DRC: "instability in this region is in Rwanda's economic interests"

Tue Jun 12 16:33:28 BST 2012

But you're not George Monbiot, and no one has asked for your opinion
about Rwanda in DRC.

On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 11:25 AM, Mandi Smallhorne
<mandiwrite at icon.co.za> wrote:
> Just post and wait for that comment then, Y; no need, absolutely no need, to
> preface your posting with an irritating dig at Monbiot.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org [mailto:debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org]
> On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
> Sent: 12 June 2012 05:20 PM
> To: Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote information and analyses
> of interest to the independent left in South and Southern Africa
> Subject: Re: [Debate] Crisis In Eastern DRC: "instability in this region is
> in Rwanda's economic interests"
>
> If you have no comment on Rwanda's role in eastern Congo, why respond?
>
> On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 11:09 AM, Mandi Smallhorne <mandiwrite at icon.co.za>
> wrote:
>> Enough! Is each person who dares to make comments in a public forum
>> required to comment on every single angle forever more? Shall debaters
>> start doing this with what you comment on, hmm?
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org
>> [mailto:debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org]
>> On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
>> Sent: 12 June 2012 04:50 PM
>> To: Debate
>> Subject: [Debate] Crisis In Eastern DRC: "instability in this region
>> is in Rwanda’s economic interests"
>>
>> Nothing about this @ <http://www.monbiot.com/>.
>>
>> <http://bit.ly/MzdSHO>
>> Crisis In Eastern DRC: Ethnic Massacres Take Back Seat To Speculation
>> On Rwandan Role – By Jessica Hatcher June 7, 2012
>>
>> The 2012 crisis in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
>> became headline news in April as Bosco Ntaganda, an International
>> Criminal Court indictee, staged a mutiny from the Congolese national
>> army (FARDC). Between March and April, Bosco went from being one of
>> the most powerful generals in eastern Congo to a man on the run.
>> On 4 June, Human Rights Watch reported that the Rwandan military has
>> given support to Bosco’s mutiny in the form of ammunition, arms and
> recruits.
>> While the repercussions of Rwanda’s support have become a focal point
>> for analysis of the latest conflict, little-understood armed groups
>> are carrying out massacres along ethnic lines under the radar of the
> international media.
>> As Bosco’s mutineers fought the FARDC, more than
>> 200 civilians were killed in attacks near the rebel’s former
>> stronghold in Masisi territory, according to preliminary
>> investigations by the UN’s mission in Congo Devastating human
>> displacement has become a norm in the violent, volcanic landscape of
>> the mineral-rich east. The effects of the
>> 1994 Rwandan genocide erupted into Congo when the Hutu population fled
>> Rwanda, triggering a series of ethno-political power struggles, which
>> find no resolution today. The number of deaths as a result of war
>> since 1998 is an estimated 6 million.
>> Three years of relative calm followed the 2008 rebellion in Congo,
>> which ended with what is known locally as, The Putsch. Bosco, then
>> second-in-command of the rebel group CNDP, double-crossed his boss,
>> Laurent Nkunda, to negotiate a peace-deal with the FARDC, leaving
>> Bosco in command of North Kivu and Nkunda in hiding.
>> President Kabila refused to arrest Bosco in 2006, claiming he was a
>> lynchpin of the peace (despite inviting the ICC to investigate war crimes
> in 2004).
>> But at the start of April this year, Bosco mutinied following
>> international pressure to secure his arrest.
>> In mid-April, Bosco and some 600 former-CNDP mutineers who had
>> followed him went on a furious recruitment drive. Amongst the
>> recruits, Human Rights Watch has evidence of 149 boys aged 12 to 20
> inducted into the group.
>> A few weeks later, what seems to be a-mutiny-within-a-mutiny took
>> place. In early May, Colonel Makenga, an ethnic Tutsi who fought
>> alongside Bosco, his predecessor Nkunda, and Paul Kagame in the
>> Rwandan Defence Force, was announced as the leader of M23 – a rebel
>> group named after the March 23rd peace accords agreed by Ntaganda to
> integrate CNDP fighters into the FARDC.
>> On Tuesday 1st May, one month after leaving the FARDC, Bosco gave a
>> telephone interview. “I am not involved in the clashes pitting the
>> FARDC against the soldiers who defected”, he said. More recently, in a
>> telephone interview with the BBC he said,  ”What soldiers? I have no
>> soldiers, I’m in my farm in Masisi.”
>> Bosco’s wife is said to be in Ituri district, while his farm in
>> Masisi, currently under FARDC control, was raided in May, revealing a
>> 25 tonne weapons cache. Rumours as to Bosco’s whereabouts have him
>> under house-arrest in Rwanda, hiding in the Virunga national park, and
>> in Ituri, where he committed his alleged war crimes. Human Rights
>> Watch interviewed witnesses last month who said he is working with the
>> rebels at their Runyoni base.
>> Aside from the question of Bosco’s whereabouts, debate in Congo has
>> largely been speculation on whether Rwanda is arming the M23 rebels.
>> “What would Rwanda gain in creating instability around its own borders?”
>> asked Rwanda’s Foreign Minister, Louise Mushikiwabo, in an interview
>> with the BBC.
>> Experts, such as journalist Michael Deibert, have spoken of the
>> Rwandanisation of eastern Congo and say instability in this region is
>> in Rwanda’s economic interests. Control of the lucrative cross-border
>> trade in minerals (a crucial source of income for armed rebel groups)
>> relies on disorder and a lack of centralised state control.
>> The M23 rebellion was the first pillar in the region’s structural
> collapse.
>> ”The situation is the worst it’s been for several years.
>> Progress made is being lost as previously stable areas are becoming
>> increasingly insecure”, said Samuel Dixon, Policy Advisor for Oxfam,
>> in Goma.
>> When FARDC battalions left their positions, either to join the rebels
>> or to fight them, many local power vacuums were created. In Pinga, the
>> rebel group APCLS simply moved in, no ousting needed, and set about
>> establishing civic structures. Bloody or not, these takeovers have
>> longer-term repercussions, as the FARDC will, at some point, attempt
>> to regain control, affecting yet more civilians.
>> West of Goma around Ufumandu, Raia Mutomboki, a Maï-Maï rebel group
>> from South Kivu, has formed alliances with another group, Maï-Maï
>> Kifuafua, and extended its reach into North Kivu. The Chef de Secteur
>> in the village of Katoyi has a list of 111 people killed since 17 May
>> in his area, attacks he attributes primarily to the Raia Mutomboki and Mai
> Mai Kifuafua alliance.
>> The Raia Mutomboki militia was initially formed  to defend communities
>> in South Kivu against attacks from the FDLR, the pro-Hutu militia
>> formed from the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide.  They have since
>> moved from targeting the families of Hutu FDLR fighters to directing
>> attacks against Rwandaphone communities in the East, irrespective of
>> nationality . A 26-year old man said the rebels shouted, “we will kill
>> everyone who speaks Kinyarwanda” as they attacked residents of his
>> village, Marembo, using machetes, spears and machine guns. The upsurge
>> of Raia Mukomboti attacks in North Kivu has given rise to the question,
> “who is arming them?”
>> The FDLR has responded to these attacks by killing Maï-Maï family members.
>> Last month the national UN-created Radio Okapi reported the FDLR
>> burning four children alive and witnesses report attacks on more than
>> 21 villages in the area in the month of May.
>> Some say burning alive is a recent phenomenon, but much of this is
>> nothing new – a Human Rights Watch report describes the situation in
>> Ufumandu 3 years ago: “When some tried to flee, the FDLR attacked
>> them, killing dozens with guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and
>> machetes. “As I ran, I saw bodies everywhere – men, women and children”,
> said one witness”.
>> “It is unacceptable that violence in Congo goes unstopped and
>> under-reported. While world leaders rightly condemn Syrian massacres
>> the human tragedies happening in Congo are hidden at best, ignored at
>> worst”, said Dixon.
>> Newspapers find it easier to report the threat to the gorilla
>> population in Virunga national park than they do the human cost of the
>> conflict. The timely reporting of events such as these can require
>> helicopters (often there are no roads), considerable risk (the Raia
>> Mutomboki have shown little sign of wanting to engage with any
>> foreigners), and a lot of time verifying what can be misleading witness
> statements.
>> In eastern Congo, atrocities are everywhere. A nine-year old girl who
>> lies in a windowless room at a remote hospital in Rutshuru territory
>> recounts how she was raped in a field of corn while trying to flee the
>> fighting. An elderly and infirm couple sit together on wooden stools
>> as FARDC and M23 rebels exchange heavy machine gun fire in the hills
>> above them; they are too weak to leave their home on what has become the
> front line.
>> Press releases and official reports can detail numbers of dead and the
>> mode of killing, but unless those numbers are given context, there is
>> a risk the world will become further desensitised to them. Those
>> fighting ‘Congo fatigue’ do so only to promote the urgent need for
> civilian protection.
>> Until a serious political commitment to a long-term solution is made
>> encompassing real progress on military reform, that need will continue
>> and the worst will go underreported.
>> Jessica Hatcher is a freelance journalist based in Nairobi.
>> --
>> Yoshie Furuhashi
>> <http://mrzine.org/>
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>
>
> --
> Yoshie Furuhashi
> <http://mrzine.org/>
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-- 
Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://mrzine.org/>