Will Congo's Rebels Finally Come in From the Cold?
Foreign Policy - 2 hours ago
GOMA, Democratic Republic of the Congo -- Fourteen-year-old Habimana
was asleep in his bed when armed militiamen burst through the door of
his home and demanded that he carry their luggage to a nearby market.
When he arrived at the market, with two other children from his
village in the Masisi territory of eastern Congo, they were told they
would never see their families again.
That was six months ago, and the armed men were from the Democratic
Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu rebel group that
relies heavily on abducted child soldiers and counts among its members
men who participated in the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda.
Now, after 20 years of preying on the civilian population of eastern
Congo, the biggest faction of the FDLR says it wants to come in from
the bush. In April, it declared its intention to lay down its weapons
and engage in political dialogue, and on July 3, a group of foreign
ministers from southern and east African countries said they would
suspend military operations against the FDLR for six months in order
to give the rebel group a chance to make good on its pledge.
Whether the FDLR is serious about disarming or just playing for time
is, of course, impossible to say. But there can be little doubt that
the group is feeling the heat. Ever since the United Nations' special
intervention brigade, fighting alongside Congolese troops, trounced
the M23 rebels last year, both parties have come under tremendous
pressure to take on the FDLR. Meanwhile, a diplomatic full-court press
on Congolese President Joseph Kabila means that the rebels can no
longer look to Kinshasa for support.
"Kabila is under intense diplomatic pressure to get this settled and
he no longer needs rebel support to fight the M23 or its predecessor
movements," said Laura Seay, a professor of government at Colby
College and an expert on the Great Lakes region, in an email. "So [the
FDLR is] in a predicament."
Already, some 200 FDLR fighters out of an estimated 1,500 have turned
themselves in. But the United Nations is only cautiously optimistic
that the remaining rebels will disarm voluntarily. "These guys are
criminals, bandits, and they have been deceiving us for years. Why
should we trust them?" said Ray Torres, the head of office for the
U.N. mission in North Kivu, the province where the most recent FDLR
disarmament took place. "Still, it would be irresponsible not to give
this a chance.... What is at stake here is a 20-year-old war, and we
have an opportunity to end it in a few months without having to kill
anybody."
For the last two decades, eastern Congo has been the site of seemingly
unending tragedy. After the Rwandan genocide, the perpetrators, along
with roughly 1 million refugees, fled across the border to what was
then Zaire, touching off a regional war that toppled the government in
Kinshasa and, at its height, involved dozens of rebel groups and nine
different countries. The human cost was astonishing: More than 5
million people have died in eastern Congo since 1996, mostly from
war-related disease and starvation.
Today, the country of 60 million is moving, haltingly, toward peace.
The world's
largest U.N. peacekeeping operation -- and the only one that is
authorized to take offensive military action -- has improved the
security situation in the east dramatically. Meanwhile, a U.N. and
U.S. diplomatic offensive has convinced the Rwandan government, which
in 1996 pursued the Hutu genocidaires across the border into Zaire and
has been exploiting the chaos ever since, to cut ties with rebel
groups that were causing the most damage.
The preliminary results are impressive. In Goma, which fell in
dramatic fashion to the M23 less than two years ago, U.N. peacekeepers
have little to do except break up bar fights that have spilled into
the street (they don't dare enter the establishments themselves) and
neutralize the occasional drunken Congolese soldier who is stumbling
around, armed to the teeth. So secure is the provincial capital, in
fact, that the United Nations deemed it safe for me to accompany its
North Kivu brigade for a night patrol without wearing a helmet or
bulletproof vest.
But large parts of Congo are still controlled by armed groups, roughly
50 of which operate in the eastern portion of the country alone. Among
the alphabet soup of rebel movements, the FDLR is one of the more
potent, but its real significance is political, not military. As the
successor group to a genocidal army and militia, the FDLR's
demobilization would eliminate Rwanda's favored pretext for meddling
in Congo.
But even as some elements of the flagging militia prepare to hand over
their weapons, others continue to terrorize civilians and even recruit
additional fighters. According to a report released July 3 by U.N.
experts, the FDLR "continues to recruit and train combatants,
including children."
Andre Moussa, a child protection specialist at UNICEF, confirmed that
the FDLR still ranks among the top 10 armed groups operating in Congo
in terms of recruitment of child soldiers. "The FDLR is still actively
recruiting children," he said. "The risk of recruitment and
re-recruitment is high, particularly for children in the Rutshuru
territory," which is located to the east of Masisi in eastern Congo.
Despite repeated pledges by the United Nations and the Congolese
government to take on the FDLR, no decisive military action has been
taken to date -- a fact that many experts believe reflects the cozy
relationship between officers in the Congolese military and the FDLR.
According to a U.N. report that was leaked earlier this year, FDLR
fighters regularly shack up under the same roof with Congolese troops
and purchase ammunition from the Congolese military for as little as 5
cents per bullet. Over the years, the two have also fought alongside
one another frequently against Rwanda and its proxies.
While the United Nations' special intervention brigade is authorized
to take offensive military action with or without the support of the
Congolese military, in practice Lt. Gen. Carlos dos Santos Cruz, the
force commander of the U.N. mission in Congo, has interpreted his
mandate very conservatively thus far.
"He sees the mission's task as being not just about ending the
violence, but also to build institutions and the Congolese people's
confidence in them," said Seay. "In that mindset, having the
[Congolese military] involved is really important."
The announcement of the six-month grace period by the group of African
foreign ministers seems to push the military option even further down
the road.
But exactly how long the FDLR has until it needs to worry about the
type of offensive military action that routed the M23, a much larger
rebel faction that captured the eastern city of Goma in 2012, is not
entirely clear.
"There is some negotiations about this timeline," Santos Cruz said in
an interview on July 3. "It's not been fully established."
But Santos Cruz was clear that the FDLR will eventually have to choose
between total disarmament and war. "The surrender is one option. But
if they stop [voluntarily disarming], the military option is the one
we will use."
Taking the fight to the FDLR will be tricky, though, because unlike
the M23, which was easily distinguishable from the civilian
population, FDLR fighters live among the communities they terrorize.
"It's completely different from the situation of M23," said Santos
Cruz. "The operations against them were very classic operations. The
FDLR is completely different. Some small groups are inside the
population, and then you need to treat it case by case because [you
don't want to] cause more suffering to the population."
That will be easier said than done. According to Seay, the only way to
pry the FDLR loose from the civilian population is to conduct
door-to-door searches. As a result, a military solution would be
"really messy" and almost certainly cause "a lot of civilian
casualties."
Even if the FDLR is serious about going out peacefully, the
demobilization process is fraught with potential pitfalls. For one
thing, the group itself is deeply fractured, and only one faction --
the Forces Combattantes Abacunguzi (FDLR-FOCA) -- has declared its
intention to disarm. Whether the remaining factions will follow
FDLR-FOCA's lead is anybody's guess. "A rebel group is not an
organized army," said Torres, the head of office for the U.N. mission
in North Kivu. "So disarmament is going to be a slow and consultative
process."
Then there is the possibility that other rebel groups could try to
prevent FDLR fighters from turning in their guns. The United Nations
is preparing for the possibility that Cheka, an armed group previously
allied with the FDLR, could attack the facilities where ex-FDLR
fighters are being processed. The result is a bizarre scenario in
which U.N. peacekeepers are being deployed to protect recently
demobilized members of one armed group from another.
Finally, there is the ever-present risk that combatants, once
demobilized, will tire of civilian life and eventually return to the
bush.
These are people who have spent 10 to 20 years feeling powerful
because they carry a gun, explained Santos Cruz. "Your power is the
weapon, and suddenly you are going to drop it."
Already, there have been reports that former members of the M23, most
of whom are in camps in neighboring Rwanda and Uganda, have begun to
recruit and rearm. Last year, the Congolese government set up a
so-called DDR -- disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration --
camp in Bweremana, a village in the Masisi territory of North Kivu,
but failed to provide adequate services for the ex-combatants and
their families.
"The place was a complete mess," said one NGO worker who visited the
camp before it was closed down. "Many of the more battle-hardened
fighters took one look at the place and marched right back into the
bush."
The disarmament and demobilization facilities administered by the
United Nations are by all accounts better run than those overseen by
the Congolese government. But the idea that men who once killed and
raped at will can be turned into productive members of society is at
best aspirational -- a fact that is confirmed by the U.N.'s own record
on DDR. According to the Small Arms Survey, which has conducted DDR
assessments in more than a dozen countries, "there is still little
evidence of its effectiveness."
Habimana, the 14-year-old who was abducted by the FDLR earlier this
year, is now taking part in his own DDR program after he and a friend
pulled off a daring escape a few weeks ago. The two were given weapons
and ordered to loot a farm in Masisi territory. Instead, they made a
break for it and ended up seeking refuge on a U.N. base.
Today, Habimana is being housed in a transit and orientation facility
for former child soldiers, where he is at least on track to be
reunited with his family. Still, he told me that he does not want to
return to his home village for fear of being recognized and
recaptured. "The FDLR is still a big problem for us," he said. "It is
not yet safe to go home."
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