The Goma debacle: when madness becomes the rule…...
As we already reported last week the city of Goma is now ‘de facto’ surrounded by the M23. The rebels pushed back the FARDC towards Sake and Munigi-Kibati. The road towards Bukavu and Minova is left open. General Makenga could easily walk into Goma with his men but that is not part of his strategy and his planning. For the FARDC - and with them also the population of Goma- the situation is becoming desperate: the chaos is getting bigger and bigger, different FARDC units and proxy groups start fighting over salaries and loot and FARDC shells destroyed a couple of electricity poles and put out the electricity in the city. Yesterday a Tutsi FARDC officer was burned alive by the mob: he was handed over by his Congolese colleagues, burned alive and eaten. Incidents like this show clearly how low the present human morale has disappeared and how badly and dangerous Kinshasa’s anti-Tutsi campaigns have become.
Tshisekedi
Tshisekedi is running out of options: convincing the SADC to deploy troops around Goma was his last Joker but the South-Africans will not send their troops before the elections. And therefore, it is becoming clear that the Congolese president will not be able to stick to his promise to win the war in the east of the country. His attitude and policy to refuse a dialogue with the rebels and the fact that it was his army that openly breached the peace deals that were put forward in Nairobi and in Lusaka were visible to everybody. Relying openly on hardline groups such as the Rwandan FDLR and foreign mercenaries is another thing that is damaging his reputation. The current situation is as crazy as it can get. And every time we think that it has reached its critical point Tshisekedi pulls another rabbit out of his hat.
His political and military madness has grown out of proportion, and he is now also starting to lose the confidence of the outside world. The last rabbit the guy was able to score was to convince MONUSCO to set up a couple of defensive bases around Goma to prevent the M23 of walking in. This also shows the poor state of mind of the UN who spend billions of dollars in this country, allow its staff to collect lush salaries and that became a target of the government itself for refusing to fight the M23 and the other militias in the region. Most of the foreign observers agree that if the Congolese government would be compared with a psychiatric patient the latter would be put away in isolation, forced to swallow the most powerful sedation pills that are available on the market and be dressed up in a special outfit to avoid him to damage himself. But this patient is still on the run, forcing thousands to get killed on the battlefield, instigating hatred and fear into the minds of his fellow countrymen, etc. And he has enough tools in his hands to start an open war with its neighboring countries. Most of the people who are currently following up on the situation are convinced he might be crazy and stupid enough to do this. As he might think that this could be a way to cry out his last maya culpa, mobilize more Congolese outside the Kivu’s to join the fight, force the international community to refrain Rwanda to invade and to stabilize the Kivu’s and to postpone the elections so that he will get more time to consolidate his position in Kinshasa.
Goma
He is now throwing Goma on the poker table in a game that he already lost, hoping that the M23 will swallow this bait and provide him with an argument to postpone these elections. But Sultani Makenga and Bertrand Bisimwa are much smarter than that. Other foreign and neutral Congolese observers are also becoming convinced that Tshisekedi even would be willing or capable to sacrifice the city of Goma to obtain his goals. “Common reason and diplomacy have never been corner stones of the post-Mobutu governments, “tells us a diplomat in Kinshasa. “The two Kabila’s knew when and where to stop if the mishaps of their corruption and bad decision making were becoming too visible and obvious. Tshisekedi lacks this ‘quality’, he is also surrounded by people who are influencing badly his decisions and who are telling him lies. His poor background also prevents him from judging the real consequences of his decisions. This man is becoming a liability for himself and the region.”
A military observer in Kinshasa adds to that that during the last year the Congolese leaders were promoting a narrative that they now start to believe themselves: ‘The strategy of Tshisekedi and Muyaya was very simple; to create a situation in which they could blame all the mishaps of their actions to a foreign bogyman: Paul Kagame. They managed to convince the Congolese audience and a big part of the outside world that the M23 were all Rwandans, that the M23 was a part of the Rwandan army, that Rwanda only wanted to balkanize Congo to extract its minerals. Most of us are convinced, of course, that the RDF is partially steering the M23 behind the curtains, but not to the extend the president is claiming. Historically it is proven that most of the Tutsi’s in North-Kivu and the Banyamulenge have already their roots in this region for centuries. We possess indications that the Rwandan authorities started backing up the M23 more and better when it became clear that Tshisekedi started to re-equip the FDLR. Kinshasa started to accuse Kigali of mingling into Congolese affairs way before they really got involved. By doing this, they indirectly forced the Rwandan army and the Rwandan government to prepare for a future conflict. By portraying Tutsi's and Rwandans as devils who want to occupy the country the government is instoring fear and paranoia into the population and is allowing itself to use violence against other opposition groups as well. This comes in very handy with the elections in sight."
The FDLR is now so well armed that they even put a big part of their weapons in well-hidden depots for future use. This is also the reason why a weaker M23, that would agree to be locked up again into camps and disarm itself, is not an option for Kigali. The Rwandans lost their trust in the international community to solve this situation in a peaceful way because they know that the Congolese government will probably not stick to that deal in the longer run. Even the leaders of the M23 are now becoming more and more convinced that they must take their destiny into their own hands; create a solid platform that will allow their refugees to return to their villages in the DRC and to maintain a solid security force on the spot to protect this process.”
Burundi
Just before summer we already published an article about the fragility and the risk to implant Burundian troops into the EACRF. Everybody knows that the current Burundian army is composed of ex-Hutu militiamen who returned from the DRC with their commanders such Pierre Nkurunziza, the Nyamitwe brothers and others. The ideology of those men has never changed. But they were able to convince the outside world of their good intentions and they were able to take power in the country. On the sideline they set up a new militia: the Imbonerakure, the Burundiant variant of the infamous Rwandan Interahamwe (out of whom the FDLR was born). There was also evidence of the fact that the same FDLR had a big influence on the command structure of the Burundian army as well as that one on the Imbonerakure. Finally, the Burundian army had also provided shelter and logistics to Paul Rusesebagina’s rebel outfit that infiltrated Rwanda via the Nyungwe forest and that was composed of another FDLR group lead by Wilson Irategeka and some renegade Tutsi deserters. Rusesebagina was arrested and his outfit was neutralized by the RDF but the support they received from the Burundian authorities was never forgotten in Kigali.
When president Évariste Ndayishimiye (‘Neva’) took over from the hardliner Pierre Nkurunziza he was asked by Kigali to behave better, and this seemed to work well for a little while. Neva set out on a charm offensive abroad to convince the outside world that he was different from his corrupt and radical predecessors, but it would not take him long to fall back into the old habits of his past and the people he surrounded himself with. He sent troops to the DRC to fight the Red Tabara movement in South-Kivu and in the meanwhile his Imbonerakure kept on terrorizing the population. Knowing well how well his army was connected to the FDLR the positioning of Burundian troops under the umbrella of the EAC, in Masisi seemed not a very wise move to us. And it wasn’t. 3 months ago, we interviewed FDLR POW’s in the M23 territory who confirmed the collaboration between Burundian troops, the FDLR and the FARDC in the war against the M23. It became clear that Bujumbura was breeching the mandate of the EACRF by providing shelter, uniforms, and logistics to the FARDC coalition.
In the same period news also reached us that Bujumbura was going to send Burundian soldiers to Congo as mercenaries to prep up the number of coalition forces. They were caught red handed in this act. Even other sources within the EACRF are confirming this. It is clear, however, that by allowing his generals to get involved with monkey business deals with the FARDC Ndayishimye lost his credibility completely. As the first Burundian soldiers return to their country in body bags Burundian recruits are deserting because they do not want to die in war for which their superiors get paid richly by Kinshasa while they only receive a very small percentage of that cash. The Burundian EAC outfit in Kitshanga decided to abandon their base and burn it before redrawing itself into and area that is currently under the control of FDLR-Omega forces. The Burundian case will probably become very interesting in the near future when to only way out for the FDLR might be to flee to their blood brothers.
Rwanda
Tshisekedi would probably be able to fall back on a lot of arguments and excuses when Rwanda would be provoked. He could point his finger at the FDLR that went ‘rogue’, an FARDC officer that got drunk or at one of his Sukhoi pilots whose finger started itching and who pushed the wrong button. He could even lop a couple of artillery shells on Goma himself and accuse the RDF of the M23 of this crime to justify an open war with Rwanda. “The international community has been way too tolerant for the Congolese leaders, so far”, tells us and official in Kigali. “But if this international community does not want to step in to stop this madness, we might have to do this ourselves. Sanctions or no sanctions! The Americans want us to discuss this with Tshisekedi but how can you talk to a madman that is putting his own interests before those of his country and who is willing to sacrifice the whole population of Goma to obtain that? They even asked us to withdraw our troops from the border and that is already a very stupid question. They know very well what is happening in this region. We showed them all the options. So, they won’t be able to blame us for the outcome when it comes to defending our own interests.”
M23
“The tide has changed,” tells us a high ranking M23 official. “Kinshasa is no longer able to impose its rules on us. We will not step back. We do not like to kill their untrained troops or their brainwashed militia members on the frontline, but they are leaving us no other choice. We even feel sorry for them when they run blindly into our crossfire. They are also Congolese like us. And we will not fall into the trap of occupying Goma, that would make things too easy for Thsisekedi. We cornered him like a rat, and this makes him even more unpredictable. We showed our last goodwill by complying with the policy of the EACRF to withdraw. But this did not work either. Most of us are Tutsi’s, but we also count a big number of other Congolese soldiers in our ranks. The people in the Kivu’s want peace and this is what we will offer them once things will cool down. Many of us have also lost our trust in the bigger international institutions. It will be up to them to prove us wrong in this assessment. What is already positive is the fact that some Congolese opposition leaders are now starting to question Tshisekedi’s policy in the east. Moise Katumbi, who is still scared to talk to us openly, declared yesterday that he would be able to stop the war in the Kivu’s in six months and he knows very well that he will not be able to do this with guns. And even Dennis Mukwege, not the best friend of the Tutsi community, stated that the best way to cohabit would be by working together and to restore trust. The president will do whatever he can to postpone the elections. But if they take place anyway, we hope that the population will think twice on that day. If he is stupid enough to provoke Rwanda he will be signing his political and military death warrant.”
Adeline Umutoni & Marc Hoogsteyns, Kivu Press Agency