The Gordian knot around Goma is getting bigger and bigger……
The city of Goma is now de facto surrounded by the M23 rebels. Last week Makenga’s men cut off the main road between Goma and Bukavu and the city can only be reached from the outside by air and by boat. Hundreds if not thousands of villagers from villages such as Shasha are fleeing to Minova where Burundian troops, FDLR (Hutu-extremists) and the FARDC are preparing a counter offensive from the south. As we speak the Congolese army is sending reinforcements and heavy guns to Minova over the lake. But military observers are already putting question marks behind this operation. “The rebels control the hills above Minova, “tells us a military observer. They control the high ground, and they will see them coming. There are visible signs that the Burundian forces as well as the FARDC are poorly motivated given the fact that they had to endure heavy losses recently. They are also poorly trained, and their officers are not respected by the troops. Many Burundians deserted already, and we think that many others will do that very soon. We think that the main aim of the rebels is to control the coltan mine of Rubaya, and FDLR stronghold and money maker. The overall control of this mine was recently handed over to the Burundian army and the minerals were all brought to Burundi. By cutting off the main road between Goma and Bukavu this was already made very difficult, and we believe that the Burundian president Evariste Ndayishimyie (‘General Neva’) will completely loose this little present from President Thsisekedi in a couple of days. On the northern front the M23 is putting an ‘envelope’ around the former FDLR stronghold of Kishishe, ‘Domaine’ and they are pushing to gain control over the road from Rwindi to Nyanzale and from there on to Kitshanga.”
This region was also a big money maker for the FDLR in the past as their vegetables and other crop were feeding the city of Goma. They also lost the benefits of the roadblocks and the makala production (charcoal). Last week the M23 also launched a mob up operation to clear this zone from FDLR and Nyatura. They clashed with them around Tongo. If the M23 controls the road between Kitchanga and Nyanzale (and from there on to Rwindi) it will become impossible for the FARDC to move their heavy artillery to the north and it will become very easy for the M23 to neutralize their remaining forces.
Blocking Goma
So, Goma has literally already been taken by the troth by the M23. They are allowing commercial goods to pass and food, but the FARDC is blocking this. Goods and vegetables are being dropped off at the toad blocks between the two zones where the merchants are being forced to charge them on tuk tuks (small transport vehicles with 3 wheels) and motorbikes. Most of these bikes belong to the FDLR and to a couple of Congolese generals and they are making a lot of money with this. The border with Rwanda is also open for trade but all the roads are blocked for military use. “Before we block Goma completely from the outside world, we first want to see what the new coalition between SADEC and the FARDC is up to,” tells us a high ranking M23 officer. “If they engage in offensive operations, they will have to endure losses. In that case we won’t allow the airport of Goma to be used for bringing in more troops and logistics.”
With the help of mercenaries, the FARDC succeeded in harassing the M23 with drones. They even lost a couple of very valuable leaders and officers during very precise drone strikes and they mover most of their troops now at night. “We are dealing with these drones now,” tells us Bertrand Bisimwa. “But in the meanwhile, they remain a threat.” The FARDC had 3 operational drones in the area who were operating out of the Kavumu airport near Bukavu. One of these drones was already shot down, the other one was damaged in a collision with a fuel truck. Word is out that the M23 has Grinch missiles and that they are now able to shoot them down, but this rumor could not be confirmed.
SADEC
“SADEC has already a couple of hundreds of soldiers on the ground in Goma and we believe that Tanzanian artillery and rocket launchers were already used in combat operations, “tells us another military advisor. “But the whole operation is already blowing a lot less steam than a couple of weeks ago. The EAC-RF, the military force of the East-African community that was there before them, did not play an offensive role. The Congolese government is now claiming that the SADEC forces will fight alongside them, but we already see signs that this might not be the case: they know very well that the M23 will not spare their men on the battlefield, logistically this operation can turn into a real nightmare for them if the airport of Goma will be cut off. We don’t think that the South-African president would like to see his men return from Congo in body bags.”
“We will engage them very hard if they decide to really fight, “tells us a top ranking M23 officer. “Nobody can blame us for defending our cause.” Things might become clearer soon, but chances are high that Kinshasa is once again putting the chart in front of the oxen by claiming that the SADC will move in to do their dirty work and that the latter will end up in the same situation as MONUSCO and the East-African Forces before them. The only thing that is different now is that Tshisekedi is running out of jokers to turn this mess into his advantage. If SADEC would decide to play Tshisekedi’s cards anyway this would only put more oil on the fire and steer the region even more towards a possible regional conflict. We also witnessed the very poor performance of the South-African army in the past in Mozambique where the RDF (Rwandan army) was called in a couple of times to save their lives.
“The SADF have become a weak shadow of what they once were,” told us a retired SADF officer. “They lost the punch they had ten years ago, and I would be surprised to see them spearheading an offensive against those rebels in the DRC. ““The situation in the Kivu’s is indeed very explosive and complex,” adds a top-ranking Rwandan official. “But the presence of SADEC and its possible involvement in offensive operations against the M23 is not the main problem. We are convinced that the South-African president and the Angolans understand what and who they are dealing with and that they will not step into Tshisekedi’s dream world. A much bigger problem is the shaky role the Burundian army is playing in this game.”
Kikwete
Not everybody shares the views of this Rwandan official or this SADF officer. “Kikwete still has a lot of influence in Tanzania, “counters another military analyst. “His disgust for the Kagame regime has already become obvious in the past and he’s involved with the extremist Hutu lobby in Burundi. The fact that General Neva recently openly opted for the Kinshasa side in this conflict can also mean that he is trying to score points with Kikwete, who is a close collaborator of Alain Bunyoni, the general he put in jail. As we speak Tanzanian artillery is already shelling M23 positions. There are also rumors that both Kikwete and the South-African president Cyril Ramaphosa cashed in heavily in Kinshasa. Ramaphosa is already under investigation for corruption. And most of the foreign observers are sure that Tshisekedi is currently financing most of the SADEC expenses for this operation. This might force them into a more offensive role in this war. The SADEC forces and the countries behind them already have a history of collaborating with Hutu extremists, Kikwete is the living prove of that. Next year there will be elections in Tanzania and the clique around him might win them again. The whole SADEC operation in the DRC is set-up on geopolitical quicksand."
If the South-Africans move into the frontline and if the Tanzanian army continues to bombard M23 positions they will have to face the M23 openly on the battlefield and body bags will start to arrive in South-Africa and in Tanzania very soon. And this will only be the case if the M23 did not already put out of action the airport of Goma to block the arrival of fresh troops and logistics from the outside. The M23 maintains positions around Goma and can hit the airport very easily. Collaborating openly with a terrorist organization such as the FDLR does not fit very well the PR machine of the South-Africans. To control these radical groups not to kill innocent villagers and to infiltrate Rwanda might be one thing. But if this happens Ramaphosa & co would lose face completely. The Americans already frowned their eyebrows when South-Africa accused Israel openly of genocide against the Philistines and their solo attitude towards Russia is a pain in the but for Washington. Their attitude and actions in the DRC might also cost the South-Africans dearly in Mozambique. Next time they are attacked by the jihadi’s the Rwandans might leave them where they are. “
At this stage it is not clear yet how the SADEC operation will evolve. But all the possible scenarios look very grim.
The FDLR, the wazalendo and the FARDC
For the FDLR this war has become, even more than before, a kind of a last stand. The number of Hutu refugees in Congo has gone down considerably given the fact that most of those refugees returned to Rwanda voluntarily and that the remaining Rwandan Hutu extremists groups are losing their influence over others. Some of the FDLR even started to send back their own families recently because they were afraid that they would die in the upcoming war. And for the Tutsi community this war also presents itself as an occasion to break the last remaining foundations of the FDLR and Hutu extremist lobby, a structure that has his tentacles even in Europa via several proxy organizations and political parties such as the FDU-Inkingi and other groups that were created under the umbrella of the MRND-RDR (‘Retour des Refgugies’).
The FDLR understands well that if the M23 manages to consolidate its position in the Kivu’s, convince the Congolese Hutus to collaborate with them to develop the local economy their existence will be threatened. They will also lose their capacity to generate funds from mining, agricultural projects, and roadblocks. Part of these funds were used for their war efforts, other parts were sent to Europe to be laundered into local businesses such as taxi companies, etc. It is therefore also not surprising that a woman such as Victoire Ingabire, one of the best-known representatives of this lobby, recently expressed herself in favor of the wazalendo and described them as freedom fighters. Victoire Ingabire lives now in Rwanda after she returned from Holland to start up an opposition party, but she was sentenced to a jail term for genocide denial. She was graced by President Kagame a couple of years ago and she has been living in Kigali ever since, without being able to participate in local politics. The name ‘wazalendo’ was created by the Congolese government to camouflage their collaboration with the FDLR since that group is carrying the official label of a terrorist organization.
The FDLR received a lot of weapons and funds from the Congolese government and was able to recruit new grunts in the DRC and even in Rwanda. They linked up with Congolese Hutu rebels, the so called ‘nyatura’ to gain strength and in Burundi they met old buddies such as General Neva and Alain Bunyoni to forge new collaboration deals. When the war between the M23 and the FARDC started again Hutu lobby groups such as the people of Jambo SPRL in Brussels played a very important role in stirring up the conflict on social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook. Their claims and writings were soon taken over by many Congolese who started spitting out hatred messages on the social media. The ‘diabolisation’ of Rwanda as the main instigator for all the misery in the DRC was their main focal point. This hatred campaign resulted in new killing of Tutsis in the DRC.
“For us the neutralization of the FDLR is a very important thing,” tells us a high ranking M23 member. “They killed hundreds of our brothers and sisters and as long as they remain active there will be no peace in this region. The FDLR is fighting this war with its back against the wall and is desperate to create a bigger conflict that would force the superpowers to step in and to create a pause in this war so that the M23 will have to retreat, and they can pick up their old businesses again. And that makes them extra dangerous. If the FDLR will lose control over this region the whole Hutu lobby structure will collapse. We’ll continue to stand for our rights and our demands and if SADEC decides to stop we’ll fight them.”
“The wazalendo themselves and all the Nyatura and Mayi Mayi groups that found shelter under this umbrella have outplayed their role as a main fighting force,” the M23 officer continues. “But they remain a treat because the FARDC armed them. They lost their punch after most of the local Hutu politicians were not elected during the past elections. Most of the elected people were of Nande origin and the Nande and the Hutu have disputed the leadership in the province of Nord-Kivu for decades. Helping Tshisekedi to convince the local Hutu youth to become wazalendo did not benefit them. When the wazalendo attack we often deal with smaller groups that were gathered by local village chiefs of small warlords to go out looting. We can push them back very easily but dealing with criminals like that every day is a nuisance and keeps our troops busy and distracts us from focusing on the real enemy: the FDLR, the FARDC and the mercenaries. Tshisekedi pumped thousands of weapons into the local society. These wazalendo will become criminals and they will remain a nuisance for many years.”
Terrorist attacks
We published an article about Burundi’s involvement in the Congolese conflict a couple of days ago, the shaky actions of General Neva & co might ignite a bigger, regional conflict. The FDLR has been chased out of its natural habitat in the Kivu’s. But they never had more weapons. The FDLR can count on the support of the FARDC, and we are also receiving reports that they called on their elements in South-Kivu to go to Burundi where they are entering the Kibira forest. It is not the first time that this happened: Paul Rusesebagina also tried to do this, but the FDLR force who was backing him up was cut down in the Nyungwe forest and in Nyamasheke by the RDF. The FDLR does not have the strength to really bother the RDF inside Rwanda but a couple of well orientated attacks in the north of the country and in Nyungwe could trigger of an RDF intervention in Burundi as well as in Congo and bring the Rwandan army in direct conflict with the FARDC, SADEC and the Burundian army. The chaos and the violence this could cause would enable the FDLR, as well as the Burundians, to cry out loudly a couple of ‘mea culpa’s’ and provide Tshisekedi (this time) with a valid reason to accuse Rwanda of aggression. The propaganda mill in Kinshasa already convinced most of the Congolese that Rwanda is the big devil in this conflict and the cause of all the other misery in their country. The Hutu lobby in Europe is providing them the words, the arguments, and the nuances to do this and the European press is following this narrative. Substantial evidence that it was the Rwandan army that caused most of the damage in the previous Congo wars is weak and most of the UN reports that were brought out mainly served to cover up the failures of their own actions. If the FDLR succeeds to lure the RDF into Burundi or into the Kivu’s this strategy might become a kind of a self-fulfilling prophesy and push the conflict into another closet for years to explode again later. The thin red line of reason, knowledge of history and facts seems already to be passed big time.
The Gordian knot around Goma is getting tighter and bigger than before. Alexander the Great used his sword to smash it to pieces in Babylon. If this will be the case in the Kivu’s the future looks grim. Rumors, hatred messages and lies are dominating the social media when it comes to Congo. Kinshasa is pumping thousands of dollars into propaganda efforts. And the population is following this narrative like blind sheep.
Adeline Umutoni and Marc Hoogsteyns – Kivu Press Agency.