DR Congo: " Forever kissing frogs that think they're princes "

All Africa reports

Africa: Sustained Engagement a 'Paradigm Shift' Boosting Peace Prospects for Great Lakes and Congo

                                                                        Russ Feingold visits the DRC

Washington, DC — I walked into the State Department just over a year ago to take on my new role of U.S. Special Envoy for the African Great Lakes Region and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Part of my eagerness in accepting the job came from the recognition that we were entering a period of unprecedented international commitment to and partnership with Africa, including the Great Lakes Region.

Lets remember that Feingold does seem to view the Great Lakes Region with rose coloured spectacles. 

" Russell Feingold, US special envoy to the Great Lakes Region of Africa, said the deal needed to raise the issue of amnesty and reintegration of rebels ( M23 ) into the army to ensure its durability."

Now you could argue that with regard to amnesty and M23's reintegration into the Congolese Army ( FARDC ) that America if not the international community with demands such as that was very much advocating for a continuation of the statuesque. It was a bloody stupid statement and given how things played out, a statement I suspect he regrets making. American exploitation of Congolese resources through the offices of Rwandan President Paul Kagame is not partnership.

Having worked on Africa for over 18 years in the U.S. Senate, on too many occasions I watched the international community swoop into parts of Africa in times of dire crisis, only to swoop back out after the first sign of progress or failure. Today, I believe we are witnessing a paradigm shift in how the international community, and the United States in particular, engages with Africa.

Really. A paradigm shift ? The Intervention ( Africa ) Brigade was an initiative of The International Conference for the Great Lakes Region ( ICGLR ) and specifically ironically proposed by Rwanda and Uganda both nations were some what horrified to discover that there was no room for their troops in the brigade. The Intervention Brigade has been one of the game changers for the region and the US and the International Community had bugger all to do with it.

" It takes a lot for a Kiwi to feel sorry for France but I must say I am starting to think they are getting an unjustifiably hard time. Let us remember the Intervention Brigade concept grew out of a meeting of the ICGLR ( International Conference Great Lakes Region ) and was put forward by Rwanda and Uganda under the Africa Brigade monicker. The ICGLR loved the idea and then decided that the Brigade would be more effective as part of MONUSCO much to Rwanda's horror, how fucking ironic is that. Rwanda was given enough rope and promptly hung themselves. "

The increased commitment of the United States and the international community is already bearing fruit in the Great Lakes. When I was appointed, Secretary Kerry's marching orders were to do everything I could to help the region end the armed rebellion by the M23 rebel group. The tide had begun to turn against the M23 in early to mid-2013, after the international community and the region increased the military and diplomatic pressure on all parties. A key element of that push was the establishment of the UN's intervention brigade within the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC and the negotiation of the Peace, Security, and Cooperation Framework, signed by 13 African countries.

Historical revisionism ? The US and the International Community ( excluding African Nations ) had very little to do with the " ..tide turning..." As I point out above Feingold was initially so out of touch with reality he suggested M23 should be reintegrated into FARDC.

These steps helped pave the way for a resolution to the rebellion. In addition to military pressure, the end to the rebellion was achieved via the Kampala Dialogue, facilitated by Uganda, with the active participation of a team of international envoys that included the outgoing UN Special Envoy for the Great Lakes, Mary Robinson, and me. In December, the Nairobi Declarations were finally signed by the DRC and the M23, representing the political resolution to a long-running rebellion.

And so we descend into farce. The Kampala talks were a joke, in the end the DRC Government and M23 signed different documents and it occurred in Nairobi ( these were Kampala talks ) after the military defeat of M23. Lets not pretend that the Rwandan backed M23 reached a political agreement with the DR Congo Government.

" I am of the opinion that Kinshasa are just going through the motions at the Kampala peace talks and so it would now seem are M23. The real issue is that there is nothing for either side to talk about. This much vaunted political solution has failed yet again, neither side is participating in good faith that leaves a military solution on the table. " 

At that point, we could have declared victory and gone home. Instead, we increased our efforts to help the region fully implement the Nairobi Declarations and the Framework, with the vital goal of achieving sustainable peace and prosperity in the region.

Who could have declared victory ? The US, the International Community ? Lets not bloody well lie to ourselves, we had very little to do with it. The progress that has been made has been made by African Nations not by the West or the US. Is this another colonialism ? Yes. Have we gone home ? I suspect we have.

One of the Framework's core objectives is to eradicate all armed groups. The international community and the region, including the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, currently under the effective chairmanship of Angola, are now demonstrating unprecedented commitment to once and for all neutralize the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a rebel group whose members include individuals responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

" ...all armed groups " That is how we will be judged.

The FDLR has been active in eastern DRC for years, destroying communities, committing heinous abuses, including sexual violence and the illegal recruitment and use of child soldiers, and causing mass-displacement – without any accountability.

It would seem that like M23 the FDLR will not face any accountability. That is a political reality I hate but the alternatives are worse.

" When it come to crimes against humanity I am very much in the " never forgive , never forget " school. However much this goes against the grain it is probably the only workable solution and the alternatives are far worse."

Again, we are seeing progress, although with much work still to be done. Earlier this year, the FDLR committed to voluntarily demobilize, in part to avoid military action by the DRC military and the UN. Regional governments have since announced a six-month timeline for the FDLR to fully demobilize. This process must be credible and irreversible, and the timeline cannot be an excuse for six more months of predatory behavior or false promises to demobilize by the FDLR.

I think the FDLR will demobilise. It boils down to death or surrender. Let's not forget though, that we in the West had fuck all to do with it.

It's up to all of us in the international community to remain engaged and to help the region ensure that the Nairobi Declarations are implemented and the M23 is permanently demobilized, and that the FDLR is finally and fully neutralized and its leadership held accountable.

Just how are you going to hold the FDLR accountable ? The M23 leadership has not been held to account. They are in Rwanda and Uganda. Feingold would do better to stop talking shit designed for Western consumption. The best we can do at the moment is to stop the killing and yes that is far more important than locking up the genociders in the Hague. The dead will wait for the living.  

Mary Robinson made an enormous commitment to progress in the Great Lakes. While the world will welcome and greatly benefit from her leadership in her new role as UN Special Envoy on Climate Change, she will be missed in Africa.

A separate blog. No she did not and neither have you. She will achieve nothing in her new role. She will not be missed. She did very little and has moved on to a job in which she will achieve less. I am very disappointed with the former Irish politician. We can handle global warming, you had a job to do and you fucked up, you left before you had done it. Mary Robinson you are a lite weight.

To continue building on her work, the UN Secretary General recently announced the appointment of Said Djinnit, former Special Representative of the Secretary General for West Africa, to succeed Robinson. Ambassador Djinnit's appointment is a reassuring and welcomed sign of the UN's sustained commitment to the Great Lakes.

He couldn't be worse.

When President Obama welcomes African heads of state to Washington on August 6, it will represent more than a one-off meeting. It will affirm deepened and sustained U.S.-Africa economic, democratic and security cooperation. It is this type of expanded commitment and cooperation which has allowed us to support marked progress in addressing the conflict in the Great Lakes region.

Yawn.

Russell D. Feingold became U.S. Special Envoy for the African Great Lakes Region and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on July 18, 2013. Throughout his 18 years in the United States Senate (1993 to 2011), he served on and led the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa.

He is starting to understand the job. I would leave him and hope.

DR Congo: FDLR " We don't need no uniforms, we have no disguise "

IRIN Reports

Fighting an invisible enemy in DRC

BISHONGERA, 9 April 2014 (IRIN) - It is difficult to identify the fighters of the Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), one of the many armed groups active in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), some of whose leaders played a key role in Rwanda’s genocide 20 years ago. Bearing neither uniform nor insignia, they are indistinguishable from the civilian population. 

The pangas (long knives) the FDLR carry in North Kivu Province’s Rutshuru Territory village of Bishongera are commonplace within agricultural societies and the AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades have been stashed since the DRC national army (FARDC) and Malawian soldiers from the UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC’s (MONUSCO) Force Intervention Brigade (FIB)began preparations in the area for an offensive against them. 

I very much doubt the weapons have been stashed. I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to find that the shooting of Virunga National Park head ranger Emmanuel de Merode was the result of FDLR activity.

The trick, according Patrice Munga*, a civil society activist based in Tongo a few kilometres down the mountainside, is to look at the footwear. “The ones wearing the gumboots - they are FDLR.”

That is fairly flimsy when it comes to positively identifying FDLR combatants. Shooting a guy because of the footwear he is wearing is a hell of a big call. 

In the valley below, a UN helicopter gunship traverses Virunga National Park. The clatter of its rotors does not elicit a glance from the roughly 10 young men in gumboots, some brandishing pangas, gathering around the only bench in the village where a senior FDLR officer, Agathe Nzabonimana*, wearing black shoes, sits. He barks orders at the encroaching men in Kinyarwanda and they move away.

Which suggests if a IRIN journalist can elicit this information then boosting the intelligence gathering ability of the Intervention ( Africa ) Brigade should be a priority.

He tells IRIN: “We [FDLR] don’t have uniforms. We don’t have support from a foreign country” - a direct nod to M23, an alleged proxy force of neighbouring Rwanda.

It is hardly comparing apples with apples. The FDLR are genocidal Rwandan rebel group attempting to establish an exclusive Hutu regime in Rwanda. M23 were a bunch of murderous Rwandan / Congolese thugs at the hard end of Rwandan efforts to colonise the Eastern DR Congo.

M23 was the first armed group targeted by FIB, established after a February 2013 UN Security Council resolution to “neutralize” and disarm all armed groups in the country. FIB has since moved its sights to other armed groups. 

The 3,069 strong FIB - a unit shorn of any civilian functions - is made up of soldiers from Malawi, South Africa and Tanzania and equipped with heavy weapons and helicopter gunships and works in tandem with the FARDC. Military operations in North Kivu Province are either under way, or in preparation, in the districts of Masisi against Janvier Buingo Karairi’s Alliance des patriotes pour un Congo libre et souverain (APCLS); in Beni against the Allied Democratic Forces(ADF-Nalu) an anti-Ugandan militia; and in Rutshuru against the FDLR. 

I am not on the ground but it would seem to me that the a reason that the Intervention Brigade was so successful against M23 was its refusal to be stampeded into action. The brigade took its time getting organised and as a consequence took a lot of flack   it was the the right decision as subsequent events have proved. M23 collapsed in a spectacular fashion. I think dealing with each group in a sequential way might well be less popular but ultimately more successful.  

" The intervention brigade, consisting of Tanzanian, South African and Malawian soldiers, was created by the U.N. Security Council in March and has deployed to Congo over the past few months, reinforcing 17,000 U.N. blue helmets already with MONUSCO. The brigade has a stronger mandate than past U.N. peacekeeping missions and is authorized to fight the rebel forces operating in eastern Congo.

There has been widespread skepticism in Congo that the intervention brigade will be a game-changing addition to the existing U.N. force, which stood by when M23 fighters briefly captured Goma late last year.

Main roads through Goma were blocked early Saturday by burning tires and crowds chanting anti-MONUSCO slogans.

Kobler, the U.N. mission chief, called on Goma residents to protect his staff after angry crowds tried to march on the mission headquarters there.

He said he understood people's impatience to see an end to rocket attacks "but the U.N. are not the enemy."
A host of NGOs in a joint 5 March 2014 correspondence to the Security Council on the renewal of the “robust” military mandate noted the “upcoming military operations carry with them high risks for the civilian population of DRC”. 

But the heavy weaponry of the intervention brigade - which proved decisive against M23 – will be less effective against the FDLR, which has integrated within Congolese communities over the past two decades. 

Agreed. But MONUSCO is not without significant intelligence gathering assets.

FDLR mix with civilians 

In Tongo, where soldiers are gathering with the support of FIB’s Malawian contingent, an FARDC major in the 601 Regiment - more commonly referred to as the Chinois commandos in deference to their three years of training by Chinese military instructors - told IRIN “the difference between M23 and the FDLR, is that the FDLR mix in with civilians. 

“M23 had military emplacements, so when we used heavy weaponry, we knew we were hitting military targets. It makes FDLR very hard to attack… The FDLR is essentially using them [civilians] as human shields,” he said. 

“There are FDLR in every village [of the Rutshuru operational zone]. The local population does not collaborate [with the FARDC] as they fear retribution after we leave. So they will not identify the FDLR,” the major said. 

The reality is that the FDLR are a cancer inflicted upon the Eastern DR Congo and they need to be eliminated. If that means garrisoning the Rutshuru zone then so be it. Establish safe zone around the villages and take the genocidal bastards out.

Nzabonimana dismisses the notion. “We live very well with the population. Why is it necessary to do this operation? I have no problem with the FARDC, but if they come here, they will kill the population… I am not afraid of the FARDC. I have been through two [anti-FDLR operations] and I am still here.”

There are 18,000 regular MONUSCO troops, 3000 Intervention Brigade troops with the right mandate for the job ( ie the ability to shoot first and between the eyes ) as well as FARDC ( Congolese Army ). 

FDLR was formed by the remnants of the Forces armées rwandaises (FAR), the national army of Rwanda, and the Interahamwe, a Hutu Power militia that drove the genocidal ideology and led the 1994 genocide. After 20 years in neighbouring DRC, the armed group has survived by recruiting from the local population. Even so, its strength has diminished from more than 10,000 to about 2,000 over the years, according to some estimates.

I am guessing they are the true believers in their insane ideology of racial hatred.  

Although the FDLR has made several vain appeals for talks with Kigali over the years, some of its leaders have never fully renounced their Hutu Power ideology – which provided the genocide’s “logic” and their ambitions to seize power by force in Rwanda. 

You don't negotiate with terrorists. You accept their unconditional surrender or eliminate them. It is that simple and much as I oppose the current Rwandan regime Kigali is correct not to accept anything short of surrender. That said guarantees for the safety of those who opt to surrender should also be in place.

“We are called criminals by Rwanda” 

Nzabonimana’s roughly six-year-old daughter - he will not say whether the mother is Congolese or Rwandan - rests her head in his lap, her nose streaming from an infection. The only evidence of humanitarian assistance in Bishongera are some faded NGO logos and a water pump. “After 20 years I still feel like a visitor here [in the DRC]… The only thing we want is to look for our rights. They are not here in Congo.” 

What rights. The right to a life that he presumably denied to those murdered in the Rwandan Genocide and has continued to deny to those Congolese civilians murdered by the FDLR.

A construction engineering graduate, he served four years with FAR and has spent the last 20 years with FDLR. 

In other words he has wasted his life to date.

“The general question I always ask myself is why we are called criminals by Rwanda. When the genocide happened I was fighting the RPF [Rwandan Patriotic Front], an invading force. The solution is negotiations between FDLR and [President Paul Kagame’s] Rwanda… Why were there negotiations with M23, but no negotiations with FDLR. I cannot go back to Rwanda. I will be imprisoned or killed,” Nzabonimana said.

You are called a criminal because you are a member of a criminal organisation.   

Bishongera is one of four villages on the about 14km path to Tshai from Tongo where the FDLR’s North Kivu commander, General Ntawugunka “Omega” Pacifique Israel, is thought to be based with more than 1,000 soldiers. 

The objective, the FARDC major said, “is for FDLR to surrender with their weapons. So they can be returned to their county [Rwanda]. Dispersing them is no good. It will be very difficult to bombard Tshai because of the mix [of civilians and FDLR fighters].” 

So force the FDLR out of Tshai. Garrison the town. Those FDLR who remain arrest or accept their surrender and return them to Rwanda under the agreed surrender mechanism.
An FDLR defector, taken into custody by FARDC in Tongo, Céléstin Ibaka*, told IRIN the FDLR did not want to fight the FARDC and “if attacked we will run.” 

I suspect that it isn't just FARDC they don't want to fight. My feeling is the rank and file don't want to fight at all anymore. Take advantage of that and offer a attractive alternative.

In March 2014 the FARDC captured Kilometre Nine, an FDLR bush-base of about 20 soldiers on the Virunga National Park road between Kalangera and Tongo. After a 25-minute fire-fight, with the support of Malawian troops, the position was overrun and two FDLR soldiers killed, according to FARDC.

I can't imagine defeats of that nature do much for FDLR morale. The combined forces arrayed against the FDLR brings to mind the famous words of Theodore Roosevelt: “If you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.” 

Decreasing FARDC-FDLR collaboration?
 
In the past FARDC has had “discreet alliances” with FDLR, Christoph Vogel, a DRC researcher based at the University of Zurich, told IRIN, but from a high point 10-15 years ago “the long-term trend of this collaboration appears to be decreasing… 

“More recently, with FARDC struggling to get rid of the M23, interactions between FARDC and FDLR certainly increased again, but the co-option politics of the Congolese army go much farther than that - also APCLS, Nyatura, and other militias have been serving as anti-M23 proxies,” he said. However, “it would be wrong to speak of a systematic FARDC-FDLR collaboration.”

The reality is that FARDC have evolved from a highly unprofessional force into a reasonably effective military organisation in the Eastern DR Congo. Jason Stearns at Congo Siasa blogs:

In addition, the army is now giving more prominence to the commando battalions, the 321 and 322 trained by the Belgians (a third is currently being trained in Kindu), the 391 trained by the Americans, and one by the Chinese (on the northern front line in Tongo). During the operations last year, these battalions had been mismanaged by the military hierarchy, which dismantled them, sent them to areas where there was little to do, and "sabotaged them by sending them into battle without supplies or knowledge of the terrain," according to one Belgian trainer.
   
It would seem reasonable to assume FARDC will continue to improve in terms of its conduct. The collaboration argument has long been used by Rwanda to justify to justify everything from the now defeated M23 through to military invasions of sovereign DR Congo territory. Rwanda is the only voice bemoaning FARDC / FDLR collaboration and the world has grown tired of Rwandan bullshit. 

“Regardless of the actual ties between Rwanda and M23 [or its predecessors Congrès national pour la défense du people, CNDP, and Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie, RCD], the presence of these militias can be seen as a facilitating element for FARDC-FDLR collaboration,” Vogel said. 

The FARDC view of FDLR was not monolithic, he said, and there were those maintaining “cordial relations with senior FDLR figures”, while others were “ferociously” against them; a third category “while not necessarily being supportive of FDLR, demand that Rwanda should negotiate with FDLR just as the DRC negotiated with M23. Needless to say, Rwanda would not accept this.” 

Well I wouldn't describe the DR Congo / M23 Kampala Peace Talks as a negotiation. 
" I am of the opinion that Kinshasa are just going through the motions at the Kampala peace talks and so it would now seem are M23. The real issue is that there is nothing for either side to talk about. This much vaunted political solution has failed yet again, neither side is participating in good faith that leaves a military solution on the table." 

The Rwandan position is that it will accept the surrender of FDLR rebels and rehabilitate them on an individual basis. That is reasonable and might even work.

Deadlock in anti-FDLR operations 

Whether there was some political deal between Kinshasa and Kigali about the fates of M23 and FDLR “is hard to speculate,” but “MONUSCO and the UN Security Council may have given assurances to the Rwandan government that they will not only tackle M23 but also FDLR. 

I will speculate on whether there was a Kinshasa / Kigali deal. There was not. It is a certainty that both the UN and MONUSCO gave an assurance to Rwanda that the FDLR would be eliminated but I doubt they bothered discussing the fate of M23 with Rwanda.

“The current deadlock in anti-FDLR operations puts the credibility of both MONUSCO and FARDC in peril and bears a risk of souring bilateral exchange as Rwanda currently commemorates the 20th anniversary of the genocide,” Vogel said.

Again MONUSCO and its offshoot the Intervention Brigade owe Rwanda nothing and Rwanda has no right to set the timetable. MONUSCO should move against the FDLR when they are ready and will win.

Munga said that in the past, before FARDC was put on an operational footing in Rutshuru against FDLR, the FARDC greeted and drank together with the FDLR “during the days of M23”, and provided the armed group with ammunition and food. But this had since stopped. “When they were drinking together they [FARDC] used to joke: `The FARDC helped return M23 to Rwanda. Now we must help the FDLR return to Rwanda’.”

A small problem with the above joke, it doesn't fit in with the timing of events on the ground. In other words I doubt that any collaboration between FARDC and the FDLR occurred after the defeat of M23 which is the only way that that joke can work.

When unfounded rumours in January 2014 swept through eastern DRC that Kagame had died “the whole [Tongo] population celebrated. FARDC celebrated more than FDLR,” he said.

True. Given Rwanda's interventions in the eastern DR Congo that should surprise no one. Six million Congolese have died largely as a result of Rwandan invasions both directly and indirectly through proxies such as M23.

Rwanda: " Singing psychedelic praises to the depths of a china bowl "

New Times Rwanda reports

FDLR in spotlight as Security Council meets

                                                        FDLR fighters in one of their bases in the DR Congo.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) will today assess the approach used by its peacekeeping mission in the DR Congo (Monusco) in fighting negative forces, especially the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in eastern DR Congo.

One would have to say that MONUSCO would have very little to fear from this meeting. I have no idea why there is any special notice being made of the FDLR. One gets the feeling that once again the Rwandan Government is attempting to spin the story for its own purposes.

 Members of the Security Council, including Rwanda, are due to meet in New York to consider reports and consultations by Martin Kobler, the UN special envoy to DR Congo, and head of Monusco, as well as Mary Robinson, the Secretary General’s special envoy to the Great Lakes Region.

 The session comes barely a week after media reports indicated that Monusco and the Congolese army (FARDC) are attacking strongholds of  FDLR, a terror group largely responsible for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

Attacking the FDLR and removing them from Congolese territory ( or incorporating them into the environment on a permanent basis at a molecular level ) has always been an objective of MONUSCO. That is something that the Rwandan regime, still smarting from the defeat of its own rebel group M23, seems to have considerable trouble with.

 A press officer at Rwanda’s Mission to the UN told The New Times on Thursday that they are aware of latest reports about attacks against FDLR and plan to address concerns to Kobler. 

 “We are concerned that these so-called attacks against FDLR only seem to surface when Kobler is about to address us at the Security Council and after that, we do not hear anything else,” Chantal Uwizera, the press attaché at Rwanda’s Permanent Mission to the UN, said in an e-mail.

Rwanda has a legitimate interest in the outcome of the MONUSCO, FARDC and Intervention ( Africa ) Brigade but they seem to think they should have some sort of operational role as well. Rwanda really needs to STFU.

 “We want to know how  Kobler intends to address the FDLR issue. He has on several occassions said that attacking FDLR is difficult, because they travel in a pack with women and children yet Monusco has a mandate to protect civilians,” Uwizera said.

The chances of Kobler taking a blind bit of notice of the Rwandan position I would put at slightly below zero. Rwanda seems to be under the misapprehension that it is a non permanent member of the security council to represent Rwandan concerns to the council. Let me remind Kigali that it holds one of two African seats and its function is to represent Africa.

 Western media last Sunday broke news that the Congolese army, FARDC, and Monusco carried out joint operations against the militia. 

However, there are no reports on causalities or any indication that this is a sustained military operation.

That is a very telling statement and another reason why nothing and I emphasis nothing you read in New Times Rwanda should be believed. Like the Rwandan administration or more probably at the behest of that administration they are liars. Al Jazeera reports: 

Colonel Felix Basse, the military spokesman for the Congo mission, known as MONUSCO, said on Wedesday that UN troops had deployed in the Virunga National Park in North Kivu province and were backing a Congolese offensive against the Hutus' FDLR.

"Since Sunday, we have deployed our men and we have had contact with FDLR in that zone," Basse said, adding that two rebels had been killed in the fighting so far."

Or in other words New Times Rwanda have published today ( 14/3/14 ) a report that fails to acknowledge casualties reported two days ago by Al Jazeera.

 Kobler on Wednesday tweeted that: “The operations aim at neutralising the FDLR and its allies. They will also help re-establish State authority.”

 Friday’s meeting comes at a time when Monusco’s current mandate has only 16 days left to expire. The mandate ends on March 31. 

There is no doubt it will be renewed. There is an irony here that it will be renewed in no small part due to its success in defeating the Rwandan proxies M23.

The renewal of the Mission’s mandate will not be discussed since this is a meeting for the UNSC aimed at assessing the UN mission’s report and the one  about the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework (PSC) for the DR Congo and the region.

 But in the next few days, the Security Council is expected to start negotiating a draft resolution for mandate renewal. The draft resolution must be adopted before March 31. 

 The PSC for the DR Congo and the region was signed by 11 African leaders on February 23,2013. 

Rwanda was a signatory yet it armed M23 and supported them while they committed crimes against humanity, war crimes not to mention the numerous breeches of Congolese law that they committed.

Supporting mandate renewal 

France, being the penholder on DR Congo, will propose a draft Security Council resolution to experts of the other 14 UNSC members, with negotiations likely to take place in the course of next week.

 As regards the renewal of the mandate, Uwizera said: “We support the renewal since there is still a threat of instability in the DR Congo.” 

At least Chantal Uwizera can read the international under currents and adapt to them, it is a great shame that the Rwandan administration and the Rwandan head of mission to the UN can't. If Rwanda voted against the renewal they would join North Korea in the credibility stakes, a country they are not so dissimilar to.

 “However, emphasis should be put on FIB (UN Force Intervention Brigade) to be able to effectively implement its mandate in a neutral way. For instance, the FIB used force against M23 rebels but has been silent on FDLR, even though the last resolution mandates it to neutralise all armed groups,” Uwizera added.

It is always amazing how fools take that extra step. Uwizera really needs to have a read of something other than the Rwandan standard response to absolutely anything relating to absolutely anything which is of course to lie.

 Commanded by Tanzanian General, James Mwakibolwa, the FIB is a special brigade under Monusco, authorised by the Council on March 28, 2013 through Resolution 2098. 

It is the first UN peacekeeping unit specifically tasked to carry out targeted offensive operations to neutralise armed groups threatening State authority and civilian security, with or without FARDC support, in eastern DR Congo. Comprising 3,069 peacekeepers (in addition to nearly 20,000 other Monusco troops),  the special brigade helped defeat the Congolese M23 rebel group last year. 

  Resolution 2098, among others, requests the Secretary General to report to the Council every three months in coordination with his Special Representative for the DR Congo on the implementation by Monusco of its mandate, including on deployment, readiness and activities of the FIB and all other UN forces.

FAEDC the Africa Brigade and its parent MONUSCO will get the job done. The FDLR are soon to be corpses awaiting burial. I have no problem with that, they richly deserve that fate. The timing of the operation is for FARDC and MONUSCO to decide not Rwanda, that Rwanda still fails to grasp this should surprise no one.

DR Congo: " Russian roulette in the waiting room Empty chambers embracing the end "

New Vision reports:
UN gunships strike ADF base in Congo  

KINSHASA - UN gunships targeted a base of the Ugandan Muslim rebel group ADF-Nalu in the eastern DR Congo for the first time Saturday, the UN force said.

The Congolese army had in recent weeks taken the lead in the drive to root out ADF-Nalu, one of the oldest but lesser known armed organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Also one of the most brutal. In September last year it was becoming apparent that the ADF like all the rebel groups in the Kivus were hell bent on booking appointments with the FARDC / MONUSCO / Intervention ( Africa ) Brigade alliance.

" I suspect that the ADF haven't thought through the consequences of this little bit of murderous adventurism. I hope the price that is extract in return is so high that we will never again have to read about these pricks."

What has been impressive is the way the alliance has waited and not allowed any of the rebel groups killers or the respective governments they are allegedly trying to overthrow stampede them into precipitous action.   

A statement from MONUSCO, the UN mission in the country, said two attack helicopters struck an ADF base northeast of Beni at 1255 GMT.

Beni is a remote town in North Kivu, a restive resource-rich province that borders Rwanda and Uganda.

"This operation, conducted with great precision, helps achieve a clear goal: bringing an end to ADF's recent attacks against the civilian population," said MONUSCO chief Martin Kobler, quoted in the statement.

The advantage of taking your time and planning, time spent in preparation is rarely wasted time in a military context. I think the less clear goal is the elimination of ADF or put more crudely providing them with an opportunity to discuss their crimes against humanity more directly with Allah than prayer allows.

The FARDC regular army launched its offensive against ADF-Nalu on January 16 and announced in mid-February that it had inflicted severe losses on the rebels.

Good.

Backed by a newly-formed UN intervention brigade with an unprecedented offensive mandate, the Congolese army notched up a rare military victory against the M-23 Tutsi rebel group.

FARDC was a joke but that is not the case now. From Jason Stearns at Congo Siasa: 

" In addition, the army is now giving more prominence to the commando battalions, the 321 and 322 trained by the Belgians (a third is currently being trained in Kindu), the 391 trained by the Americans, and one by the Chinese (on the northern front line in Tongo). During the operations last year, these battalions had been mismanaged by the military hierarchy, which dismantled them, sent them to areas where there was little to do, and "sabotaged them by sending them into battle without supplies or knowledge of the terrain," according to one Belgian trainer."

The ADF-Nalu was next on the list.

Actually they almost certainly were not next on the list, that dubious honour fell to the FDLR. I suspect that the ADF went out of their way to try and provoke a confrontation before the alliance was ready. The FDLR fools have responded to being relegated to third in line for elimination by issuing a suicide note that I suspect will be read and responded to as soon as this mess is cleaned up.

MONUSCO has vowed to help Kinshasa rid the region of the myriad rebel groups running amok in one of the continent's most impenetrable regions.

The key difference between M23 and both the ADF and the FDLR is that M23 had a bolt hole in the form of Uganda and Rwanda, thus their defeat was without the universally fatal consequences that will result from the elimination of the ADF and FDLR. Given that both are sustained by a philosophy of genocide one religious and one racial there deaths will represent no loss to humanity.

ADF-Nalu stands for Allied Democratic Forces-National Army for the Liberation of Uganda. It is one of the oldest but lesser known rebellions based in North-Kivu and is considered the only Islamist organisation in the region.

The Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group said in a report last year the rebel group had "shown remarkable resilience attributable to its geostrategic position, its successful integration into the cross-border economy and corruption in the security forces".

I suspect that both its resilience and success have come to a sudden stop.

ADF-Nalu is led by Jamil Mukulu, a Christian convert to Islam, and has never really managed to take its fight against Yoweri Museveni's regime to Uganda.

Some observers have voiced concern that it could become a link in the growing network of radical Islamist groups in East Africa.

Not anymore. I think that radical muslim groups would do well to have a think about the situation in the Central African Republic, the elimination of the CAR Muslim population is well underway and radical Islamist killers are responsible for creating the conditions in the CAR that caused this. It is an exportable 'cause' far more so than radical Islam in an African context.

DR Congo: FDLR - " A son of a swastika of '45 parading a peroxide standard "

Chimpreports reports

FDLR Threaten To Kill Tutsi Civilians In DRC

                    FDLR Soldiers  genocidal killers whom if not already dead I can only hope soon attain that condition.

As the United Nations Intervention Brigade and DRC government troops come under intense pressure to make good on their mandate by attacking FDLR, the militia whose leadership and ideology led to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, has vowed to kill Tutsis in DRC. 

I have argued that no one can set the timetable for FARDC, MONUSCO and it's Intervention ( Africa ) Brigade other than those organisation themselves when it come to neutralising the FDLR, I was it would seem wrong. This is an FDLR suicide note and one I suggest the actors involved respect, FARDC, MONUSCO and the Intervention Brigade should look at this as a request for voluntary euthanasia and  kill these bastards as soon and as violently as possible. 

In a statement seen by Chimpreports on Sunday, the FDLR which recently joined forces with PS Imberakuri to form what is now known as ‘FPLC’, warned the international community especially the UN, European Union, the African Union and regional organizations “against the loss of life that this unnecessary war will cause again to the poor Congolese population as well as to the Rwandan refugees present on our territory.”

Killing off the FDLR and remaining Interahamwe fools is not unnecessary it would seem, I had hoped that was the case after reading the December 30, 2013 declaration of cessation of hostilities issued by the FDLR but as I blogged my skepticism was well placed. 

" I am guessing that MONUSCO has also been dropping leaflets from the air, there is no postal service in the territory that the FDLR control. The consequence of fighting have been disastrous for M23 and the ADF are being decimated in their scrap with FARDC, MONUSCO and the Intervention Brigade. I am skeptical about the sincerity of the FDLR but keeping the faith with a genocidal ideology of hatred is insane and many if not most of the perpetrators must be getting on or dead. I don't imagine recruitment is that easy."

‘General’ Gad Ngabo further warned in the statement that an attack on their bases would lead to “mourning in the many families and thus revive the wounds of broken hearts.”

The FDLR bases that will certainly be attacked, it is interesting this faux 'general' seems oblivious to the effects of  " mourning in the many families and thus revive the wounds of broken hearts.” that will be caused by his resumption of genocide against the Tutsi community.

The United Nations Mission for Stabilization in Congo (MONUSCO) has reportedly been preparing to attack FDLR.

It would be very surprising if it wasn't planning to attack the FDLR, given that these apologists for members of humanity have been deemed worthy of elimination by the UN and that is part of the MONUSCO and Intervention Brigade mandate from the Security Council.

However, observers say this may not be possible as FDLR supported the UN Brigade and DRC forces in neutralising the M23 rebels in 2013.

Then those observers are fools. Eliminating M23 has been completed, the ADF ( Ugandan Muslim rebels ) are being eliminated having surprisingly managed to make themselves a more urgent problem than the FDLR. In mid January I blogged on the prioritisation:  

" The FDLR were I would have said a far more significant target but the scale of activities and sheer brutality of the ADF has made it urgent that this mess be cleaned up first."

Further more the FDLR have never supported the Intervention Brigade or the MONUSCO. There has been criminal cooperation with corrupt FARDC elements but that seems to have come to a halt.

The UN has in previous publications explained serious crimes committed by the Hutu FDLR against the Tutsi population in DRC.

In November last year, UN Security Council said FDLR as “a group under UN sanctions whose leaders and members include perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda have continued to promote and commit ethnically – based and other killings in Rwanda and the DRC…”

The FDLR it is clear remain unreconstructed genociders, this threat against the civilian Tutsi community in the Eastern DR Congo proves in the twenty years since they murdered 800,000 civilians in the Rwandan Genocide nothing has changed, other than they have had a further 20 years of robbing, raping and killing Congolese civilians.

The Council strongly condemned the continuing violence and abuses of human rights by FDLR and other armed groups “including summary executions, sexual and gender based violence and large scale recruitment and use of children,” said Liu Jieyi of China, on behalf of the 15-member body.

All of which are crimes against humanity.

It is thought the FDLR intend to use the threat of attacking Tutsi civilians in DRC as leverage in their quest for a power–sharing deal with the Rwanda government.

Something that will never happen. The idea that the perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide could ever be trusted in a governmental capacity is laughable. The only way out for these killers is unconditional surrender the leadership being sent to the Hague and rank and file members undergoing rehabilitation and reintegration into Rwandan society. The alternative is death and quite frankly it is in my opinion the FDLR deserve the latter, I hope they are stupid enough to avail themselves of that option.

The FDLR announced in their Declaration of 30 December 2013 they officially laid down their arms and demanded negotiations with the Government of Rwanda.

Kigali has consistently maintained its position that it would not talk to the terrorists and has urged fighters to renounce the genocide ideology.

The FDLR are in no position to demand anything it also seems to have escaped them that they are on Congolese territory and Kinshasa is the sovereign power not Kigali. Kigali is correct to spurn talks with terrorist groups, it is a shame that both Kampala and Kigali failed to recognise that when M23 was making similar batshit crazy demands on Kinshasa.

Several FDLR fighters who have in recent years crossed to Rwanda have undergone rehabilitation courses to enable them discard the extremist ideology.

Rwanda President Paul Kagame last year emphasized that a sustainable solution to the political turbulence in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) must include the neutralization of the FDLR.

Kagame told Russell Feingold, the US Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region of Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo at his Urugwiro Village office that the genocidal militia must be firmly dealt with “as a matter of priority.”

Kagame needs to tread very carefully on this issue. He has won the war against the FDLR already, there is just the battle to come and the timing for that is as it should be, with the forces tasked with the destruction of the FDLR. 

Regional leaders remain split on how to deal with the aftermath of the defeat of M23 rebels in Eastern Congo who had provided a buffer zone to Rwanda against attacks by FDLR.

Really ? Maybe I should have blogged this. 
" The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila, announced an amnesty on Wednesday for former members of the defeated M23 rebel army.

The amnesty covers "acts of insurgency, acts of war and political offences" committed in the DR Congo up to December 20, 2013, when the bill was approved by the government." 

Rwanda believes that FDLR should be crashed if the militia is not willing to surrender and demobilize.

I suspect that should be crushed and if so I agree.

However, Tanzania wants to see Uganda and Rwanda talk to ADF and FDLR terrorist groups, a suggestion scorned by the Kampala and Kigali.

Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete has a legitimate interest in this issue having provided troops to the Intervention Brigade but is he serious ? Does he think the Great Lakes region will benefit from having Muslim militants intent on bring Jihad to Uganda or genocidal thugs returning to power in Rwanda ? I don't say it lightly but Kikwete should shut the fuck up. The ADF and FDLR are deserving of the fate they have selected.
Uganda and Rwanda are also not willing to see the two terrorist groups rearm and recruit new combatants across their borders.

I think both Uganda and Rwanda would love to get the ADF and FDLR across their respective borders and they would not be doing any recruitment if that was to happen. As it stands if any of the leadership of these militias are taken alive that is what should happen to them. In short surrender now and face the justice of the ICC with the added benefit of living. Or fight and die at the hands of FARDC, MONUSCO and the Intervention Brigade. If they survive then it would seem reasonable to repatriate them to Uganda and Rwanda, they having spurned the ICC option.