DR Congo: Charly Blogs at Africa Brigade Ground Zero.

Charly Kasereka at L'Actu Du Kivu blogs  ( In French and translated by Google with the usual attempt to tidy it up a bit by me. Any mistakes are my fault ) It is tempting to add some of my own thoughts to Charly's blogs. I did cover the initial story here. It would seem maybe some of my thoughts were not to far of the reality happening on the ground in Goma. 

DRC / GOMA: Nothing will be held in Goma contrary to what was expected by civil society in North Kivu.

                                                                   Tomas Daquin Muhiti ( Photo Charly Kasereka )

After announcing an eight-day ultimatum to force the intervention brigade ( Africa Brigade ) to act, or leave. Surprisingly Tomas Daquin Muhiti, the spokesman SOCIV North Kivu announced that '' nothing will be held tomorrow, Thursday, August 8''. This is what has just been declared the spokesman and vice president of the organisation announced Wednesday 07 August after it announced last week large-scale protest actions that would undertaken by Gomatraciens. 

The ultimatum issued by the civil society in the North Kivu MONUSCO expires this Thursday, August 8, 2013.

On the eve of the deadline, the Civil Society changed its position, Thomas Daquin Muhitsi, president of the Civil Society in the province called for calm amongst Gomatraciens renouncing the large actions initially scheduled for the end of the ultimatum period. According to some sources, a few signs of unrest are already visible throughout the city of Goma, after the call for people to take to the streets and protest against the Intervention Brigade.

It should be noted that it is 

Muhiti

  himself who announced an ultimatum of seven days for the  MONUSCO  I

ntervention Brigade 

to act and begin the hunt for armed rebel groups in North Kivu  as indicated in the UN Security Council resolution  

2098 

establishing this Brigade in the DRC.

As a reminder, the ultimatum by the Civil Society in North Kivu was because of 

MONUSCO

  ultimatum asking all people illegally owning weapons to disarm. MONUSCO's ultimatum expired last Friday, August 2 at 16 pm local time, about twenty guns were recovered in Sake, according to the military spokesman for MONUSCO Felix Prospere Low by the Wednesday 07 August deadline by MONUSCO.

The head office of MONUSCO in Goma has given explanations to the press since last Sunday, saying that the safety zone will be extended and emphasised military tactics are not to disclose in public. He said that MONUSCO has no obligations to the Civil Society but to the Congolese Government. The Federation of Goma  Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS)  invited the people North Kivu not to resort to violence in protests against MONUSCO. 

The call comes on the eve of the end of the one week ultimatum issued by the Civil Society in the province to the UN mission, promising to carry out "major actions" if the force did not begin the hunt against the rebel militias immediately. The  Federal President of the Etienne Tshisekedi's party, Rubens Mikindo says that the Civil Society has the wrong target, explaining that MONUSCO is here as a "guest" of the government. The initiative is now in the camp of people who are already prepared to show up this Thursday in protest against the mission of the United Nations.

DR Congo: M23 tries batshit crazy.

M23 rebel group defends right to hold criminal trials despite UN concerns

GOMA, Congo — A rebel group in eastern Congo on Friday defended its right to organize criminal trials despite concerns from the country’s United Nations mission, which has said that the proposed prosecution of 11 young men on weapons charges could not meet international standards.

The irony is palpable however that aside by any definition M23 are not a sovereign power.


Sovereignty is the quality of having independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make laws that rests on a political fact for which no pure legal definition can be provided.

A key element of sovereignty in a legalistic sense is that of exclusivity of jurisdiction. Specifically, the degree to which decisions made by a sovereign entity might be contradicted by another authority. Along these lines, the German sociologist Max Weber proposed that sovereignty is a community's monopoly on the legitimate use of force; and thus any group claiming the same right must either be brought under the yoke of the sovereign, proven illegitimate, or otherwise contested and defeated for sovereignty to be genuine

 
The M23 rebel group routed the government army and swept past U.N. peacekeepers last November to occupy the city of Goma, one of the country’s biggest. The rebels are currently in peace talks with the government, though negotiations have been rocky.

Well FARDC as per standard FARDC proceedure opted not to fight and instead concentrated on robbery rape and murder in Goma. The UN forces stood aside again as per their standard operating procedure.  As for the peace talks they are a figment of the M23 leaderships imagination.

Kabasha Amani, a civilian spokesman for the group, said Friday that the rebels could not ignore criminals in the areas they control.

I assume that failure to join M23 is now a criminal offence ?

“We are fighting criminality in the zone we control, and suspects must be put on trial,” Amani said. “If the U.N. thinks we should stop trying to administer our territory and should ignore criminals, we don’t think that would be a good thing. We have been holding trials and now we have trained some criminal investigators.”

Comedy gold.

Roger Meece, the head of the country’s U.N. mission, expressed concern over M23’s plans to organize a trial of 11 young men accused of illegally possessing weapons.

On the other hand what a precedent to hoist M23 by their own petard.

In a statement Wednesday, Meece said such proceedings “could not, in current circumstances, conform to international human rights standards nor would the accused have all the guarantees of a fair trial.”

He also called for “the immediate and unconditional dismantling of the M23’s illegitimate parallel administration.”

I think that the African Brigade makes that fairly likely.

The rebels are under increasing pressure, facing a heavy buildup of government forces and the prospect that they might have to fight a new U.N. intervention brigade with an offensive mandate. They have been accused of rights abuses and have been widely blamed for the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.

Not to mention the problems of training criminal investigators.

Although Amani defended the group’s efforts to crack down on criminality, M23 military spokesman Vianney Kazarama declined to say whether the trial would go ahead.

Kazarama said the decision of whether to go through with the trial was “purely a political question.”

Correct but also a hypothetical question.