According to La Lettre du Continent, France's President Sarkozy is going to propose that the Congo permit Rwanda to police the eastern Congo and eliminate the FDLR and CNDP threats. In return, the mineral wealth of the eastern Congo will be put in a "common pot" under the auspices of one or another of the regional economic hubs--either the CEEAC or the CEPLG. The Congo would then issue licenses and garner royalties from the countries or companies exploiting the minerals.
Sarkozy is said to be keen to make this deal happen on his trip to Africa in late March, and Kagame is also said to be enthusiastic about it. France and Rwanda have been on a slow-motion diplomatic game of chicken for some time now, with each country accusing the other's government of either initiating or actively supporting the 1994 genocide. This rapprochement could enable both countries to avert what appeared to be an oncoming train wreck.
The Lettre says that the seed of the proposal was first planted by Herman Cohen in his op-ed in the New York Times. Cohen, the Lettre says, is now a lobbyist for French interests in Africa. As has been well-documented elsewhere, Cohen is one of those frighteningly amoral people, a man who turned his State Department connections into high-paying gigs lobbying for some of Africa's ugliest dictators, including Laurent Kabila. But when his op-ed came out, I couldn't tell what angle he was working, and criticized his proposal merely for being unworkable.
The Congolese newspapers have been in an uproar about Sarkozy's plan since they got wind of it a couple of days ago (here, and here). They believe the ground is being laid, internationally, to trade off Congolese patrimony to appease their invaders. And they see further evidence of that possibility in their own government's decision last week to allow Rwandan troops directly onto Congolese soil, ostensibly to round-up the ex-genocidaires still at large in eastern Congo.
To be honest, I thought the Kinshasa rumor mill was just operating in overdrive, and even thought about writing a piece making fun of their "Grand Unified Theory." Not all dots necessarily connect, as I keep reminding Congolese friends. But Congolese history is just too replete with the most brazen sort of opportunism to dismiss all of this as a mere conspiracy. Stay tuned.
Showing posts with label Kabila. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kabila. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Congolese Reactions
Congolese reacted to the incursion of Rwandan troops into North Kivu at the invitation of DRC's President Kabila with a mix of dismay and incredulity. The 1,500 to 2,000 Rwandan troops, who crossed into DRC Monday morning at Kibumba, are said to be there only to "observe" the efforts of the Congolese army as it tracks down the remnants of the FDLR--the militia responsible for the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
Le Potentiel's lead article notes that wars are easy to start but hard to end. Uganda's recent botched effort to capture Joseph Kony is a case in point. The Ugandan army is back on Congolese soil, but Kony has yet to be caught, and is leaving a trail of rape and massacre as he flees. Meanwhile, the Ugandan army has set up camp in Dungu and is doing little to hunt down the Ugandan rebels. But it is establishing a foothold on the oil and mining areas of Provence Orientale that border Uganda.
The paper readily concedes that both the LRA and the FDLR are murderous militia that prey on the Congolese population and that the Congolese army has done little to alleviate the situation. But with the official return of the Rwandan army, Le Potentiel wonders if the country isn't seeing a return to all-out war. It is suspicious of Rwanda's intentions, noting that during Rwanda's previous sojourns in the Congo, the Rwandan army was far more interested in looting Congolese minerals than chasing dead-enders from 1994. The fact that the army has moved into the Masisi and Rutshuru regions heightens the paper's suspicions, since these regions are known for their mineral wealth.
The paper reports that Mende Omalanga, Minister of Communication and Media, was given the thankless task of confirming the Rwandan incursion, in a statement to Radio Okapi and Télé 7 made on Tuesday morning. "We have issued an invitation to the Rwandan army who came with information officers. That's their mandate. It is a joint operation by the FARDC supported by MONUC."
[MONUC, however, immediately denied being involved, or even informed, about the decision.]
It is "intriguing and disturbing," the paper concludes, that the joint military operation began while the Congolese Parliament is in recess, and it insists that Kabila is constitutionally required to officially confirm the return of Ugandan and Rwandan armies in Congo.
Radio Okapi reports that the president of the National Assembly, Vital Kamerhe, said that parliament had not been informed that the president had invited the Rwandan army into the DRC. "All I know is that the National Assembly adopted a plan to end the crisis in October 2008, and submitted it to the government in the form of recommendations. The plan outlined the framework for the normalization of our relations with Rwanda," he said.
"Now you tell me that Rwandan troops have entered Congo. I prefer to believe that this is false, since if it's true, it raise all kinds of serious questions. How could we invite Rwanda back in when we have barely begun to recover from Rwanda's previous aggression?"
The radio station also reports that EU development commissioner Louis Michel is by contrast very optimistic about the operation: "This is the beginning of the solution to the problems of the Great Lakes region," he said. It is "a tangible sign of cooperation between the two countries," adding that a sustainable peace can only be achieved through cooperation at the regional level. Michel asked the FDLR to disarm and to refrain from any action against civilian populations. He also encouraged other participants in the operation to make every effort to protect human rights and respect the rules of international humanitarian law. No indication of whether he said this with a straight face.
Meanwhile, everyone is reporting that the communities of North Kivu are outraged by the return of Rwandan soldiers in DRC. Representatives condemned what they called the illegal and unconstitutional nature of the incursion, and demanded the Rwandans' rapid withdrawal. They denounced the Congolese government for failing to establish a coherent force agreement with Rwanda that provides a timetable and territorial limits to their presence, assigns them clear and restricted roles, and outlines their terms of engagement.
In Bukavu last Tuesday, a women's organization asked Comfort Lamptey, the gender advisor to the UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations, to tell MONUC to erect a humanitarian corridor to protect against rape and sexual violence during the joint military operation.
Solange Lwashiga, the executive secretary of the Caucus of South Kivu Women for Peace, said that women are concerned that they and their children will again be vulnerable during this period of renewed military confrontation. "And we have asked MONUC to develop strategies so that during these operations, women would not be raped, or women and children not be killed."
Le Potentiel's lead article notes that wars are easy to start but hard to end. Uganda's recent botched effort to capture Joseph Kony is a case in point. The Ugandan army is back on Congolese soil, but Kony has yet to be caught, and is leaving a trail of rape and massacre as he flees. Meanwhile, the Ugandan army has set up camp in Dungu and is doing little to hunt down the Ugandan rebels. But it is establishing a foothold on the oil and mining areas of Provence Orientale that border Uganda.
The paper readily concedes that both the LRA and the FDLR are murderous militia that prey on the Congolese population and that the Congolese army has done little to alleviate the situation. But with the official return of the Rwandan army, Le Potentiel wonders if the country isn't seeing a return to all-out war. It is suspicious of Rwanda's intentions, noting that during Rwanda's previous sojourns in the Congo, the Rwandan army was far more interested in looting Congolese minerals than chasing dead-enders from 1994. The fact that the army has moved into the Masisi and Rutshuru regions heightens the paper's suspicions, since these regions are known for their mineral wealth.
The paper reports that Mende Omalanga, Minister of Communication and Media, was given the thankless task of confirming the Rwandan incursion, in a statement to Radio Okapi and Télé 7 made on Tuesday morning. "We have issued an invitation to the Rwandan army who came with information officers. That's their mandate. It is a joint operation by the FARDC supported by MONUC."
[MONUC, however, immediately denied being involved, or even informed, about the decision.]
It is "intriguing and disturbing," the paper concludes, that the joint military operation began while the Congolese Parliament is in recess, and it insists that Kabila is constitutionally required to officially confirm the return of Ugandan and Rwandan armies in Congo.
Radio Okapi reports that the president of the National Assembly, Vital Kamerhe, said that parliament had not been informed that the president had invited the Rwandan army into the DRC. "All I know is that the National Assembly adopted a plan to end the crisis in October 2008, and submitted it to the government in the form of recommendations. The plan outlined the framework for the normalization of our relations with Rwanda," he said.
"Now you tell me that Rwandan troops have entered Congo. I prefer to believe that this is false, since if it's true, it raise all kinds of serious questions. How could we invite Rwanda back in when we have barely begun to recover from Rwanda's previous aggression?"
The radio station also reports that EU development commissioner Louis Michel is by contrast very optimistic about the operation: "This is the beginning of the solution to the problems of the Great Lakes region," he said. It is "a tangible sign of cooperation between the two countries," adding that a sustainable peace can only be achieved through cooperation at the regional level. Michel asked the FDLR to disarm and to refrain from any action against civilian populations. He also encouraged other participants in the operation to make every effort to protect human rights and respect the rules of international humanitarian law. No indication of whether he said this with a straight face.
Meanwhile, everyone is reporting that the communities of North Kivu are outraged by the return of Rwandan soldiers in DRC. Representatives condemned what they called the illegal and unconstitutional nature of the incursion, and demanded the Rwandans' rapid withdrawal. They denounced the Congolese government for failing to establish a coherent force agreement with Rwanda that provides a timetable and territorial limits to their presence, assigns them clear and restricted roles, and outlines their terms of engagement.
In Bukavu last Tuesday, a women's organization asked Comfort Lamptey, the gender advisor to the UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations, to tell MONUC to erect a humanitarian corridor to protect against rape and sexual violence during the joint military operation.
Solange Lwashiga, the executive secretary of the Caucus of South Kivu Women for Peace, said that women are concerned that they and their children will again be vulnerable during this period of renewed military confrontation. "And we have asked MONUC to develop strategies so that during these operations, women would not be raped, or women and children not be killed."
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Ex-US Official: Congo Can Trade Its Way out of War
Herman Cohen, a former assistant secretary of state for Africa under George Bush (41), proposes in today's New York Times that incoming president Obama appoint a special negotiator to develop an economic common market encompassing Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The agreement would allow the free movement of people and trade, and give Rwandan businesses continued access to Congolese minerals and forests, in return for payment of royalties and taxes to the Congolese government. Cohen says that for most Rwandan businesses, those payments would be offset by increased revenues.
People familiar with the history of American ex-officials selling their influence in the region are right to be wary of Cohen, who has worked as a lobbyist on behalf of such charming fellows as Laurent Kabila, Omar Bongo, Robert Mugabe, and even Charles Taylor. But the idea isn't entirely meretricious. Essentially, it offers the various combatants the opportunity to engage in a formal, regulated economy in return for putting down their arms. The immediate problem, of course, is that at the moment there's no power in place capable of pacifying opposing forces and regulating the economy. No one's going to give up their guns without a guarantee that the other sides have too. The other problem is that you don't necessarily want to reward the guys who have taken up arms by entrenching their economic gains.
I have for some years now urged that an amplified Monuc take on direct responsibility for the mining operations in eastern Congo. There are a limited number of highly productive mines and a limited number of airfields and roads in the region. Control these, and you eliminate the militias' source of income. You also eliminate the main reason everyone's at each other's throat. But I've never had the means and the expertise to fully develop this idea, and whenever I've suggested it to Monuc representatives they've always been unresponsive.
People familiar with the history of American ex-officials selling their influence in the region are right to be wary of Cohen, who has worked as a lobbyist on behalf of such charming fellows as Laurent Kabila, Omar Bongo, Robert Mugabe, and even Charles Taylor. But the idea isn't entirely meretricious. Essentially, it offers the various combatants the opportunity to engage in a formal, regulated economy in return for putting down their arms. The immediate problem, of course, is that at the moment there's no power in place capable of pacifying opposing forces and regulating the economy. No one's going to give up their guns without a guarantee that the other sides have too. The other problem is that you don't necessarily want to reward the guys who have taken up arms by entrenching their economic gains.
I have for some years now urged that an amplified Monuc take on direct responsibility for the mining operations in eastern Congo. There are a limited number of highly productive mines and a limited number of airfields and roads in the region. Control these, and you eliminate the militias' source of income. You also eliminate the main reason everyone's at each other's throat. But I've never had the means and the expertise to fully develop this idea, and whenever I've suggested it to Monuc representatives they've always been unresponsive.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
For your Netflix Queue
Cuba’s support to liberation struggles in Africa are brought to life in the new documentary film Cuba, An African Odyssey. From the description:
Directed by Lebanese-born film maker Jihan El-Tahri, the film describes internationalist missions in which hundreds of thousands of Cuban volunteers—combatants and military trainers, as well as doctors, nurses, teachers, and construction workers—gave decisive aid to struggles in Africa against colonialism, neocolonialism, and apartheid.Che Guevara's most successful student was, of course, the unpromising cue-ball Laurent Kabila.
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