The Washington Post has an interesting article here about Sudanese leaders' wary reactions to Obama's victory. One Sudanese official is quoted as saying, "I know Obama's appointees. And I know their policy towards Sudan. Everybody here knows it. The policy is very aggressive and very harsh."
Intriguingly, that official is Ghazi Suleiman, a human rights lawyer and member of the Southern People's Liberation Movement, whose group waged a 20-year war with the Sudanese government before signing a comprehensive peace deal in 2005. The article goes on to suggest that a reflexively hard line towards the Sudanese government may backfire.
Many of Obama's key appointees--including vice president elect Joseph Biden and secretary of state Clinton--have indicated they would use force against the Sudanese government over its genocidal policies in Darfur. Clinton has proposed NATO enforce a no-fly zone in Darfur, while new UN ambassador Susan Rice has vowed to "go down in flames" rather than allow a genocide to occur again on her watch.
But much of the article suggests that the situation in Sudan is too complicated--both morally and politically--for a categorical, hardline approach to work. While the government-sponsored Janjaweed caused most of the displacement and suffering during the first two years of the conflict in 2004-2005, the sides to the conflict are more fluid now, "with fighting among various Arab tribes and rebel factions displacing more people this year than government bombings." A no-fly zone, said one UN official who has no love of the Bashir government, is just posturing "that's not going to work."
Other officials interviewed for the article suggest that undermining Bashir could have negative repercussions for the US. Stirring up the Arab militants who support Bashir's government could turn them into a dangerous force.
But an unidentified Obama campaign adviser said that accountability should also be part of any long-term political settlement in Sudan; the leaders who orchestrated the campaign in Darfur must face their misdeeds, he said, even if that comes several years late.
"If we accept the notion that the brutality we've witnessed from this regime over the past two decades is acceptable to bring about temporary stability, then shouldn't we have done the same for the Nazis in Germany?" said the adviser.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Human Rights Groups Denounce EU's Apathy
A broad coalition of human rights groups today denounced the European Union's decision to not send troops to the DR Congo to help quell the violence that has uprooted hundreds of thousands of people in the eastern region of the country. "By any normal standard, this is a crisis, but it seems European leaders believe such daily horrors in eastern Congo are acceptable and require no immediate intervention,” said Lotte Leicht, EU Director of Human Rights Watch. Complete statement available here.
The statement says that there is little hope that EU leaders meeting today in Brussels will agree to send troops.
The statement says that there is little hope that EU leaders meeting today in Brussels will agree to send troops.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Who Are the FDLR?
This piece in Wednesday's Washington Post tells the story of one family who escaped from the FDLR's clutches, and says that most of the 6,000 or so militia who form the FDLR are "essentially being held hostage to serve the interests of a core leadership of about 50 aging genocide participants wanted by Rwandan authorities."
This estimate of the FDLR comports with the one Alison des Forges of HRW has been making for some time. Today's FDLR, while a linear descendant of the Forces Armees Rwandaises, or genocidaires, consist mostly of "innocent" civilians, too young to have participated in the genocide, and largely uninterested in its ideology. Other estimates of that core group have been significantly higher. The NGO African Rights claimed they numbered in the "hundreds," with dozens more abroad. An MDRP study concluded last year that the FDLR contained between 200 and 300 genocide suspects.
While maintaining that they continue to represent a real threat to Rwandan security, the Kigali government has refused to publish a list of the names of genocide suspects it claims reside in DRC. It is widely agreed that the FDLR pose virtually no threat to Rwanda today, and that they have not even attempted an incursion since 2001. On the other hand, as one Tutsi politician said in Kinshasa: “the mere fact of their existence, their genocidal past and the racist views of some of their members would be enough reason for any victimised people to seek their disbanding. Europe does not tolerate the continued existence of the Nazi ideology either.” (See this excellent IPIS report, pages 8 - 11.)
This estimate of the FDLR comports with the one Alison des Forges of HRW has been making for some time. Today's FDLR, while a linear descendant of the Forces Armees Rwandaises, or genocidaires, consist mostly of "innocent" civilians, too young to have participated in the genocide, and largely uninterested in its ideology. Other estimates of that core group have been significantly higher. The NGO African Rights claimed they numbered in the "hundreds," with dozens more abroad. An MDRP study concluded last year that the FDLR contained between 200 and 300 genocide suspects.
While maintaining that they continue to represent a real threat to Rwandan security, the Kigali government has refused to publish a list of the names of genocide suspects it claims reside in DRC. It is widely agreed that the FDLR pose virtually no threat to Rwanda today, and that they have not even attempted an incursion since 2001. On the other hand, as one Tutsi politician said in Kinshasa: “the mere fact of their existence, their genocidal past and the racist views of some of their members would be enough reason for any victimised people to seek their disbanding. Europe does not tolerate the continued existence of the Nazi ideology either.” (See this excellent IPIS report, pages 8 - 11.)
UN Formally Requests EU Troops
Le Soir reports that UN head Ban Ki-moon sent a formal request to the EU for troops to help end the ongoing conflict in the DRC. The EU troops would serve as a transitional force until the UN-mandated MONUC reinforcements arrive.
This is an enormously welcome development, as it appeared earlier this week that the prospect of the EU sending troops was dead.
The request from Ban Ki-moon arrived in the form of a letter sent yesterday to Javier Solana, the EU's chief of foreign affairs, according to Karel de Gucht, Belgium's foreign minister. The request will be considered at an EU meeting in Brussels on Monday.
This is an enormously welcome development, as it appeared earlier this week that the prospect of the EU sending troops was dead.
The request from Ban Ki-moon arrived in the form of a letter sent yesterday to Javier Solana, the EU's chief of foreign affairs, according to Karel de Gucht, Belgium's foreign minister. The request will be considered at an EU meeting in Brussels on Monday.
FDLR Asks for Dialogue
More evidence the agreement between the Rwandan and Congolese governments to hunt down the FDLR in eastern Congo is for real: the FDLR is now urging renewed dialogue with the two governments to settle their differences. "The two countries have the right to cooperate for their security, but it is essential to negotiate," said FDLR spokesman lieutenant-colonel Garambe.
"To proceed immediately to a military solution is hasty; we don't resolve insecurity by creating more insecurity," he said, adding that the FDLR was capable of defending itself. "We are a military force, we have weapons."
"To proceed immediately to a military solution is hasty; we don't resolve insecurity by creating more insecurity," he said, adding that the FDLR was capable of defending itself. "We are a military force, we have weapons."
Friday, December 5, 2008
Let Them Eat Peppermints
So it turns out there's a horse riding center in Kinshasa. With fancy cocktail parties and all.
World to Congo: Bugger Off
It's going to take six months to assemble the extra 3,000 troops MONUC requested last month. Amnesty International is rightly appalled.
Quote of the Day
Last month's plea from 44 civil society organizations in eastern Congo was unusually eloquent, as this brief from Human Rights Watch reminds:
We are anxious, afraid and utterly traumatized by the constant insecurity in which we live. . . We don't know which saint to pray to; we are condemned to death by all this violence and displacement. We have been abandoned. Who will protect us? Who will help us?
Congo & Rwanda to Fight FDLR Together
Rwanda and the DRC agreed to to fight together against the FDLR, the military rump of the Hutu extremist group responsible for the Rwandan genocide, who have taken refuge in eastern DRC since being chased out of Rwanda in 1994. The agreement, reached earlier today in Goma, poses interesting opportunities and risks for both countries.
The risks are more immediate for the Congo. In agreeing to allow Rwandan soldiers access to the Kivus, it has essentially conceded its impotence and surrendered a portion of its sovereignty. The political backlash in Kinshasa could be strong. In addition, allowing Rwandans in could further inflame the volatile relationship between Congolese Tutsi and so-called autochthones or indigenous groups in North Kivu.
For Rwanda, the downside is that their Congolese operations will be forced out of the shadows. For a decade or so, the Rwandans have claimed not to be present in the Congo--but also that they had a right to be there, to defend against the threat posed by the FDLR. The ambiguity of those claims has given them the margin to conduct their real business, the extraction of the Congo's mineral wealth. This agreement, if it is properly managed, will require the Rwandans to be forthright about their presence and transparent about their operations. It will require them to end their support for Laurent Nkunda, cease their exploitation of the Congo's riches, and actually go after the FDLR, who have continued to terrorize the Congolese long after they ceased being any kind of threat to Rwandans.
I am usually skeptical of the peace agreements, ceasefires, truces, and political arrangements reached in this part of the world--they often seem to be on a parallel but independent track to the actual conduct of the parties to them. But this one strikes me as potentially significant. And it is perhaps not irrelevant that this agreement was reached by the two parties themselves, on their own, without the endless prompting and cajoling that has typified Western peacemaking efforts in the region.
The risks are more immediate for the Congo. In agreeing to allow Rwandan soldiers access to the Kivus, it has essentially conceded its impotence and surrendered a portion of its sovereignty. The political backlash in Kinshasa could be strong. In addition, allowing Rwandans in could further inflame the volatile relationship between Congolese Tutsi and so-called autochthones or indigenous groups in North Kivu.
For Rwanda, the downside is that their Congolese operations will be forced out of the shadows. For a decade or so, the Rwandans have claimed not to be present in the Congo--but also that they had a right to be there, to defend against the threat posed by the FDLR. The ambiguity of those claims has given them the margin to conduct their real business, the extraction of the Congo's mineral wealth. This agreement, if it is properly managed, will require the Rwandans to be forthright about their presence and transparent about their operations. It will require them to end their support for Laurent Nkunda, cease their exploitation of the Congo's riches, and actually go after the FDLR, who have continued to terrorize the Congolese long after they ceased being any kind of threat to Rwandans.
I am usually skeptical of the peace agreements, ceasefires, truces, and political arrangements reached in this part of the world--they often seem to be on a parallel but independent track to the actual conduct of the parties to them. But this one strikes me as potentially significant. And it is perhaps not irrelevant that this agreement was reached by the two parties themselves, on their own, without the endless prompting and cajoling that has typified Western peacemaking efforts in the region.
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