On Wednesday this week a UN panel of experts delivered a damning report to the security council outlining the involvement of the Rwandan and Democratic Republic of Congo governments in supporting the Hutu and Tutsi militias in the ongoing conflict in the eastern DRC.
The report confirms that Rwanda has been sending officers and units of the Rwanda Defence Force to support Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) militia and in addition that the RDF has helped to facilitate the supply of weapons to the CNDP.
The report also confirms that the Congolese army has been supplying Hutu rebels active in the Northern Kivu province and concludes that they are responsible for supplying much of the weaponry in the conflict. The weaponry is either sold or donated to the FDLR (Hutu rebels), whom they consider allies or captured by the CNDP.
In essence, the DRC and Rwanda are involved in a brutal proxy war for territory and resources in eastern Congo, and all the participants involved in the conflict are using execution, rape and child soldiers as tools of war.
The matter — due to be tabled and debated at the UN on Monday — is going to give rise to enormous anger in light of the fact that the UN currently houses the largest peacekeeping force in the world (17 000) in the DRC and two years ago it sponsored elections meant to end these conflicts. It is currently brokering peace talks in Nairobi and the EU is debating whether to supplement the peacekeeping force.
The fact that there is evidence that Rwanda and the DRC are responsible for stoking up and supporting the conflict will not sit well when the issue of sanctions is discussed.
The role of the corporates in this and other African misadventures must also not be overlooked as this shocking report from Keith Harmon Snow clearly demonstrates
Regardless of who is responsible what cannot be ignored is that 250 000 people have been displaced while citizens are being brutally tortured, raped and murdered in this obscene conflict.
The team of five experts, led by Jason Stearns, who produced the report, were commissioned to investigate illegal arms trafficking to the DRC. What they have uncovered is corporate and state involvement in creating and sustaining the ongoing conflict.
This includes, but is not limited to:
- CNDP using Rwandan territory, banks and the army in order to recruit, obtain finance and even launch raids into the eastern DRC;
- Rwandan businessmen with ties to President Paul Kagame financing Nkunda;
- Rwanda sending officers and units of the Rwanda Defene Force to support Tutsi rebels;
- Collaboration between the Congolese army and the Hutu militia (FDLR);
- Congolese army supplying ammunition to FDLR units, and
- The recruiting of children by all militias.
All of this comes on the back of the recent vehement denials from both Kigali and Kinshasa of any government involvement in the ongoing conflict. The fact that they are continuing to deny the part they are playing in fuelling and supporting the conflict, despite this report, is going to heighten the tension between the international community and the DRC and Rwanda.
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