Zuma moves to defuse Dar, Kampala, Kigali tensions

[Geza Ulole]

Zuma moves to defuse Dar, Kampala, Kigali tensions

South African President Jacob Zuma (centre), Uganda's Yoweri Museveni (right) met in Kampala on December 21. In their meeting, the two leaders discussed peace and security in the Great Lakes region. PHOTO | FILE

IN SUMMARY

ALL EYES ON FDLR, STABILITY

• At the centre of the tension is disarmament and demobilisation of negative forces that threaten peace and stability led by Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), the Rwandan Hutu rebel group associated with the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
• Rwanda and Uganda favour an all-out attack of the FDLR, which is based in eastern DRC. But Sadc states, led by South Africa, Tanzania and DRC, are edgy over this imminent attack.
• South Africa has economic interests in DRC which an attack on FDLR could hurt.

Defusing rising tensions around the imminent deployment of the East African Regional Standby Force to disarm Rwandan Hutu rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, was the major reason for South African President Jacob Zuma's surprise visit to Dar es Salaam and Kampala earlier this week, TheEastAfrican has learnt.

Zuma held meetings with his Tanzanian and Ugandan counterparts during which they discussed peace and security in the Great Lakes Region, according to official statements. It turns out, however, that this was a euphemism for differences over the proposed deployment of troops from the East African Standby Brigade in the DRC in early January to attack "negative" forces that threaten regional security despite the recent routing of the M23 rebels by a combined Tanzanian, Malawian and South African force.

The major negative force is the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), which the United Nations Security Council gave a January 2, 2015 deadline to surrender, demobilise and renounce its genocide ideology or an international force would be brought in.

The other is Ugandan rebel group Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Recently, some 1,000 former M23 rebels fled from a camp in western Uganda to avoid forcible repatriation to the DRC.

READ: DR Congo ex-rebels found in Uganda refugee camp

Fittingly, Zuma's visit to Dar on December 21, and Kampala the following day was about regional peace and security, although Uganda and Tanzania do not seem to pull in the same direction on the FDLR issue.

Tanzania is a member of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), with close ties to South Africa. Given the bad blood between President Jakaya Kikwete and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, who like Museveni favours an all-out attack on the FDLR, analysts say Zuma's mission to Kampala was to delay the deployment of Ugandan, Kenyan and Rwandan combat units under the East African Standby Forces (EASF).

It is said EASF, mandated by the African Union's Peace and Security Council, is itching to attack the negative forces in eastern DRC, particularly the FDLR, following the UNSC's verdict that the group will not meet the deadline to fully demobilise.

"Since July 2, no further voluntary surrenders of the members of the FDLR have happened and the FDLR have failed to deliver on their public promise to voluntarily demobilise. Only substantial progress towards the full demobilisation called for by the region and committed to by the FDLR could justify further reprieve from military action against the FDLR," the UNSC said.

But SADC states, led by South Africa, Tanzania and the DRC, are edgy over this imminent attack. South Africa has economic interests in DRC - mining, oil and gas, as well as food chains -which an attack on FDLR could hurt.

The EastAfrican has learnt that in the meeting between Presidents Zuma and Museveni, it was agreed that a quick mini-summit be held to "first consult Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos on his position for this deployment."

Museveni would then carry the position of the ICGLR chairman to his counterparts Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta and Rwanda's Kagame, on whether to proceed with or suspend the onslaught on the FDLR.

"President Museveni and Uganda have a very inspiring position of pan-Africanism as well as the defence of our continent. When we come here, we come to consult and we come when we are sure that we get good advice," Zuma said after the meeting with Museveni.

Dos Santos is the chairman of the 12-member state regional peace and security pact, the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) comprising Angola, DRC, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania. The other members are Burundi, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, Congo Brazzaville, the Central African Republic and Zambia.

"It's the festive season but the presidents are not resting; the deadline for the FDLR to surrender is almost one week away. Tomorrow, we are heading to Addis Ababa, where Museveni will meet Dos Santos," a highly placed government source said.

Zuma's intervention is seen as an effort to stop the bad blood between Rwanda and Tanzania spilling over into a regional fight for hegemony over who controls eastern Congo, where South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi deployed an international brigade in 2012 to fight the M23, a rebel force that Rwanda is allegedly sympathetic to.

As SADC states, both Tanzania and DRC are seen as having recently struck up an alliance that seeks to stop Rwanda from influencing the geopolitical configuration of eastern Congo.

Zuma also discussed the role South Africa can play in helping the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in the proposed transitional government of national unity in South Sudan.

Rival groups led by President Salva Kiir and Dr Riek Machar have been seeking Pretoria's intervention in the formation of transitional government and a power-sharing structure, where Igad proposed an executive president and the nominal slot of prime minister to be taken by the opposition. But Machar's side is pushing for an executive prime minister.



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[waltham]

Zuma moves to defuse Dar, Kampala, Kigali tensions

South African President Jacob Zuma (centre), Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni (right) met in Kampala on December 21. In their meeting, the two leaders discussed peace and security in the Great Lakes region. PHOTO | FILE

IN SUMMARY

ALL EYES ON FDLR, STABILITY

• At the centre of the tension is disarmament and demobilisation of negative forces that threaten peace and stability led by Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), the Rwandan Hutu rebel group associated with the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
• Rwanda and Uganda favour an all-out attack of the FDLR, which is based in eastern DRC. But Sadc states, led by South Africa, Tanzania and DRC, are edgy over this imminent attack.
• South Africa has economic interests in DRC which an attack on FDLR could hurt.

Defusing rising tensions around the imminent deployment of the East African Regional Standby Force to disarm Rwandan Hutu rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, was the major reason for South African President Jacob Zuma’s surprise visit to Dar es Salaam and Kampala earlier this week, TheEastAfrican has learnt.

Zuma held meetings with his Tanzanian and Ugandan counterparts during which they discussed peace and security in the Great Lakes Region, according to official statements. It turns out, however, that this was a euphemism for differences over the proposed deployment of troops from the East African Standby Brigade in the DRC in early January to attack “negative” forces that threaten regional security despite the recent routing of the M23 rebels by a combined Tanzanian, Malawian and South African force.

The major negative force is the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), which the United Nations Security Council gave a January 2, 2015 deadline to surrender, demobilise and renounce its genocide ideology or an international force would be brought in.

The other is Ugandan rebel group Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Recently, some 1,000 former M23 rebels fled from a camp in western Uganda to avoid forcible repatriation to the DRC.

READ: DR Congo ex-rebels found in Uganda refugee camp

Fittingly, Zuma’s visit to Dar on December 21, and Kampala the following day was about regional peace and security, although Uganda and Tanzania do not seem to pull in the same direction on the FDLR issue.

Tanzania is a member of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), with close ties to South Africa. Given the bad blood between President Jakaya Kikwete and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, who like Museveni favours an all-out attack on the FDLR, analysts say Zuma’s mission to Kampala was to delay the deployment of Ugandan, Kenyan and Rwandan combat units under the East African Standby Forces (EASF).

It is said EASF, mandated by the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, is itching to attack the negative forces in eastern DRC, particularly the FDLR, following the UNSC’s verdict that the group will not meet the deadline to fully demobilise.

“Since July 2, no further voluntary surrenders of the members of the FDLR have happened and the FDLR have failed to deliver on their public promise to voluntarily demobilise. Only substantial progress towards the full demobilisation called for by the region and committed to by the FDLR could justify further reprieve from military action against the FDLR,” the UNSC said.

But SADC states, led by South Africa, Tanzania and the DRC, are edgy over this imminent attack. South Africa has economic interests in DRC — mining, oil and gas, as well as food chains —which an attack on FDLR could hurt.

The EastAfrican has learnt that in the meeting between Presidents Zuma and Museveni, it was agreed that a quick mini-summit be held to “first consult Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos on his position for this deployment.”

Museveni would then carry the position of the ICGLR chairman to his counterparts Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and Rwanda’s Kagame, on whether to proceed with or suspend the onslaught on the FDLR.

“President Museveni and Uganda have a very inspiring position of pan-Africanism as well as the defence of our continent. When we come here, we come to consult and we come when we are sure that we get good advice,” Zuma said after the meeting with Museveni.

Dos Santos is the chairman of the 12-member state regional peace and security pact, the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) comprising Angola, DRC, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania. The other members are Burundi, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, Congo Brazzaville, the Central African Republic and Zambia.

“It’s the festive season but the presidents are not resting; the deadline for the FDLR to surrender is almost one week away. Tomorrow, we are heading to Addis Ababa, where Museveni will meet Dos Santos,” a highly placed government source said.

Zuma’s intervention is seen as an effort to stop the bad blood between Rwanda and Tanzania spilling over into a regional fight for hegemony over who controls eastern Congo, where South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi deployed an international brigade in 2012 to fight the M23, a rebel force that Rwanda is allegedly sympathetic to.

As SADC states, both Tanzania and DRC are seen as having recently struck up an alliance that seeks to stop Rwanda from influencing the geopolitical configuration of eastern Congo.

Zuma also discussed the role South Africa can play in helping the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in the proposed transitional government of national unity in South Sudan.

Rival groups led by President Salva Kiir and Dr Riek Machar have been seeking Pretoria’s intervention in the formation of transitional government and a power-sharing structure, where Igad proposed an executive president and the nominal slot of prime minister to be taken by the opposition. But Machar’s side is pushing for an executive prime minister.



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FDLR surrender deadline is here but Dar, Pretoria don’t want to know

The central issue today is that troop contributors Tanzania and South Africa are showing no willingness to militarily dismantle the FDLR rebel group. PHOTO | TEA GRAPHIC
By Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast

Posted Saturday, December 27 2014 at 12:37
IN SUMMARY

• While the FDLR offered to disarm in May 2014, behind the scenes it is doing the opposite. Six months of Enough Project field research uncovered that the rebels are regrouping, trading gold and charcoal for weapons, and mobilising political support.
• Tanzania and South Africa, the countries that would be the largest members of the integration force, continue to make excuses for the FDLR.
• Tanzania lists the FDLR as a freedom fighting organisation on its government website, and senior South African envoys have lobbied in negotiations for delays in counter-FDLR operations.

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The clock is ticking on a deadline that will help determine the prospects for future peace and stability in the violence-wracked Democratic Republic of Congo.

Two years ago, the world embarked on a major experiment in peacekeeping, sending a robustly mandated force to do the tough parts of peace enforcement alongside more traditional United Nations blue helmets. The scene of the test was the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II, in Congo, where Rwandan-backed rebels had taken over significant swathes of Congolese territory and threatened to destabilise the entire country.

For over a decade, UN peacekeepers had been present in Congo, but to little effect. They had failed to prevent numerous massacres of civilians. And in November 2012, one of eastern Congo’s largest cities, Goma, fell to rebels known as the M23 despite the presence of 19,000 UN troops in the region.

Thanks to a public campaign against the M23 and leadership by the US and UN, the UN Security Council authorised an Intervention Brigade staffed by South African, Tanzanian, and Malawian soldiers. The force was mandated to “neutralise armed groups… in a robust, highly mobile, and versatile manner.”

It had initial successes, ably reinforcing the Congolese army’s push against the M23 with air support and sophisticated weaponry, albeit with casualties. Thanks in part to these military victories, the M23 officially disarmed in December 2013.

One year later, the initiative has reversed course. The central issue today is that troop contributors Tanzania and South Africa are showing no willingness to militarily dismantle the FDLR rebel group. The FDLR has been one of the most significant threats to civilians in eastern Congo over the past 20 years, and its presence has served as a justification for Rwandan interventions in Congo.

It is led by commanders who are reported to have perpetrated Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and is on the US list of terrorist organisations. The FDLR has committed numerous massacres in eastern Congo. For example, in Shabunda in 2012, FDLR combatants allegedly massacred 45 civilians, decapitated the village chief, and cut a baby from a pregnant woman.

While the FDLR offered to disarm in May 2014, behind the scenes it is doing the opposite. Six months of Enough Project field research uncovered that the rebels are regrouping, trading gold and charcoal for weapons, and mobilising political support.

Georges, a Congolese community leader, told our team, “Their demobilisation offer is only going to help them buy time as usual.” Congolese civil society coalitions have written letters to the UN asking it to launch military strikes against the FDLR.

On January 2, the FDLR faces an ultimatum from the UN to disarm or face military action, and the international community has agreed on benchmarks for the disarmament.

However, Tanzania and South Africa, the countries that would be the largest members of that force, continue to make excuses for the FDLR. Tanzania lists the FDLR as a freedom fighting organisation on its government website, and senior South African envoys have lobbied in negotiations for delays in counter-FDLR operations.

Three changes can get the process back on track. First, Tanzania and South Africa must commit to conducting operations against the FDLR if the benchmarks are not met by the deadline. They are helping allow a rebellion to reorganise that includes alleged genocidaires, that has used rape systematically as a weapon of war, and that Congolese civil society says continues to threaten it.

The peacekeepers are under the command of the UN, so operational decisions should not be made in the capitals of troop contributing countries.

Second, the UN should rotate troops out of the Congo operation that are not making useful contributions and rotate in more capable militaries, in co-ordination with the Congolese government. This would be a much more efficient use of taxpayer money. Angola, for example, has one of the region’s most capable armies and could be encouraged to take on a larger regional peacekeeping role.

Third, the US should deploy Special Forces advisors to the Intervention Brigade in a pared-down version of the successful counter-Lord’s Resistance Army mission. That mission, with African forces in the lead and advised by US military advisors on intelligence and defection strategies, has helped reduce LRA attacks by 92 per cent in three years.

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SA na economic interests hawataki vita dhidi ya FDLR na JK naye ni bootlicking ya kawaida ya SA na getting back thru proxy war kwa rafiki wake Kagame. huku Kagame akiwa upande wa M23 naye JK na Jeshi lake la Fdlr, huu ni upuuzi mtupu.

 

[AfPoliFed]

With deadline fast approaching,politics and logistics get in theway of operations against theFDLR It has been exactly one year since MartinKobler, the head of the UN peacekeepingmission in the Congo, tweeted: ""The numberone priority for MONUSCO is now theFDLR." It has now been nine months since aregional organization, the InternationalConference on the Great Lakes Region, calledfor a military offensive against the FDLR. Aspreviously noted here, the UN and foreigndiplomats had seen the attack on the FDLR aspart of the grand bargain aimed at bringing anend to the regional dimension of war in thecountry: First get rid of the M23, then dealwith the FDLR.To date, no real operations against the FDLRhave taken place. Why the delay?On 2 July 2014, the Southern AfricaDevelopment Community (SADC) and ICGLRdecided to give the FDLR six months tovoluntarily disarm. The FDLR sent some 200soldiers and an equal number of dependentsto a military camp in Kisangani as a gesture ofgoodwill, although many of those soldierswere not fit to fight anyway. That goodwillhas now in theory come to an end¨C¨Cand yet,with the 2 January 2015 looming, it is likelythat we will see little immediate concertedaction against the group.There are two main reasons for this. The firstis political. Relations between countries in theregion have soured in recent years, andTanzania and South Africa¨C¨Cthe two largestcontributors to the UN's new ForceIntervention Brigade (FIB)¨C¨Care eager to useplay the FDLR card against Rwanda. For SouthAfrica, the resentment stems from therepeated assassination attempts againstRwandan opposition members on SouthAfrican soil, including during the middle ofthe World Cup in 2010. Pretoria is also keenon securing access to hydroelectric power inthe Congo through the construction of variousparts of the Inga dam. Just in the past weeks,a blackout in Durban, President Jacob Zuma'shome base, has cost their economy millions.Tanzania's involvement is less straightforward.According to several Tanzanian officials, theanimosity boils down to a personal disputebetween Presidents Paul Kagame and JakayaKikwete. On 26 May 2013, Kikwete suggestedin a speech at the African Union that Rwandanegotiate with its enemies, just as othercountries in the region had done. This thenunleashed a torrent of criticism from Kigali,ranging from a dismissive Kagame callingKikwete's comments "utter nonsense" and"dancing on the graves of our people," to thesimply obscene caricatures published on pro-government websites in Rwanda. There havealso been suggestions, stemming from aWikiLeaks cable, that Kikwete's wife Salma is acousin of former Rwandan PresidentHabyarimana (a claim that many Tanzanianssay is nonsense).In return, Tanzanian officials have reportedlyretorted that Kagame "will be whipped like asmall boy" and have referred to the FDLR asfreedom fighters. In recent meetings withTanzanian officials, foreign diplomats reportthat the former have referred to all FDLR asrefugees and depict the conflict in ethnicterms as Tutsi against Hutu. According tothose same sources, the Tanzaniangovernment is reluctant to authorize theirtroops to launch operations against the FDLR.A UN official, speaking under the condition ofanonymity, suggested this was one of thereasons that the Tanzanians were beingdeployed against the ADF in North Kivu andnot against the FDLR. (Not all Tanzanianofficials, however, toe this line, and othersinsist that their troops will carry out UNorders regardless).The other reason that military operationsagainst the Rwandan rebels may be delayed isdue logistical constraints. The UN has recentlymoved the HQ of its Force InterventionBrigade to Beni to counter attacks by the ADFrebellion, which¨C¨Calong with other, nebulousactors¨C¨Cmay have killed up to 250 peoplesince October. This means that its mainfighting force has been tied down. While theentire peacekeeping force is supposed toparticipate in operations against armedgroups, other contingents have been reticentto take risky, offensive action¨C¨Cas the CrisisGroup documents in a new report releasedtoday.Nonetheless, UN officials say that they havebeen planning joint military operations againstthe FDLR with their Congolese counterpartsfor the past several weeks, and that they willtry to launch operations following the Januarydeadline. The FDLR, for their part, have toldtheir contacts in the UN that they areplanning to announce another goodwillgesture in order to stave off an attack.We will see in two-and-a-half weeks. congosiasa.blogspot.in/2014/12/with-deadline-fast-approaching-politics.html?m=1