/ 23 July 2007

The rebel leader banks on a hymn and a prayer

Dissident General Laurent Nkunda likes to think of himself as a saviour. This might explain why, as we drive to church on Saturday morning, his security detail includes not only standard issue Kalashnikovs and RPGs, but also a keyboard and eight hymn-singing soldiers.

Once we arrive in the small town of Kanyatshi, Nkunda, who has illegally maintained his own army since 2003, spends several hours praying at the Seventh Day Adventist church. The formal service over, he gives the congregation a lecture about prenatal care and childbirth. ”I am completing the construction on the local maternity ward and, once it is built, the local police will tax all women who continue to have their children at home, where the conditions are not good.”

Finally, the keyboard is hauled out, hooked up to a car battery and Nkunda’s military choir springs into action, swaying to the sounds of religious songs sung in Kinyarwanda, a language shared by the congregation, most of whom are Congolese Tutsis, like Nkunda himself.

Since 2003, when he refused an appointment as a general in the Congolese army and was formally expelled, Nkunda has positioned ­himself as the champion of the Tutsi community. His party, the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), founded last year, has as one of its main goals the return of Congolese Tutsi refugees living in Rwanda since the Nineties.

Nkunda regularly conducts ideological indoctrination seminars and he and his followers claim that they are working for the overall upliftment of all the ethnic groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo region. They are now in the process of establishing their own parallel government in the areas under their control, ranging from local administrators to a new police force. Several Nkunda supporters boasted that they represent the discipline and drive the absence of which undermines the regular Congolese army and government.

Not everyone agrees. In the town of Rutshuru 100km to the east of Nkunda’s stronghold, hundreds of families are arriving to take refuge after fleeing from ”armed men” who attacked their town at the weekend.

Among the group of newly displaced people gathered outside a church in town, few are sure who the attackers were, but they think they were elements of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the Rwandan Hutu militia responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, thousands of whom have been operating in the eastern DRC ever since.

”We are not sure who it was, but we think it was the FDLR,” says Felicien, an internally displaced person (IDP).

It is no surprise that there is confusion about the identity of the attackers. The FDLR are one of myriad illegally armed groups that have continued to operate in the eastern DRC despite the signing of a peace accord in 2002.

Since 2003 Nkunda’s band of loyal soldiers have contributed to the instability in the region, frequently clashing with Congolese army troops, while steadfastly refusing to accept integration into the army.

Perhaps weakened by his failed attempt to take over the city of Goma in November last year, in January Nkunda struck a deal with the Congolese government to place his troops under central army command.

The government says the ”mixing” of forces was intended to bring stability to the volatile eastern DRC, solve the problem of Nkunda’s presence and boost efforts to track down the FDLR.

However, the effect has been the opposite. Initially joint operations of the brigades — composed of two battalions from Nkunda’s forces and two from the Congolese army — against the FDLR seemed a success, but the situation soon deteriorated. The UN now says the latest fighting has created the greatest level of instability in the region in the past three years.

According to the latest figures from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), about 160 000 people have been displaced since January this year and the total number of IDPs in North Kivu province now stands at more than 600 000. This accounts for more than 50% of IDPs in the DRC.

In recent months the Congolese government has put a halt to the creation of additional mixed brigades, mainly because the battalions made up of Nkunda loyalists continue to obey his command and have been conducting their own operations against the FDLR. Nkunda for his part has called the mixage a failure and accuses the government of pulling out of the process.

Meanwhile human rights activists in the region accuse Nkunda’s elements in the brigades of committing exactions against the civilian populations. In February Nkundist elements of Bravo brigade brutally massacred 15 people in the town of Buramba.

Nkunda’s people do not admit to such atrocities, but openly accuse the local population of harbouring and supporting the FDLR for many years.

”In Rutshuru territory we have to be particularly tough, as the population there has actively supported the FDLR for years,” Fred, a Tutsi soldier close to Nkunda, says. When questioned about this, he retreats somewhat from his position, acknowledging that the local populations often have little choice but to cooperate with the armed groups in their midst.

Jean Kambale, a community leader for the displaced population in and around Rutshuru explains the successive waves of violence that forced people to flee.

”First we were forced to live with the FDLR, who mistreated the population …When Bravo brigade came … they asked people in the villages to help them find the FDLR and, when they did, they killed them, accusing them of working with them.”

Back at his farm in Masisi territory, Nkunda denies that he is responsible for atrocities committed by the mixed brigades. ”They are under the command of the eighth military region, I have nothing to do with them, I cannot command operations for them anymore.”

This view is not shared by the deputy commander of the eighth military region, Colonel Dieudonne Kitenge, who acknowledges that Nkunda’s men do not respect the Congolese army’s command.

”We say no to the experience of ‘mixage’ because it complicated and confused the chain of command.”

Ironically, Kitenge, who is in charge of logistics for the military region, still has to pay the salaries of Nkunda’s men. This is indicative of the government’s indecision over what should happen next. Military analysts in the eastern DRC also say that the salaries, equipment and freedom of movement that Nkunda has gained from the process have strengthened Nkunda considerably.

Since the government halted the ”mixage” process, it has been moving integrated Congolese army brigades closer to North Kivu. International observers in the region say that its actions indicate that it might be looking for a military solution to the standoff with Nkunda.

Local politicians, such as North Kivu governor Julien Paluku, meanwhile think that the best way to end the standoff is for the Congolese government to order the mixed brigades to integration centres, where they will be broken up and undergo several months of training before being redeployed to other integrated units as part of standard prodecure for the creation of an integrated national army.

Nkunda says that he agrees that complete integration is the only solution. ”I am ready to rejoin the process … we did not even finish the first phase and the government pulled out without telling us,” he told the Mail & Guardian.

However, he simultaneously accuses the government of supporting the FDLR. ”[The Congolese army] lives with them, they work with them. They will never make them leave. The FDLR are their friends.”

Most observers of the situation agree that a military solution would bring only more human suffering on a massive scale. Already OCHA is saying that ongoing fighting will displace an additional 330 000 people in the next six months.

This week the European Union’s new special representative for the Great Lakes, Roeland Van De Geer, travelled to the eastern DRC. He told the M&G that the solution to the standoff between Kabila and Nkunda had to be resolved politically. ”Nkunda plays a major role but we have to look at the total situation, the problem of Nkunda, the FDLR and other armed groups, and get Kinshasa and Kigali talking and to take responsibility. The overall solution must be a political one.”

This is the first in a series of ­ articles about instability in the eastern DRC