Diplomacy or Defeat, Kabila Will Speak to Enemies

originally published in the Daily Nation, Kenya

Is it diplomatic strategy or the first signs of cracks in President Joseph Kabila’s government in the Democratic Republic of Congo as he promised to rebels wreaking havoc in the east direct talks on Friday?

For months since he began his assault on North Kivu province last August, Tutsi renegade Gen Laurent Nkunda has demanded bilateral talks with Kabila himself, threatening to topple the government and take over the country if his conditions were not met.

But neither Nkunda nor Kabila will be present at the talks. “A meeting will take place between representatives of the government of DR Congo and the CNDP on December 8 in Nairobi in Kenya,” said foreign minister Alexis Thambe Mwamba after meeting his Rwandan counterpart, Rosemary Museminali.

A spokesperson for Nkunda’s National Congress for the People’s Defence acknowledged the promise from the elected president, but said it was only a first step.

“It is time they (Congolese government) spoke with us,” said rebel spokesperson Bertrand Bisimwa in a telephone conversation yesterday, but real action was needed next. “We have a problem of instability in our region, and that is why we fight. The government has cheated its people, let them come good on their promise,” he added.

In another development, Congo and neighbouring Rwanda signed an agreement to work together logistically to break up another rebel group, the FDLR, which is considered to be the antagonists in the decade-long fight over this mineral-rich region.

The two countries will launch coordinated operations against the FDLR in the east of the Congo, although details of the campaign have not yet been disclosed. The operations will begin “early next year,” according to Mwamba, and will also involve oversight from the United Nations mission in the Congo, MONUC.

Mwamba added that there would be a “significant input” from Rwanda on the matter. The Hutu militias responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that killed nearly 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus, have been at the crux of the tension between the two countries since they fled to the Congo and reassembled as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, a rebel group of nearly 7,000.

Rwanda and Nkunda accuse Kabila of everything from cooperating with to coordinating the FDLR. In return, Congo says the CNDP is a Rwanda proxy force.

The charge is nowhere more manifest than in the streets of Goma. “This is not the Congolese with the problem,” said Tibere Rudahingwa, 32, a father of four and a mechanic in Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu. “The Rwandese are doing whatever they want here. They are bad people.”

But in a drastic about-face by Kabila in Kinshasa, the prototype of an African strongman has been drastically challenged as many people see it as a sign of weakness.

Like many presidents on the continent, an image of strength is a requisite for real strength. Negotiations with the CNDP and allowing Rwanda to have security operations on the Congolese soil could seriously undermine the legitimacy of the Kabila administration.

The latest events come amid the accusation that Rwanda is fuelling the fighting in the Congo with a mix of military allegiances and business partnerships guaranteeing them considerable wealth at the expense of mineral deposits underneath the rebel territory.

Rwanda denies the accusations but does not hesitate to say that it will act in its own security interests if it believes interested parties are endangered.

Fighting between government forces and the CNDP began on August 28 after cattle belonging to the rebel group were stolen.

A series of clean military sweeps down a long stretch of highway running north from Goma has brought the rebels to the edge of one of the Congo’s largest cities, forcing the flight of more than 250,000 people.

The UN last month signed off a further 3,000 troops to be brought to the country, where the world’s largest — and some say most disappointing — peacekeeping force operates with a staff of 17,000 and an annual budget of over $1 billion (Sh78 billion).