Syria suffering awful but NOT 'unparallled in recent history'

In a rather shocking statement statement from someone in a position to know better, the head of the UN refugee agency described the situation in Syria as involving “suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history."

Perhaps António Guterres should get off YouTube and speak to his staff in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, home of what is widely acknowledged to be the deadliest war and worst humanitarian catastrophe anywhere on the planet since World War II.

The Kinshasa Symphony

The public radio program Studio 360 has a piece on a fascinating documentary about the Kinshasa Symphony Orchestra, in the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital. It's a compelling story from a country more known for less pleasant things.

Illegal mining funds DRC rebels

BBC's domestic Radio 4 has a good documentary on the devastating effects of illegal gold mining in the DR Congo.

RFI censored in DRC

RNW's Media Network blog reports that the Democratic Republic of the Congo has suspended FM transmissions of Radio France Internationale in the country. The Congolese regime has been a frequent critic of RFI's reporting. Media Network adds that RFI can still be heard in the DRC via shortwave.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people really aren't out to get you

One of the books I'm presently reading is Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone by Larry Devlin. Devlin was the first CIA agent in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, arriving five days after the country's independence from Belgium and beginning of its descent into chaos, chaos that was not entirely of its own making.

I'm not inclined to be sympathetic to a CIA special operations agent but it's an interesting read about a fascinating time. His take on the events is exactly what you'd expect but his candor is impressive.

Not surprisingly for a CIA agent, Devlin didn't think much of then-Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba. He didn't see Lumumba as a communist but thought he was erratic and naive and thus made the country vulnerable to Soviet influence.

Devlin complained [Lumumba's] paranoia infected troops who saw spies everywhere.

But then later adds that he received several messages from Director [of the CIA Allen] Dulles advising us that policy-makers shared our view that that we should to remove Lumumba from power.

He quoted a memo from Dulles stating that CIA headquarters concluded that his removal must be an urgent and prime objective and that under existing conditions, this should be a high priority of covert action.

Devlin added that he and his colleagues were already monitoring parliament and encouraging and guiding the actions of various parliamentary opposition groups that we had penetrated. We were also using Jacques [an editor] to insert anti-Lumumba articles in the country's leading newspaper.

The author also pointed out that [a]round this time one of our agents told us that a group of anti-Lumumba leaders had prepared a plan to assassinate him but then went on to lament that Lumumba's rival, President Joseph Kasavubu, was reluctant to endorse it.

Bear in mind that all this was after the country's two richest provinces had already declared independence, at the behest of influential Belgian mining interests.

So if Lumumba, who was kidnapped, tortured and finally assassinated a few months later, was "paranoid," then perhaps it was with good reason.

Was Nkunda a victim of a financial squeeze on Kigali?

A few days after being arrested, DRC rebel leader Laurent Nkunda remains in detention in neighboring Rwanda, his former backers. Kinshasa wants him extradited but Kigali claims that there's no extradition treaty between the two countries. Despite the recent military cooperation between the two countries, it seems Rwanda is eager to find reasons NOT to hand over Nkunda to Congolese officials. One can only speculate that they are afraid what tales Nkunda might tell in open court if given the opportunity.

In an interview with Radio France Internationale, Belgian academic Philippe Reyntjens speculates that the Kagame regime's turning against Nkunda is related to last month's release of a damning UN report that, among other things, openly accused Rwanda of backing Nkunda's forces. Reyntjens pointed out that some donors had suspended aid to Kigali and that the country's biggest foreign backer, Britain, was threatening to follow suit.

I'm loathe to use the word 'victim' to describe Nkunda but it appears international pressure on Rwanda to remove him from the scene succeeded.

Nkunda arrested

DR Congo rebel leader Laurent Nkunda was arrested by Rwandan troops. The arrest came only days after the launching of a joint military operation between the Congolese and Rwandan national armies (a mission not universally appreciated), after years of tension between the two governments. The DRC has called for Nkunda's extradition.

Rwanda was long accused of being his benefactor. Nkunda was originally a military leader in the RPF, the movement now in power in Kigali. Nkunda then joined the forces of Laurent-Désiré Kabila, which overthrown the Mobutu regime and whose son is now the DRC's head of state.

However, a BBC analysis believes that Nkunda's big mistake was launching a vicious military offensive last October around Goma that caused widespread international condemnation. The BBC analyst believes that this opened the space for a new relationship between Kinshasa and Kigali.

In mid-January, a group of soldiers part of Nkunda's movement claimed to have ousted him as leader.

A week later, he's in detention.

Some are optimistic that Nkunda's departure from the scene may lead to peace in the eastern DRC, a region devastated by war and instability for over a dozen years. But with the massive 'interest' and always murky activities in the country's mineral resources, caution is prudent.

Rebel splinter group to end DRC fighting?

Not sure what to make of this but... according to Rwanda's New Times, a DR Congo rebel group that recently claimed to have ousted its leader Laurent Nkunda announced that they were ending their hostilities against the central government in Kinshasa "with immediate effect."

A statement signed by leaders of the coup against Nkunda read, "The CNDP requests the government of the DRC the setting up of a joint commission to implement the reintegration into the FARDC (government army)."

DRC rebels sack Nkunda?

As if the region didn't need more chaos, elements of the main rebel group in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo claim to have fired their leader, Gen. Laurent Nkunda. A statement made to the BBC claim that that general was guilty of "bad leadership" and "bad governance". A spokesman for Nkunda denied the claim.

Analysts point out that Nkunda's group, which has been accused of widespread human rights abuses and war crimes, was one of the few factions in the war that actually spoke with one voice and that a split in the organization would make negotiations even more difficult and the situation more dangerous.

North Kivu spirals out of control

As many of you may be aware, there is a burgeoning crisis in North Kivu, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rebel 'general' Laurent Nkunda's Rwandan backed forces have started fighting again. The DRC's central government refuses to meet with Nkunda. The Congolese national army is so indisciplined and poorly paid that many observers say they are as much a threat to stability as Nkunda's forces.

Standing by impotently is MONUC, the largest and most expensive UN 'peacekeeping' mission in the world. The UK Independent ran an Associated Press analysis claiming that the 'Congo conflict shows flaws in UN force.'
The quick unraveling of the world's largest UN peacekeeping effort has come as no surprise to the mission's critics, who complain the force was unprepared for its main task — protecting civilians from the war.

Growing numbers of civilians are furious at the UN's failure to keep them safe. Angry Congolese have pelted rocks at all four UN compounds in the provincial capital of Goma. One such attack on the disputed road north of the city critically wounded an Indian officer.

MONUC has 17,000 troops in the DRC, a country the size of Western Europe. But the main trouble spots are in North Kivu, a province only slightly smaller than the country of Sierra Leone.

Only 6,000 of MONUC's soldiers are in North Kivu, even though most of the rest of the DRC is relatively peaceful and stable.
By comparison, the eventually successful UN mission in Sierra Leone itself once had over 17,000 troops.

MONUC needs a new mandate and the resources to execute it. Its current mandate is to support the DRC national army, an 'army that doesn't exist,' according to one UN official. Much like the rebels, the army is accused of widespread human rights' abuses. And the army is the official arm of a government that refuses to talk with Nkunda.

In December 2007, the UN empowered peacekeepers to forcefully disarm Nkunda's militias but they don't have the resources to do that. Nkunda has almost twice as many men as MONUC and the UN forces are poorly equipped.

Additionally, international pressure must be put on Rwanda to stop backing Nkunda's destabilizing forces. Worse yet, Rwanda has been accused of being more overtly involved in the conflict.

Rwandan forces fired tank shells or other heavy artillery across the border at Congolese troops during fighting last week, the UN said recently.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in North Kivu continues to spiral out of control for the Congolese, while aid workers helping them are subjected to many of the same dangers.

DR Congo 'peacekeepers' plundering resources and arming thugs

A year and a half long BBC investigation uncovered serious corruption in the world's largest peacekeeping mission. It revealed that Indian and Pakistani peacekeepers in MONUC, the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, armed militias and smuggled gold and ivory.

Furthermore, the BBC reported on a coverup within the international body.

The UN investigated some of the claims in 2007, but said it could not substantiate claims of arms dealing. UN insiders told the BBC's Panorama they had been prevented from pursuing their inquiries for political reasons, it reported.

Pakistan and India are two of the three largest contributors of manpower to UN peacekeeping, providing between them over 22 percent of the international body's peacekeepers.

The allegations come a few years after an earlier scandal where MONUC soldiers were accused of rampant sexual violence in the country.

The rationale for arming militias was that MONUC troops basically co-opted them to help ensure security in areas where they (the militias) were powerful. This isn't really much different than the US strategy in Occupied Iraq and will probably lead to similarly disastrous consequences.

No word on what was the justification for naked plundering.

It's hard enough being an American who's an unabashed internationalist and believes in the concept of the UN and the international community, without having crap like this happen. The allegations are bad enough. The shameful coverup, however typical it may be of large bureaucracies, only further degrades the global body's reputation.

Things are bad enough in this cursed country without the 'helpers' making things worse.

Update: It's ironic that this foreign corruption scandal erupted at a time when the Congolese themselves are reportedly trying hard to change the country's culture of graft.

Peace deal signed to (hopefully) end deadliest conflict since WWII

A peace deal has been signed that will hopefully end the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The deal was signed by the DRC's government, the pro-government Mai Mai militia and dissident rebel chief Laurent Nkunda.

Some observers called the deal historic but others were skeptical.

Africa analyst Muzong Kodi at Chatham House in London told the BBC's Focus on Africa program that, "The underlying problem is the resource war and if any of the groups disband other groups are going to replace them."

Kodi added that impunity is another major obstacle.

The deal was signed a day after the International Rescue Committee estimated that war and its resulting chaos had caused some 5.4 million Congolese deaths in the last decade.

The IRC has concluded that there are 45,000 more deaths, every month, than would be expected from the average, already poor conditions in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa.

Many of the deaths are caused by conditions like malaria, malnutrition and pneumonia, which are easily treatable... when public health infrastructure is available.

IRC noted that the DRC's vastness, it's the size of western Europe, exacerbated the astronomical death toll. In geographically smaller countries, aid agencies could better concentrate their efforts.

Eastern DRC violence to spread?

The Christian Science Monitor reports on fears by the UN and other agencies that the resumption of war in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo risks crossing the border into Rwanda. The region has been unstable since 1994 when genociders and civilians from Rwanda poured into the then-Zaire and were housed in refugee camps. Rwanda and Uganda have invaded the eastern DRC several times under the pretext of their own national security.

Nkunda calls for ceasefire after breaking previous one

Laurent Nkunda, an infamous warlord leader in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, has called for a ceasefire after five days of clashes between his forces and the national army.

"We are asking for it to stop so we can talk, because this is a problem that can only be resolved through dialogue. Arms will not solve anything," he said.

This came days after Nkunda himself had broken the previous ceasefire agreement, according to the UN mission in the country MONUC.

It is doubtful that Nkunda actually wants a ceasefire and this is probably just a scheme for his battered forces to buy time.

The man who controls the eastern DRC

The UK Independent has a disturbing look at DR Congo rebel leader Laurent Nkunda who promises to obstruct the country's fragile peace process. Though he insists that he's only protecting the Tutsis in the eastern DRC.

Regardless, his influence is not to be underestimated.

Everything here is controlled by him," explains Dominic Bofondo, the administrator of Rutshuru, pointing on a map to the western half the territory he is meant to govern. "He has all his own tax collectors out there. We tried to send ours there but they were beaten and they fled. For the past four months, we have not been receiving any reports from our people."

DRC's Children's Parliament

The Washington Post has an article on the Children's Parliament in the DR Congo. Not surprisingly, the men who've mostly screwed up the country could learn a lot from these kids.

Demobilization in Ituri

The UN's IRIN news service reports on some welcome news from Ituri. The international body has launched a program to demobilize some 4500 in the northeastern province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The programme is being implemented by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), with the DRC government, MONUC and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Ex-fighters participating in the programme include former members of the Front Nationaliste et Intégrationniste, led Peter Karim; the Forces de Résistance Patriotique en Ituri of Cobra Matata; and the Mouvement Révolutionnaire Congolais, headed by Mathieu Ngudjolo.

The three groups had remained active, fighting each other and attacking civilians, despite peace agreements culminating in presidential and parliamentary elections in DRC in 2006.

The UNDP believes that about 30 percent of the soldiers will join the newly reconstituted national army while the rest will rejoin civilian life.

Interestingly, the demobilised will this time participate in community development activities, such as the repair of roads, bridges, schools and water-supply facilities and receive a $2 daily wage.

DRC gov't warns Nkunda

South Africa's SABC reports that the Democratic Republic of the Congo's government has issued a stern warning to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda. Defense Minister Tshitez Diemu told the former DRC army general to stop threatening a return to war in North Kivu province, in the unstable east of the country. Nkunda has rejected the process of integrating rebel groups into the national armed forces.