State Dept. on U.N. Report on Democratic Republic of the Congo

30 June 2012

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesperson
June 30, 2012
2012/1079

STATEMENT BY VICTORIA NULAND, SPOKESPERSON

Findings of the Group of Experts

The United States welcomes the release of the findings of the Group of Experts of the UN Security Council's Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Sanctions Committee. We are deeply concerned about the report's findings that Rwanda is implicated in the provision of support to Congolese rebel groups, including mutinous elements now operating as the M23 armed group. Any such support threatens to further undermine security and fuel displacement in the region. We are also concerned about the report's findings that the mutineers have forcibly recruited child soldiers.

Consistent with the UN Security Council's arms embargo, we have urged all parties to respond constructively to the Group of Experts' findings and have asked Rwanda to halt and prevent the provision of such support from its territory. We have also urged the DRC and Rwanda to implement the principles of the joint Congolese-Rwandan communiqué issued following the June 19 meeting of the two countries' foreign ministers in Kinshasa. Restraint and dialogue in the context of respect for each other's sovereignty offer the best opportunity to resume the difficult work of bringing peace and security to the eastern DRC and the broader region.

Read more:

IIP Digital

Bloomberg News

U.S. Tells Rwanda to Halt Support for Rebels in Eastern Congo

By Michael J. Kavanagh on June 30, 2012

Democratic Republic of Congo that has displaced more than 200,000 people, the U.S. State Department said in an e-mailed statement.

An addendum to a report by the United Nations Group of Experts on Congo accused top Rwandan officials including its Minister of Defense of coordinating military operations with several Congolese rebel groups. Rwanda has denied the allegations.

“We are deeply concerned about the report's findings that Rwanda is implicated in the provision of support to Congolese rebel groups,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in the statement. The U.S. has “asked Rwanda to halt and prevent the provision of such support from its territory.”

The current rebellion in Congo's mineral-rich east began in March when General Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, deserted the army amid rumors that he would be arrested. Congo's government accused the U.S. of blocking the release of the UN's evidence of Rwanda's support for Ntaganda in a June 20 statement. The U.S. denied the claim.

Congo and neighboring Rwanda fought a series of wars directly or via rebel proxies beginning in the late 1990s until a 2009 peace agreement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Kavanagh in Kinshasa mkavanagh9@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net

Source: Bloomberg

NB : BILIAKI BANGO BIKOKI!

29 June 2012 Last updated at 06:21 ET

How DR Congo rebels make their money

There's money to be made in them hills

A controversial UN report on the Democratic Republic of Congo has focussed attention on Rwanda's alleged role in the current army mutiny, but the document also reveals intriguing details about how rebels in the area make their money.

It lists bank robberies and extortion rackets taxing charcoal and cows as some of the activities of the insurgents in east of the country.

The recent increase in violence was partly caused by government attempts to end racketeering by parts of the army, including the mining of precious minerals such as tin and gold.

Cynics might say the government army wanted to reassert its own control over these rackets. But in any case it is clear recent events were part of a long-standing struggle by Kinshasa to establish control over the east.

The legal and illegal export of precious minerals from the fabulously rich soils of eastern DR Congo is a multi-million dollar business in itself.

“The UN experts report should ring alarm bells in Washington, London and other capitals”

But in the run-up to breaking away from the national army in April, rebels also resorted to blatant criminality and robbed the International Bank for Africa (BIAC) in the main eastern city of Goma - twice.

On the first occasion, the UN study says, soldiers snatched $1m (£640,000), the currency of choice for well-off Congolese.

The second BIAC raid netted only $50,000.

But there were other heists too - at a well-known Goma hotel, the Stella Matutina, a customs office and several money transfer branches.

More mundane extortion also affects ordinary people every day.

Trucks carrying charcoal for cooking, for example, are "taxed" $50 at illegal roadblocks and even motorcyclists have to pay a sort of licence fee of $2 a week, the report by the UN group of experts published within the last week says.

'The Terminator'

This racketeering was making some officers rich, so strengthening their political and ethnic power bases.

The Congolese government was most concerned by soldiers led by General Bosco Ntaganda aka "The Terminator" and Colonel Sultani Makenga - who were both in theory inside the national army - because it believed they were backed by Rwanda and so threatened Kinshasa's sovereignty over the area.

The army high command signalled that these officers and their allies were to be transferred to other parts of the country.

The idea was to assert central control and break up criminal networks within the army, the UN report says.

But in April of this year, the report says, troops under the shared command of Gen Ntaganda and Col Makenga began deserting and setting up their own fiefdoms north of the volcano range that lies just outside Goma.

The planned redeployment - which threatened the officers' money-making capacity - was one apparent reason for the mutiny.

But the indictment on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court in The Hague of Gen Ntaganda was another.

He reportedly feared any moves against him would increase the possibility of him being arrested and sent to The Hague.

Col Makenga himself told the New Yorker magazine that he was not backed by Rwanda and he blamed the recent fighting on the government army.

He also denied he was allied to Gen Ntaganda.

The UN has accused Rwanda, in some detail, of backing Col Makenga's group.

Its evidence - contained in an annex to the UN group of experts report - has not yet been made public, but was leaked on Wednesday.

Rwanda denies the allegation.

The report reveals that the result of the mutiny was that as government army units redeployed to fight the new rebellion, other armed groups moved in to fill the vacuum created by their departure.

'All hell has broken loose'

There are at least eight main Congolese armed groups operating in eastern DR Congo, in addition to the groups that mutinied this year, and three other armed groups led mainly by foreign forces.

Some of these groups have fancy acronyms indicating that they are "national" or "defence" forces.

But many are in reality closer to being mere brigands and criminals.

As these men with guns move around and establish new fiefdoms or rackets in the wake of the mutiny - in what the UN report calls a "fluid security landscape" - ordinary people suffer.

The US campaign group Enough said "all hell has broken loose" in eastern DR Congo since government forces moved there to try to retake control after a mutiny.

The number of people made homeless by the wars in eastern DR Congo has passed two million for the first time since 2009, the report says.

Those affected are mainly in South Kivu province bordering Burundi and North Kivu province bordering Rwanda.

"The UN experts report should ring alarm bells in Washington, London and other capitals," Enough said.

"The war in eastern [DR] Congo has escalated to where it was four years ago, with spikes in attacks, sexual violence and displacement."

----------------------------------------------------------------

Who are DR Congo's rebels?

Armies:

Foreign rebels :

Congolese rebels:

Mai Mai - term for armed community groups:

Main source: UN Group of Experts, June 2012

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

15 May 2012 Last updated at 05:41 ET

Profile: Bosco Ntaganda the Congolese 'Terminator'

The smiling Terminator is said to be a man who kills easily

Bosco Ntaganda has a beautiful smile, according to those who have met him - but beneath the smile lies a ruthless operator who well deserves his nicknames "Terminator Tango" or "The Terminator".

Gen Ntaganda was first indicted in 2006 by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for allegedly recruiting child soldiers during the Democratic Republic of Congo's bloody five-year war.

Additional charges of rape, murder, persecution based on ethnic grounds and the deliberate targeting of civilians were added in May 2012 as a result of evidence given during the trial of his co-accused and former boss, warlord Thomas Lubanga - the first person to be found guilty by the court two months earlier.

A witness testified that as a child he fought alongside "The Terminator" - saying he was a man who "kills people easily".

Gen Ntaganda is "just as dangerous as [ Ugandan rebel leader] Joseph Kony ", says Fatou Bensouda who becomes the ICC chief prosecutor in June.

"Not arresting Bosco, allowing him to walk freely, like he's not committed any crimes, is unacceptable," Ms Bensouda says.

But that is exactly what has happened, with President Joseph Kabila refusing to arrest him - for the sake of Congo's peace, he has said.

And so, for years, the ex-rebel-turned-army general has been free in the eastern town of Goma, enjoying a life of impunity and luxury, which has included fine wine and dining and games of tennis.

The local population has not been so lucky.

They blame Mr Ntaganda and his soldiers for a series of rapes, looting and murders - in North and South Kivu provinces, and in the Ituri district of north-eastern DR Congo.

Bosco Ntaganda was born in 1973 in Kiningi, a small town on the foothills of Rwanda's Virunga mountain range, famous for its gorillas.

As a teenager, Mr Ntaganda fled to Ngungu, in eastern DR Congo, following attacks on fellow ethnic Tutsis in Rwanda.

He attended secondary school there - but did not graduate.

In 1990, at the age of 17, he joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front rebels in southern Uganda.

He fought, under the command of RPF leader - now Rwandan President - Paul Kagame, to end the genocide.

After Rwandan unrest spilled over into DR Congo, he started to flip between fighting rebellions and serving in national armies - both Rwandan and Congolese.

In 2002, he joined the rebel Union of Congolese Patriots in the Ituri district - and spent the next three years as Thomas Lubanga's chief of military operations.

Mr Ntaganda then joined yet another rebel group - the CNDP - under the leadership of Laurent Nkunda, a key power-broker in the east of the country who, like Gen Ntaganda, had started his military career in the Rwandan rebel force that ended the genocide.

With the backing of Rwanda, he went on to overthrew Gen Nkunda and take over the leadership of the CNDP militia.

Despite being wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes, by 2009 Mr Ntaganda was soldiering on the side of President Kabila - and was promoted to general.

He was based in Goma, where he was in charge of up to 50,000 soldiers, many of them former rebels who remained personally loyal to him.

According to a UN investigation, Mr Ntaganda has built a lucrative business empire for himself in North and South Kivu - reportedly collecting taxes from mines controlled by the soldiers under his command, charcoal markets and illegal checkpoints.

“He always denies and comes up with excuse after excuse to justify what he has done”

At one stage, Mr Ntaganda was making about $15,000 (£10,000) a week at one border crossing, a 2011 report by the UN Group of Experts found.

He also is thought to own a flour factory, a hotel, a bar and a cattle ranch outside Goma.

Human Rights Watch researcher Anneke van Woudenberg has met "The Terminator" several times.

He is not an articulate or persuasive speaker, Ms van Woudenberg says.

But, standing at just over 6ft (1.8m) tall, he has a certain presence and charisma - and likes to wear leather cowboy-style hats.

But it is his ruthlessness that really stood out for her: "He is someone who will never face up to his crimes. He always denies and comes up with excuse after excuse to justify what he has done."

The list of his alleged crimes is huge - and Congolese people say "The Terminator" is regarded as a man who leads from the front and personally takes part in military operations.

In November 2008 international journalists filmed him commanding and ordering his troops in the village of Kiwanja, 90km (55 miles) north of Goma, where 150 people were massacred in a single day.

He also commanded troops accused of having killed, because of their ethnicity, at least 800 civilians in the town of Mongbwalu, in Ituri district in 2002, after his troops took control of the rich gold mines in the area.

In early April 2012, he appears to have defected from the Congolese army - reportedly leaving Goma, taking with him up to 600 heavily armed soldiers.

He is thought to be hiding out in the hills above the town.

On 11 April, Mr Kabila finally called for his arrest - but he said he will not be handing over Gen Ntaganda to the ICC.

BBC