En ny militsgruppe, som FN-talsmand kalder “notoriske mordere”, har set dagens lys i det plagede kæmpeland i Afrikas hjerte, hvor årtiers grusom vold har kostet millioner af ofre – nu er 200.000 fordrevet af M23 siden april og mere er i vente.
JOHANNESBURG, 22 June 2012 (IRIN): To the layman (almindelige dødelige) the emergence of the eastern DR Congo armed group M23 might be seen as of little significance – just another band of gunmen controlling a few square kilometres of turf in a country the size of western Europe.
“This [M23] is a new configuration (enhed/aktør) and a serious development. More than 200.000 people have been displaced since April [because of M23],” Rupert Colville, a Geneva-based spokesperson for the UN High Commission for Human Rights, told IRIN.
In late March 2012 Gen Bosco Ntaganda, a senior officer in the Congolese national army (FARDC), led a mutiny of 300-600 soldiers following discontent over unpaid wages and poor living conditions.
Ntaganda (known locally as the “terminator”) was indicted (tiltalt) by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague in 2006 for war crimes. On 3 May 2012 Col Sultani Makenga began an apparently separate revolt.
Both men were formerly part of Laurent Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), a former DR Congo militia backed by neighbouring Rwanda, before it was integrated into the national army as part of the 23 March 2009 peace agreement.
Makenga has reportedly denied that the two revolts were coordinated or connected.
However, analysts suggest the mutinies may have been sparked by indications that Congolese President Joseph Kabila was about to honour his obligations to the ICC and arrest Ntaganda. The UN Security Council has condemned the mutinies.
Colville said M23, which takes its name from the date of the 2009 peace agreement, has a senior command with “substantial allegations” of atrocities against it.
He said that was why UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay took “the unusual step of naming names… She is flagging the dangers of M23.”
“Notorious killers”
In a UN radio podcast entitled “UN human rights chief fears more rapes, killings in Congo by M23”, Colville said M23 “is really a reassembling – at least at the leadership level – of very well-known human rights abusers in the Congo over the past decade… quite a collection of notorious killers.”
The track record of M23 commanders included the use of child soldiers (recently 20 child soldiers had been rescued by army troops from M23 senior commander Col Innocent Zimurinda’s unit), and Colville feared the worst human rights abuses by M23 were just “around the corner”.
A January 2012 report by the UN Secretary-General on the UN Stabilization Mission in DR Congo (MONUSCO) said:
“The majority of acts of sexual violence in eastern DR Congo are committed by armed groups, notably FDLR [Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda – established by perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide], as well as by elements integrated into the national army, including from CNDP and other former Congolese armed groups.”
Thierry Vircoulon, International Crisis Group project director for Central Africa, told IRIN:
“Everyone is worried about M23 because of its leaders and their involvement in killings in the past – and that there is no access to these areas [controlled by M23] at the moment.”
Among those named by Pillay are:
* Makenga, a former CNDP commander and linked to the 2008 Kiwandja massacre of 67 civilians;
* Col Baudouin Ngaruye, believed to be involved in the 2009 Shalio massacre of 139 civilians while an army commander and previously of the CNDP;
* Col Innocent Zimurinda – alleged to have “command responsibility for the Kiwandja and Shalio massacres”; and
* Col Innocent Kaina alleged to have been involved in a string of human rights abuses in Ituri and Orientale provinces in 2004 when a member – along with Ntaganda – of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo’s Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC) / Forces Patriotique pour la Libération du Congo (FPLC).
Lubanga was the first person convicted of a war crime by the ICC for “conscripting and enlisting” child soldiers.
The 23 March 2009 peace accord ushered in a few years of relative stability for North and South Kivu provinces and saw thousands of CNDP combatants integrated into the FARDC.
Most of M23’s commanders were members of CNDP, which was sponsored by neighbouring Rwanda to fight a proxy (stedfortræder) war in the DR Congo against the FDLR.
However, Nkunda refused to allow his soldiers to participate in MONUC’s (predecessor of MONUSCO) Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration programme and as a compromise permitted the integration of his troops into the national army, with the proviso that there would be no retraining or relocation outside the Kivu provinces.
Nkunda is now in Rwanda.
Parallel chain of command
Læs videre på
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95715/DRC-Understanding-armed-group-M23
