Kinshasa’s lack of intelligence speaks political, security instability

Author: Samson Kasujja

• 2023-03-26 05:36:00

When a country does not have the right intelligence, it makes wrong decisions. That is why the Democratic Republic of Congo is a disaster.

“Tshisekedi's political and military authorities have been drawing on the human and technical intelligence produced by MONUSCO to plan a military offensive,” Africa Intelligence reported in early March.

The weakness of the Congolese army is coupled with the limited intelligence of both the National Intelligence Agency (ANR), as well as the General Directorate of Migration (DGM).  

Their bosses, including National Security Council (CNS) head, Jean-Claude Bukasa, and ANR chief, Jean-Hervé Mbelu Biosha, are regularly criticized by their Great Lakes region and Western counterparts.

Sources say that the Congolese intelligence services suffer from a lack of skills and capacity to process the intelligence gathered and technological means, all of which limit their ability to provide their political authorities with strategic information.

The resurgence of the M23 rebels which triggered tensions between Kigali and Kinshasa made President Félix Tshisekedi to sound war drums. However, his army of over 130,000 active personnel lacks capability considering its habitual defeats by small armed groups.

“Congolese army units are again resorting to the discredited and damaging practice of using abusive armed groups as their proxies,” wrote Thomas Fessy, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.

On May 8 and 9, leaders of several Congolese armed groups, some of them rivals, met in the remote town of Pinga and agreed to a non-aggression pact forming a “patriotic” coalition to join forces with the Congolese army against “the aggressor,” namely the M23. Two FDLR senior commanders were also present.

The FDLR genocidal militia committed countless rapes and other acts of sexual violence, killed hundreds of civilians over the years in eastern DRC, hacking them to death with machetes or hoes, or burning them in their homes, as HRW reported in October 2022.

On October 31, an anonymous FARDC Colonel wrote an open letter to Tshisekedi, showing how their army’s failures resulted from entrusting command to ‘mafia vultures and untrained’ officers.

“Doesn't it bother you to cry out against Rwanda's aggression in front of all international bodies when you do nothing to equip your armed forces in order to develop their operational capacities? For a country like the DRC, it's a shame,” reads the letter.

The Congolese state has suffered from corruption, governance deficit and impunity for long because of lack of political will to investigate alleged wrongdoings.

During a March joint press conference in Kinshasa with his Congolese counterpart, France’s Emmanuel Macron emphasized the need for Congolese authorities to look within for solutions to their security challenges, instead of always putting the blame on others.

“Since 1994, you have never been able to restore the military, security or administrative sovereignty of your country. It's a reality. We must not look for culprits outside,” Macron said.