Why massacres escalate in DRC despite EACRF successes

Author: Lindah Uwase

• 2023-05-04 05:11:00

The East African Community issued a statement on May 1, 2023, indicating that its Regional Force (EACRF) deployed in eastern DRC has registered tremendous success in ensuring the observance of ceasefire, overseeing the withdrawal of armed groups, and handing over the previously occupied territories to the regional force.

Areas formerly held by the M23 rebels such as Karuba, Mushaki, Kiloriwe, Kitchanga, Mweso, Kishishe, Bambo, Bunagana, Tchengerero, Kiwanja and Kinyandoni were under the control of EACRF. These areas were secured without fighting. The M23 rebels had willingly withdrawn from occupied territories as per the Luanda agreement.

When Kenyan President William Ruto visited Rwanda in early April 2023, he was in agreement with his Rwandan counterpart that the regional force was doing a good job in returning normalcy to eastern DRC.

However, Kinshasa is not of the same view. In fact, DRC President, Felix Antoine Tshisekedi, has been at the center of inciting the Congolese masses against the EACRF.

Besides, the more EACRF records success in areas it controls there are increasing massacres in several other areas being orchestrated by armed groups that formed alliances with the DRC national army (FARDC).

The UN Group of Experts report released in 2022 indicated that the resurgence of the M23 prompted armed groups active in North Kivu to shift alliances, and created new dynamics between these armed groups and FARDC. Among those armed groups is the FDLR and CODECO among many others. The alliance was confirmed by several reports from Human Rights Watch.

In the first two weeks of April 2023, the CODECO-FARDC alliance raided three villages in Ituri region and, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the attacks left 150 people brutally massacred.

Killings are escalating on a high rate.  As a result, MPs from Ituri issued a statement on April 24, blaming FARDC to have deployed soldiers from Bunia barracks to massacre civilians and create a climate of fear, which indeed they did.

In Beni, civil society president Tedy Kataliko said that they have recorded over 500 people killed with axes, machetes, hammers in the recent past.  

It is not accidental that these killings are escalating at the time EACRF announced progress and being commended by regional Heads of State.

It is a deliberate act by the Congolese government to discredit EACRF, brand it inept as President Felix Tshisekedi wants it, for not fighting M23 rebels.

It so happens that in early January 2023, Goma town was stormed by demonstrators protesting against the regional force. Tshisekedi’s hired mercenaries had set base in Goma. Before the January protests started, DRC army Chief of Staff, Gen Christian Tshiwewe, and the military governor of North Kivu province, Lt Gen Constant Ndima Kongba, held meetings with civil society and opinion leaders, and mobilized the violent demonstrations.

A few days later, in early February, Burundian President, Evariste Ndayishimiye, who is also the chair of the East Africa Community, called for an extraordinary summit regarding the then-escalating security concerns in eastern DRC.

Right after the meeting, an angry Tshisekedi attacked the Kenyan commander, telling him to not favour the M23 but rather fight them or risk facing the wrath of the population.

“Do not favour the M23. It would be a shame if the population were to attack you. You came to help us solve a problem, not to be part of it. Pay attention to this, communicate with the population,” Tshisekedi told a calm looking Gen Nyagah.

Just hours after the meeting in Bujumbura, which called for a ceasefire and dialogue between the DRC government and armed groups, protests intensified in Goma, where demonstrators were targeting the regional force and the United Nations Peacekeeping Force (MONUSCO), accusing them of failing to restore peace.

Chaos erupted as protesters ransacked Goma town, blocking roads and looting shops while young people attempted to march toward the Rwanda-DRC border. It is obvious the protests were linked to President Tshisekedi’s rhetoric on the regional force.

However, in a systematically orchestrated plan, Tshisekedi, later on, formed an armed group called Wazalendo or the reservists, where new armed groups were formed. They went on rampage killing just like other armed groups that have formed alliances with FARDC.

It is part of Tshisekedi’s grand plan to sustain violence. As reported earlier Tshisekedi would do anything to postpone the election.

Frustrating EACRF, and creation of armed groups working as his killing machines, are all fitting within his grand plan of saying that elections will not happen when there is a part of the country that is at war, or in conflict hence a reason to postpone and overstay in office.

Tshisekedi knows he has nothing to show as an achievement in the presidential campaigns.

The best he can give Congolese voters now is hate speech against Congolese Rwandophones, and Rwanda, the supposed root cause of his country’s ills. What is sad, however, is that some choose to believe his lies.