Eastern Congo: Walking in the land of the "genocidaires"

The tens of thousands Rwandese refugees wandering around Congo for over fifteen years now hide deep in the Congolese forest. Only after repeated contacts with the top of the FDLR (Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda / Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) and an hours-long journey through the forest — over mountains and through valleys, via overgrown paths and through a river — a group of refugees comes in sight. I hardly ever saw such a bunch of hopeless people as these seven families in Bitengo. When we arrive, we get no smiles and barely a greeting. Everyone looks disconcerted in front of him- or herself.
It’s only when we let them speak of their endless flight that they loosen up a bit. Their stories resemble each other’s. During the Rwandese genocide in 1994 they moved to the big refugee camps in Congo. When the Rwandese army under the command of Paul Kagame started to shoot and bombard these camps in 1996, they fled further into Congo. “We had to step over the bodies,” Patricia Nirasebura relates. The bombardment of those camps is something that many Congolese in Kivu have neither forgotten nor understood: “Corpses lay in heaps. Was that not a genocide?”, is what one regularly hears.
The Rwandese refugees moving further into Congo did not have the time to ask themselves that question. They were given chase to by the Rwandese army or the Rwandese-backed army that was conquering Congo. Afterwards there were always other groups steered from Rwanda that persecuted them, like the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD; Congolese Rally for Democracy) or the Congrès Nationale pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP; National Congress for the Defence of the People).
Patricia recounts the long list of names of the places they passed when they were “chased by Kagame’s army.” Revocat Maniragaba tells the same story. “Close to Katoyi the Tutsi’s shot me in the leg, and it festered completely. The medic cut it off with a machete,” he says unmoved. “Pain? Yes. Unbearable.” On their years-long flight the seven families lost several relatives. Olive Nirakanyana makes an appeal in front of our mini-camcorder to find her mother again. After the bombardment of the Mugunga-camp she never heard of her again.
Bitengo is not a village. These people are blown together by circumstances: they come from different regions in Rwanda. “Sometimes we visit similar groups of refugees, living not far from here. We do not party. Not even when we get married. How can one party here?” In Bitengo only two are older than 34; only they were at least 18 at the time of the genocide in Rwanda, a precondition for possibly being liable at all for the atrocities.
“We live here as birds,” Patricia tells me when I ask her what they eat. “Banana’s and vegetables. Since Kagame’s soldiers routed us from the village Mungazi (at the beginning of 2009, the Rwandese and Congolese army with the action Umoja Weti chased the FDLR and their people, jvd), our kids can no longer go to school.” Health services aren’t around either. A man, torn rags draped around his body, has a swollen right leg because of a wound at his foot. Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), who want to provide access to health care to all in Eastern Congo and hence talk to all parties, recorded that on 24 October 2009, the Congolese army started to shoot at seven places where MSF was vaccinating FDLR-children against measles.
Patricia tells she likes to go back to Rwanda. “We do not want to share power in Rwanda. We want our goods back and not get killed.”

A lie as big as the Congo

Since last year the FDLR and their civil population have been driven deeper into the forests. This is how it came about. Until the end of 2008 the Congolese army fought together with the FDLR against “the man from Rwanda” ­— no matter whether they were called the RCD or CNDP. This meant that the FDLR and their “civilians” often resided in populated areas. They had shops, frequented markets, raised taxes, enjoyed health care and their children went to school. A sort of modus vivendi grew between the FDLR and the locals, although a relation between men with and people without guns is seldom symmetrical.
At the start of 2009 the presidents of Congo and Rwanda, Joseph Kabila and Paul Kagame, suddenly made peace. Laurent Nkunda, who from time to time put fire to Northern Kivu with his CNDP, was put in jail in Rwanda; in exchange, Kabila promised to make hard work of the battle against the FDLR. Before it was “everyone against the CNDP”, now it is “everyone against the FDLR.” The CNDP, which has lots of Tutsi’s in charge, was integrated into the Congolese army, the Forces Armées du République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC; Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo). That army just turned around and began to shoot in the other direction. Or so goes the theory.
The military action had as a goal to eliminate the FDLR and/or to send back as many soldiers and refugees to Rwanda as possible. The Congolese government and armed forces represent those operations as a success. Peace is said to be within arm’s reach. That is a lie as big as… Congo.
The truth is that the modus vivendi has been shaken and that the FDLR gave over to bloody represailles. The FARDC too violated civilians. With hundreds of thousands of refugees as a consequence. Our investigations show that not only the Congolese population suffered because of it, but the Rwandese refugees too — an estimated 40 to 80 thousand. Moreover, the actions did not defeat the FDLR; they remain in control of a big territory. And on top of that, because of the sudden U-turn, the enemies of now, FDLR and FARDC, often wear the same uniforms and speak the same language. When people get raided, they often do not know by whom.

On the road with the FDLR

Bitengo is a place in the forests of Northern Kivu I only managed to find because I, together with our local co-worker Chrispin Mvano, first sought contact with the FDLR-top. Through mobile phone calls — often in the evening, when FDLR-spokesperson Laforge walks up a hill to have reception — I’m being led to colonel Sadiki Soleil and then major Régis Pilot. He stays with his men in Mungazi and Kishanga, two villages under control of the FDLR. They are on the Masisi-Walikale road, and thus relatively easy to reach. Most FDLR-bastions can only be reached on foot, after marches many times heavier than the one to Bitengo.
Major Pilot lives in the only brick house and sleeps on a simple plank bed. He is not the type of military to parade around with gold chains. The soldiers often have something unfathomable. You do not know what they really think. God knows what these youngsters already have been through. “If I have killed many people?,” one of them, Bosco, says. “What a question! There were many fights and if you shoot and aim right, people will be killed. It’s as simple as that. Of course I have seen many bodies.” He no longer knows any family.
The soldiers are not afraid of alcohol — Bosco and Pilot are tasting brandy from the already morning — but I never see them drunk. The enigmatic Pilot is sceptic at first, when I ask him to bring him into contact with Rwandese refugees. “It is too far, you will never get there. Besides, because of security reasons the families now live in small groups… I will ask some to come here.” No chance to visit the military camp Matongo. “You would see too many wounded,” someone whispers.
We press on; eventually Pilot sends us to Bitengo with two FDLR-military men — Jimmy Aristide and Bosco — and with the unstoppable scout/poacher/hunter Jean-Pierre.
While we whimper, groan and slip in the mud, Jan-Pierre strides forth as a hind, without the least drop of sweat. Then and again he hands us some wild fruit or checks one of his traps. Jimmy and Bosco too have to wait for us constantly, even though they carry their Kalashnikovs and both Chrispin’s and my luggage. They smoothly demonstrate why the Congolese call the FDLR the “men of the forest”. When we return from Bitengo, Jimmy tries to prize off a reward. “You complain so much that your shoes slip away, why shouldn’t you give them to me then?”, he asks.
The FARDC maintains that the military actions of 2009 have eliminated three quarters of the FDLR-soldiers: only 1500 are said to remain. Both Laforge and Pilot laugh with that number, but they don’t want to say anything more. Few believe the little sum of the FARDC. “With that number, the FDLR would never be able to cover the enormous distance between Lubero and Uvira,” a foreigner with knowledge of the terrain says.
Mungazi and Kishanga are part of a belt of FDLR-territory at least thirty kilometres wide, and in the forests often fifty kilometres wide. That belt runs from South-Kivu to North-Kivu, a banana hundreds of kilometres long.
When we arrive in Mungazi, the FDLR-soldiers seem at ease. Five armed youngsters play with their mobile at the only place in the village with reception.
It is certain that the FDLR still hangs together. Laforge leads us to colonel Sadiki and he guides us to major Pilot. Eight months ago, Pilot was transferred from Rutshuru to Mungazi by the supreme command of the FDLR.

Power relation

One of the tasks of the UN-mission in Congo (Monuc) is the demobilisation of FDLR-soldiers. In 2009, the number of soldiers they escorted back to Rwanda doubled to two thousand. But it is certain the FDLR also recruited in 2009. This happens not always with a soft hand. Two repatriated FDLR-soldiers maintain that they were almost forced to fight. “They enticed me here with the promise that we would be rich when we conquered Rwanda. Reality was a hard existence in the forest. Often, we had to plunder villages.”
The FDLR says it protects Rwandese refugees — others rather speak of keeping them hostage. “The ones that want to go back to Rwanda have a hard time. Often, they wander for days before they reach us,” Monuc’s responsible for demobilisation and repatriation in Goma says. “They still believe that the Tutsi’s will murder them.” Sometimes that fear seems to be judicious. The UN confirms that between 27 and 30 April 2009 an estimated 129 Rwandese refugees were slaughtered in Shalio by a FARDC-unit led by CNDP-people.
The FDLR are not equipped to enter into an open fight, but they are able to maintain themselves in inaccessible regions and to create unsafe situations. When major Pilot wants to go from Mungazi to Kishanga, he has to go by foot. There are no cars. It has something clownish when he parades with us with two soldiers in front and two at the back. It takes us almost an hour to go four kilometres. The FDLR are tortoises here, but in the forest they are hares.
In Mungazi-Kishanga it is relatively quiet, several civilians attest. International observers too think it us safer here than in the areas under FARDC-control. FDLR-reprisals were relatively measured. There was one dead, and health centres counted fifteen cases of rape the year past. Since Pilot took over here, the soldiers are disciplined. But it remains a power relation. When Congolese women tell us that they no longer work on fields further away out of fear for rapes and because the crops are stolen anyway, they immediately fall silent when some FDLR-soldiers turn up. The reason for the theft is simple. “In the forests around there live five thousand Rwandese refugees and soldiers,” the Congolese assure us. “It was better before: they lived with us in the village, they were the main producers of beans and tomatoes. They are good farmers.”

Fifteen eventful kilometres

The combined military action of Congo and Rwanda in 2009 caused an economic drain for the FDLR in this area. In villages lie Nyabiondo and Kashebere they had shops, they drove commerces, they could raise taxes on the market. Now they are chased away, live is harder, not only for their civilians but for the soldiers too.
Notwithstanding the relative calm, the villages suffer because of this situation. Last year, the FARDC closed down the market here; there is hardly any trade going on at the street out of fear for plunder. The only cars still passing are those of Monuc and MSF, who strengthen the health services here quite a bit.
“Actually, we are trapped in this miserly situation, because outside of the village it is unsafe,” the pastor of Mungazi says. Nevertheless we decide to go to Kibati — by foot, since there are no other means to move about. We are quick to find out that the pastor was right. The fifteen kilometres between Mungazi and Kibati are what one could call at least “eventful”. We get to know the FARDC in three guises.

Congolese people resist their “Rwandese” army

First, we pass a group of people coming back from the market in Kashebere, 25 km further down the road. They get protection from four armed men of the APCLS (Alliance des Patriotes pour un Congo Libre et Souverain; Alliance of Patriots for a Free and Sovereign Congo), a local militia. Le docteur Hangi, chairman of the APCLS: “The FARDC are a Rwandese army. They chase our people with brutalities so the Tutsi can claim the land. That’s why we resist them. That does not mean we work together with the FDLR, though we will not attack them either.”
The feeling that the army, since the integration of the CNDP, is a Rwandese army, is very much alive here. Even some Congolese co-workers of Monuc I meet regularly call with FDLR-spokesperson Laforge.
In the territoire Masisi (5000 km²), the CNDP is a state within the state. Marie-Claire Mavito, the highest representative of the Congolese state in the territoire: “In two-thirds of the area the CNDP has a parallel administration. They raise taxes and have their own tribunals. Our tax collectors get chased away.” She does not dare to travel by car in large swathes of Masisi and takes a helicopter between Masisi-city and Goma. The CNDP demands her to ask their permission to cross their territory, but then she would recognize them.
One is trying to merge the two administrations, but the situation strengthens for many the impression that Rwanda has gotten what it wanted: securing the Tutsi’s and a grip on parts of Kivu. Kagame has played his cards well, but the local population is not happy with that. It remains to be seen how that situation will unfold. The last years, a steady trickle of mainly Tutsi’s from Rwanda came to settle themselves in the region. This breeds bad blood, not in the least because their cattle trample the crops.

Chaos

The FARDC has other sides too. That of chaos, for instance. We meet some people allegedly fleeing the army, away from Kibati. They walk together with someone who claims to be assaulted by the FDLR. Just before the village of Miba we come across a group market-goers accompanied by three men with Kalashnikovs. They claim to be protecting these citizens but make a very confused impression. Not even five minutes later thirty soldiers of the FARDC come storming from the direction of Kibati, ten kilometres further, with Kalashnikovs and bazookas. Luckily, they just run past us.
We keep on walking. All villages and hamlets we pass are on the lookout, worried about what could happen. If the FARDC is on the move, you cannot be certain, the message is. It turns out that that morning, the three armed men had requisitioned everything from a shop in Mikumbu. Now the FARDC is chasing them. Strange, because some hours later, we hear that in Kibati itself, where the FARDC has a camp, two similar raids happened and the FARDC did nothing. In between Mungazi and Kibati we count seven raids within 24 hours. “Congo is rotten,” a victim sighs. “We receive these Rwandese and they raise hell. If I had a gun, I would fight them.”
When at last we reach Kibati in a downpour, we shelter under a little lean-to where we find the local FARDC-commanders too. Our co-worker Chrispin Mvano hears how on the radio transmitter of the FARDC-commander a discussion is raised between the thirty soldiers who have reached Mungazi in the meantime. At which moment a voice is heard: “Which enemy?” The leader answers: “The FDLR, of course.” To which the soldier answers that he does not want to waste time on that. The leader replies: “Is that nationalism? Is that the integrated army?” The discussion turns into a brawl.
The commander holding the radio gives us his opinion: “The FDLR are an international problem. That is not our business. What concerns us, is that the local chiefs call the youth to join the APCLS. If that doesn’t stop, we will set fire to Mungazi and Kishanga,” he says twice. His words surprise. It is true that we did see some APCLS in Mungazi, but the local chief lamented that they demanded too much food. Which doesn’t point to much enthusiasm. Nor do villagers of Kibati understand the accusations.
While we are chatting, one of the thirty soldiers returns with his “reward” — some bushels of leek — in one hand, his Kalashnikov in the other.
That night, we sleep in the health centre of Kibati. At dusk, quite some citizens of villages in the neighbourhood come to sleep there too. They find their own village to be unsafe.
Actually the whole region between Mungazi and Kashebere is unsafe. You hear the same story all the time. “Men in army uniforms talking Rwandese barge in and demand all our goods.” It is hard to make out whether the FDLR or the FARDC is responsible. A Monuc-commander confirms that these days somewhat too easily the FDLR gets pointed too. Whatever the case, the situation causes a feeling of great insecurity and chaos. Who do you have to trust here? It is an unrest we felt less in the FDLR-village Mungazi.

The weight of a genocidal credit

The Indian Monuc-camps in Nyabiondo and Kashebere are felt to be the safest places of the region, even though the people would like to see the UN peacekeepers somewhat more outside of their barracks. In Nyabiondo, people will sometimes shelter there during cross-fires between the APCLS-FDLR and the FARDC. In Kashebere, the camp is too small to serve for that purpose, but the arrival of a Monuc-camp brought stability to the surrounding area. More camps would bring more security: the difference between the chaos in Kibati and the relative calm in Kashebere is big. “That’s why do nightly patrols in the wider environment,” the commander says. “Sometimes, we surprise raiders. We force them to give back everything, but afterwards we have to let them go. We are no police force.”
A local Monuc-commander is outspoken. “This Congolese army cannot defeat the FDLR. Maybe later, when it grows stronger, but definitely not now.” This means the situation will remain the same during the coming years. With the Congolese civilians and the Rwandese refugees as main victims. The rapprochement between Kabila and Kagame has not cleared up the situation.
The idea is to integrate the APCLS in the army, but what with the FDLR? Spokesperson Laforge, alias Ignace Ntaka, presses upon us that they want to talk with Kagame about a return. “Our hand remains extended,” so says Laforge. That is unthinkable for Kigali, that remains waving the label of genocide. That does not do justice to the big majority of Rwandese refugees and FDLR-soldiers too young to have taken active part in 1994. Only a negotiated solution can lead to stability. But Kagame will only speak with the FDLR when the international community, and especially the Anglosaxon world, puts more pressure on Rwanda. And that is where geopolitical interests clash with the ups and downs of many simple Congolese and Rwandese.