22 March 2007: DRC: Militia Opts for Integration in Troubled East

Widespread violence and human rights abuses have continued in Congo's eastern provinces despite the official end to the 1998-2003 war and the presence of the world's largest peacekeeping mission. In North Kivu, dissident General Laurent Nkunda, who led two brigades into rebellion in 2004, began bringing his forces back into the FARDC last month. The move was part of a deal brokered in Rwanda that will allow Nkunda's soldiers to remain in the province, where they claim to protect fellow ethnic Tutsis. A similar deal may now be extended to armed groups in neighbouring South Kivu. After his election, Kabila promised to bring order to Congo's east. Army officials have so far called the process, known as "mixage", a success. But others are less optimistic.

Commentary

In Congo's North Kivu the problems with renegade General Nkunda and the Rwandan insurgent movement FDLR are in the process of being addressed. Discussions between the Congolese armed forces (FARDC) and Gen Nkunda resulted in a commitment by the latter to mix his troops with the non-integrated brigades in North Kivu. This process differs from the brassage process supported by MONUC and the international community in the sense that it is a mixing process, in which combatants will not go to a brassage centre, but be mixed in their own area and be deployed there. The mixing of two of dissident General Laurent Nkunda’s loyalist brigades with three FARDC brigades has been happening since the start of 2007, in a bid to address the serious security problems posed by these forces in the Kivus since 2004. In this respect, the FARDC's representatives held fruitful talks with Nkunda and his aides in December 2006 in Kigali. The talks, brokered by the Rwandan government, also enjoyed the support of the highest authorities in Kinshasa. After serious deliberations, both sides decided to reintegrate the brigades (rebel brigades of Nkunda and the FARDC brigades) by mixing and renaming them under new a new structure, in a process called “Mixage”. In essence, the mixing process aims at equally combining Laurent Nkunda’s 81st and 83rd Brigades, and the rest of the combatants, with the FARDC’s 110th and116th Brigades, as well as the 1st Reserve Brigade. Between 4,500 and 5,000 of Nkunda troops, according to his figures, are due to be combined with a similar number of FARDC troops. The new names for the five brigades after the mixing process are Alpha, Bravo; Charlie, Delta and Echo, and they are to be deployed across North Kivu province. So far Alpha and Bravo Brigades are being deployment subsequent to the mixing process, while the formation of Charlie Brigade has just finished.

This Mixage process came as a surprise to MONUC and the international community. MONUC is observing the process but not supporting it, one of the reasons being that there is unconfirmed information of children has been recruited into the mixed brigades. There are many unanswered questions about why this new approach is being used to replace the existing brassage process. What agreement was struck between Kinshasa and Kigali, and why did Nkunda not go to South Africa as originally planned? And why are the Chief of the Army, General Amisi, and the Chief of the Air Force, General Numbi in North Kivu? It is believed that General Numbi is personally in command of the Mixage process.

This process is of great concern to analysts in the east of the DRC. The possibility exists that mixage could precipitate a new war between Hutus and Tutsis in North Kivus. Nkunda has now basically taken control of five mixed brigades, although he has not not been given a position in the FARDC. The FARDC is planning to establish an Eastern Military Command in the east similar to MONUC’s Eastern Division. It is anticipated that this Eastern Command will then take on the FDLR. Nkunda is apparently already going around saying that he will command the Eastern Command. Last week he apparently send people to Bukavu to propose that the mixage be extended also to South Kivu to replace brassage. This resulted in a protest by the population in Bukavu against any involvement of Nkunda because of his involvement in the earlier Bukavu crisis.

The February human rights assessment report by the UN Mission in DRC (MONUC) said operations by the FARDC, the national army, against militias had led to increasing allegations of human rights violations against civilians. The population in North Kivu lives in fear of what will happen to them and how the operations of the so-called mixed brigades against FDLR will effect them. If this issue is not resolved soon chaos could easily reurn to eastern Congo.

Henri Boshoff, African Security Analysis Programme, ISS Tshwane (Pretoria)

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