Cape Town — Three days ahead of a deadline for rebels based in the Democratic Republic of Congo to surrender to Congolese and international forces, the United States has piled pressure on African governments to take military action to force them to disarm.
On July 2, regional leaders in the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) gave the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) an ultimatum to demobilize voluntarily by January 2 or face military action.
In a telephone media briefing on Tuesday, Russell D. Feingold, the U.S. special envoy for the Great Lakes Region and the DRC, told journalists that since the group had failed to surrender and disarm, Congolese armed forces and the United Nations military mission in the DRC, Monusco, needed to act.
"Any delay in military operations by the DRC military and Monusco after January 2 will play into the FDLR's hands and only serve to enable the group to continue to commit human rights abuses and prey upon the civilian population in the eastern DRC," he said.
The FDLR was one of the groups responsible for the Rwandan genocide 20 years ago, and the United Nations says it has been promoting and carrying out ethnically based killings in Rwanda and the DRC ever since.
The UN estimates that it now consists of about 1,400 combatants, although 155 are reported to have turned themselves in last weekend.
Feingold said the U.S. understood "the region's desire to to grant the FDLR ample opportunity to peacefully surrender" but the group had failed to deliver on its promises.
"We cannot continue to wait... as the group has clearly demonstrated over the past six months that a purely voluntary surrender process will not work... Instead, military action must be undertaken to pressure the FDLR to lay down its arms."
Apart from Congolese troops, the soldiers likely to have to engage the FDLR are the Malawian, South African and Tanzanian components of Monusco's "intervention brigade" - the only force which has a mandate to enforce peace through offensive action.
Asked whether his remarks indicated a lack of confidence on the part of the U.S. in the determination of regional governments to follow through on the threat of military action, Feingold said that "everything we have heard from the key players... is that people are prepared to act and believe they are required to act at this point...
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"It was the ICGLR and SADC who established the January deadline. This is their deadline, not our deadline. These regional bodies and the UN Security Council have been very clear that absent a full surrender... military pressure should be brought to bear on the FDLR."
But he added, "I can't predict the future. And there is no question that the reason I am doing this [media] call on December 30 is that the proof is in the pudding. The United States believes this has to happen, and it has to happen in the near future. We have faith in our partners..."
