Olusegun Obasanjo, the former Nigerian president who has been appointed special United Nations envoy to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), is planning this weekend to meet Laurent Nkunda of the Congrès National Pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP), the rebel leader whose forces are challenging the DRC government in the eastern Congo.
A lot is riding on Obasanjo, says Rebecca Feeley, a field researcher for the ENOUGH project in Goma. AllAfrica’s Katy Gabel interviewed her by phone from Nairobi.
What's the political situation like right now?
The easy answer is that things are on pause until… Obasanjo [arrives in]… Nord-Kivu to meet with Nkunda. The meeting will supposedly happen in Bunagana, a border post between Uganda and DRC, on Saturday. There's a lot riding on Obasanjo, who is the special envoy [to the DRC], and what will come out of those discussions with Nkunda. That's where we stand at the moment.
As you know, a lot of high-level political engagement took place at the Nairobi Summit last week and at the SADC [Southern African Development Community] meeting immediately after Nairobi. We have yet really to see how those engagements or commitments will play out on the ground. There's been a lot of speculation in the past week about [the conflict] becoming a regional war. There are rumors of Angolans being here and of Zimbabweans being here. Those rumors are still going around, but nothing has been confirmed.
One of the big questions coming out of the Nairobi talks was why Laurent Nkunda and other militia leaders were not included.
To extend an invitation to something like the Nairobi summit would be giving Nkunda what he wants by putting him at the level of a head of state. As to why [DRC President Joseph] Kabila and Kinshasa (the seat of DRC's government) don't want to give him the direct talks that he's demanding, they said earlier this week that they do not negotiate with war criminals. So I don't think that Nkunda will ever be invited to any official negotiations, especially given his previous chance with the Goma agreement with CNDP back in January. Some see that his chance to negotiate politically was back then. I would respond differently by saying that the government clearly never actually had intentions for any real political negotiation.
ENOUGH put out a paper at the end of September on why the peace process failed. I think that most of that remains true, in that the government really didn't give CNDP and Nkunda the political negotiations that they asked for. They treated the Goma process as a technical process for a peace that had already been won. CNDP was wanting to come to the table and present their grievances, and it really didn't matter. If they had engaged in political negotiation back then, or if the government had listened to Nkunda this past summer, I think we could have avoided ending up where we are now.
Where we are now is that Nkunda is in a better position. He's gained far more power.
One of the questions that keeps coming up is the issue of civilian protection and a call for more peacekeeping forces. Why have the United Nations peacekeeping forces been weak to this point?
What's happening right now, as we're exploring this need for more peacekeepers, is that we're getting at core issues of what peacekeeping means. There seems to be a clash or misinterpretation of what protection means. The NGO and humanitarian community defines protection in perhaps a more proactive way, in which peacekeepers go out and stop something if they see it happening.
Now, the way the peacekeepers are operating is on the premise that their presence is enough of a deterrent. In this case, that would follow current logic in asking for more peacekeepers, as they want to distribute themselves more throughout Nord-Kivu. That appears to be it for civilian protection. If we receive more troops, there will have to be a lot of clear communication on what they will be used for. A deterrent protective presence, or a more military force that defends Goma, [that] goes on the offensive, etc?
But there is a problem in that there aren't enough peacekeepers to handle the situation now. Civilians aren't being protected. You also have to ask if calling up more peacekeepers would just inflate Nkunda's ego even more. After all, this is the largest peacekeeping operation in the world, and we can't manage this one man and the chaos he is creating. I'm not saying that we shouldn't ask for more peacekeepers because Nkunda might have a bigger ego – that's ridiculous. But you have to step back and think about the kind of position Nkunda is in right now. He's in a strong position.
How do you think a European Union force, which is currently under consideration, could add to this mix?
Right now it would be very helpful for a special force, of about two combat brigades, to come in.
No one is quite sure how an EU force would fit in. I think it's still under discussion, but it doesn't look like it's going very well. A lot has to be clarified, and it takes time. The international community can do a really good job at talking, and talking about it so much that we miss the window of opportunity.
It's really critical at this time, a special force would be very helpful [but] I don't see them coming to an agreement on it. There are a lot of details to be worked out. Would it be a separate yet complementary force to MONUC (Mission des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo/the UN Mission in the DRC)? Or would it fall under the MONUC umbrella? I see all of this taking a bit of time to work out, while here civilians are running from their homes.
What do the streets look like in Goma today, and what is the security situation like?
The situation in town for the past couple of days has been just fine. People are out and about, moving around, and Goma is calm. The major issue right now in and close to Goma in Kibati (refugee) camp is that we're all waiting for what kind of fighting might come next. There's a kind of anxiety because of that. The war is certainly a topic of conversation.
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There's also a lot of concern about the movement of the civilian population and fighting around the Rutshuru-Lubero border near Lake Edward. It’s a mix of CNDP, Mai-Mai, and FARDC (Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo, the government’s army) again fighting around there, and there's concern for the population in that area. But again, it's relatively - and that's important, that it's relative – calm for the moment. There's no fighting on the streets or anything like that.
There is an enhanced MONUC presence in Goma town itself, including actual foot patrols. There might be a stronger FARDC presence, but that [increased presence] goes back to the end of October.
How likely is an International Criminal Court (ICC) trial for rights abusers, including Nkunda, who was indicted by the court for war crimes in 2005?
As members of the international community, we should start supporting the ICC (International Criminal Court), especially in regard to what's happening here in the Kivus so that the threat of arrest and trial before the court becomes real. Nkunda is thinking that he's going to get what he wants – that he is going to march down to Kinshasa. War criminals can't be revolutionaries, and certainly not presidents. Nkunda doesn't recognize that.
