Just when you thought that enough preposterous things had been said about the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and that there was no more to say or that it is so obvious it needs no repeating, something new and more outrageous comes up and compels one to comment. Well, not new actually, but repeated old stuff packaged as new.
It has been going on like that for more than twenty years and still it comes again. The hope perhaps is that we shall get used to it and stop noticing or accept it as fact. Only, it is not that simple. Lies can never be fact, however often they are repeated. Nor can the lied about or falsely accused be lulled to acquiescence.
Nearly two weeks ago, the United Nations Group of Experts on DRC came up with another report on insecurity in the east (mainly) of the country.
There was little evidence of expertise beyond retelling old tales, complete with characters from the past, and lending the considerable weight of the UN to a narrative of the DR Congo as a helpless victim and its smaller eastern neighbour as the cause of all its suffering.
The report, like others before it, leaves one with some important questions. What is its purpose? Is it merely to chronicle events in the country? You do not need experts from the UN for that. It does not even do that with any competence
Is it to shed light on the issues causing insecurity in the country and perhaps propose solutions? That should be the aim but clearly, it is not.
Or is it to apportion blame? That seems to be the main reason. Even that would be fine if done objectively, with facts and evidence, not with bias. In this sense, it is first, to blame the M23, a Congolese rebel group. Then link it with the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) and allege the latter's military support and even presence on DRC territory. And so implicate Rwanda as the source of security problems in the DRC.
Perhaps it is to muddy the waters a little more and scuttle efforts at resolutions of the issues and let DRC remain a lawless, free-for-all space for all manner of adventurers and fortune-seekers? Very likely.
This is exactly the point: obscure the issues or distract attention away from them, externalise responsibility and effectively shift it from the government of the DRC and the international community, which has been in the country in different forms since the country's independence. Obviously, this cannot be intended to provide a better understanding of the security situation in DRC.
That there is insecurity in eastern DRC is a fact that does not require experts to point it out. The several hundred armed groups that terrorise the local population or that are hired by local and foreign commercial interests do so in broad daylight with the knowledge or collusion of both the DRC government and UN peacekeepers.
Another fact that everyone knows is the presence of foreign armed groups, among them the genocidal FDLR from Rwanda, the ADF from Uganda and RED Tabara from Burundi. These, too, terrorise the local population, act as the local authority and worse, launch cross-border attacks into their countries of origin.
A different sort of armed group entered this already militarised environment. While the others are criminal outfits, the M23 is a Congolese political rebellion with genuine, well-articulated grievances that it wants the government to address.
How is it possible that all these groups, hundreds of them, can operate freely on the territory of the DRC? This is the question that everyone should be asking and which the group of experts should have addressed.
The simple answer, which most of those who seek to intervene in that country seem to ignore is that the government does not have effective control over some of its territory. The state is absent from large parts of the country, especially in the east. In keeping with this trend, the experts gloss over it as well.
Another is the fact that some of the foreign armed groups, like the FDLR, were warmly welcomed , given sanctuary, helped to regroup, rearm and to remain a constant threat to their home countries. Successive Congolese leaders, from Mobutu to Tshisekedi, have at different times used the FDLR as integral elements of the regular army, for special operations, and in recent times to fight the M23 rebels. They have also maintained it as a fighting force as a threat to Rwanda.
While the experts acknowledge the collaboration between FARDC and FDLR and other armed groups, they place responsibility for this on senior FARDC officers, not on the government.
Not surprisingly, they do not make an unequivocal call for decoupling the FDLR from FARDC. Or when they do, the voice is so feeble and inaudible you strain to hear anything. Which is probably the intention. It is not meant to be heard.
For its part, the ADF walked into a security and governance vacuum and occupied the space
Nearly all these armed groups have been in existence for much longer than M23.
The experts strain to link the M23 rebellion and Rwanda and the insecurity in DRC and for this are selective in the evidence they present. It is only that which can establish some connection, however tenuous, that they provide.
For instance, they report that on January 24, 2023, the RDF shot at a Sukhoi fighter jet belonging to FARDC over Goma in Congolese airspace as it approached the airport for landing. They say nothing about another fighter jet that actually landed in Rubavu in Rwanda or others that had violated Rwanda's airspace.
They make no mention of Congolese soldiers who crossed into Rwanda and threatened to shoot at security forces, or mobs of Congolese civilians that threatened to overrun the border posts at Rubavu.
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Most glaring of all omissions is that about the FDLR's repeated cross-border attacks on Rwanda that resulted in the loss of lives and destruction of property.
They completely ignore Rwanda's reports of such incidents to the Joint Verification Mechanism.
In their obvious effort to make M23 and their alleged Rwandan supporters the villains, the experts invert the normal relationship of cause and effect. They recognise the existence of "hateful and belligerent rhetoric intended to vilify the Rwandophone population" and that this is "propagated by political figures, civil society actors, local populists, activists and Congolese diaspora". But they put responsibility for this at the door of M23 by claiming that " M23 expansion stoked xenophobia and hate speech".
The irony (does the group miss the point or they think we are too stupid to notice?) is that these same groups are the source of most of the information that the group of experts present as evidence.
So what does the report of the UN Group of Experts on DRC achieve? It does not unearth any new thing or make us understand the security issues any better, or lay the ground for any solutions. All it does is reinforce an existing narrative of the DRC as a victim of meddling by a neighbour. Not terribly helpful.
