New evidence of Congolese Army working with FDLR emerges
A combatant from the Genocidal FDLR operating in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who defected back to Rwanda has confirmed that the DRC government Army (FARDC) works directly with the FDLR.
The working relationship between FARDC and FDLR has been on various occasions been described by Rwanda government as an open secret but the new evidence confirms that the Congolese government does not take Rwanda’s stability as an important thing which is why it continues arming the genocidal FDLR.
According Prosper Mapendo a.k.a Mtema Pembe an Ex-militant who willingly left the FDLR ranks to come back to his mother land, about two hundred FDLR militants worked along the DRC government forces to fight the M23 rebels in the recent fighting that ensued near the Eastern DRC city of Goma.
“Between August 12 and 17, 2013 there were a number of meetings held between FDLR and FARDC. The meetings happened in a place that was not disclosed by our superiors. They told us that they had gone to meet FARDC officials and when they came back they had another meeting between themselves to discuss the outcomes of the meeting,†says Mapendo.
He disclosed that the campaigns to help the FRDC fight M23 were led by one Col. Vumiriya who staged a resistance against the M23 at Kibumbo in Kanyarucinya area.
“During this period the DRC government forces were giving us ammunitions as we would help them to fight the M23 rebels. FRDC gave us many types of ammunition and guns to fight the M23 rebels and after the August confrontation with the M23 rebels; the guns were never returned,†testified Mapendo. He added that FARDC let the arms in case the M23 strikes back
Mapendo who hails from Gisenyi in the Western Province of Rwanda joined the FDLR in 2005 at a place called Kwihembe in Eastern DRC says that he was recruited by one Major Gashirira two hundred other people.
This revelation comes following recent dozens of shelling of Rwandan territory from the DRC which the government of Rwanda blamed on FARDC and the FDLR.
The government of Rwanda says that the Shellings by FARDC and FDLR onto the Rwandan territory have been a sustained strategy of provocation designed to draw Rwanda into the Eastern DRC conflict.