MONUSCO, DRC blocking 27 FDLR rebels from repatriating

The UN peacekeeping mission and the DR Congo government are holding FDLR rebels against their will barring them from returning home – including a Colonel, Captain and 25 other junior soldiers, according sources.

Among them is FDLR Colonel Ferdinand Bembabahizi who was arrested in South Kivu on his way to Rwanda. He is currently being kept at a DRC army camp in Bukavu. The information has also been confirmed by media in Rwanda.

Another, Captain Tumusifu Karege is detained against his will at a FARDC camp outside Goma in North Kivu. At another MONUSCO facility, there are 25 junior FDLR soldiers who have been blocked from going home since October 11.

More than 12,000 FDLR rebels have voluntarily repatriated home since 2001, in a trend that has seen almost a daily flow of combatants. However, Kigali Today reports that since October 11, no combatants have been recorded by Rwandan authorities.

The latest revelations come amidst counter accusations from Kigali and Kinshasa that each side is supporting the other’s rebels. News of Rwanda has documented a pattern suggesting Kinshasa has been backing the FDLR rebels for years.

For the case of MONUSCO, there have been dozens of documented cases where the UN mission has aided the FDLR. The UN troops patrol areas controlled by the Rwandan militia and are said to provide them with logistical support – instead of combating them.

In a particularly embarrassing case in October 2009, MONUC, the predecessor of MONUSCO, airlifted two European doctors to treat FDLR supreme commander Sylvestre Mudacumura. Doctors Jerome Gasana and Francois Goujon arrived in DRC via Kisangani, from where they were airlifted to Lubutu in Walikale region. The operation was handled by Christian Manhal – MONUC’s coordinator in East DRC at the time.

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.

Recently, a returnee combatant Prosper Mapendo a.k.a Mtema Pembe said about two hundred FDLR militants operated 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,” said Mapendo. 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.”

He disclosed that the campaigns to help the FARDC fight M23 were led by one Col. Vumiriya who staged the resistance against the M23 at Kibumbo in Kanyarucinya area.

Former FDLR vice president Straton Musoni, currently on trial in Germany for war crimes told court in August in his first public comments that the Rwandan militia group was established with full backing of DR Congo government in May 2000.

Straton Musoni and his boss Ignace Murwanashyaka have been on trial since 2011 after they had been arrested in a sting operation earlier. He told court sitting in Stuttgart that he attended the founding conference of FDLR in DRC’s Lubumbashi region on May 1^st, 2000 with full facilitation by DRC government of Laurent Desire Kabila. Musoni revealed to court that he travelled from Germany via Zambia.

The DRC government has also been providing direct funding. The information has been public but a more independent confirmation came from a highly classified document obtained by the Rwanda News Agency (RNA) in May this year which the FDLR had addressed to the Kinshasa government earlier in January.

In the document signed by FDLR second in commander “General” Stanislas Nzeyimana aka General Deogratias Bigaruka Izabayo, the group reminds President Kabila’s government that it owes them up to US$150,000 in unpaid dues for services provided. Gen Nzeyimana has since disappeared from battle and nobody knows his whereabouts.

The above payment, according to the letter, was supposed to be payment for “FDLR combatants who fought alongside the Congolese armed forces” (FARDC). These arrears date back to 2001 when the Kinshasa government was battling rebels in the east of the country, reported RNA.

The second demand reads as: “Compensation for families of the FDLR combatants who died on the battlefield, estimated to be about 2,000”. In other words, “General Deogratias” was reminding the Kinshasa government that the families of those who perished during the wars have to be compensated. The document also makes several other demands.