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On May 5, 2010 AfroAmerica Network published an article titled�Is Mushikiwabo Ignorant, a Liar, or disloyal?�That day, the self styled Rwandan Minister Louise Mushikiwabo had made statements contradicting the Rwandan Government�s position on ethnic groups. She had dared to confirm the existence of ethnic groups in Rwanda. She was asked to revise her statements later on and tried to unconvincingly explain that well, in Rwanda there are �ethnic crimes but �there are no�ethnic groups.� �If anyone is confused by this, do not feel alone.

Minister Louise Mushikiwabo vs Pinocchio
This week,�apparently Ms Louise Mushikiwabo did it again. She first claimed that General Ntaganda was not anywhere to be found on the Rwandan territory. �Her staff then went on �to treat the Congolese Minister Lambert Mende of �being pinocchio, after a cartoon character whose nose grows as its lies become bigger and bigger, �for affirming that the General was indeed inside Rwanda. As AfroAmerica Network reported, contrary to international several media, General Ntaganda was indeed inside Rwanda and had �crossed the Rwandan border well before other Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) �troops that were deployed into Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to support M23 rebels were ordered back into Rwanda (see our article:�Kibumba: Fightings Between M23 Factions Never Happened).

General Bosco Ntaganda was a Marked Man
So was Ms Louise Mushikiwabo lying? According to our sources close to the brave Minister Louise Mushikiwabo, yes and no. Minister Louise Mushikiwabo was told �that General Bosco Ntaganda was not inside Rwanda and ordered to say so. Publicly she was lying but genuinely she was not. What Minister Mushikiwabo did not know was that the Rwandan Department of Military Intelligence (DMI) had �prepared a mission, that not even most of the Rwandan top military leaders and intelligence officials knew about. Even AfroAmerica Network analysts did not believe it, until our sources, �some of whom are related to General Ntaganda, described it in details.

According to the sources, General Ntaganda learned late February�2013, that Rwandan government leaders had given specific orders to a DMI commando to eliminate General Ntaganda. �That was after General Ntaganda tried and failed to assassinate Sultani Makenga (see our article of February 23, 2013:M23 General Sultani Makenga Escapes Assassination Attempt
).
The specifics orders were that General Bosco Ntaganda could not be allowed to be arrested and sent to International Criminal Court (ICC), where he could spill terrible and deadly secrets. �Luckily for General Ntaganda, one of the DMI commando alerted him about the fate awaiting him. The plan was to fake an attack by Sultani Makenga�s M23 rebels, execute him, and then announce to the World that he had died in combats.

After learning of the decision by General Paul Kagame and General James Kabarebe to eliminate him, he tried to flee to �Katoyi (or Gatoyi) in Masisi. He sent his trusted men to negotiate a passage through the positions occupied by Rwandan rebels of the FDLR -FOCA(see our article:�Kibumba: Fightings Between M23 Factions Never Happened) with the promise to compensate the FDLR with US$150,000. The FDLR commanders rejected the offer. But at the same time, General Ntaganda�s friends within the hit squad also dissuaded him to go to Masisi where he would be an even easier target.

General Bosco Ntaganda Takes a Fateful Decision.

That is when General Ntaganda took a fateful and perhaps the most important decision of his life: to surrender to the International Criminal Tribunal through a Western Embassy. �His relatives advised him to avoid embassies from weak countries or run by ambassadors too close to General Paul Kagame as these could, under pressure, �give him up.

After much debating and weighing of options, General Ntaganda decided that the best option was to seek refuge with the US Embassy, viewed as less susceptible to pressures from the Rwandan government. The problem was how to get there.

As AfroAmerica Network had found out from sources within General Ntaganda�s faction, �General Ntaganda used the negotiations with FDLR as a ploy. He feigned to be seeking a way to escape to Masisi but crossed the border into Rwanda well before other troops. His intention was, if �the negotiations had succeeded, to let Rwandan DMI commando believe that he was in Katoyi and throw them off the track, when he is really inside Rwanda, on his way to the US Embassy in Kigali.

An Underground Network of Trusted Relatives�
Hailing from Northwestern Rwanda and from the reclusive Tutsi Bagogwe�s ethnics, generally hostile to the current Rwandan �government dominated by Tutsis from Uganda and Burundi, General Ntaganda could rely on a network of incorruptible clansmen. So he was moving from relative to relative, avoiding highly circulated areas and moving in trucks carrying staples to the capital city Kigali. While the DMI killing squad was looking for him in Gisenyi, the volcanos and Masisi, he had already crossed Kinigi on his way to Kigali.

He reached Kigali late at night on Sunday, where a trusted relative was waiting for him. Early morning, the relative dropped him off close to the US Embassy, to where he walked in and asked for being sent to the International Criminal Court.

General Bosco Ntaganda, a Hunted Man Out of Options

People at the US Embassy could not believe it. What they did not know is that General Ntaganda was a hunted man, who had run out of options, running for his life, to the risk of spending �the rest of his life in prison, instead of seeing his life abruptly end in the darkness of �the torture rooms somewhere in Rwanda and his body dumped in a jungle in the DRC or along a beaten track in Masisi.

Did �the Rwandan Government want General Ntaganda roaming free in the DRC? No. General Paul Kagame wanted him dead �and along with him the numerous macabre secrets they share. Secrets about the multitude of innocent Congolese Hutu and Rwanda refugees massacred in Kiwandja, Masisi, Rutshuru, and all over North-Kivu.

Perhaps one day General Ntaganda will tell all that truth. The truth General Paul Kagame and General James Kabarebe did not want him to live to tell.

How About Minister Louise Mushikiwabo?

So, did Minister Louise Mushikwabo lie when she said that General Ntaganda was in the DRC? No. She was told so by her bosses and, according to sources close to her, she had believed it. According to sources close to her, she is furious and cursing the bosses that have made a foul out of her and made her a laughing stock around the World.
Whether it is her fault or not, one may wonder whether she is disloyal, a liar, a foul, or a laughing stock.

Source: AfroAmerica Network.

By Gasasira, Sweden

Congolese�s Minister Lambert Mende finds that the in-fighting was aimed at nothing but deceptive approach to jeopardize effective deployment of International Intervention Brigade in eastern Congo.

Umuvugizi has been carrying our comprehensive investigations into the recent reported intrigues and in-fighting among the M23 terrorist group pitting rival functions one led by General Bosco Ntaganda and another by Col Makenga and we can exclusively now reveal the real truth behind after talking to several people with extensive knowledge on the Congo conflict and inside the terrorist group circles.

Among those we talked is the Congolese minister for Information who is also the government spokesperson, Lambert Mende, who told that the in-fighting and rivalry among the terrorist group functions one by Gen Ntaganda and another by Col Makenga, is a deceptive snare to thwart the deployment of the International Intervention Brigade in Kivu region given the fact that the area by that time of fighting was the same location where the International force where supposed to be deployed.

Lambert Mende said: �Its true there has been in-fighting among the M23 rival functions of Gen. Ntaganda and Col Makenga in a place called Kibumba near the border, two Colonels royal to Gen Ntaganda handed themselves to Monusco and Gen Ntaganda and his soldiers fled to Rwanda. For us this in-fighting is no solution apart from jeopardising the road to peace, killing innocent civilians and destroying our Citizen�s Property and infrastructures of our country in general.��

The Minister continues: ��This in-fighting between Gen. Ntaganda and Col Makenga we view it as one thing, they are both terrorist mentored by Kagame and working for his private interests alone given the fact that both are bonded with one aim of destabilizing the Congolese security and violating the territorial integrity of Congo as a country. Their aim is nothing but continued looting of Congolese wealth for President Kagame .��

Minister Lambert Mende provided us a graphic account showing that the in-fighting among the M23 functions was nothing but premeditated to delay the deployment of the international force which is interestingly happening few days on the arrival in Goma of top Senior military Chiefs from South Africa and Tanzania to prepare for the force deployment.

One of the senior military officers from the Ugandan military who talked to Umuvigizi on condition of anonymity for his security reasons also expressed escapism about the intention and timing of the in-fighting especially when the M23 was about to fight a peace accord with the Congolese government after series of peace talks in Kampala.
�This in-fighting is deceptive and unfortunate but a decoy by Kagame to not only delay the peace process in Congo but also put into disarray the signing of the peace agreement in Kampala between M23 and Congolse government after President Museveni brought together the M23 and Congo government leaders to agree and were about to sign the agreement which would have marked the end of the conflict in that volatile part of the country. President Museveni had also managed to convince his Congolese counterpart Kabila to accept the results of the talks which he had made a commitment to implement the agreement. But it occurs that Kagame was never happy with the peace talks in Kampala and is not interested in the stabilization of Congo as the conflict their very much benefits him and he doesn�t care about the suffering of the Congolese people.��

He added that Kagame only wanted to humiliate Presidents Museveni and Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania because of their peace efforts on Congo.
How Kagame�s spies see the recent in-fighting between Gen Ntaganda and Col Makenga.

After talking to one of Ugandan Senior military official, we had also managed to also talk to some of Kagame�s spies who candidly told us that the who saga of in-fighting is orchestrated by Kagame who directed his chief spy Lt Gen Karenzi Karake to ensure that the M23 is divided into two rival functions and create a situation of bitter fighting and serious insecurity in Congo, all aimed at thwarting the peace process that had been signed in Ethiopia and the one in Kampala between M23 and Congo government. Kagame�s worry was that both the peace accords and in particular that of Kampala do not recognise General Ntaganda who is accused by the ICC for crimes against humanity that include killing of innocent civilians and raping of women and young girls. The Kigali spy told us that Kagame cant allow Ntaganda to appear before ICC for fear that he will reveal all the secrets on Congo warlord like that of Rubanga told the international Criminal court about the direct involvement of Kagame and how is an accomplice in the war crimes in Congo, meaning that at any time he will have to face trial at the ICC for crimes against humanity.

This Kagame spy further told us that authorizing Col Makenga to fight with Ntaganda Bosco function was aimed to show that it was Kagame chasing Ntaganda out of Congo soil because he didn�t want him captured by either Congo Government forces or UN forces in which case he would either end up at ICC or out of Kagame control. By this Kagame�s plan is to self style and credit Col Makenga before the international community and in the region to appear as a saint in order to conceal and make sure that his terrorists crimes against innocent Congolese , crimes which directly involves Rwanda Defence Forces are forgotten .

Kagame�s intelligence told us that the fighting between Gen Ntaganda and Col Makenga, with Col Makenga who appeared to have rebelled against Kagame, and acting as if he chased away Gen Ntaganda function, this was nothing but aimed at revamping Kagame�s image with Kigali in the next few days will appear to distance itself from M23 led by Col Makenga.

Umuvugizi can also irrefutably confirm that it was kagame in light of this who ordered gave instructions to his top spy Lt Gen Karenzi Karake to deliver message to Col Makenga to stand still and take over territories formerly controlled by Gen Ntaganda and also comfort Gen Ntaganda and Senior rebel commander under his command to immediately vacate DR Congo and surrender them selves to Rwanda after being promised that they are to be used in the same related combat operations of destabilizing DR Congo in future.

To this, Kagame spy told us that its intended to portray kagame as a person who wants peace in Congo and in the region and in this case will have leverage to ask the countries that cut aid to Rwanda because of his irrefutable financial and military support to M23, to trust him again and resume providing aid.

One of Kagame�s spies that we talked too said: �The recent infighting between Gen Ntaganda and Col Makenga were acting under direct orders from President Kagame through his chief Spy Lt Gen Karenzi Karake who was giving directives to two M23 function every minute until last Friday at 5:30 in the morning, when media exposed the intentions of their fighting as staged in order to preempt the going peace process between M23 and the government of president Kabila . After their exposure that�s when Rwanda�s chief spy Lt Gen Karenzi Karake called Col Makenga and ordered him to stop the fighting and instead ordered him to provide a safe passage to Gen. Ntaganda and his soldiers to come to Rwanda. That�s when Gen Ntaganda crossed to Rwanda with all his soldiers that included one General, and five Colonels and to this Rwanda stands out to benefit because it can use these soldiers any time for more missions in Congo.�

This military official also told us with lot of anger that Kagame and Karake have no mercy for either fellow Rwandans or Congolese people, wondering why they had to sacrifice lives of over 200 M23 soldiers who died during that friendly exchange of fire of no benefits to either M23 it�s self or their families who stranded in different refugee camps in Rwanda and Uganda apart from serving selfish and evil interests of President Kagame and his ruling click of continuing causing chaos in troubled DR Congo and plunder it�s wealth mineral resources.

One of President Kagame�s intelligence official who talked to Umuvugizi on conditions of anonymity said this � We are regretting why this time M23 Combat was commanded by Gen James Kabarebe and Lt Col Charles Kayonga , even though they are also not saints and ruthless but they couldn�t have reached to such an extent like that of President Kagame and his top spy Lt Gen Karenzi Karake who selfishly and mercilessly ordered exchange of fire in between two rival function in M23 to such an extent of losing 200 forces . He concluded that there is no surprise to this having done by president Kagame , after all he had no relative to lose among that M23 forces of Congolese of Rwanda�s origin of Bagogwe and Banyejomba tribe , mercilessly using them with one common goal of being a bridge of plundering DR Congo Wealthy mineral resources and styling him self as a Congolese liberator who benefit from this self styling of having a say in the neighboring DR Congo politics, meanwhile when this autocratic leader and a media predator has crashed his own opposition and mercilessly killed his Journalists, jailed others with heavy punishments and forced others to exile�

Source: Umuvugizi – The voice of Rwanda

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Rwanda has refused to issue entry visas to two members of a U.N. expert panel that accused Kigali last year of arming rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, describing them as biased, Rwandan and other diplomats said on Tuesday.

Several U.N. diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, disputed the allegations of bias.

The U.N. Security Council’s Group of Experts, which monitors compliance with sanctions and an arms embargo on Congo, said in a report last year that Rwanda’s defence minister was commanding the M23 revolt in Congo and that Rwanda was arming the rebels and supporting them with troops. It also accused Uganda of supporting M23.

Rwanda’s government was furious about the experts’ report, as was the Ugandan government, and denied the allegations. U.N. officials and Security Council diplomats, however, said the Rwandan denials were not credible.

A Rwandan diplomat confirmed the refusal to issue entry visas to Bernard Leloup of Belgium and Marie Plamadiala of Moldova. Several council diplomats dismissed the Rwandan allegations of bias, saying they suspected Kigali may be getting revenge over the group’s revelations about M23′s Rwandan links.

“We told the DRC (Congo) sanctions committee … that no visa will issued to both of them,” Rwanda’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Olivier Nduhungirehe, told Reuters. He was referring to the Security Council’s Congo sanctions committee.

Several diplomats said the other four members of the expert group are currently in the Rwandan capital Kigali for discussions with the government regarding the panel’s continued investigation of Rwanda’s role in supporting M23.

Britain, France and the United States are among the countries that have urged Kigali to cooperate with all six members of the expert panel, council diplomats said, adding that they hoped Rwanda would relent.

Last year’s report by the Group of Experts caused significant grief for Rwanda. The United States, Sweden, the Netherlands, Britain and the European Union reacted to the experts’ accusations by suspending some aid to Rwanda, which relies on donors for about 40 percent of its budget.

ACCUSATIONS OF BIAS

The Rwandan U.N. mission prepared a memo complaining about Leloup and Plamadiala. In that memo, obtained by Reuters from a diplomatic source, Rwanda accused Leloup of “a clear pattern of a deeply-seated bias against the GoR (government of Rwanda).”

The memo said Plamadiala has “no demonstrated expertise” suitable to being a member of the expert panel and “demonstrates inappropriate professional boundaries not befitting a U.N. expert.”

Despite Rwanda’s complaints, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reappointed Leloup and Plamadiala to the expert group.

The U.N. press office did not have an immediate response to the question of whether the Rwandan memo complaining about the two experts had been received by Ban’s office.

Plamadiala declined to comment in an email to Reuters. Leloup did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Last year, Rwanda accused the Group of Experts’ coordinator, Steve Hege of the United States, of bias and leaking information to the media. Several council diplomats told Reuters those allegations about Hege were unfounded. The experts’ new coordinator is Emilie Serralta of France.

Recently the M23 rebellion started to implode, U.N. diplomats and officials say. Hundreds of Congolese M23 rebels loyal to warlord Bosco Ntaganda fled into neighbouring Rwanda or surrendered to U.N. peacekeepers over the weekend after being routed by a rival faction.

Ntaganda, the fugitive Rwandan-born former Congolese general, walked into the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda on Monday and asked to be transferred to the International Criminal Court, where he faces war crimes charges racked up during the rebellion.

African leaders signed a U.N.-mediated regional accord late last month aimed at ending two decades of conflict in eastern Congo and paving the way for the possible creation of a U.N. intervention force to combat armed groups.

Source: Reuters

by Kris Berwouts

Paul Kagame

In October 1990, after Fred Rwigyema’s death on the third day the struggle to conquer Rwanda, Paul Kagame took over the command over the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and led it to victory in July 1994.

He became Vice-President and Minister of Defense in the transitional government installed after the Rwandan genocide. In March 2000, President Pasteur Bizimungu felt that he could no longer contribute to a regime dominated by the RPF. He resigned and Kagame became the Head of State. He has�subsequently�won presidential elections in 2003 and 2010.

In 2017, when his second mandate as an elected President expires, he will have led the RPF for 27 years and will have been Rwanda’s most powerful individual for 23 years (for 17 of which he has been the country’s President). The Constitution, adopted by referendum in May 2003, foresees a maximum of two consecutive mandates for the Head of State. This means that he cannot stand for a new term in 2017.

Very soon after his re-election in August 2010, speculation and rumour developed about the chances that Kagame, with or without a review of the Constitution, would seek a third mandate. On February 27th 2013 he gave a�press conference�on the issue stating that he is not interested in running again.

This press conference was a reply to earlier announcements by opposition parties such as Victoire Ingabire’s FDU-Inkingi and Frank Habineza’s Green Party that they would oppose changes to the Constitution allowing Kagame to continue. But at the end of the press conference, Kagame left all options open. He isn’t seeking a third mandate and doesn’t ‘need’ this job, but he doesn’t exclude the possibility of bowing to the will of the people if they want him to stay on. “At the end of the day, let’s remember that Rwandans have to decide,” he said.

2010: a landslide victory

On 9 August 2010, Kagame was re-elected with an overwhelming 93% of the vote. In the election itself he faced three candidates who were considered by the traditional opposition as “satellite candidates, phoney opposition players intended to maintain the illusion of pluralism”.

The months before the elections had been very tense when the more genuine opposition parties started to prepare their campaigns: the Social Party Imberakuri (PSI) led by Bernard Ntaganda, the Green Democratic Party (GDP) with a leadership that came mainly from the anglophone community and which, according to many, was a result of the discontent within the RPF; and lastly the Unified Democratic Forces (UDF-Inkingi), formed around presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire, who had returned to Rwanda in January after an absence of 17 years.

The leaders of these parties confronted hostility and significant verbal aggression from the authorities and media. Victoire Ingabire in particular, with her clear message and direct, flambuoyant style received a lot of national and international attention. However, when the election actually arrived, none of these candidates were able to formally run for office.

In the end, all went well for Kagame. When you have almost complete control over the legislative, executive and judicial institutions, when an independent press has almost completely disappeared, when that section of opinion which has not openly sided with you has attained an extraordinary level of sophistication in the noble art of self-censorship, when for a large part of national and international opinion you represent the ending of genocide and the return to stability, you don’t lose elections.

The annus horibilis

In the months before the elections the focus of tensions changed. General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, a long term companion of President Kagame and former Commander in chief of the Rwandese army, left Rwanda and its regime to join the dissident Colonel Patrick Karegeya in exile in Johannesburg. Karegeya is a former intelligence chief, but above all central to the running of the Congo Desk – created during the war in Congo to manage the exploitation of natural resources in the eastern DRC.

In the months after Nyamwasa’s departure, others left too – influential and high profile people like Theodore Rudasingwa (Kagame’s former director of cabinet), Gerald Gahima (former Prosecutor General and Vice-President of the Supreme Court) and Kagame’s private secretary David Himbara.

All of a sudden, Kagame wasn’t struggling with his traditional enemies but with his frustrated comrades-in-arms. The ruling inner circle was losing its coherence and had to fight against its own disintegration. When it looked at itself, it was confronted with the�cracks in the mirror�that belied the united and serene image which it wanted to show to the public in Rwanda as well as internationally.

Three weeks after Kagame’s re-election, the French newspaper Le Monde leaked the draft of the�UN’s DRC Mapping Exercise Report�which aimed to document the most serious violations of human rights in the DRC between March 1993 and June 2003.

In paragraph 517, the report states: “The systematic and widespread attacks described in this report, which targeted very large numbers of Rwandan Hutu refugees and members of the Hutu civilian population, resulting in their death, reveal a number of damning elements that, if they were proven before a competent court, could be classified as crimes of genocide.”

This was nothing less than an earthquake for Rwanda. For a decade and a half the regime functioned as the incarnation of genocide victims over those who had perpetrated it. The report, published on October 1st 2010, suggested that this might only be one side of the story, that the reality of Rwanda’s traumatic recent history might be much more complex.

The report is nothing more than a very extensive inventory of the most important human rights violations in one decade, and as such it is not a basis for prosecution. Most of the facts reported by the UN researchers were known, but for the first time they were brought together in one comprehensive document and acknowledged at the level of an official UN document.

Thirty months after the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published the report, there has been insufficient follow-up by governments in Africa’s Great Lakes region and by the UN itself.

Damage control

The landscape of Rwanda’s political and military elite has changed a lot with Nyamwasa’s departure. There are many indications that Nyamwasa and Karegeya tried to organize an armed resistance on Congolese soil, bringing together people from backgrounds as different as the part of the CNDP that had stayed loyal to Nkunda, certain Mai Mai groups, the FRF, bits of the FARDC and FNL.

Contact was even made with some people within the FDLR. All these forces had their reasons to be against Kagame and the ambition was to unite them in an ad hoc movement against the regime in Kigali. To do that, they had to reconcile water and fire. They tried but failed, this was because of several factors.

By the end of 2010 it became clear that they would not able to raise international support for an armed initiative. The main reason for this was that Kayumba Nyamwasa did not have a sufficiently high profile to incarnate the reconciliation of water and fire.

He had always been considered a hardliner of the regime, whose conflict with Kagame was about the President’s attempt to dismantle the parallel economic structure that Nyamwasa and Karegeya had organized around the plundering of Congo’s minerals.

It has never been easy to distinguish between hawks and doves inside Rwanda’s regime, but Nyamwasa was definitely not to be considered a dove. He did not seem to have much added value to Kagame in terms of democracy, reconciliation nor good governance.

For the same reasons, the political party he founded with Karegeya, Gahima and Rudasingwa isn’t much of a threat to the RPF: Kayumba Nyamwasa and his crew aren’t a credible alternative to Kagame. 2010 was his annus horibilis, but Kagame won back the full control over the regime.

Since 2011, a change of generation has taken place around Kagame. People who are or could be influenced by Nyamwasa lost space and made way for younger men and women with a different profile: born in the late seventies or early eighties, ambitious, well-trained technocrats rather than military, polyglot intellectuals rather than the leaders who grew up in the refugee camps, fought in the bush against Obote and Habyarimana, eventually getting rich through the plundering of Congo.

The people who shaped Kagame’s Brave New World were replaced by the people who grew up in it (mostly receiving training and education abroad).

Not another Mugabe

Over the last few months, some Rwanda watchers have seen indications that Kagame is interested in a Buyoya-type of exit scenario: remain present and influential with a rather low profile on the national level, and play a role on the international scene as a mediator in conflicts. Other people believe he’s constructing a more Medvedev – Putin inspired leapfrog.

Both sides believe that Kagame would like to avoid the political damage and loss of credibility if he continues. He is not looking forward to gaining a reputation as the new Mugabe or Museveni. His main concern will be to gain guarantees that he will not be persecuted by international justice.

Speculation has inevitably started on who could succeed him. At some point Richard Sezibera seemed in pole position. Born in 1964 and presently Secretary General of the EAC, Sezibera served as Minister of Health and as Ambassador to the US, Rwanda’s Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Region and as Kagame’s Senior Advisor. He is a medical doctor who practiced for many years in Uganda and Rwanda and has a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University.

Another person referred to internally as a potential successor is Donald Kaberaku (1951), currently President of the African Development Bank. He studied in Tanzania and the UK (obtaining a PhD in economics from the University of Glasgow). In October 1997 he was appointed minister of finance and economic planning in Rwanda and is considered as one of the masterminds behind the recovery of the Rwandan economy after the genocide.

Sometimes other names appear – they seem to come and go in waves. But Sezibera, in particular, is to be taken seriously.

The M23 misadventure

At the time of writing these lines, the latest offshoot of the RCD-CNDP tree ‘M23′ has been involved in several days of heavy internal fighting between the factions loyal to Bosco Ntaganda and Sultani Makenga. The draft of a peace agreement between M23 and the DRC government is circulating, but it remains to be seen if it will ever be signed.

M23 started nearly one year ago as another rebellion led by Congolese Tutsi. A settlement might be found around an old school arrangement which integrates the rebels in to the army, giving them grades and control over men and mines. Things might calm down for a while until the next time someone believes that his community’s interests are best served by a new rebellion.

This episode has weakened everybody – including the Rwandan government. It seems they overplayed their hand. As soon as it became clear that Kigali was very actively supporting M23, its most loyal partners took extraordinary measures. Nations like the UK, USA, Sweden, Holland and Germany suspended at least a part of their aid. Rwanda received heavy criticism and now knows that any future moves and actions will be looked upon with great suspicion.

As usual, the events in Congo have divided the Tutsi and, more generally, the Rwandan community in Congo as well as in Rwanda. Unlike earlier Tutsi-led rebellions, M23 wasn’t able to mobilise a lot of support among Congolese Hutu and the Banyamulenge. The Tutsi of South Kivu declared from the very beginning that they had nothing to be gained from the M23 rebllion, with which they did not identify at all.

The backbone of M23 were Tutsi from the North Kivutian territories of Rutshuru and Masisi, and since the Framework Agreement was signed in Addis Ababa, they are mainly fighting each other. What separates them (strategy, geography, clans, economic interests, political affinities) is felt within the inner circle of power in Rwanda and affects cohesion there.

Not really, Mr. Blair

I do truly believe that the Rwandan regime is working on a succession scenario. However, anybody who has traveled to Africa knows that nothing, apart from scrub and mushrooms, grows underneath a baobab tree. It is very difficult for new and younger leadership to emerge in the shadow of a strong leader. Kagame led the RPF for more than 22 years and turned the country into a virtual one party state.

It is not easy to replace such a leader, even in the most serene conditions. And conditions aren’t serene in Rwanda after one year of the M23. The country has been weakened by the events, as has any other actor in Central Africa involved in it, with the possible exception of Museveni.

Kagame has, however, managed an effective policy of damage limitation. Important international partners threatened to leave, but some of them have come back already. On February 22th Tony Blair wrote a letter, together with Howard G. Buffet,�Stand with Rwanda.

According to Mr Blair “Slashing international support to Rwanda ignores the complexity of the problem within DRC’s own borders and the history and circumstances that have led to current regional dynamics.

Cutting aid does nothing to address the underlying issues driving conflict in the region, it only ensures that the Rwandan people will suffer – and risks further destabilizing an already troubled region … Cutting aid to Rwanda also risks undoing one of Africa’s great success stories.”

I do not belong to the group of people who believe that the alpha and the omega of Congo’s scourge, woe and disaster can be reduced to Rwanda’s role in it, but I do believe that a huge part of Rwanda’s success story is due to the surplus it extracts from Congo’s minerals, and that the Rwandan government is aware that it needs to consolidate this extraction if it wants to prevent the walls of its reign from tumbling down.

Congo’s complex problems are the fruit of its own colonial and post-colonial history, but the fall of Mobutu’s empire and the difficulties of reinventing and rebuilding the new Congo after the departure of le Pr�sident-Fondateur, have been complicated by the fact that Rwanda exported its problems on to Congolese soil.

Of course, “the international community should support the three regional governments – DRC, Rwanda, and Uganda – in their efforts to build a sustainable solution to the conflict”, as stated by Mr Blair, but I don’t really think this will happen without a delicate balance between support and pressure.

Not only pressure on the DRC (as it seems is the case in the Framework Agreement signed last month in Addis Ababa), but on all partners involved, Rwanda included. Pressure which does not foresee measures or sanctions is no pressure at all.

Kris Berwouts has, over the last 25 years, worked for a number of different Belgian and international NGOs focused on building peace, reconciliation, security and democratic processes.

Until recently, he was the Director of EurAc, the network of European NGOs working for advocacy on Central Africa. He now works as an independent expert on Central Africa.