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Arms race plunges DRC into new phase of war
What you need to know:
- DRC, which accuses Rwanda of arming M23 insurgents, has received sophisticated weapons, including drones from Turkey, China and Bulgaria in preparation for war after the UN Security Council lifted an arms embargo in December 2022.
The Ugandan government has revealed that its army beat off an attempt by the M23 to destroy its road equipment in the restive eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
This comes as territory incursions by the rebel group threaten to suck Uganda into a tinderbox that looks menacingly close to pitting the DRC against neighbours Rwanda.
“They attempted to attack our road equipment en route to Bunagana Road,” Brig Felix Kulayigye, Uganda’s army and Defence ministry spokesperson, said of the M23, adding, “We beat them off, the people we are alleged to be supporting.”
Accusations of M23 getting support from Kigali and Kampala have previously triggered protests from locals in the DRC. Brig Kulayigye’s revelation in regard to the M23 attack on the UPDF road construction project appears to lend credence to the theory that the eastern DRC is the new theatre for cloak and dagger games among regional countries.
“The conflict in North Kivu has no impact on our operations,” he said of Operation Shujaa that is intended to flush out ADF rebels from havens in the DRC. “As you are aware it is a bilateral operation between FARDC and UPDF. Now we cannot be operating here with FARDC and in the South we are fighting against them. Strategically, it’s impossible. It would endanger our own soldiers, and it would be foolish of us anyway as Uganda. We can only get into a conflict if we see a solution.”
Touch-and-go
The sound of war drums coming out of the eastern DRC though is hard to escape. The latest fighting between the M23 rebels and DRC government fighters—shored up by a SADC force in the volatile North-Kivu region—has placed the Great Lakes on the edge.
With fear that the war could escalate into a full-blown regional conflict, the Congolese army—a disparate collection of rag-tag militias—has reached out to a SADC force consisting of Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa to shore up its fragile frontlines as the M23 continues to capture large swathes in the province.
Besides a geo-political terrain rife with mutual suspicion among leaders, hundreds of militias across North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri have turned the eastern DRC into a powder-keg.
Kinshasa accuses Rwanda of fighting alongside M23 and providing it with sophisticated weapons, including surface to air missiles (SAM).
On its part, Kigali accuses Kinshasa of arming FDLR génocidaires disguised as a local militia—Wazalendo—to launch attacks against the Tutsi community in eastern DRC.
Burundi is accusing Kigali of propping up the Red Tabara militia in South Kivu against the Bujumbura government while Kigali accuses Burundi of giving support to FDLR.
With the M23 gaining an upper-hand and the frontline gradually shifting towards the provincial capital of Goma, civilians continue to flee mortar shells that have cratered buildings across North Kivu.
Arms race
Highly-placed sources reveal that Kinshasa has launched a recruitment campaign and sent a number of its battalions to receive combat training in Israel.
DRC has also received sophisticated weapons, including drones from Turkey, China and Bulgaria in preparation for war after the UN Security Council lifted an arms embargo in December 2022.
A bellwether about the pattern of warfare that is gradually shifting from the orthodox methods to asymmetrical warfare, amongst the weapons in the possession of the DRC and M23 fighters are reconnaissance drones, SAMs and Russian fighter jets, which continue to circle the hills of Rutshuru, Sake, and Masisi in North Kivu.
Only last week, a SAM was fired at a UN observation drone, a confidential United Nations report said. A “suspected Rwandan Defence Force (RDF) mobile Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM)” was fired at a UN observation drone last Wednesday without hitting it, the confidential report said.
Open source information identifies the UN drone as the Selex ES Falco Evo UAV, which is an all-weather, persistent-surveillance, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).
The type has been in service with the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DR Congo (MONUSCO) since 2014.
According to the UN report, “external military intelligence from France” supports assessment that the suspected WZ551 6×6 IFV mobile SAM system is owned by the Rwandan government.
The UN in its assessment claims that Rwanda continues to give sophisticated weapons to its ‘proxy militia’ the M23, which has in its armoury anti-aircraft guns and man portable air defence system. (MANPADS).
Amongst the equipment in the possession of M23 is the WZ551 6×6 IFV mobile SAM system also known as the Yitian anti-aircraft missile system, which is a short-range air-defence (SHORAD) system built by China.
“If it is proven that there are these sophisticated weapons, the question is where are they coming from? That may actually confirm the suspicion that it is Rwanda supplying M23, that complicates the situation, this may result in serious instability. M23 and Rwanda, I am not sure if they are not one and the same and the UN report says that a couple of weeks ago, I was in Rwanda and they denied this,” argued Prof Philip Kasaija an international law and regional security expert.
Equipped with eight Tianlong and six short-range surface-to-air missiles, this system has an effective range of 300 to 6,000 metres and a maximum operational altitude of 4,000 metres.
Its primary mission is to provide low-altitude protection for armoured units against fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and other airborne threats. It also has an anti-cruise missile capability.
‘Agenda to plunder’
Didier Bitaki, a security expert in the DRC, told Sunday Monitor that “where are the M23 able to get missiles? Those weapons are imported by Rwandan forces, they are backing the M23.”
He defended the DRC’s effort to arm itself against the ‘aggressor.’
“DRC is fighting Rwandan troops, who want to loot minerals.
The Rwandan forces want to steal lithium and other minerals. This is why there is an escalation,” he said. Bitaki claimed the international community has an agenda to plunder the DRC’s mineral wealth.
DRC possesses vast mineral wealth.
Many Western secretive corporate firms as well as the Chinese government have used the pretext of providing military support to the DRC to gain a foothold in the lucrative mining deals across DRC.
Rwanda has denied the accusations that it supports M23 rebels and has an agenda to plunder the mineral wealth of its neighbour. On the contrary, Kigali says its army is only seeking to create a cordon sanitaire on the border with the DRC against FDLR génocidaires who have been given a safe haven in eastern DRC. It also accuses Kinshasa of orchestrating an ethnic pogrom against the Tutsi community in DRC.
Watchful eye
Uganda will closely be watching the frontlines as its troops are currently holed up in the restive Ituri province, hunting down ADF rebels hiding inside the bowels of the DRC jungles.
“We have a bilateral agreement under Operation Shujaa. Our mandate is limited to fighting ADF, and LRA but these situations are very fluid, the very presence of Uganda [in the DRC] could make us get sucked in,” posited Prof Kasaija.
Prof Kasaija said regional leaders ought to hastily convene a meeting through the Nairobi and Luanda peace accords to find a lasting solution.
“The problem with the Great Lakes is we have leaders who are very suspicious of each other, the second is the Nairobi accord although half-hearted should be pursued to its logical conclusion,” he told Sunday Monitor.
Prof Kasaija said the Americans are encouraging DRC president Félix Tshisekedi to speak to his Rwandan opposite number, Paul Kagame. Burundi President Evariste Ndayishimiye should also, Prof Kasaija added, speak to Kagame. “We all belong to the East African Community. You can’t integrate with wars. [The] starting point is to talk. The Dean of the EAC presidents [Mr Museveni] has a role as a person who has been around to whip these leaders into shape. He has led this crusade of integration, Uganda has a role in the stabilisation and they [other leaders] have confidence in Museveni,” he said.
Ethnic question
This ethnic question remains a potential tinderbox. Maj Okwiri Rabwoni, a former member of Parliament and regional security expert, said the unresolved question of ethnicity and citizenship remains a trigger of the conflict in eastern DRC.
“Does your ethnicity determine your nationality? Did the Congolese accept the Banyamasisi, Banyarutshuru as Congolese? The argument from Kigali is that if you don’t recognise the Banyamasisi and Banyarutshuru, the Congolese Tutsi, if you don’t recognise their citizenship rights as Congolese, do you want to send them to Rwanda? Or you send them to Rwanda with their land? But that would also mean the balkanisation of Congo which would be a dangerous precedent,” Okwiri said.
He added: “According to historical accounts, before the entrance of the colonialists, people moved from Burundi to South Kivu, among whom are the Banyamulenge cattle keepers and then people moved from Rwanda to North Kivu, cattle keepers who are mainly in Masisi and Rutshuru.”
He said: “Then people also moved from Uganda to Ituri; those are the ones that are called the Bahema. You can see these eastern Congolese regions are adjacent to these other countries. Banyamulenge from Burundi, Banyamasisi, Banyarutshuru from Rwanda and then Banyamboga, Bahema, these are the people in Ituri from Uganda.”
In December 1996, Tanzania’s founding president, Julius Nyerere, shared similar views at the International Peace Academy in New York.
He said: “The Banyamulenge are not immigrants to Zaire. The kingdom of Rwanda was partitioned between the Germans and the Belgians and the Belgians took a part of the kingdom of Rwanda with the people.”
He added: “So when we say respect that border which was agreed upon between the Germans and the Belgians, we must also be saying respect the people who you received. You can’t turn around and say you are no longer citizens of our country, what are you going to do, are you going to return them alone or with a piece of land, you can’t say go home, go home where?”