Prime
Mwenda defends meeting with Congo rebel leaders
Veteran Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda. PHOTO/FILE/COURTESY
What you need to know:
- Andrew Mwenda says he felt the impression that Americans were on an intelligence-gathering mission.
“As a journalist, newspaper columnist, radio talk show host, television show panelist, social media personality and owner of a media company, I was interested. My work and opinions require collection of information from primary sources. I talk to people of all backgrounds to inform myself. I was, therefore, most keen to talk to M23 leaders to hear their stories.
I met them around March 11 at my office. They included Lawrence Kanyuka, Desire Rwigyema and a third person whose name I cannot remember. I had always thought M23 was an ethnic militia of the Tutsi of eastern DRC. To my surprise, Kanyuka told me he is from the Luba ethnic group, just like President Felix Tshisekedi. They gave me the list of their leaders, political and military, most of whom were not Tutsi. In fact one of them is a Hutu Congolese. I was intrigued and we sat down for a long conversation.
They told me in October 2020, Kanyuka had led an M23 delegation to Kinshasa. They spent there 14 months negotiating a peace settlement with the government. The peace discussions agreed that M23 should demobilise and have their fighters integrated into the Congolese army. But just when the M23 were grouping to surrender in November 2022, they were attacked by Congolese forces. Many of their soldiers were killed. M23 protested to Kinshasa and got no response. However, they told me they did not want to continue fighting. They want the peace process back on track.
They said they want me to help them contact the embassies of the US, France, Belgium and the European Union. These four, they said, have influence in Kinshasa and can help establish a communication channel with the government. Immediately, I saw a chance to bring the two sides to talk, end the fighting in Congo and bring about peace. I have read about such intractable civil conflicts in many nations ... The lesson from my wide reading is that only when governments seek political accommodation with rebels does military victory on the battlefield translate into permanent peace at the political level.
Thus, I felt that such an opportunity should not be missed. [The] Democratic Republic of Congo has been mired in this intractable conflict for decades. I, therefore, called the US, French and EU missions in Kampala and briefed them on my meeting with M23. I told them these rebels are looking for someone with influence to help establish a channel of communication with Kinshasa. The aim is to inform the government of DRC that M23 is willing to surrender.
The officer at the French embassy told me outright that they are not allowed to meet M23. The officer at the US embassy told me their political secretary was interested but needed to consult Washington [DC] first. Two days later, he told me Washington had declined. However, the US embassy official asked me if M23 leaders had met anyone from the Uganda government to which I said I do not know. If they did, it would be a low-ranking person because I know Uganda is managing a very delicate relationship with DRC and would be afraid to antagonise Kinshasa. However, I got the impression that the Americans were on an intelligence-gathering mission.
… The officer at the EU agreed to meet M23 leaders and said this was purely informal. We met and had a discussion that lasted four hours. He asked many questions and took voluminous notes. I did not hear from any side after that. In early May, I got a call from the Uganda Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They said they had been contacted by the UN Security Council on behalf of a “Panel of Experts” on the DRC. The Panel claimed [that] I was involved with M23 [rebels], trying to help them talk to “several Western embassies” to remove sanctions against the rebel group. The officials at Foreign Affairs gave me the dossier of what the “Panel of Experts” was claiming. It even claimed Uganda trains M23. It was clear the Americans are the ones who reported this to the UN based on the conversations I had with their staff.”
Who is Andrew Mwenda
(Written by Andrew Bagala)
Andrew Mwenda, 52, is a journalist-cum-lobbyist whose professional life spans decades of reporting and editing at Monitor Publications Ltd, publisher of Daily Monitor newspaper and owner of KFM where he ran the popular Andrew Mwenda Live talk show.
After a year-long stint at Stanford University in the United States where he was a John Knight fellow, Mr Mwenda resigned from the newspaper to co-found The Independent magazine where to-date he remains the managing director.
His incisive reportage and exposés, including on corruption, while at The Monitor earned him a reputation of an independent journalist critical of President Museveni’s government he often derided as incompetent.
Police regularly arrested and detained Mr Mwenda for these ‘sins’, but his closeness with First Son Muhoozi Kainerugaba remain a subject of disquiet among those knowledgeable of the friendship.
In subsequent years, Mr Mwenda gravitated towards power and its trappings and turned a confidant and public defender of President Museveni and his government.
He moonlighted as a political fixer, including for Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who in 2011 named him on a 23-member Presidential Advisory Council for seven years.
His bonds with the First Son Kainerugaba, now a general and Chief of Defence Forces, meant both over the past couple of years publicly took joint trips to Kigali and spoke similar language: in support of M23 rebel group and Rwanda accused by Kinshasa of supporting it.
A bombshell for him has come this month from indictments by a United Nations Panel of Experts that in a leaked report named him as an interlocutor lobbying for removal of the Congolese rebel group off UN sanctions list.
A holder of a degree in Journalism and Mass Communications from Makerere University, Mr Mwenda pursued graduate studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London on the British Government’s Chevening scholarship.
His notable feats in the fight for freedom of expression and of the media in Uganda were stamped when courts scrapped sedition and publication of false news offences from the law books in petitions he and others filed.
