Kinshasa: More outrage swirls around resumption of Kampala talks with M23

(PHOTO: Lt Col Olivier Hamuli, North-Kivu FARDC spokesperson, talking to Reuters at Mutaho, near Goma, July 6, 2013)

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There's more outrage swirling around the ill-timed resumption of the Kampala talks between the DRC government and the Rwandan proxies of M23.

Ill-timed because the talks being held in Kampala somehow coincide with the National Consultations in Kinshasa. 

And these consultations have once more caused a political rift, making simmering tension to flare up. 

In Kinshasa, two main political camps have dug their heels in: those attending the consultations (the ruling majority and a section of the opposition, including Jean-Pierre Bemba's MLC) and the "radical" oppositionists who are boycotting this forum (Etienne Tshisekedi's UDPS, Vital Kamerhe's UNC, etc.).

The radicals scold the government for talking to M23 and bandy around its compliance with the resolutions of the ICGLR as illustrative of its listless leadership.

And MP Clément Kanku--leader of the opposition party "Mouvement pour le Renouveau" (MR)--has even blamed these talks with M23, among other rationales, for his pulling out of the National Consultations.

In a scathing communiqué released in Kinshasa on September 10, MP Kanku--who participated in the preparatory phase of the National Consultations and even sat through Kabila's opening address--states:

"While the presidential decree of the Head of State convening national consultations was steeped on national cohesion in order to face the war in the east of the country, we now learn that, at the same time, our government is implementing the dictates of the ICGLR, which forces it to return to the negotiating table with the same negative force that has since been labeled a 'terrorist movement' by the United States of America.

"Today, we can legitimately wonder about the worthiness of resolutions that could be obtained through the National Consultations compared to those coming from Kampala."

Obviously, just like many who feed on rumors from Radio-Trottoir, MP Kanku didn't bother to check the US State Department up-to-date list of Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).

If he did, he'd have found out that there was only one single addition so far this year to the FTOs list dating back to March 22: the Malian Tuareg Islamist group Ansar al-Dine (ADD).

But MP Kanku's confusion could have also been caused by the DRC government's own talking points--oft repeated and disseminated by Communications Minister Lambert Mende--which have kept systematically (and rightly) referring to the M23 as a terrorist organization....

As usual, each time M23 delegates show up at Kampala, they run some novel wacky claims up the flagpole--as if these terrorists would continue forever playing their macabre game.

They had even the gall to pretend they got legitimate "ideological demands" other than their base motives of plunder of resources and shakedowns of civilians. 

And  M23 claim they only got left three small demands to the DRC government: 1) Disarm the FDLR; 2) Allow thousands of people claiming to be Congolese refugees in Rwanda to return en masse to the Congo (with thousands of their cows); and, last and not least, 3) Set up a buffer zone between the FARDC and the territory occupied by M23!

Lt Col Olivier Hamuli, FARDC North-Kivu spokesman, brushed off the first one of these three frivolous demands, saying, as quoted by the daily "L'Avenir":

"In the meantime, the M23 have just spent more than a year in Rutshuru and Nyiragongo. We still have to hear in the news that M23 have clashed with the FDLR. Not once!"

Adding:

"The FDLR are at Katemba. It's nearby Kiwanja, which [M23] control." 

And yet not a single shot is fired!...

Lt Col Hamuli went further to claim that this past February, during the clashes that pitted two M23 factions, the "Makenga faction" and the FDLR were coalitionists. "We got proofs" to back up this allegation, he said.

The two other demands also got the same kind of brushoff from the Congolese delegation in Kampala as pretexts made out of whole cloth to derail the talks, maintain the status quo, and accommodate Rwanda--which got in on the ground floor anyway!

Besides the mercurial M23 delegates and their frivolous demands, the Ugandan government keeps thumbing its nose at its Congolese counterpart in Kampala. 

The most recent outrage proffered by Uganda was to suggest to the DRC via the media to have M23 reintegrated into the FARDC.

Ofwono Opendo, Ugandan government's spokesman, told VOA the other day about "the need for the Congolese government to accept them [M23], and if possible perhaps re-integrate the fighting forces into the main stream army; demobilization of those who want to surrender and go home and do other things, and the third issue is not giving amnesty to those who have been indicted with serious war crimes [and] crimes against humanity."

Really!

Maybe--just maybe--UNSG Special Envoy Mary Robinson didn't anticipate that her candid plea to give political negotiations a chance would turn into this charade that's now playing out at Kampala.

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PHOTO CREDITS: REUTERS/Chrispin Mvano