Germany sets good example on Congo rebels

A sustained campaign against Hutu renegades in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo continues. Their demise isn’t imminent. However, it could if other nations emulate Germany.

Last Tuesday media reported police there arrested two Rwandan militia leaders on suspicion of crimes committed in the DRC. They are Mr Ignace Murwanashyaka, 46, and Mr Straton Musoni, 48, modern youth.

Respectively, they are leader and deputy of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda. The FDLR members fled after the 1994 Rwandan genocide officials of the then Hutu-dominated government organised. Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died.

German prosecutors said in a statement both men “are strongly suspected, as members of the foreign terrorist organisation FDLR, of committing crimes against humanity and war crimes.”

While the statement didn’t specify individual charges, it enumerated FDLR’s alleged crimes: killing civilians, raping women, plundering and burning villages, and recruiting children as soldiers. The inference is the two face such charges.

Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Rose Museminali welcomed the arrests. She suggested extradition for trial at home. That’s complicating the matter. Germany arrested the two for alleged crimes in the DRC. That’s enough for now.

The prosecutors didn’t say what they plan to do with the two men. The obvious move would be to hand them over to the International Criminal Court, ICC. Precedents exist.

The importance of the German case, however, lies elsewhere. For 15 years, Hutu extremists, who form the FDLR’s bulk, have roamed eastern DRC with guns, bullets, and money as only signs of civilization. The FDLR has, albeit ineffectively, mounted raids against Rwanda, to complete the genocide.

The FDLR’s existence is partly due to chaos following the late President Mobutu Sese Seko’s ouster. DRC leadership’s collaboration with FDLR, which meant arming it against own foes, only intensified the conflict.

Inevitably, external elements added fuel to the fire. They, too, like the FDLR and rogue DRC officials, had and still have, interests in exploiting the region’s resources, especially easily smuggled minerals, like gold.

As the FDLR’s main target, Rwanda has done as much as is possible to fight back, with several invasions. However, it wasn’t until the Security Council authorised some of 20,000 peacekeepers last December to assist DRC troops has the tide turned against the FLRD, on the ground.

Some human rights organisations have criticised the peacekeepers’ support of the DRC’s military. Some of its elements certainly belong to the gallows. On the other hand, the operation is less than a year. Moreover, the United Nations, though ponderous, is aware of shortcomings. The issue of choosing the lesser of evils also exists.

While progress on the ground continues, the international community—arms embargo nonsensical talk and all—is doing little to deal with FDLR’s external operatives. This, of course, is because they avoid violating laws in countries of residence.

Apparently, that was the case with Mr Murwanashyaka and Mr Musoni. Then Germans became proactive and used existing legal avenues to neutralise them. It isn’t the case though, with, for example France. One Mr Callixe Mbarashimana, FDLR executive secretary, is free.

He described the FDLR to the BBC as “a military-political organisation to protect Rwandan refugees and to liberate the Rwandan people from the yoke of the fascist regime of the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front)”.