Resolutions will not stop FDLR, only actions will

The UN Security Council on Thursday yet again adopted another Resolution on the situation in the eastern DR Congo, which explicitly rebuked Kinshasa for its well documented collaboration with the FDLR genocidaires and demanded the group and other armed forces operating in the area to immediately disband and lay down arms.

Friday, January 31, 2014

The UN Security Council on Thursday yet again adopted another Resolution on the situation in the eastern DR Congo, which explicitly rebuked Kinshasa for its well documented collaboration with the FDLR genocidaires and demanded the group and other armed forces operating in the area to immediately disband and lay down arms.

It is absurd that while the Congolese government is keen to always cry wolf, scapegoating neighbours for the unending violence inside its territory, it remains in bed with the same militia that has terrorised Congolese citizens for nearly two decades.  

Without the active support of the Congolese political and military establishments, the FDLR would be no more.

FDLR is no ordinary rebel group; as stated in the Security Council Resolution no. 2014/55 this is a deeply dangerous outfit whose leaders and members fled to DR Congo in 1994 after carrying out one of the worst genocides known to man – the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.  

It is sad that sometimes this militia is mentioned in the same breath as several rebel groups; few militant groups in the world can rival FDLR in brutality. These are monsters, elements behind the death of a million plus innocent people during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

While the FDLR has continued to aggressively prey on Congolese citizens under the nose of Congolese authorities and the world’s largest peacekeeping mission, Monusco, it has never relented on its pursuit for annihilation of the Tutsi in Rwanda and beyond.

Most worryingly, the younger fighters in the FDLR ranks, some of them minors, have been indoctrinated to carry on this sick legacy, with view to sustain a deadly ideology that can potentially plunge this region back into anarchy.

Which begs the question; how much more atrocities should the FDLR commit before it is permanently stopped? That FDLR militia is still intact and actively seeking to form new alliances in a bid to veil its true identity in what constitutes an indictment on the Congolese authorities, and Monusco and its Force Intervention Brigade, which ought to have long eliminated the FDLR threat.

We hope the latest Security Council Resolution will be followed by resolute action against this terrorist organisation that continues to sow seeds of hatred and tensions inside the Congo and the wider region.