A communiqué released by the DR Congo military on March 30 indicates that the Congolese army is more than ready to welcome and work with regional countries’ armies in a bid to neutralise the various armed militia groups on its territory.

The statement signed by Maj Gen Léon-Richard Kasonga Cibangu, the Spokesperson of the Congolese army (FARDC), indicates that terrorist militia groups of Rwandan origin including FDLR "and all the other external and local negative forces which disturb the peace in our sub-regions” are on target.

The Congolese military added that they had contacted all armies of neighbouring countries so as "to adopt appropriate strategies to resolve once and for all the thorny issue of insecurity in the sub-region” as recommended in the spirit and letter of the Arusha agreement.

Terror suspects in the MRCD-FLN trial that is underway at the High Court Chamber for International and Cross-Border Crimes in Kigali on March 24. Photo: Sam Ngendahimana.

This, according to the statement, is in consideration of the threat posed by the armed groups, and in accordance with the political will of the Heads of State of the countries of the sub-region.

"In this perspective, the FARDC privileges the strengthening of military cooperation, regular consultations between regional armies as well as the pooling of efforts and intelligence to fight effectively and definitively neutralize all armed groups,” reads part of the statement.

"The efforts thus combined by everyone are aimed at regional economic integration in a secure environment.”

The statement stressed that this military cooperation which already exists between the FARDC and the Rwandan military as well as between the former and the armies of Uganda, Angola and the Central Africa Republic (CAR) will be extended, in the near future, to other neighbouring countries.

This is, it is noted, with a view to definitively eradicating the threat posed by the armed groups because "the solution to this problem must be at the same time sub-regional, regional and international.”

In 2019, the DR Congo army stepped up an offensive against Rwandan terror groups, capturing hundreds of fighters.

In February, senior security officials from Rwanda and DR Congo met in Kigali and agreed on "a series” of recommendations and a plan of action on how to deal with security threats affecting both countries. A follow-up meeting is reported to have been held mid-March, in Kinshasa.

The Congolese army also recalls that in September 2019, meetings held in its eastern Provincial capital of Goma between the Ugandan, Rwandan, Burundian and Tanzanian armies, had an objective sharing information to allow each country concerned by cross-border terrorism to track down all outlaws, and perpetrators of insecurity in the sub-region.

The meeting was also attended by commanders of the UN Mission in Congo (MONUSCO) and those from the US Africa Command (US AFRICOM). During the 2019 meetings, regional countries reportedly agreed on a joint plan to track and eradicate armed groups in the country.

At the time, it was noted that the final plan did not involve joint military operations on Congolese soil as has happened in the past.

It is not yet clear how the Congolese army will handle the complexity of military operations involving its neighbours. Some, including Uganda, are known to harbour and support rebel forces intent on destabilising Rwanda.

More about FDLR, FLN and others

The negative forces of Rwandan origin based in eastern DR Congo are a complex web characterised by infighting, splinters and shifting alliances.

They primarily sprouted from the forces and militia groups that fled Rwanda after participating in the slaughter of more than a million people during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

Soon after fleeing into eastern DR Congo, then Zaire, the genocidal army and its militia network regrouped. They formed, in the late 1990s, what was then called the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALiR).

Ever since fleeing into eastern DR Congo, besides their propagation of the genocide ideology, they plundered, killed, raped, forcefully recruited children into their ranks and commiited other war crimes, with impunity.

In March 1999, ALIR militiamen killed eight Western tourists - four Britons, two Americans and two from New Zealand - in a park along the Uganda-DR Congo border.

In May 2000, ALiR merged with another extremist group then based in the Congolese capital Kinshasa, and formed FDLR. Its armed wing, the Forces Combattantes Abacunguzi (FOCA), still exists. But its former longtime supremo, ‘Gen’ Sylvestre Mudacumura, alias Bernard Mupenzi, was killed by the Congolese army in September 2019.

One of the FDLR splinters is RUD-Urunana, reportedly supported by Uganda specifically to destabilize Rwanda.

Another splinter was the CNRD which parted ways with FDLR in 2016 and later also joined forces with Paul Rusesabagina under his MRCD/FLN terror group. The latter are responsible for the terror attacks in south-western Rwanda between 2018 and 2019 that claimed nine lives.

Of late, their new setup – MRCD – is made up of the likes of CNRD, PDR-Ihumure and Rwandese Revolution Movement (RRM) which was formed by Callixte Nsabimana, who is on trial along with Rusesabagina and a dozen others in Rwanda.