Two reports from Rwanda's National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) are currently being seriously looked at in diplomatic circles, according to Africa Intelligence, a Website specialising in political and economic developments in Africa.
In a lengthy piece, "As fight against M23 continues, Kigali and Kinshasa wage war of intelligence,” published on March 13, Africa Intelligence reported that stamped "confidential", the documents dated February 7 were discreetly handed over by the Rwandan security services to hand-picked Western diplomats.
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As noted, the particularly accurate texts describe Kigali&039;s account of the ongoing events in eastern DR Congo, pitting the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC), the Congolese army, against the M23 rebels. Since the start of the crisis, it is noted, the Rwandan intelligence apparatus has focused its surveillance and analysis on the alliance between senior FARDC officers and a collection of armed groups, including the FDLR.
The FDLR, a UN sanctioned genocidal group based in eastern DR Congo for close to three decades, was formed by the masterminds of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
It is at the heart of the insecurity affecting eastern DR Congo and the region.
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Africa Intelligence reports that these intelligence reports, which it has read, uncover the secrets of a pact signed at the start of 2022.
FDLR connection, pact signed at start of 2022
Officially denied by the Congolese army, that FARDC-FDLR alliance has been carefully documented by the Rwandan intelligence services, which have revealed direct contacts between the Congolese political and military authorities and FDLR leaders, including ‘Major General’ Pacifique Ntawunguka, who is under sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council.
The FDLR chief of staff Ntawunguka, also known by his wartime moniker, Omega, spoke in person with North Kivu province's military governor, Constant Ndima Kongba, according to the NISS.
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As noted, in a telephone call on June 19, 2022, Omega demanded payment for his fighters to continue supporting the FARDC in Rutshuru territory. The fee he asked for was $300 per soldier from the Commando de Recherche et d'Action en Profondeur, the FDLR's elite unit, led by ‘Colonel’ Ruvugayimikore Ruhinda. Three days later, due to lack of payment, 45 of those soldiers, from the company led by ‘Lieutenant’ Noheli Nyiringabo, refused to go to the front. When asked about this, Lt Gen Ndima Kongba described it as a "huge lie."
Tshisekedi alerted
According to Africa Intelligence, the Rwandan intelligence apparatus says that the Congolese army's local command has provided weapons, ammunition, vehicles and uniforms to the FDLR. The genocidal militia’s fighters even crossed the border dressed as Congolese soldiers to operate from Ugandan soil during the M23 assault on Bunagana in June 2022.
On July 11, 2022, some of the intelligence on FARDC and FDLR collusion was presented to the Congolese president, Félix Tshisekedi, in Kinshasa.
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Representatives of the head of the NISS, Maj Gen Joseph Nzabamwita and Brig Gen Vincent Nyakarundi, the head of military intelligence, made a special visit to the Congolese capital.
As revealed by Africa Intelligence, Tshisekedi replied that he had no knowledge of such an alliance. However, it is noted, that goes against the position he took at a meeting in April 2022 of regional Heads of State, during which he openly admitted links between his army and the FDLR. On July 6, Tshisekedi ordered the transfer of Maj Gen Peter Nkuba Cirimwami to Ituri province. Previously in charge of operations in a combat zone with the M23 (Sokola II), Cirimwami is suspected of having orchestrated the liaison with the FDLR since early 2022.
Ntawunguka back in his job
Africa Intelligence notes that the problem of the Rwandan genocidal militia has been a bone of contention between Kigali and Kinshasa since Tshisekedi came to power in 2019, when he quickly began a dramatic rapprochement with his Rwanda counterpart Paul Kagame.
That diplomatic cosying up, Africa Intelligence noted, was reflected in elite troops from the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) being sent to Congolese territory to track down and eliminate the militia’s leaders.
In September 2019, the FDLR's supreme commander, Sylvestre Mudacumura, was shot dead in the night following an operation reportedly carried out by the Congolese army.
Several hundred captured and demobilised FDLR soldiers were also transferred to Rwanda.
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"Given the results of that cooperation, Kinshasa believes it has shown its determination towards the armed group, which is considered to be so weakened that it is no longer in a position to destabilise Rwanda,” reads a section of the Africa Intelligence story.
Discreetly, FARDC officials, some of them acutely anti-Kagame, maintained links with FDLR leaders.
Two years later in 2021, as the crisis with the M23 began, those networks were inconspicuously reactivated to address the weaknesses of the Congolese army in eastern DR Congo. The NISS discovered that, at the end of January 2022, the FDLR's military commander, Ntawunguka, was back in his job.
The Pinga pact
First, Africa Intelligence noted, Ntawunguka brokered the support of some local authorities in Rutshuru territory, according to the account of the Rwandan intelligence services and confirmed by several diplomatic sources. Then, on February 3, 2022, the warlord met with military governor Constant Ndima Kongba at the Rumangabo military camp, along with Gen Sylvain Ekenge, the FARDC spokesperson, and several officers in charge of intelligence in the area.
A few days later, around 50 FDLR fighters were deployed to Kibumba, working very closely with a senior FARDC officer.
Still in its infancy, that collaboration began to take shape on May 8 and 9 in Pinga, at a meeting attended by several representatives of armed groups.
In addition to the FDLR, the meeting was attended by leaders of the Alliance des Patriotes pour un Congo Libre et Souverain (APCLS), the NDC-Rénové (NDC-R) and the Maï-Maï Nyatura. Organised by Cirimwami, it resulted in a non-aggression pact and the creation of a coalition to fight against the M23 alongside the FARDC, which provided military equipment.
Other meetings between FARDC officials in North Kivu and FDLR leaders - as well as their Commando de Recherche et d'Action en Profondeur special forces - have been documented by Rwandan intelligence services, as well as by the UN and its mission in the DR Congo, MONUSCO.
Among their confirmed speakers were the military governor Constant Ndima, Cirimwami, as well as Colonel Salomon Tokolonga, former intelligence officer of Operation Sokola II, who is now commander of the 3410 regiment deployed in Masisi, in North Kivu province, where the FDLR had a training centre.
During the crisis, the FDLR took advantage of the Congolese army's weakness and the Rwandan government's failure to wipe them out, Africa Intelligence reported.
Previously small and undermined by desertions, it is noted, the militia group has managed to sell its services to the Congolese army and has gradually grown stronger. According to Kigali, the group has between 2,000 and 2,500 fighters, plus several hundred new members recruited in recent weeks.
Those estimates are much higher than the UN, which put their number at around 1,500 soldiers, only 250 of whom are fit for combat.
While the group's true military capabilities remain questionable, Africa Intelligence noted, the Rwandan intelligence services still consider it a serious threat to their national security.
"The NISS had been particularly concerned about the group's ability to carry out attacks on the 54-nation Commonwealth summit held in Kigali last June,” Africa Intelligence noted.
To prevent a possible incident, it is noted, a special force was deployed along the border with the DR Congo.
That "coalition" has for now been fighting the M23 alongside the FARDC, yet it has not managed to curb the rebel movement's growing power. Kinshasa has accused Kigali of increasing and capitalising on the FDLR threat, while Kigali has criticised Kinshasa for being too focused on the M23, Africa Intelligence noted.
As noted, the M23 rebel movement has consolidated its positions and has dealt a series of defeats to the Congolese armed forces - which have not been engaging in combat - and their supporting troops, which now include Romanian fighters who used to be in the French Foreign Legion. Officially assigned to train the FARDC, they were seen alongside them during late-February clashes against the M23 in the vicinity of Sake, a town in Masisi territory west of Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province.
Congolese intelligence services suffer from a lack of skills
The weakness of the FARDC is coupled with a particularly limited intelligence capability, both on the part of the army services (formerly Détection Militaire des Activités Anti-Patrie, DEMIAP) and the Agence Nationale de Renseignement (ANR), as well as the Direction Générale de Migration (DGM).
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Their bosses, Africa Intelligence noted, including National Security Council (CNS) head Jean-Claude Bukasa and ANR chief Jean-Hervé Mbelu Biosha, are regularly criticised by their Great Lakes region and Western counterparts.
"The Congolese intelligence services suffer from a lack of skills, and contacts in the region, as well as a lack of capacity to process the intelligence gathered and technological means, all of which limit their ability to provide political authorities with strategic information,” Africa Intelligence reported.
As a result, it is noted, Tshisekedi&039;s political and military authorities have been drawing on the human and technical intelligence produced by MONUSCO to plan a military offensive.
United Nations updated
Following her official visit to the DR Congo from November 10-13, 2022, on November 30, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, condemned the escalation in fighting in the DR Congo. She was "deeply alarmed” about the escalation of violence in the Great Lakes Region where a genocide - the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda – happened.
"The current violence is a warning sign of societal fragility and proof of the enduring presence of the conditions that allowed large-scale hatred and violence to erupt into a genocide in the past,” Nderitu said.
As Africa Intelligence reported, Rwanda's Permanent Mission to the UN submitted a confidential brief to the Security Council on December 23. The 10-page document, which Africa Intelligence has read, identifies DR Congo activities considered "hostile" to the Congolese Tutsi and more broadly to Kigali.
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Rwandan diplomacy attached to the file organisational charts drawn up by the NISS and dated December 9, which show the command structures of the FDLR and geo-locate their leaders in the DR Congo, as well as their training centres.
Rwandan intelligence services also shared confidential information on rebel militias, such as RUD-Urunana and the Force Pour la Protection du Peuple Hutu (FPPH).
To back up its arguments, Africa Intelligence reported, Kigali did not hesitate to reveal its monitoring capability - and even its intervention - on Congolese territory.
In that war of diplomacy, the website noted, intelligence has become an important tool for reinforcing the appearance of competing facts in the hope of imposing one&039;s own. "Western partners - under pressure to either take or avoid taking stances - find themselves obliged to strike an impossible balance.”
From the Vatican to the Elysée
As noted, the M23 tried similar tactics.
On the fringes of Pope Francis's visit to Kinshasa in January, an envoy was sent by the movement's political leadership to Rome to deliver a message on the situation of the conflict and its version of the underlying causes, which it said lay with Tshisekedi.
Conversely, according to Africa Intelligence, Tshisekedi had used the papal visit as yet another platform to point the finger at Rwanda.
To the Congolese government's dismay, French President Emmanuel Macron's brief visit in early March was not accompanied by a declaration of support.
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"The trip was closely monitored by Kagame, his intelligence services working with the DGSE, and his foreign minister, Vincent Biruta, who made this clear to the Elysée Palace,” noted Africa Intelligence.
Paris, Africa Intelligence noted, has favoured supporting initiatives by the African Union (AU) and the East African Community (EAC).
"Regional powers such as Joao Lourenco's Angola - a mediator between Kinshasa and Kigali who has established direct contacts with the M23 leadership - are preferred over the Tshisekedi administration, considered fragile and failing.”
From a position of military strength, Africa Intelligence reported, the politically motivated rebel movement is once again demanding a "direct dialogue" with the Congolese government, which considers it to be a "terrorist" organisation.