Laurent Nkunda Seized. May The Circuit Be Unbroken
With the world fixated on the Obama Blackberry saga I received this news flash on my cell phone yesterday: it was announced that Congolese rebel strongman Laurent Nkunda had been seized and arrested by Rwandan authorities somewhere on the Rwanda/Congo border. And there was much rejoicing. Why?
Last October and November, while the world's attention was dominated by the financial crisis and the American Presidential election, the marauding rebel army of Laurent Nkunda's Tutsi-dominated National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) pushed the nation of Congo to its most dangerous precipice in years with a military campaign that was poorly met by both Congolese government and UN peacekeeping forces in eastern Congo. Nkunda's forceful challenge gravely shook Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) President Joseph Kabila , who has been tottering on increasingly shaky ground. In the offensive Kabila's national army was routed on the battlefield, retreating from Nkunda's rampaging forces virtually without a fight. Adding to President Kabila's problems, the country's once fast-growing economy is in shambles as the prices of minerals have plummeted in the global recession, and Kabila is increasingly unpopular. What's more, Nkunda had been vocal in his opposition to the national government since his army's strong showing in the fall. Many fear that the ouster of Congo's first democratically elected government in four decades might lead to a new regional war which would likely usher in a renewal of the anarchy and violence that caused over 5 million deaths in Congo and Rwanda beginning with the Rwandan genocide in 1994. 5 million!
Nkunda's legacy includes mass killings**, extortion from locals, illegal profiteering from the mineral trade, and the conscription of child soldiers. He is hated by many in eastern Congo for his brutal tactics. He had also widely been perceived as a proxy for Rwanda, a country that millions of Congolese citizens largely detest. That's what makes the move by Rwanda against Nkunda intriguing.
Here is what is known publicly:
A split had emerged in the CNDP. We also know that last week an agreement was signed between the government of the DRC and the breakaway CNDP faction and all of its military commanders. Within days Laurent Nkunda had suddenly been taken into custody and Rwandan forces were crossing the border into the DRC and participating in an unprecedented joint operation with the DRC to hunt for rogue Hutu elements that may have been raiding inside Rwanda. Today the NY Times reports that large numbers of Nkunda's former rebels are laying down their arms and coming over to the government side.
Here is some conjecture:
With a split in the CNDP, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who has come under intense international pressure, appears to have decided that the time was right to deal with Nkunda. Some commentators and news reports point out that the rebel leader may have become too ambitious, frequently remarking that he had his sights set on the whole of the DRC. That was of concern to Rwanda. For a time Rwandan President Kagame held to the line that Laurent Nkunda was a Congolese problem, but word has it that there were also reports of growing militant support for Nkunda from inside Rwanda. Nkunda may have become a little too big for his britches in the eyes of the Rwandan elite. In fact his big mistake may have been last year when Nkunda overran North Kivu and chased the Congolese army. His display of hubris was largely successful in the short-run but it may have been seen as threatening by his onetime backers in Rwanda. Nkunda had become too outspoken and powerful for his own good in other words. He had become a liability, but a good bargaining chip. Why was North Kivu important?
Much of the fighting that has taken place in Congo over the last few years has been over control of Congo's vast mineral resources which hold great promise for future economic enrichment. A sudden vacuum created by the fall of the state in Congo would likely lead to an all out race, no doubt a violent one, for a piece of the rich pie that lies just beneath the surface of Congo's magnificently beautiful landscape. From there it isn't a huge leap of logic to see neighboring countries like Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda drawn into the melee. Nkunda consistently denied that he was motivated by plunder of Congo's natural resources. But his men profited handsomely from Congo's minerals. Thousands of tons of tin ore, coltan and other minerals pass through the border crossing in his territory to Uganda, headed to Kenya's Indian Ocean port, and the rebels take a slice of the taxes collected, according to the U.N. Nkunda's fall 2008 campaign was aimed at taking the region called North Kivu, the location of a lucrative tin mine. Nkunda was gaining leverage; his control of these mines and important trade crossings put him in the position to seriously obstruct foreign trade if he so desired. This would have ramifications not only for Kabila's prospects, who would experience a severe revenue shortage that could topple him, but also for the rest of the world because Congo's tin and coltan are crucial to the world's electronics industry. These two precious minerals ultimately end up as primary components on the circuit boards of PCs, cell phones, TVs, you name it. Congo produces 25% of the world's coltan supply. It is harder to estimate its share of the tin market because so much of it is smuggled out of the country, much of it through CNDP territory. It is estimated that its reserves are significant. A sudden scarcity of tin and coltan could deal a tough blow to an already reeling world electronics industry by hindering recovery efforts.
Now incredibly, at a moment's notice, Nkunda is out of the equation, at least for the moment, and tensions between the governments in Congo and Rwanda appear to be easing a bit. It's hard to tell at this early juncture what is truly unfolding, what you see is not always what you get, one thing is for sure though: no matter how this ultimately plays-out, and I fear there will be more blood as the operation against the Hutu militias cranks up, when our cell phones ring or when we boot our PCs remember that there is decent chance that we are indirectly a party to this deadly conflict. In fact, for years rights groups have accused major corporations of complicity in the killing for their participation in buying tin and coltan originating in Congo. Many of those corporations hid behind purchase orders stating the product came from elsewhere. There are few audit trails in the black market. With China and India coming online and with the West's new emphasis on cleaner sustainable technology, including electric cars, one can see that there is great potential for profits in Congo, and for more bloodshed. By no means does the capture of Nkunda signal the end of this complicated mess, not by a long shot, but it's good news nonetheless. We'll have to watch how the offensive against the Hutus develops, most of whom have lived in Congo for years and have assimilated into their surroundings, and hope it doesn't degenerate into a tragic replay of what we've seen before, only with new actors. It will be in the Obama Administration's interests to capitalize on the good momentum created by the Bush Administrations in Africa by taking an active hand in solving this conflict that seemingly has no end, frankly it will affect us all more and more if it continues.
Video:
More Reading:
A Congolese Rebel Leader Who Once Seemed Untouchable Caught - NY Times Jan 24, 2009
Congo's Rebel Force is Dissolving - NY Times Jan 24, 2009
Congo Wary Despite Nkunda Arrest - BBC Jan 25, 2009
Impossible task For UN in DR Congo - BBC Nov 12, 2008
Congo's Tin Slaves - UK Guardian Weekly July 15, 2008
Laurent Nkunda, the lone ranger with a lame horse - Afrik.com
Congo's Tin Men - Fortune May 1, 2006
Laurent Nkunda: Profile - Guardian.co.uk
**In 2002, when Nkunda was a commander in a different rebel group, he participated in the mass killing of 160 mutineers in the city of Kisangani, human rights groups say. According to Human Rights Watch, "Forces under Nkunda's command bound, gagged, and executed twenty-eight persons and then put their bodies in bags weighted with stones and threw them off a Kisangani bridge." Two years later, Nkunda's men took the city of Bukavu, and days of killing and rape followed, investigators say. Since 2005, when he formed his own rebel group, known as the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP, his forces have carried out a number of massacres, most recently at Kiwanja, in early November, where 150 people were executed. Human rights investigators say his men executed civilians and torched camps that housed 30,000 displaced people.