Sunday, March 17, 2013

DR Congo: Yet another stuff up by Kinshasa

New Vision ( Uganda ) reports

Congo ‘fugitive’ rebel leader held in Arua


                                 Colonel Eric Zachariah Ndosa

ARUA, Northern Uganda - Colonel Eric Zachariah Ndosa, the alleged fugitive leader of the Congolese M18 rebel group is in military custody at the UPDF 409 brigade in Arua district.

I guess M23 have popularised the letter M in rebel politics. I have never heard  of these guys. I am sort of reminded of the " Catch 22 " saga.

Uganda’s army, the UPDF says the renegade ex-commander of the Forces Arme’es de la Republique Democratique du Congo (FARDC) brigade in Mahagi district in the Orientale province was abducted by unknown people from Kampala and handed over to Congolese intelligence officers on Saturday.

How bloody silly can you get. The potential for a diplomatic incident was always on the cards.

However they were intercepted by the Ugandan security when they entered West Nile but the Congolese intelligence officers were left to go since they are well known.

One would have to assume from that, the agents involved were legals. Hell even in the bad old days of the CIA I doubt they ever did anything quite as stupid as that. The other alternative is that the DR Congo intelligence service is so completely  penetrated that they are in fact ineffective. 



“This was an abuse of our territorial integrity of the highest order. We did not know about the presence of a rebel on our soil and if DRC wanted to carry out such an operation, it should have informed us,” said Lt. Mark Mutono, the army spokesman for the West Nile region.

Well no. They should have been effective. As it stands they look like a joke. 

The Congolese government has for long complained about the presence of its renegade forces taking refuge in Uganda despite continuous assurance from the Ugandan government that the country will never be a safe haven for negative forces of its neighbours.

I actually am prepared to give Uganda the benefit of the doubt on this. Rwanda has clearly been interfering in the Eastern DR Congo, but I have seen many allegations aimed at Uganda over the last year and nothing to back any of them up. The last allegation was giving aid ( secretarial services ) to the M23 rebels while the negotiations between Kinshasa and M23 were being held in Kampala. One might also call that facilitating peace talks.
Mutono, while briefing journalists on the ongoing interrogation at his Arua office on Sunday, said Ndosa has insisted that he is a refugee and promised that documents to prove his refugee status will be availed to the interrogators on Monday or Tuesday this week.

If and it is a bit of a big, " if " I grant he is a genuine refugee, then the agents of the DR Congo Government should be arrested and face criminal sanctions. It would not be unreasonable to expect that the DR Congo leadership should also face some form of sanction.

But Congo insists that Ndosa is the leader of the recently announced M18 rebels who are causing insecurity in parts of Orientale province such as Omgbokolo and Ariwara.

So what ? There is very little I can find to back up these allegations although I don't have the skills to look at French language documentation. The bottom line is, this is about the intelligence services of the DR Congo screwing up. The governance of the DR Cong is so bad I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the countries intelligence agency can out maneuver itself whilst standing still.

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