BENI: Understand the deeper reasons of the military fiasco and false promises
By Boniface Musavuli
A few days after the announcement in great pomp of the military operations in Beni, on October 30, 2019, against the presumed ADF rebels, the territory becomes again the scene of killings of civilians occurring, as in the past, not far from the positions of a army (FARDC) that remains helpless in the face of the distress of civilians who are being slaughtered. A case of compromised military command, political amateurism and systemic lies policy. The consequences are terrible: 48 civilians murdered in just seven days, according to civil society, and carnage continues[1]. A military fiasco that was predictable, as we will recall it in the following lines by highlighting the main reasons. In fact, the experience of the past is that when the army announces a military offensive in Beni, one can expect an upsurge of massacres. This is what had already happened in 2018 after the announcement of an offensive by General Marcel Mbangu, then commander of operations. As a reminder, in January 2018, General Mbangu assured Radio Okapi that ” this time, it is for us the last offensive to restore peace in Beni “[2] .
By announcing loudly a new offensive in August 2019, the FARDC gave the impression of an army that had not learned the lessons of its failures of the past, but there is something worse. A chaotic political leadership and chain of command whose confidence is poor condemned this new operation to the stalemate, well before its launch.
I. Political amateurism and chaotic leading
It is a matter of political hubbub, media coverage of demagogic exits and lack of expertise on the reasons of the failures of previous operations.
a. Media hubbub and false promises
“War is something too serious to entrust to the military,” said Georges Clemenceau. It is up to the politicians to lead the war rather than those whose job is to fight on the battlefield: ” Make me a good politic I will make you a great mighty army “[3]. But it is still necessary that the politicians have a sufficiently clear knowledge of the enemy, the stakes of the conflict and the factors at the origin of the failures in the past. Has Felix Tshisekedi sufficiently understood what is happening in Beni, who is the enemy, where does he operate, who are his supporters and especially if the units of the army deployed on the ground are adapted to this atypical conflict ? Obviously no, in view of the mistakes and amateurism in the political steering and on the operational level. Wanderings that have been exposed, well before the launch of operations.
For two months, the army and politicians have made numerous announcements about the impending military offensive against the alleged ADF rebels, allowing the enemy to prepare accordingly. An official delegation from Kinshasa made up of 17 parliamentarians and 10 generals even arrived in Beni with great media shows to amplify the “hubbub” around this upcoming operation with promises of up to $ 50,000 to anyone who would provide information on the famous ADF [4]. An astonishing approach that put the lure of profit and the temptation of an easy enrichment up on the imperatives of discretion inherent in the military intelligence and which, moreover, exposed the lifes of the population to the blind retaliation of the enemy.
It is however well known that when you want to annihilate an enemy, the discretion and the surprise effect are the major assets. Announcing a military operation is even tantamount to an act of treason because it is about allowing the enemy to organize themselves to inflict as many losses as possible on the loyalist forces, whereas, in theory, every military commander wants to minimize the losses in the ranks of his troops by attacking the enemy when he least expects it. As a result of these announcements, 16 people were killed in Kokola, including 10 soldiers, stupidly, during the first week of operations. The enemy had plenty of time to prepare, to infiltrate the state’s porous structures and plan its actions, and this is not the first time that the announced operations were turning into a series of bloodshed in Beni, as we have recalled above.
b. Forget the lessons of the past ?
When we forget our past, we condemn ourselves to relive it, says a saying. In January 2018, General Marcel Mbangu, then commander of operations in Beni, announced on Radio Okapi the launch of a general offensive to restore peace and promised this to the national opinion : ” This time it is for us the last one, we will fight until the last sacrifice, so the supreme sacrifice, so as to restore peace and security in these territories“(General Marcel Mbangu on Radio Okapi, Saturday, January 13, 2018) … “This time it’s for us the last one.” A few weeks later, on March 3, 2018, 30 people were massacred in Eringeti, not far from a FARDC position. Then on April 14 in Kangidia while the boss of MONUSCO, Leila Zarrougui, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), was in Beni. Then in Mangboko, Cité-Brazza,… until the terrible massacre of September 22 in Mupanda District, in the city of Beni, and the attack on the headquarters of the same General Mbangu in Paida, in October 2018[5]. The massacres, which the announced offensive of January 2018 was supposed to stop, have never ceased, and have even increased. Even the inauguration day of Félix Tshisekedi, on January 24, 2019, was “celebrated” by a massacre on the Oicha – Eringeti axis. As if the story were to repeat, on thursday, August 29, 2019, the new command of operations led by General Jacques Nduru Tchaligonza[6], who replaced General Marcel Mbangu, promised the launch of a new offensive and peace in Beni in 3 to 4 months[7]. Unsustainable promise given the turn of events and the compromised chain of command to which we return below.
II. Compromised military command and political hypocrisy
The surprising appointment of General Nduru Tchaligonza as commander of the operations in Beni was a blatant admission of helplessness by Felix Tshisekedi against the weight of the hidden agendas that perpetuate this endless deadly crisis. Prior to his appointment, General Nduru Tchalingoza was the commmander Chief of Operation Sokola 2 in South Kivu. He left there without having been able to contain the many bloody armed conflicts that shake this province during his period of military command. On the contrary, the armed conflicts intensified during his military command with the involvement of foreign armies, particularly Rwandan spacial units, in his operational sector.
a. A Deputy commander of Bosco Ntaganda appointed commander in Beni
In his analysis of October 14, 2019, concerning the appointment of the new commander of operations in Beni, Jean-Jacques Wondo already announced that the return of General Nduru Tchaligonza in this part of the national territory should amplify the security crises, given the past of this officer with Bosco Ntaganda during the years of mass killings in the neighboring province of Ituri. On the other hand, General Nduru’s affinity with Rwanda, that is eyeing Kivu, should have the opposite answer to the expectations of the people of North Kivu. That is to say, intensify the massacres in this region. He added, citing a military source, that ” the insecurity in the eastern DRC has persisted because of the double play of our high political and military authorities and the hypocrisy of the leaders of the neighboring states of the Congo towards us. Now that they are beginning to impose their pawns on President Tshisekedi, there is a fear of a conflagration of the security situation.“[8].
Moreover, while the Congolese authorities attribute the attacks to the ADF who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, the source of DESC ensures that ” the Islamic State’s thesis in Beni is a montage of Kabila to disorient Congolese opinion and the international community. These Islamized groups are recruited by officers who depend directly on Joseph Kabila to divert the real sponsors of these attacks. Among these assailants, there are many Rwandophones who have a good practice of the Nande dialect. They even have nande names to deceive the vigilance of local people. While it seems premature to judge General Nduru’s action, there is no sign of a change on the ground. We are probably expecting the worst in the next few months.“[9].
This projection was based as much on the background of the officer concerned as on information from military sources. General Tchaligonza’s past is, in fact, that of the deputy commander of Bosco Ntaganda, the warlord (Rwandan Tutsi, appointed general FARDC) sentenced on November 7, 2019 to 30 years in prison for crimes against humanity by the International criminal Court [10]. Crimes committed in the neighboring province of Ituri. Tchaligonza was with Bosco Ntaganda throughout his deadly epics and was named several times in the ICC judgment condemning his direct leader Bosco Ntaganda. During this bloody crisis in Ituri, Bosco Ntaganda and his movement, Thomas Lubanga’s UPC, also condemned by the ICC, benefited from Rwanda’s military support, including the supply of weapons by air. The same Rwanda from which the FARDC military units deployed in Beni come from and which are regularly accused of committing massacres on the local population and protecting the death squads [11].
The appointment of a man like Tchaligonza in Beni augured the worst, which the power of Kinshasa should be aware of. The maintenance of the rest of the FARDC military architecture in the state, by Felix Tshisekedi, was synonymous with bail to the perpetuation of criminal practices inherited from the Kabila years, and which have earned international sanctions to several autorities close to the former president. Yet voices have been rising for five years to demand the departure of FARDC officers deployed in the region, and even the bulk of their units, given the very high level of their complicity with the enemy.
b. Aberrant operational choices and hidden agendas
On the operational level, the units are deployed in a strange way. The civil society (which counts the dead) points out that the operations are concentrated only around Beni City and do not cover the areas where attacks against civilians are committed. The attackers can thus continue to kill the population while the army and the authorities speak of an offensive to eradicate an enemy who, at the same time, operates freely in the famous triangle of death. Who defined the operational priorities and according to which criteria? It is a situation of misunderstanding that betrays the lack of a real political will to put an end to this deadly crisis that has been going on since October 2014, and that should last for as long as there are so many political mistakes and absurd choices in terms of setting priorities. Worries that are also read in view of the configuration of the chain of command of the army in Beni and at the national level , where the decried architecture put in place by Joseph Kabila is maintained by Felix Tshisekedi despite common sense.
It must always be remembered that the army in Congo relies on a network of officers set up by Joseph Kabila, who remain loyal to him and on whom Felix Tshisekedi exerts only a ceremonial power. Jean-Jacques Wondo even speaks of “securocrats encircling Felix Tshisekedi“, illustrating the lack of leeway of the new president in subordination of the army and security services to political power[12]. The new president’s political alliance with his predecessor amplifies this incapacity of Felix Tshisekedi to exert effective control over FARDC units and to effectively manage the army’s missions as supreme commander of the armed forces (Article 83 of the Constitution). Therefore, the political speech promising peace can only be demagoguery and false narration to hide the identity of the killers[13]. It must also be borne in mind that maintaining the structures of the army under the control of parallel powers ensures the economic prosperity of a comprador elite[14] which consolidated in Kinshasa over the wars of aggression and occupation that began in 1996. Prosperity based on an endless war economy [15]. These structures primarily obey Joseph Kabila and the geopolitical agendas of the countries of the region to which many FARDC officers owe their careers in the continuity of their years of rebels, forces of aggression and armed occupation of Congo by Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.
It was thus a work of structural and operatic change that had to be undertaken as soon as it appeared in the UN reports in 2015 that the army was taking an active part in the massacres of the population of Beni. This aberrant behavior, a priori, of an army that kills its own population, is nevertheless explained by analyzing its history and its sociological composition. As recalled by the CRG (GEC) in its report of August 2019, “Over two decades of conflict has created a military bourgeoisie – people within economic, political, and security elites who have used conflict to advance their careers and who have a vested interest in the persistence of violence.“[16].
Conclusion
This army with its compromised officers, its chain of command plagued by enemy infiltration and the logic of widespread criminalization of state structures [17] under the presidency of Joseph Kabila, should never have continued to operate in Beni. Thousands of lives have been lost[18] and many more will be if this in-depth reform of the military and security services is not undertaken. However, it requires rigorous upstream expertise to accurately identify the planners of mass killings in the state apparatus and in the countries of the region, as well as their motivations. In October 2018, the media outlet of Ms. Leila Zerrougui who proposed negotiations with the killers of Beni[19], and who has not returned to the subject, because of the scandal provoked[20] is one of the mysteries of this crisis that upstream expertise needs to clarify. Likewise, the unacknowledged reasons behind repeated refusals by the National Assembly Bureau to put the issue of Beni in debate in parliament and the systematic rejection of motions against failed defense ministers must be accurately recorded.
Finally, we should remember that the unspoken about the Beni crisis appear as ” an elephant in the room “(21) when analyzing the attitude of the candidates in the 2018 elections. None of the main candidates in the presidential election promised the arrest of the killers and justice for the victims. All were limited to vague peace-making promises without daring to pronounce the words “arrest ” and “justice”. The attitude of refraining from using these words, taboo ( arrest of the killers, justice for the victims), in the selection of the elements of language, throughout the electoral campaign, betrayed a confession of knowledge of the enemy and the unspeakable expression of a panic fear in the conscience of the candidates in the presidential election. A fear on which the work of expertise must shed light by addressing, even discreetly, the concerned political leaders.
The importance of this work of understanding, lighting and expertise is also the imperative of protection of patriotic soldiers who engage in good faith on the fronts of Beni and perish in mass because of the betrayal of a perverted military hierarchy and a state apparatus hold by particularly cruel enemies who sponsor repeated killings, with impunity. The number of soldiers so cynically delivered to death would be higher than that of civilians killed in Beni, according to our sources.
Boniface MUSAVULI
Political analyst, author[22] and DESC Coordinator.
Author of the books
References
– B. MUSAVULI, CONGO’S BENI MASSACRES, amazon, juin 2018, https://www.amazon.fr/CONGOS-BENI-MASSACRES-Islamists-Occupation/dp/1983214744.
– B. MUSAVULI, LES MASSACRES DE BENI – Kabila, le Rwanda et les faux islamistes, amazon, juillet 2017, https://www.amazon.fr/MASSACRES-BENI-Kabila-Rwanda-islamistes/dp/152170399X; l’ouvrage est aussi en version anglaise :
– B. MUSAVULI, LES GÉNOCIDES DES CONGOLAIS – De Léopold II à Paul Kagame, amazon, août 2017, https://www.amazon.fr/G%C3%89NOCIDES-CONGOLAIS-crime-lhumanit%C3%A9-Congo/dp/1549574213
Refereces
[1] Ten civilians killed in Kokola on November 5, 2019 ; five at Kitchanga on November 11 ; six members of one family killed in Oicha on November 14 ; fifteen killed in Mbau on November 15 , five in Pakanza district of Oicha on November 17,…
[2] « Nord-Kivu : les FARDC lancent ‘la dernière opération militaire’ pour restaurer la paix et la sécurité», https://www.radiookapi.net/2018/01/14/actualite/securite/nord-kivu-les-fardc-lancent-la-derniere-operation-militaire-pour. This policy of lies in security matters was recalled with regard to the ” Amani leo ” operation launched in 2010, that is ” peace today ” in Kiswahili. It was thus in 2010, and this peace promised for ” today ” (in 2010) is still not at the rendezvous, a decade later. The security situation has even worsened, according to the proliferation of armed groups whose number rose from 20 in 2013 to 132 in 2018, an increase of more than 400%. See http://afridesk.org/guerre-contre-glissement-de-kabila-vient-de-commencer-a-lest-de-rdc-jj-wondo/
[3] JJ Wondo, L’essentiel de la sociologie politique militaire africaine – Des indépendances à nos jours, Amazon.fr, juillet 2019, p. 90.
[4] « Beni : L’armée promet une récompense allant de 1.000 à 50.000 USD à celui qui donnera une information viable sur la position des ADF », https://www.7sur7.cd/2019/08/30/beni-larmee-promet-une-recompense-allant-de-1000-50000-usd-celui-qui-donnera-une
[5] JJ Wondo, « Le général Marcel Mbangu connaîtra-t-il le même sort que Mamadou Ndala et Lucien Bahuma ? », http://afridesk.org/les-tueries-a-beni-le-general-marcel-mbangu-connaitra-t-il-le-meme-sort-que-mamadou-ndala-lucien-bahuma/
[6] There are several spellings of the officer’s name. In the ICC judgment against Bosco Ntaganda ( https://www.icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2019_03568.PDF ), the spelling used is ” Tchaligonza ” ( Nduru Tchaligonza ). In an article by KST , we note that his name is spelled Chaligonza or Ichaligonza . The ICC also noted that the officer called himself ” Kyaligonza ” but that he is the same person.
[7] « Beni : L’armée promet le retour à la paix dans 3 ou 4 mois », https://www.7sur7.cd/2019/08/29/beni-larmee-promet-le-retour-la-paix-dans-3-ou-4-mois?fbclid=IwAR2foIRHtfPQWSQNJ0T37L61RLGk5WDnDXlNVmNgD9KDAOQupMRGvPeBw2o
[8] JJ Wondo, « Qui est le général ex-rebelle Jacques Itshalingoza Nduru, le nouveau commandant des opérations Sukola 1 à Béni ? », https://afridesk.org/qui-est-lex-rebelle-upc-et-general-jacques-itshalingoza-nduru-le-nouveau-commandant-de-sokola-1-a-beni-jj-wondo/
[9] Idem.
[10] https://www.icc-cpi.int/itemsDocuments/20191107-ntaganda-sentence-eng.pdf
[11] According to the KST, the nine Sukola 1 regiment commenders, some of whom are suspected of complicity with the ADF, have been replaced. Many of them were former officers of the rebel movement RCD-Goma. However, some of their men must remain in Beni. See https://blog.kivusecurity.org/tag/jacques-nduru-chalingonza/
[12] JJ Wondo, « Spécial DESC : Qui sont les sécurocrates qui ‘encerclent’ Félix Tshisekedi ? », http://afridesk.org/special-desc-qui-sont-les-securocrates-qui-encerclent-felix-tshisekedi-jj-wondo/ [13] https://www.agoravox.fr/actualites/international/article/rd-congo-beni-2-octobre-un-218283
[14] In a country dominated by foreign powers, the comprador elites are political, economic and even military actors who derive their wealth from the role of intermediaries in relations with foreign imperialists. The comprador elites have the peculiarity that they are always outward-looking, working to defend the hegemonic interests of foreign powers who, in return for their docility, provide them with political , economic , and diplomatic support and guarantee for their careers .
[15] Turning to the question of weapons sources of armed groups, Belgian researcher Georges Berghezan of GRIP quotes the FARDC and the PNC as the main source of weapons and ammunition of armed groups. See ” East Congo: who benefits from the proliferation of armed groups? “, 03 January 2018, https://www.grip.org/node/2500
[16] Congo Research Group, Congo, Forgotten The Numbers Behind Africa’s Longest Humanitarian Crisis , August 2019, https://kivusecurity.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/reports/28/KST%20biannual%20report%20August%2012%20%281%29.pdf
[17] « RD Congo : L’UE et les États-Unis sanctionnent de hauts responsables », HRW, 1er juin 2017, https://www.hrw.org/fr/news/2017/06/01/rd-congo-lue-et-les-etats-unis-sanctionnent-de-hauts-responsables
[18] In a document published in May 2018, the civil society drew up a balance sheet of 3,755 civilians killed and 3,877 kidnapped.
[19] « RDC : la MONUSCO en faveur de discussions avec les rebelles ADF », http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20181018-rdc-monusco-faveur-discussions-rebelles-adf
[20] ” If MONUSCO has proposed that there be negotiations between the Congolese leaders and the slaughterers in Beni territory, it means that this UN force knows well the identity of the killers in Beni ” , had reacted civil society of North Kivu, https://www.congoforum.be/en/2018/10/17-10-18-raction-of-the-civil-city-of-nord-kiv-the-proposal-of-leila -zerrougui-Congoforum /
[21] The English phrase ” an elephant in the room, ” means ” that there is an obvious problem or difficult situation that people do not want to talk about. “.
[22] Author of the books :
– B. MUSAVULI, LES MASSACRES DE BENI – Kabila, le Rwanda et les faux islamistes, amazon, juillet 2017, https://www.amazon.fr/MASSACRES-BENI-Kabila-Rwanda-islamistes/dp/152170399X; l’ouvrage est aussi en version anglaise :
– B. MUSAVULI, CONGO’S BENI MASSACRES, amazon, juin 2018, https://www.amazon.fr/CONGOS-BENI-MASSACRES-Islamists-Occupation/dp/1983214744.
– B. MUSAVULI, LES GÉNOCIDES DES CONGOLAIS – De Léopold II à Paul Kagame, amazon, août 2017, https://www.amazon.fr/G%C3%89NOCIDES-CONGOLAIS-crime-lhumanit%C3%A9-Congo/dp/1549574213
