Whenever it comes to rapes, massacres, war crimes, or crimes against humanity in the DRC, the names of various politico-military structures such as the FDLR, M23, RCD-Goma, CNDP, etc. appear. The FARDC (Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo) are also included in this inglorious ranking. Impunity is deliberately organized through the infiltration or integration of war criminals and criminals against humanity into the Congolese army. War criminals are shielded from justice.
1997 : The command of the Congolese army by Major Tutsi Rwandan, James KABAREBE
On this occasion, James KABAREBE appoints several Rwandan Tutsis to strategic positions within the military command (land forces, military intelligence, air forces, and within the navy). Thus, several Tutsi soldiers from the Rwandan Patriotic Front – FPR who committed massacres against Rwandan refugees in the camps of Zaire, including war crimes, rapes, and crimes against humanity in Congo, will be recruited and disseminated in the Congolese army. “The aim is to shield all war criminals from justice.”
Before joining the ranks of the Congolese army, these FPR Rwandan criminals erased the evidence of their crimes and prevented the United Nations investigation into the “massacre” in the DRC. Thanks to Emma Bonino, European Commissioner for Humanitarian Action, and Juan Carrero Saralegui, the Spanish pacifist activist, the European Parliament intervened to stop the massacres. Bonino went to Congo to “see the reality of horrors” and while Carrero continued his hunger strike in front of the European Parliament office, he learned from Magola Aelvoet, the chairwoman of the European Greens parliamentary group, that the United States “had given their consent to the occupation of the DRC by Tutsi military from the Great Lakes region (Rwanda – Burundi – Uganda).
The Indispensable Role of Carrero Saralegui
Shocked by Magola’s remarks, on January 29, 1997, wrote a letter to President Bill Clinton, supported by more than a dozen Nobel laureates and a group of several parliamentarians. In this letter, he requests, among other things, the establishment of “an independent international tribunal to judge the perpetrators of crimes in the DRC”. In the absence of a response, Juan wrote a second letter on June 26, 1997, to “recall the facts and the importance of the crimes committed in the DRC and the need to prosecute the perpetrators”. The Clinton Administration still does not respond. Decided to go to the White House, in exchange with Ramsey Clark, the former Attorney General and former Minister of Justice, Clark confides bluntly that the American government has corrupted human rights associations, several media, and international organizations on this file and that to succeed, the struggle must be conducted differently outside of Washington.
Disappointed, he returned to Europe and concluded that for some European political leaders, “talking about American responsibilities in the Congo drama was taboo”. His letter for the “drama of Congo” remained unanswered and under the silence of the United States and certain European politicians such as, for example, Gijs M. de Vries, then president of the group of European Liberal Democrats and Reformers.
1998 : James Kabarebe breaks with Laurent-Désiré Kabila
When Kabarebe breaks with Désiré Kabila and returns home to Rwanda with blood on his hands, several Rwandan and Burundian Tutsi soldiers whom he recruited in 1997 in Congo-Zaïre do not necessarily leave the Congolese army. They will convert into Banyamulenge and become in 1998 Congolese Tutsis participating in the new “rebellion created by Kigali against the Kabila regime”. The rebellion called “Congolese Rally for Democracy – RCD” is a “pure fabrication of Rwanda” intended to destabilize Congo again.
It will be presented as a Congolese politico-military group while its soldiers and military leaders are Tutsis from the Rwandan Patriotic Army or the armies of Uganda and Burundi. “It is clear that the aggression suffered by the DRC is the work of the Rwandan-Ugandan-Burundian coalition”. What is being attempted to be accredited as a “Banyamulenge Insurrection” or a rebellion of Congolese subjects, is a “dressing or makeup of the destabilizing enterprise of the aggressors”, whose “hegemonic vision on Congo is no longer to be demonstrated”.
©2023-Daniel MOMBELE, LNL News