picture: Ms Victoire Ingabire

On November 23, 2009 the UN Expert Panel on the Democratic Republic of the Congo  (DRC) published a report on the armed groups fighting in the Eastern provinces of North-Kivu, South Kivu, Maniema, and Northern Katanga.

    Even before its publication, the UN Report raised concerns about its credibility and was rejected by most governments in the Region, and apparently most members of the UN Security Council. In fact, the UN Experts went to great lengths to accuse the governments of Tanzania, Burundi, Uganda of supporting the Rwandan rebels. Immediately after the publication, loud voices were raised across the Great Lakes region of Africa and at the UN headquarters pointing to the blatant shortcomings in the report, especially how the UN Experts overlooked the lethal and persistent detrimental impact of the Rwandan Government on the peace in the DRC.  Specifically, critics underlined the obvious harassment of Rwandan refugees and NGO. Disturbing parallels between the UN Group of Experts’ report and  that produced by an agent of the Rwandan Department of Military Intelligence (DMI), Ms Rakiya Omaar in December 2008 further reinforced the doubts about the credibility and independence of the UN Group of Experts.

     The UN Experts, facing the rejection of their work by the UN Security Council, leaked its content to the medias, thus forcing the hand of the UN Security Council, which, under pressure,  approved the report while disapproving and sidelining the UN Experts. Rwandans and NGO helping Rwandans refugees started felt immediate consequences of the accusations leveled by the UN Experts.  The International media, always hungry for sensational news, jumped on the headline scripted by the UN Group of Experts, labeling those rwandans refugees an “international support network” for Rwandan rebels.  Smeared by UN Experts and harassed by activist media and  Rwandan powerful lobbists in the West some of those victims  fought back by issuing press releases and embarking on public relation campaigns of their own. They questioned both the content and the motives behind the UN Group of Experts’s Report.

    In fact a careful examination of the UN Experts’ report shows an utter disregard for the rigor and professionalism expected from a supposedly independent panel. The weaknesses of the report  gave ammunitions to the victims the UN Experts sought to pin down. The accused deconstructed the report on the following several fronts. Below, we will examine the most important arguments:

1) MOST OF THE UN EXPERTS’ FINDINGS WERE BASED ON RUMORS AND INNUENDOS:

Several examples of conclusions based on the rumors and innuendos are found across the entire report:

Example 1; para 9:  “The Group obtained more than 100 telephone logs, which it analysed to

the extent possible. The Group wishes to state that it did not monitor telecommunications referred to throughout the present report, but only analysed the timing and length of telephone calls made. Analysis of telephone logs helped the Group to determine trends or particular patterns of communication and to further corroborate information obtained from documents, testimonies and interviews.”

So the Group heard a rumor and then used the duration of communications to  support the rumor and accuse people, without even knowing the purpose and content of the communications. This is  how the Group accused the leaders of the Rwandan opposition group FDU to confirm, as it appears,  what the group was told by the intelligence services of Rwanda. And that is one the proofs the Rwandan government is using against  against one of the FDU leaders, Ms Victoire Ingabire.

Example 2; para 14: “It appears that the operations were further crippled owing to the embezzlement of several million United States dollars in operational funds by top officers in FARDC and RDF. While the Group could not document this misappropriation of funds, it received consistent reports both from presidential sources in Kinshasa and from FARDC officials involved in the operations.”

Why  does the Group mention a fact they could not verify or document? If the Group does not document it, then it has to drop it! Otherwise, this is speculation and innuendo.

Example 3; para 24: “The cases documented by the Group do not give a full picture of the current extent of FARDC material support to non-State armed groups. Nevertheless, the Group is of the view that the Kinshasa authorities are aware of some of these leaks and have taken no appropriate

measures, undermining FARDC’s control over its own internal stockpiles and military operations against FDLR”.

The Group’s view is based in what facts? Once again, this is speculation.

Example 4; para  33:  “The Group also established from analysing telephone records that in 2009 Colonel Nakabaka was in telephone communication with Major Fudjo Zabuloni, the commander of the Mai Mai Zabuloni in Uvira territory. In the same time period, Colonel Nakabaka was also in contact with Major “Mazuru”, an FDLR intelligence officer, consistently described in dozens of interviews with FDLR

former combatants as being involved in recruitment and the gold trade on behalf of FDLR. Both Fudjo and Mazuru have separately been in telephone contact with Bande Ndagundi, a Congolese citizen who is involved in arms trafficking and recruitment activities”.

Yet, the group does not know why these people are in contact. Are they related, acquaintances, or friends who just communicate as friends, acquaintances, and relatives do?

Example 5; para 39: “The telephone records available to the Group show that Colonel Rugayi has

been in contact three times with Colonel Nakabaka between May and September 2009. The Group is still investigating this case.”

Why is it them mentioned if the Group does not facts yet?

Example 6; para  58: “FDLR former combatants and active officers have informed the Group that the proposed relocation process for RUD-Urunana was used as a cover for the rearming of its troops.”

How can FDLR combatants be sure of the intentions of the rival RUD-Urunana? This is clearly another speculation and innuendo and, as French say: “proces d’intentions”, or accusing somebody based on assumptions.

Example 7; Para 73  “The Group has obtained Mr. Ndagundi’s Burundian telephone records, which

show he has communicated with Lieutenant Colonel Nsanzubukire and with Fudjo Zabuloni, in early 2009, and subsequently has been in contact several times with Major Mazuru.”

Again, the Group does not know why and what they communicate about!

Example 8; Para 74: “The Group has been informed by several sources, including a source close to

Mr. Ndagundi, that he has close links to the ruling Counseil national pour la défense de la démocratie-forces pour la défense de la démocratie (CNDD-FDD) party in Burundi, as well as senior officials in the Government, police and military of the United Republic of Tanzania. ..  [para 78] he has communicated 16 times between April and July 2009 by text message to a telephone number in Portugal that is

registered to a shipping company”

This does not mean anything at all.

Example 9; para 105: “The Group has been informed by Government officials in a western country and an FDLR former combatant that Mr. Munyaruguru has been involved in significant money transfers coordinated between himself and his younger brother, Felicien Kanyamibwa, the executive secretary of RUD-Urunana based in New Jersey, United States. The Group did not find documentary evidence

on money transfers relating to Mr. Munyaruguru.”

If the  Group has sought and never found any evidence, why this statement in the report? This is character assassination. One also would wonder when it is was forbidden for brothers to give each other money.

The entire section from para 101 - 104  is a rehash of the report produced by Ms.  Rakiya Omaar’s  under the contract of the Rwandan government in December 2008. Rwandan intelligence services used Rakiya Omaar’s obscure African Rights NGO to cover an insidious propaganda. The “findings” in these paragraphs pour cold water on the credibility of the UN Experts Group and the entire work in general.

2) IRRELEVANT CONCLUSIONS IN SUPPORT OF REPRESSION RWANDA

Example 1; para 67: “The Group was given direct access by an RUD officer to an e-mail account managed on behalf of General Musare. The contents of the e-mail account showed discussions in Kinyarwanda between the e-mail account holder and an anonymous contact claiming to be part of a Tutsi monarchist movement called the “Mouvement Ruderhiwa pour la libération du Rwanda who wants to plan an attack against the Government in Kigali. The correspondence mentions, as a preparatory phase of the attacks, the possibility of infiltrating recruits via the Bunagana border.”

How is this relevant to the mission of the UN Group on the Congo? Are the UN Experts’s mission preventing Rwandan opposition groups to leave the DRC and go back to their country?

Example 2; para 76: “In the same e-mail, Mr. Ndagundi denounces operation Kimia II, describing it

as part of a Rwandan conspiracy to expand its influence into South Kivu.”

This is speculation. Again the Group seems worried more about the negative opinion on Rwanda, than their prescribed mission on the DRC.

Example 3; para 89: “The Group has hard evidence of an attempted purchase of a cargo of 40,000 Steyr AUG assault rifles and ammunition officially for the Burundian police and organized by a Burundian delegation which travelled to Malaysia. The Group estimates that such an arms consignment for the Burundian police is excessive, given that the Burundian police number no more than 20,000.”

This has nothing to do with the Group’s mission or the DRC. Why would the group find that Burundi does not need these weapons? Are they within the Burundian military hierarchy?

Example 4; para 114 :”... Facilitators and observers at this meeting also included Pere Sampol, a Spanish senator, and Juan Carrero, another Spanish citizen, who runs the organization Fundació S’Olivar, which is among the sponsors of the prosecution through the Spanish courts of current Rwandan Government and military officials, for their alleged involvement in war crimes and revenge killings committed after the Rwandan genocide, including the assassination of several Spanish citizens in Rwanda during that period. Mr. Carrero has taken part in political activities with Felicien Kanyamibwa, now the United States-based executive secretary of RUD-Urunana.”

Is the Group now targeting those seeking to prosecute Rwandan government for crimes?

Example 5; para 115: “The Group confirmed that Joan Casoliva was listed in 1999 as the president of an organization called Inshuti, which runs a Barcelona-based website posting articles alleging war crimes committed by top officials in the Rwandan Government and military, ...Mr. Carrero and Mr. Sampol visited the Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Adolphe Muzito, in February 2009 in Kinshasa, and were accompanied by Josep Ramon Balanzat, the Director General of the International Cooperation Agency of the government of the Balearic Islands.”

What is the point really. First the Group has nothing to confirm. Inshuti is well know NGO with known and legal officials. Is the Group worried about Rwandan government being indicted or the Spanish talking to the DRC government?

3) FALLACIES AND OTHER SERIOUS UNPROFESSIONAL, INCONSISTENT STATEMENTS

    The UN Panel or Group of Experts  was supposed to draw its strength and credibility from its independence, rigorous work, and apolitical standing. The apparent osmosis between the Group’s work and that of  the Rwandan government agent Rakiya Omaar may shed a light on the motives behind the unsubstantiated conclusions and the use of those conclusions by the Rwandan repressive government to hunt down Refugees and  quash opposition leaders.

     In our April 13, 2010 article: “Tutsi Extremist in Diplomatic Row”, Mr. Simburudari, the leader of the Tutsi  extremist group IBUKA, used the UN Experts Group‘ report to accuse the entire World for seeking to exterminate Tutsis  and called on the Rwandan government to repress the opposition, especially Ms. Victoire Ingabire, the embattled leader of the opposition party FDU,  seeking to run against the Rwandan dictator General Paul Kagame, in August 2010 presidential elections. A week after, Ms Victoire  Ingabire was arrested.  The accusations leveled by the Rwandan government refer to the following statement in the para 103 of the UN Experts’ report: “The Group confirmed that the FDLR military leaders are also in telephone contact with diaspora members of the Forces démocratiques unifiées (FDU) (FDUInkingi) political party in Belgium, including Jean-Baptiste Mberabahizi, and Naom Mukakinani, who is married to FDU-Inkingi politician Michel Niyibizi. The Group shows below that Victoire Ingabire, the president of FDU, who is based in the Netherlands, has attended “inter-Rwandan dialogue” meetings with pro-FDLR participants (see para. 114 below).”

As a major finding, the UN Group points to money transfers, overall less than US $ 10,000 over 6 years,  by the Rwandans in the diaspora to their relatives in the DRC, to confirm the existence of  a pernicious “international network” set up to  fund the Rwandan rebellion. This finding is perhaps the most ridiculous conclusion reached by these experts, but also the most cynical. In fact, the UN Experts apparently sought to cut any survival mean for children, women and other innocent Rwandan refugees who have been hiding in the congolese jungle o evade systematic massacres by Rwandan troops and their proxies. Forsaken by the UNHCR and NGOs, sometimes these refugees have no other recourse than their relatives who have been able to make it to the West. With a few dollars, they can live to see another day and that what seems to irritate the UN Experts.  Worse, the Group used the clout of the UN to legitimate a work that is both a piece of crap and propaganda benefiting the Rwandan Government. Gladly, the repressive Rwandan regime  is using that work to  quash any opposition.

Hence our question: Have the UN Experts become an instrument of repression in Rwanda?

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