FDLR and DR Congo army are still fighting together, according to a new report
The DR Congo armed forces (FARDC) are still working with the FDLR, according to a recent claim by the AFC/M23 rebels, and certain militia commanders are in charge of army operations in the country’s east.
According to the AFC/M23-appointed special judicial commission’s report, the Congolese president Felix Tshisekedi was aware that the FARDC and FDLR units were working together on combat operations as recently as August 19.
Delion Kimbulungu, the head of the judicial commission, presented the report at a news conference in Goma on Friday, August 22. “It has been established that Mr. Félix Tshisekedi recruited from everywhere, recycled, armed, financed, and integrated FDLR elements into both combat units and his personal guard,” he said.
According to Kimbulungu, FDLR-FOCA units in Mpeti, Walikale Territory, were supplied by three FARDC rotations from August 1 to August 6. Another FDLR-FOCA battalion battled in Pinga, Walikale, from August 5 to August 19, with the FARDC and Guidon SIMWERAY’s NDC-R militia. He also mentioned that Hamada Harerimana, also known as Junior Mulamba, was an FDLR general who oversaw FARDC operations in the MINEMBWE mountains in South Kivu.
The cooperation between the Congolese military and the FDLR was also revealed, Kimbulungu said, when one militia commander, Brig Gen Ezechiel Gakwerere, was captured on the battlefield in March and sent to Rwanda, where he was wanted for his involvement in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
At the Ecole des Sous-Officiers (ESO), a military academy in Butare, Gakwerere, who held the rank of Sous-Lieutenant in 1994, commanded the first company in Nouvelle Formule. It is alleged that he trained members of the Interahamwe militia and the former Rwandan army (FAR) who participated in the area’s killing campaign.
Gakwerere’s name appears twelve times in the indictment of Captain Ildephonse Nizeyimana, the former commander of ESO, by the previous UN tribunal (ICTR). Nizeyimana was found guilty of Genocide, including ordering the 1994 murder of Rwanda’s last queen, Rosalie Gicanda.
The Rwandan government has been concerned about the FDLR’s cooperation with the Congolese army for many years. The United Nations and the United States government have sanctioned the commanders of the genocidal militia, whose fighters have been incorporated into the ranks of the FARDC during the conflict with AFC/M23 rebels.
