Central Africa: White House Defends Low-Key Stance on Rwanda, Congo
By Carey L. Biron, 12 December 2012
Washington - President Barack Obama's top diplomat on African affairs on
Tuesday defended the U.S. administration's response to the continued crisis
in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in the face of stepped up
criticism from both civil society and U.S. lawmakers.
Since April, violence has spiked in the eastern part of the DRC, perpetrated
in part by an armed group known as the M23 - a group that three U.N. reports
this year have found to be receiving support from the Rwandan government, a
key U.S. ally.
Over the past eight months, the renewed conflict has displaced some 2.4
million people, culminating in the recent fall of Goma, the largest city in
the eastern part of the country, to the rebels.
Although the M23 leadership has now pulled out of Goma and entered into
difficult peace talks, many analysts worry over the fact that these are
being sponsored by Uganda, thought to be hardly a neutral player, and the
lack of Rwanda's representation in the negotiations.
Speaking before a subcommittee hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives,
Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson said he rejected the notion that
the U.S. administration has failed to speak out against the M23 rebels.
Carson also noted that a "credible body of evidence" does indeed implicate
Rwandan government support for the M23, "including military, logistical and
political assistance".
"Based on this evidence, we have repeatedly pressed Rwanda to halt and
prevent any and all forms of support to Congolese armed groups," Carson
stated. Later, however, he admitted that, beyond closed-door talks, the only
direct action Washington has taken has been to suspend a token amount of
around 200,000 dollars in military aid to the Rwandan military earlier this
year.
As the conflict drags on, that low-key approach has been increasingly
criticised, as other Western countries, including the U.K., E.U. and several
Scandinavian countries, have moved to impose sanctions on Rwanda. Indeed,
back in 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama sponsored legislation that would
have followed a similar route, an approach recently approved by a U.N. group
of experts.
Non-constructive diplomacy
Eastern DRC is an area rich in natural resources, including diamonds, oil,
timber and a host of minerals. Longstanding competition and animosities have
led Congo, Rwanda and Uganda to battle over these resources for years, with
some analysts suggesting that Rwanda's support for the M23 is part of an
open plan to annex part of the eastern DRC.
At Tuesday's House hearing, Subcommittee Chair Christopher H. Smith stated
that the U.S. government "must overcome our regret to what happened 18 years
ago," referring to the genocide in Rwanda that shook many here in Washington
and beyond.
Smith also referred to a letter sent on Monday to President Obama by a
coalition of 15 international civil society organisations. That letter warns
that a decade and a half of "quiet diplomacy" by the United States in the
Great Lakes region of Africa has failed to deter Rwandan support for armed
rebels operating in the DRC.
That failure, they contend, has contributed to the current crisis.
"The U.S. response to the crisis has patently failed and is out of step with
other Western nations," the groups, including the Open Society Foundations,
Refugees International, Africa Faith & Justice Network and others, said in
the <
http://www.enoughproject.org/files/JointCongoLetter_Obama.pdf> open
letter.
"Since the M23 was created in the spring of 2012, U.S. officials continued
to place faith in engaging Rwanda in a constructive dialogue. This approach
has clearly failed to change Rwanda's policy, as evidenced by the direct
involvement of the Rwandan army in the recent takeover of Goma, as
documented by the United Nations Group of Experts."
The NGOs are calling on President Obama to name a special envoy to lead the
U.S. response to the situation in the DRC, to support the naming of a
similar U.N. envoy and a U.N. arms embargo on the DRC, and to suspend all
non-humanitarian aid to the Rwandan government.
In testimony on Tuesday, Carson did express support for the appointment of a
U.N. special envoy.
Yet he rejected the need for a presidential envoy from the U.S., stating
that such an official already exists, albeit with a broader mandate for the
entire Great Lakes region. Carson also stated that further punitive actions
squeezing U.S. aid to Rwanda were unnecessary, noting that the U.S.
government has no proof that any aid given to Rwanda has been "misused or
rechanneled into the conflict in DRC".
Over the past fiscal year, the United States gave some 195 million dollars
in development assistance to Rwanda, primarily for use in health and
agriculture programmes.
Band-aid solution
"The U.S. government seems content to simply work behind the scenes based on
its own relationships in the region, but this isn't yielding results in
peace or bold ideas for resolving the longstanding issues in the region,"
Aaron Hall, a policy analyst with the Enough Project, a Washington-based
anti-genocide watchdog that spearheaded the recent open letter, told IPS.
"We think there needs to be stronger support for dealing with the
interventionist policies of Rwanda and Uganda and stronger support for
institution-building in Congo in order to get down to the root of the issues
that have plagued these areas for decades."
Of the current peace talks between the M23 and the Congolese government,
Hall says they only constitute a "band-aid solution".
"First off, it's being chaired by Uganda, which has been implicated for
supporting the M23. Second, the talks are only being held between the
Congolese government and the M23 rebels, when clearly other groups have
stated that they understand the involvement of Rwanda, which is not at the
table," Hall says.
What's needed instead, Hall and many other analysts suggest, is to finally
address long-term, systemic issues. This would include tackling not only
Rwandan and Ugandan policies and actions, but also the inability of the
Congolese government to create viable judicial and political institutions in
the east.
"But the leaders currently appear interested only in the cosmetic issues,"
Hall says. "What we need is a commitment from the international community to
create a comprehensive framework to move towards the resolution of
underlying issues that bubble up every few years but never actually get
resolved."
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Received on Wed Dec 12 2012 - 09:31:15 EST
