Regional MPs are backing Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta after he reaffirmed the East African Community’s determination to ensure peace and stability returns to the east of the DR Congo.

Kenyatta, who is the Chairperson of the EAC Summit, on June 15, announced the activation of the East African Regional Force to intervene in the ongoing conflict in eastern DR Congo to defuse it.

He noted that the meeting of the regional Commanders of the respective Defence Forces, cooperating in the Nairobi Process, scheduled for Sunday, June 19, in Nairobi, should finalise preparations to undertake the deployment of the Regional Force.

Members of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) are pleased that Kenyatta is making a move. MP George Stephen Odongo (Uganda) told The New Times that Kenyatta’s statement was long overdue.

"As I have pointed out before, the East African Community needs to demonstrate capacity to deal with contradictions arising from differences either between partner states or when conflicts arise due to different armed groups,” Odongo said.

"The Community needs to come out very strongly and I am happy that the Chair of the Summit, His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta, has taken that decision. It is long overdue.”

Need to explore all options available 

According to President Kenyatta, the regional force will be deployed to Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces immediately to stabilise the zone and enforce peace in support of the Congolese security forces and in close coordination with the UN Mission there, or MONUSCO.

"I support the idea. The mechanics of how it (the regional force) is going to be constituted, definition of its mandate, and so on, are matters that can be discussed by Summit but what's important is that we have a force that is capable of dealing with the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo decisively,” Odongo added.

At this point, Odongo said, "we need to explore all options available” to the Community.

"That's why I have always insisted that this Community needs to enhance its capacity to have a range of tools within its toolbox to deal with security situations and to deal with conflicts within the region.”

And if that means that the region can ably deploy a force and at the same time engage in diplomatic discussions including negotiations with various active parties, Odongo noted, "then let's have a cocktail of options."

"The ultimate objective is that we should have a peaceful region."

MP Oda Gasinzigwa (Rwanda) said: "Peace and security is an important pillar of EAC regional integration as stipulated in the Treaty. His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta, as a Chairperson of the EAC Summit, is playing his role in coordinating efforts to restore peace. His efforts in engaging with his fellow leaders are commendable.”

MP Gideon Gatpan (South Sudan) said: "I think this is an intervention that is in its rightful place. Now the region is working to be able to arrest the situation in the eastern DRC. This is an effort led by high-level leadership in the region and we, as members of Parliament and east African citizens, should be able to appreciate it because Congo is in the process of becoming a full member of the EAC.

"In that context, we need peace in the East African region. And to bring peace, when it is necessary to use force to protect civilians, and bring sanity in the region, then we are for it."

Reservations 

MP Fred Mukasa Mbidde (Uganda) noted that "the organic EAC approach of course, based on consensus between partner states” would be welcome.

But the lawmaker said he has reservations on whether it is not based on blackmail against some partner states "rather than honesty of analysis and trust” between partner states. 

"The approach adopted should be different from the Resolution 2098-based United Nations Security Council Force Intervention Brigade whose main objective turned out to be restricted to flushing out the M23 in disregard of the cause for which they were formed,” Mbidde said.

The UN Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) was a special brigade under MONUSCO, authorised by the Security Council on March 28, 2013 through Resolution 2098. The FIB was the first UN peacekeeping unit mandated to conduct targeted operations to neutralise armed groups in eastern DR Congo. At the time, the FIB targeted and used force against M23 rebels but remained silent on FDLR, a genocidal militia, even though the resolution mandated it to neutralise all armed groups.

In October 2013, it took the Congolese army and FIB only four days to dislodge the M23 rebels from their heavily-fortified strategic strongholds in North Kivu Province. The rebels' very swift defeat was proof that, with commitment, all other negative forces– including FDLR could also be eliminated in a short time. But this did not happen and this is exactly why Mbidde has reservations over the new regional strategy.

The FDLR comprises remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. After killing more than one million people 28 years ago, they fled into eastern DR Congo.

"Protection of the Tutsi population and a comprehensive plan to apprehend and bring before the law, the FDLR should form part of the gist of the EAC intervention,” Mbidde said.

Kenyatta’s announcement came two days after the M23 rebels in eastern DR Congo, on June 13 overrun a trading hub on the border with Uganda, forcing Congolese government soldiers there to flee into neighbouring Uganda.

Instead of involving them in an intra-Congolese dialogue where Kinshasa was engaging other Congolese rebel groups in talks in Nairobi, Kenya, aimed at finding lasting solutions to the insecurity in their country’s volatile east, the M23 were branded as terrorists.

The Nairobi peace dialogue was an outcome of the first and second EAC Heads of State conclaves on the peace and security situation in DR Congo under the chairmanship of President Kenyatta held on April 8 and 21, respectively.

Regional lawmakers have said it is high time the EAC moved quickly, and resolutely, to bring peace and security to DR Congo’s volatile east.

During the second EAC Conclave, Presidents Félix Tshisekedi of DR Congo, Evariste Ndayishimiye of Burundi, Kenyatta and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, and Rwanda’s foreign minister Dr Vincent Biruta, agreed to the deployment of a regional force to contain armed groups in DR Congo. 

In Nairobi, Congolese armed groups noted that the presence and operations of foreign militia forces – FDLR from Rwanda, ADF from Uganda, and Burundi’s Résistance pour un État de droit, or RED-Tabara – is a threat to peace in the region.

Kigali has stressed that it has no intention of being drawn into an intra-Congolese matter, but Kinshasa claims that the M23 rebels are supported by Kigali.