UN seeks DRC militia support

The UN Mission in the Congo (MONUSCO) and the DRC government, are seeking support of the Mai Mai militia in North Kivu to help defeat the M23 rebels.Media reports say a three-member delegation of MONUSCO official, a Congolese parliamentarian, and army official met the leader of the militia group this week.Mai Mai is a tribal militia based in North Kivu in eastern DRC and is known for its aversion to Kinyarwanda speaking Congolese.Speaking after their meeting, the militia leader, Janvier Karairi, said two MONUSCO helicopters landed on the football field of the village, carrying MP Mwami Bahati, who is also a tribal chief, a UNrepresentative and the deputy commander of the military zone in North-Kivu province, according to AFP.“They came to ask me to form an alliance with the army to fight M23,” Karairi told AFP from his base in Nord-Kivu province north of the provincial capital Goma.Karairi, who boasts of 4,500 men under his command, claims that the government came begging for his help in defeating what he called “a Tutsi rebellion.”His militia’s base range of operations neighbours an area conquered to the north and northwest of Goma, by rebels of M23, a force of mutineers who deserted from the army in April.In 2004, Karairi told AFP, he accepted a government offer to join the FARDC, during integration but when an ethnic Tutsi colonel was placed in command of his unit, he left with his men.“The enemy of the APLCS is he who accepts the invasion of the Congo by Rwanda, Uganda or Burundi,” he told the French news agency, stressing that he was firmly “anti-Tutsi”.APCLS is an acronym for Alliance of the People for a Free and Sovereign Congo.Karairi added that he agreed to offer support on condition that his men not be mingled with those of FARDC “because they have M23 people within their ranks.”“We want our own line of attack,” he explained, adding that he had asked the army for weapons and equipment.In the interview, the militia head denies any contact with Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) militia which hides out in the forests of eastern Congo and is seen as a constant cross-border threat to Rwanda.“The FDLR is the business of the United Nations,” Karairi said. “It’s up to them to do everything possible to make the FDLR return home.”But on the road back from the base, AFP journalists report, two armed men in civilian clothes tried to hide when the car approached.“They’re FDLR,” an APCLS fighter who was escorting the journalists said.Mai Mai are ideological cousins of FDLR and have previously fought alongside each other. They are united with one mission; wanton mass killings and other crimes against humanity according to observers.This newspaper’s efforts to get a comment from DRC government spokesman Lambert Mende were futile as his known mobile phone was persistently on voicemail.Who are the Mai Mai?The Mai Mai of DRC may not be as militarily or politically significant as other armed groups in the region, but they have been very active for years.Their patterns of child soldier recruitment and use has significantly impacted negatively on the peace process in DRC. They have raped, massacred and looted, among other ugly practices.In the process they exploit the wars for their own advantage by looting, cattle rustling or banditry.The Mai Mai is composed of several groups, including the Mai-Mai Yakutumba, Mai-Mai Raia Mutomboki (in Shabunda), Mai-Mai Nyakiliba (Mwenga), Mai-Mai Fujo (Uvira), Mai-Mai Kirikicho (Kalehe), Mai-Mai Resistance Nationale Congolaise (Kabare).Mai Mai is made up of traditional fighters and its fierce reputation is based largely on their beliefs and practices.They believe they can dodge bullets if their hair is styled a certain way and sprinkle themselves with sacred water before battle.Patrick Borama, 26, describes the attacks by the Mai Mai that killed his mother, pregnant sister and two nephews, along with 20 other fellow residents in Marembo village on 14 and 15 May. “Before the attacks we heard rumours of the attack. On the [first] day of the attack, we saw it was people speaking Swahili wearing clothes made from raffia, nearly naked,” he said.Borama could not say how many men they were, but other witnesses report groups of 10-40. Borama said they attacked with machetes, spears and axes, as well as some Kalashnikovs; he said they shouted out their intention to kill anyone who speaks Kinyarwanda.His case is a drop in an ocean of tales from those who have suffered the brutality and ruthlessness of the Mai-Mai.Back in 1997, more than 100 Congolese Tutsi people were killed during Mai Mai attack in Masisi area. In 1999, FDLR and Mai Mai militias organised an attack on the Congolese Tutsi community and killed hundreds of them.The Mai-Mai oppose everything, including wildlife; in May 2007, Mai Mai killed two wildlife officers in Virunga National Park and nine mountain gorillas, with the use of machetes, and automatic weapons.In August 2010, three Indian UN soldiers were killed by Mai-Mai rebels in a surprise attack on a MONUSCO base in Kirumba, Nord-Kivu and on 23 October, Mai-Mai rebels attacked a MONUSCO base in Rwindi (30 km north of Kirumba). UN troops killed eight of them in the battle.In late 2011, the Mai-Mai killed close to one hundred people and burned several villages to the ground in northeast Shabunda and in January 2012, over 50 civilians were reportedly killed by the same militias.Just recently, in May 2012, more than 100 people were killed and thousands displaced in ethnically motivated massacres by the same militias.Bigembe Turikunkiko, the sector chief of Katoyi in North Kivu’s Masisi territory, has recorded the details of 120 people, primarily women and children, who were killed in 12 village massacres carriedout between 17 and 22 May in Katoyi and its environs.The DRC’s police commissioner in Katoyi, Capt Lofimbo Raheli, recently told journalists that the attacks were carried out by a coalition of two Mai-Mai groups: the Raia Mutomboki, until this year only operational in South Kivu, and the Mai-Mai Kifuafua. According to Raheli, the Mai-Mai alliance is believed to be operating as a collective of smaller groups targeting speakers of Kinyarwanda.