Why Uganda’s appeasement policy is failing in DRC conflict

When it comes to solving the havoc created by the March 23 Movement (M23) rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), just near the Ugandan border, it is Kenya taking the lead.

Uganda, meanwhile, has made the vast central African country part of its economic calculation in trying to play a middle ground in what is seen as a move to appease its tiny neighbour, Rwanda, which is being accused of directly backing the rebels.

READ: Congo turns heat on Uganda over M23 rebels

Earlier in the year, countries in the East African Community (EAC) – the seven-member economic bloc – agreed to form what they called the East African Regional Force (EARF), an ambitious programme whose objective is to restore sanity to the restive eastern DRC and necessitates regional countries, excluding Rwanda, to contribute a specific number of fighters.

In early November, Kenya took the lead when its parliament approved the deployment of more than 1,000 soldiers who have now been deployed in Goma, DRC, protecting crucial installations such as the airport.

While Kenya, together with Burundi, have been swift in deploying troops, Uganda has been tiptoeing as if it’s uncertain of what it’s doing.

Uganda has troops in DRC that are apparently chasing Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), the rebel outfit that Kampala accuses of being the masterminds of terrors attacks that rocked the capital last year, but its promises to deploy against M23 have so far remained in words.

In November, UPDF spokesperson Felix Kulayigye was unambiguous about the timeframes in which the Ugandan soldiers were to deploy.

“According to the deployment timetable, we are supposed to deploy at the end of November and we shall occupy the Ituri province. However, already, an advance contingent from the UPDF has already reached the force’s headquarters in Goma,” Brig Kulayigye told The EastAfrican.

While the UPDF is yet to come through on its commitments, as the soldiers are still in Uganda, Museveni’s son, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who was until recently the Commander Land Forces before he was fired by his father for saying on Twitter that he would attack Kenya, has sowed more confusion on what exactly Uganda’s position is on M23.

Though Ugandan authorities have vehemently denied supporting M23, Gen Muhoozi, who has forged an alliance with Rwandan president Kagame, used Twitter in early November to downplay efforts by East African countries to combat the rebels who are accused of killing thousands.

“As for M23, I think it is very, very dangerous for anybody to fight those brothers of ours. They are NOT [emphasis his] terrorists! They are fighting for the rights of Tutsi in DRC,” Gen Muhoozi tweeted, referring to the fact that M23 is composed mainly of the Tutsi, an ethnic group with roots in Rwanda.

On November 22, Gen Muhoozi still used Twitter to double down on his claims.

“Nobody should mock our brothers in M23, I heard some people saying that they can defeat them in a day. Okay. That’s what Obote used to say about NRA in Luweero,” said Gen Muhoozi.

His tweet was an apparent rebuke of statements made by Lt Gen Peter Elwelu, the Deputy Chief of Defence Forces, who told a delegation from the European Union that it would take the EAC regional forces one day to defeat the M23 rebels.

“If the EAC regional forces being deployed unanimously decide to push M23 back, it won’t even take 24 hours, this they know very well,” Gen Elwelu said in a statement released by the ministry of Defence on November 3. “There is a need to bring all the concerned parties and participants on board and engage in a dialogue as a unified force to curb the enemy,” he added.

DR Congo’s unexploited mineral range of cobalt, gold, diamond, aluminium, copper, tin and others—all valued at $24 trillion—has been held out as something that swarms with marvellous prospects, but when DRC was accepted into the EAC earlier this year, President Museveni confessed: “We… need to work on peace in eastern Congo because that region has been having problems for some time.”

Museveni has pushed for the construction of roads that overlap with DR Congo. These include the Mpondwe/Kasindi-Beni road (125km), the Bunagana-Rutshuru-Goma road (89km), and the Beni-Butembo Axis (54km).

“This is just butter on a bread roll. Peace is the bread and roads are the butter. It’s good that president [Felix] Tshisekedi sent his team to do something about the roads. We are also ready for electricity. We took power to Kasindi and now Beni and Butembo,” Mr Museveni said at the launch of the construction of the roads in 2021, adding: “We shall extend to Mahangi. We are ready to work on three things; security, roads and electricity. Even if we don’t do anything else, for now, people on both sides will be happy with these.

But the wave of instability has had grave ramifications on the projects, with the upgrade to bitumen of 223 kilometres of roads linking Beni, Goma and Butembo in eastern DRC stalling just 10 months after the governments of Congo and Uganda handed over the works to Ugandan contractor Dott Services.

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To make matters worse, the $330m project, to be bankrolled by Uganda, separately met unforeseen breezes following a last-minute demand by some officials in Kinshasa that Dott Services pays taxes and sub-contracts the engineering works, wholly or partly, to a Congolese company.

With the DRC having a population of 92.38 million, Uganda also ramped up efforts to tap into this huge market when in mid this year, crews of businessmen, technocrats and politicians attended the Uganda-DR Congo Business Summit hosted in the capital Kinshasa and the eastern town of Goma that the M23 rebels have threatened to cease. The takeaways from the summit were that it will be an annual event and DR Congo would send a delegation to Uganda before the end of 2022.

Government agencies on both sides such as the Trade, Foreign Affairs and East African Affairs ministries as well as revenue authorities, Export Promotion Board, Private Sector Foundation Uganda and Uganda National Bureau of Standards will meet quarterly to monitor the progress of cross border trade and any other emerging issues.

With M23 taking over the key border towns like Bunagana, all those plans have suffered a dead end, with the Congolese public and some politicians accusing Uganda of backstabbing them.

“We had serious plans but money doesn’t like chaos. The Congolese were supposed to come here this year but because of the fighting, they have not. We have to let this political process play out before we resume,” said Mr Stephen Asiimwe, the executive director of Private Sector Foundation (PSFU).

In November, Congolese protesters asked for weapons to fight Rwanda, and they also belted out   slogans antagonistic to Uganda and burned posters of Museveni and Kagame, who they accuse of backing M23.

The pressure was also mounted on DRC president Tshisekedi by a litany of Congolese parliamentarians and civil society to sever diplomatic relations with Uganda, accusing it of supporting M23 rebels.

They also pressed Tshisekedi to upend the year-old joint military offensive by UPDF and Congolese Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC), code-named operation Shujaa (operation for the brave).

While Uganda’s overtures in DRC seem to have run into the ground, Kenya is taking advantage to lead the process of restoring peace in DRC and tap economic opportunities, and the politicians in Nairobi haven’t shied away from it.

With the cost of deploying troops estimated to cost the Kenyan taxpayer $37m (Shs136b), just in the first six months, Kenyan legislators supported the government’s move to send the troops on grounds of Kenya’s increasing business interests in the DRC, the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa.

“The long-term local and regional benefits in peace and stability, as well as strategic Kenyan investments in the Democratic Republic of Congo, outweigh the costs,” Nelson Koech, MP for Belgut and chairman of the National Assembly Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations, told The EastAfrican.

“Through this deployment, Kenya will also secure its vital interests, including Kenyan businesses such as banks operating in the DRC, numerous Kenyan businesspeople in the country, bilateral trade with the DRC, and utilisation of the Mombasa port by the DRC, among others.”

Kenya has also pushed the DRC agenda with United Nations (UN), with the Kenyan president William Ruto telling Huang Xia, the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General to the Great Lakes region, in November to push for further support for DRC’s institution rebuilding.

“We urge the international community through the United Nations to put more resources into the peace efforts by East and Southern African nations in the DRC,” Ruto said. “We will support all initiatives to end conflict and bring stability and prosperity to East Africa and the Great Lakes Region.”

In contrast, in Uganda when Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, the Kira Municipality Member of Parliament (MP) who belongs to the Opposition party Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), tried to raise the issue of Gen Muhoozi’s tweets in support of M23 being against Uganda’s policy in the DRC, he was shot down by Speaker of Parliament Anita Among.

“We had the CDF in Kenya and they agreed to send the East African standby force, Uganda inclusive. This week the president of Kenya actually inspected a parade and instructed Kenya to go to Congo and begin fighting M23, but as the East African Force was about to land the same, the General said if you fight M23 you would be making a very big mistake,” Ssemujju said, referring to General Muhoozi who is seen as heir apparent of President Museveni.

Ssemujju’s point was dismissed by Among on grounds that Parliament can’t debate a person who is not present to defend himself.

“If he [Gen Muhoozi] made a tweet, how sure are you that’s his account?” Among asked. So far Uganda’s hopes of making any inroads in the DRC hinge on Tshisekedi who had accused Rwanda for his country’s woes in the east.

“It’s pointless to see Rwandans as enemies. It’s the Rwandan regime headed by Paul Kagame, which is an enemy of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwandans are our brothers and sisters. In fact, they need our help to liberate themselves. It has nothing to do with what their leader has imposed on them,” Tshisekedi said in a direct rebuke to Kagame.

ALSO READ: Rwanda says international community not helping Congo crisis

Tshisekedi’s narrative has been supported by the United States, with the US secretary of state Anthony Blinken recently saying he deliberated the importance of peace and stability in eastern DRC with Kagame and “made clear that any external support to non-state armed groups in the DRC must end, including Rwanda’s assistance to M23, an armed group that has been designated by the United States and the United Nations”.

While Uganda’s First Son has described M23 as “our brothers” and “not terrorists,” Congolese authorities are now accusing the rebels of massacring around 300 people in Kishishe village in eastern North Kivu province.

With such atrocities, it is hard to see the Congolese warming up to Uganda yet a UPDF General is calling their tormentors “brothers”.