Because the Congo Was Just Too Stable Before…
By Dylan Matthews - Jan 12th, 2009 at 12:39 pmYou know what the world really needs right now? More broken peace processes. Take it away, Democratic Republic of the Congo:
General Laurent Nkunda, the leader of the Tutsi-dominated rebel group known by the French acronym CNDP, is fighting off an attempt to topple him by Jean Bosco Ntaganda, his chief of staff, a ruthless fighter known as “the Terminator” who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, according to accounts from both camps.
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“Nobody has been able to say where the senior command stands,” [analyst Jason Stearns] said. “We are all trying to see what will emerge. What is clear is this has produced a serious rift in the CNDP and it’s clear that it will compromise the Nairobi peace talks.”
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General Nkunda is well educated and a fiery and articulate speaker. He has refused virtually every attempt to settle his differences with the Congolese government, and in the wake of his military triumphs has essentially refused to recognize the legitimacy of the first elected government Congo has known in more than four decades. But Mr. Ntaganda is much more pragmatic, and in the past few days has accused General Nkunda of blocking peace efforts in eastern Congo.
So we have a situation in which the leader more sympathetic to peace efforts also has an ICC indictment under his belt, and in which that leader’s rising stock leads to a near-collapse of the peace process. It’d be ironic were it not totally, totally tragic.
Most perverse of all is the fawning coverage Nkunda has been getting in some media outlets. Al-Jazeera English had a great piece a while back about how his willingness to give Western reporters interviews, and his educated, sophisticated demeanor, results in almost fawning coverage at times. Meanwhile, his troops have a tendency to massacre hundreds of civilians over the course of a day and use rape as a weapon. Obviously, the government in Kinshasa and even the UN mission have blood on their hands as well, but it’s pretty shameful to whitewash behavior like this because of Nkunda’s PR savvy.
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