FDLR: Why President Kagame will not negotiate
By: Jennifer Fierberg
The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) remain a topic of much debate among those who research and spend time in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. There are a few schools of thought as to who this group is and what their motives are.
The first school of thought is the ‘official narrative’ provided by the Government of Rwanda which states that the FDLR planned out and committed genocide in 1994, fled into the DRC to live in refugee camps in order to escape persecution by the government that “stopped the genocide†and took power in Rwanda. Less than two years after the genocide the ruling party in Rwanda, the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), invaded Eastern Congo in order to seek vengeance on these escaping ‘genocidaires’ and bring justice to them.
In contrast to the official report, Wikipedia states:
“The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda is the primary remnant Rwandan Hutu rebel group in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is often referred to as simply the FDLR after its original French name: the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda. It has been involved in fighting from its formation on 30 September 2000 throughout the last phase of the Second Congo War and the fighting which has continued since then. It is composed almost entirely of majority ethnic Hutus opposed to minority Tutsi rule and influence in the region. The FDLR was formed after negotiations between the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda and the remnant Hutu military command agreed that the ALiR be dissolved. Paul Rwarakabije was appointed commander in chief of the entire force, but ALiR had to accept the political leadership of the FDLR.â€
On May 26th 2013, during the 21st African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the President of Tanzania, Kikwete, advised the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, to negotiate with the FDLR in order to stop the 16 years of war that this situation has created. President Kagame did not respond himself rather his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Louise Mushikiwabo, stated “they would not negotiate with a terrorist group,†and demanded an apology from President Kikwete. A spokesperson for the government of Tanzania stated in reply to a request for an apology that, “President Kikwete will not apologise because his statement was based on facts. We ask Rwanda to take this advice. Our President cannot apologise for the truth.”
The FDLR published a press release in response to President Kikwete’s request and stated in part:
“The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) are rejoicing and firmly support His Excellency Mr Jakaya Mrisho KIKWETE, Tanzanian President’s proposition of setting about global and pacific solutions of the conflicts which have been prevailing up to date within the African Great Lakes region in general and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in particular; which proposition suggests a resolution by means and ways of organizing relevant dialogues between all the involved warring parties.â€
The decision to seek peace seems to remain in the hands of President Kagame, yet he has emphatically stated that he will not negotiate with the FDLR under any circumstances. There has been a long war in Eastern DRC at the hands of Paul Kagame and his endless quest for “justice†against the FDLR. If there remain members of the FDLR who committed genocide in 1994 they would be a least 50 years of age now. It would appear that Kagame’s motives are out of vengeance rather than justice.
Ironically, in 1993 Paul Kagame and his rebel group, the RPA, were in the midst of negotiations with the then President of Rwanda Juvenal Habyarimana, in Arusha, Tanzania in order to reach and sign a joint power sharing agreement. Paul Kagame was leading a group of Tutsi refugees who were returning home to Rwanda. These negotiations were to provide a path for peaceful return. On April 6, 1994 President Habyarimana was returning home by plane after having just signed a power sharing agreement to incorporate the RPF into the government when his plane was shot out of the sky on the orders of Paul Kagame and his rebels triggering the 1994 genocide.
Sharing power with the previous government of Rwanda was not enough for Paul Kagame; he wanted total power which he seized in the weeks following the assassination of President Habyarimana.
For President Kagame to negotiate with the FDLR and come to an agreement then he would be giving up his strangle hold on Eastern DRC thereby giving up his unlimited access to the minerals and other geostrategic interests keeping his pockets lined and full. Peace in Eastern DRC means there is no need for Rwanda to be in Eastern DRC. Since the government of Rwanda has stated that “Peace in Eastern DRC is in the best interest of the regionâ€, President Kagame should be willing to prove that by negotiating for that peace through talks with the FDLR.
Time will tell whether history will repeat itself in Rwanda or if the trajectory of this country will change resulting in peace in The Great Lakes Region of Africa.
Ofcourse President Kagame can’t negotiate but time will force him to.
We people of Rwanda we are tired those games of war and our boys and
Girls in uniform are really tired fighting each other. We need lasting peace not
One group in the government and another one waiting in the jungle. It happened
Before but everyone’s wish is to always solve problems with constitution means not
Confrontation of guns. RDF have tried its best to eliminate FDLR for the past 17 years but all in vain,
Now President Kikwete brings another option of peace talking but Rwanda stands steel and say we can’t
Negotiate??? Says who? Even in Afagnistan Americans are suggesting peace talks with Talibans. All are just ways of solving problems. Rwanda is not mighty to always rejecting other people’s advices. We are not superior but same people like others ad need advices like any other governments in the world not this arrogance of leaders. If we all remember the time if Genocide President Kikwete was foreign minister of republic of Tanzania. He helped us and is been following the politics of Rwanda but since the government in Kigali want all the people to believe in all their own ways of doing things, this do think is wrong. Let me give you am example of Konyi in Uganda. President Museveni offered him peace agreement but Konyi wasn’t serious enough but the point is Museveni wanted the problem to solved peacefully because it was costing the people of Uganda a lot. And lastly we would like the government it Rwanda to stop singing Genocide coz we lost our people, families and we all know people who participated in genocide and we want them in court of law but we have to think beyond that and look for a solution for our future like brothers. How a we protecting our new generation from such confrontation of one group to another. An example it former prime minister Makuza the father killed our families in 1959 and chased our families out of country to go and grass like animals but because of the value of peace. His son was made prime ministers again just becouse we are brothers and we really
Need peace so this is my advice to Kagame, talk to FDLR and see whether those girls and boys can come out of jungle. We don’t need them in bushes but in our country. If they do need power let them come back home and participate in active politics but don’t rule out the peaceful negotiations to them.
Am really very very hurt by thise ideas, yes looking the way that they are smeared they sound constructive. Yes what hasn’t kagame done its beyond negotiation he has even created an atmosphere where forgiveness prevails. But who forgives who? Is it the killer or the the victim? FDLR was given and still has the pardon to. Return to Rwanda. Why don’t they come home? Is it becouse they are power hungry? Or is it becouse they have other hidden agenda? If you say that its young generation different from those who commited Genocide, why then afraid of returning to Rwanda. Rwnada is a forgiving nation a phenomenon that has left other states wondering, why then agroup of bundits and criminals should be trying to confuse the world. FDLR. Members and fighters are free to come to Rwanda, they are resettled, given free houses, free cows, trained to do different technical works, re-united by their families and do enjoy all benefits like all Rwandans do. So why negotiate with the killers? Those who didn’t kill returned, those who wanted to free their evil minds come and asked for pardon and the law did its action? Those who don’t want to come show clearly their intent of finishing what they had started like they say. Dear readers of this article don’t be misled by these criminal minded people.
@Rugaju, this is not an emotion discussion, I don’t know what you
Think rather than generalising things. We lost families and if am not mistaken
Yo just playing kids game of blame so you have no idea how it feels to loose a family
But as a responsible citizens what can we do? Fight, fight and fight or come together with
Those you claim are criminal and find out what forced them to be out of
Their country. Rugaju no body supports Interahamwe but I want to remind you that
Only small percentage of interahamwe comprises the group so soon we gonna
Have free FDLR without anyone we can put on trial for the case of genocide and that will be
A curse for our generation to fight people with ambitions and have a right to fight for whatever
They believe in. Another point is that rather than the accusation of Rwanda government that
FDLR are fighting to eliminate Tutsi in Rwanda, frankly we are speculating and we really don’t
Know why this group is fighting, so this is the best chance for all of us to sit on table and listen to
This group and then find out the real reason why their fighting. Rugaju we are not in the competition
Of supremacy but a responsibility to put stability and peace in our country. We can disagree politically
But am sure we all want peace freedom and security in our motherland.
Whoever is claiming that actual FDLR cannot be accused of genocide on allegations that many of them were born in exile or were too young to have participated in the genocide. Good point, how could you fight a system you never knew or lived under ? why would you choose to come home fighting when you have not been denied entry into the country ? Why would you be given preferential treatment over other 10 million Rwandans living in the country ? IF you are not being accused of anything why don’t you just walk accross the border ? So You want to be treated special because you have AK-47 in your hands, well you figure this one out yourself.
@AR You say the young FDLR who are Rwandan citizen fearing for persecution can not fight Kagame because they have never lived under him, then why did Kagame, at the time, a Ugandan citizen, fight his way to Kigali while he had never lived in Rwanda? Each side have grievances and can only settle them on the table not through bullets.
\\\\\\\’\\\\\\\’The lie does not become truth because of its multiplied propagation, nor the truth become lie because nobody sees it\\\\\\\’\\\\\\\’.
The reason for RPF to negociate with FDLR is clear, when RPF was figthing in the bush, time errived when HABYARIMANA was pressurrized to sit for negotiation and he agreed it be cause he wanted peace. However, RPF continued the fight because it noticed that it could not democratically win through elections. After the death of HABYARIMANA, so many TUTSI were butchered and RPF took advantage fr that large scare massacre to seize power. RPF soldier also massacred uncountable innocent HUTUs in Rwanda and on Zairean territory. Now, those who are still using TUTSI genocide as a cover in order to hold the power must know that so many Rwandans lost members of their families (Hutus and Tutsis).
This is the real time to have bilateral talks and solve the problem forever, otherwise, there is a bomb which is likely to explode and may claim lives of many people than those who died in the past times.
Back to the falsehood claim which is becomes a cheap
Propaganda to our people for one group of people to
Control others. If we look back the reason why Habyarimana
Hesitated to Negotiate at first was the propaganda he passed
To his majority Hutus that the refuge Tutsi are bringing back
The monarchy and then make all Hutus slaves of Tutsi. This become
An ideology and poor people believed cheap lies of politicians and at the
End it caused a big loss for the country. So my point is we can sit
Down and talk, let’s not undermine any force with the same past
Arrogance of Habyarimana who thought minority can never reach
A destination when majority holds the load. Rwanda government should talk to
These people and find a solution for ever lasting peace in the country
@ all, I guess that it is clear that everyone is tired of war unless there is someone who does not what the war is and how it damages. Hutus and tutsis lost their beloved ones. If Kagame knows this, he should act toward peace! Whatever is done, negociation seems to be the best option for peace. FDLR is formed by rwandese people, if there are some who were involved in genocide, they are still innocents until the justice is given. Let negociate with them, then whoever(I mean tutsi or hutu) has something to answer in front of justice will do so.
By Frederick Goloba: (Article credited to him) Now this is Journalism!!!
Just over a fortnight ago, Jakaya Kikwete, President of Tanzania, kicked off a firestorm of controversy with what many in Rwanda and outside of it saw as a terrible faux pas. It started with what would have struck followers of events in the Great Lakes region, as a common-sense proposal by the head of state of a significant regional power.
On that day, the UN Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon and the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, convened the first meeting of the recently signed agreement, the Regional Oversight Mechanism of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of Congo and the region. The framework which Mary Robinson, UNSG Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region, dubbed the “Framework of Hopeâ€, seeks to tackle instability in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
The framework’s objective is to get the signatory countries to work together to end the political impasse generating cycles of violence and, in the words of the UN Secretary-General, “generate new momentum towards human security and economic developmentâ€. The eagerness to move beyond violent conflict is encapsulated in the offer by the World Bank of 1 billion US dollars “to support social safety nets, cross-border trade, energy and essential infrastructureâ€.
It was against this background that President Kikwete urged his Rwandan and Ugandan counterparts to consider holding direct talks with the “negative forces†operating in eastern Congo. In Rwanda’s case he was referring to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), and for Uganda, the Allied Democratic Forces-National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-NALU).
Kikwete volunteered the advice in the light of the on and off talks that have been going on in Uganda over several months, between the Kabila government and one of the forces fighting it, the March 23 Movement (M23), allegedly supported by Rwanda. In the light of the Kampala talks, it must have seemed logical to the Tanzanian President that Uganda and Rwanda with their own insurgents in the DRC, should talk to them too, rather than seek to defeat them on the battlefield. President Kagame of Rwanda was in attendance. His Ugandan counterpart is reported to have given the vague undertaking to “talk to those who are willingâ€. For the government of Rwanda, the talking was left to Louise Mushikiwabo, the country’s Foreign Minister.
Ms Mushikiwabo is not known to throw words around carelessly. And so when she spoke to Radio France International, keen observers would have been left in no doubt that the message was well considered and well aimed. It was “aberrant†and “shockingâ€, she said, for any leader to suggest that the government of Rwanda hold talks with the FDLR. “Those who think that Rwanda should sit down at the negotiating table with FDLR simply don’t know what they are talking about,†she added, characterising the FDLR as “terrorists.â€
Kikwete’s suggestion would be justified if the FDLR, which he implicitly equates with the ADF-NALU and the M23, were merely another rebel group fighting for rights they have been denied, or for a share of power or a role in public life from which they have been excluded without justifiable reason. There are many grounds on which elements of M23 can make those claims, just as was the case with the former insurgents now in power in Uganda and Rwanda. It remains uncertain what the ADF-NALU are fighting for and what exactly negotiations with the Museveni government would be about. But what of the FDLR that Kikwete wants the government of Rwanda to engage in talks?
The FDLR is the armed wing of what remains of the Hutu Power movement whose leaders are driven by the conviction that ethnicity must determine who rules Rwanda, and that the majority Hutu, the supposed natives, must by right be the rulers. Their role in fomenting hatred and persecution of their Tutsi compatriots over the last 4 decades is well documented. It is both their determination to structure Rwanda’s politics along what they see as a “permanent fracture†between Hutu and Tutsi and their desire to wipe out the Tutsi to assert what they see as the rights of the Hutu, that have set the post-genocide government against engaging them in talks.
At the core of the post-genocide government’s rejection of talks with the FDLR lie two considerations. One is that many of the people it would have to negotiate with have indictments hanging over their heads for participation in planning and executing the 1994 genocide and have remained unrepentant. The question, at least for their would-be interlocutors in Kigali, is what to discuss with convicted criminals who feel no contrition for past crimes and who would repeat the same crimes given a chance to do so?
Second, politics in post-genocide Rwanda today entails the sharing of power and responsibility between the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) and political forces and organisations that reject ethnicity as a political tool, and the exclusion of those, such as the FDLR, that do not. Negotiations with the FDLR would amount to opening the way for a political ideology to which the country owes past upheaval and associated mass murder. Clearly, the FDLR’s values and political programme are a direct affront to the foundation on which Rwanda’s post-genocide leadership wish to build the ‘new Rwanda’ of their aspirations.
Significantly, since the genocide the FDLR and its political wing and allies have received and continue to receive moral, financial and even material support from governments, non-state actors, and individuals in Africa, Western Europe, and the Americas. Their direct and indirect supporters include religious organisations, political parties, human rights groups and activists, journalists, and academics in universities. While some could be easily dismissed as detached from the realities of the Great Lakes region and others as pursuers of sinister political agendas, neither label seems to fit the Tanzanian President.
President Kikwete is no stranger to Rwanda’s recent or contemporary history and certainly knows a great deal about the genocide and its perpetrators, given the prominent role he was already playing in Tanzania’s public life during the early 1990s, and his country’s own role in trying to broker a political settlement between the former ruling party, the National Revolutionary Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND) and its political opponents, among them the Rwanda Patriotic Front. How much, though, does he really know about the FDLR and the wider political movement behind it?
Has Kikwete been seduced by views that portray the FDLR as a benign organisation? According to a 2001 report by Human Rights Watch, for example, “The FDLR are an armed group that uses military force to seek political change and greater representation for Hutu in Rwandaâ€. Research shows that groups and individuals who display varying degrees of sympathy for the FDLR are wont to argue that the FDLR’s combatants are increasingly young and played no direct role in the genocide against the Tutsi, and that they should not therefore be labelled as ‘genocidaires’. That, as we have seen, however, is only one aspect of the FDLR story.
Two issues merit attention. First, the group’s leadership is not made up of these young combatants, but of older individuals driven by a hate ideology that accounts for the genocide crimes for which they are sought by governments and organisations committed to combating impunity. The young people they recruit, some of them by force, are indoctrinated with the same hate ideology that would see them return to Rwanda by force of arms, if at all possible, to carry on with the genocidal project their elders failed to complete. It is this ideology and the tenacity with which its proponents in the FDLR hold on to it that accounts for the vehemence with which Ms Mushikiwabo spoke and the shock she expressed while commenting on President Kikwete’s remarks. Second, the Rwanda government’s steadfast rejection of talks with the FDLR is not the end of the story.
According to official Rwandan and UN sources, anywhere up to 47,000 ex-FDLR and thousands of other ex-combatants belonging to different groups, together with their families, have returned to Rwanda since 1998. With the assistance of UN agencies, the World Bank and members of the donor community, those without crimes to answer for have been successfully resettled back into their communities of origin. Those who chose to serve in the military have been re-integrated into the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF), at ranks commensurate with their qualifications and abilities.
I have had the occasion to interact with some of the returnees, among them officers in the high echelons of the RDF, and discovered that what unites those who gave up life in the bush is their public rejection of the FDLR’s supremacist ideology and embrace of the non-sectarian values the post-genocide government is striving to promote. Those who remain in the DRC are those, it seems, who refuse to climb down from their genocidal ambitions, those who fear prosecution for past genocide crimes, and captives who won’t leave the jungle because they have been told they will be killed if they return to Rwanda, or those that are yet to figure out how to escape. It is not obvious from Kikwete’s would-be commonsense proposal which category the government of Rwanda should engage in talks, and what about.
So where to from here? It seems unlikely Kigali will budge from its position. Will Kikwete climb down from the position he has staked out? There are strong indications that he will not. To demands from Rwanda that he should apologise for his remarks, Tanzania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bernard Membe has responded emphatically: “President Kikwete will not apologise because his statement was based on facts. We ask Rwanda to take this advice. Our president cannot apologise for the truthâ€.
It is unclear what this might mean for Tanzania’s overall role and that of the UN intervention brigade in the DRC, to which it is an eager contributor. The brigade’s mission consists of eliminating insurgents contributing to the DRC’s destabilisation, among them the FDLR. Given Kikwete’s remarks and Membe’s response to complaints from Rwanda, questions arise as to whether the Tanzanian contingent of the intervention brigade will be prepared to engage the FDLR militarily with a view to eliminating the group. If not, the whole mission of the intervention brigade could be thrown into serious jeopardy.
Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala and Kigali-based independent researcher and writer on politics and public affairs.