By Simone Schlindwein, DW
Western diplomats are deeply worried about the sudden appearance of Eastern European mercenaries in the volatile eastern Congo. Despite denials by Kinshasa, rumors abound that it hired the notorious Russian Wagner Group.
Located on an unpaved side
street near the international airport of Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC),the Hotel Mbiza usually caters to businesspeople or
government delegations from the capital, Kinshasa. But since around Christmas
of 2022, white military personnel from Eastern Europe have fully booked the
hotel.
"There are dozens, maybe
even a hundred white men in uniform," a local journalist said. He asked
for anonymity for security reasons. "They wear a variety of uniforms with
no national flags, and pistols on belts," he said.
The journalist added that
soldiers of the Congolese presidential guard closely guarded the hotel
entrance. They told him foreigners had booked all the rooms for an extended
period. "It is now the headquarters of the whites," explained a
soldier at the entrance, who refused to say more.
Diplomatic circles have been
speculating for weeks on the meaning of the presence of these
armed Eastern European men in Goma amid a new round of fighting in eastern
DRC.The war erupted last spring after Tutsi rebels of the M23 (March 23
Movement) seized a vast swath of land along the border with
neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.
Congo's army has been
incurring heavy losses in the fighting. The presence of white armed men at the
Mbiza Hotel sparked rumors that the government had hired the notorious Russian
mercenary Wagner Group to help fight the rebels.
The Wagner Group is seen as
Russia's "shadow army." It is stationed at the front lines in
the Ukraine war and is accused of committing war crimes and crimes against
humanity there. In Africa, Wagner mercenaries have been hired to help fight Islamist
insurgents in Mali and rebels in the Central African Republic.
Rwandan social media accounts say that the Wagner mercenaries are now in Congo. Rwanda, which the United Nations accuses of supporting M23 rebels in Congo, is interested in casting Kinshasa's government in a bad light by spreading rumors of possible ties to the Wagner Group.
Congolese President Felix
Tshisekedi has consistently denied the presence of Wagner mercenaries on his
country's territory. "I know it's fashionable now," he had said in a
recent interview, adding: "No, we don't have to use mercenaries."
However, in January, photos
began circulating on Twitter showing the corpse of a white man in a camouflage
uniform lying in the dirt. "This is what happens to the Russians of
Wagner," someone commented underneath.
According to research by the
German newspaper taz, the M23 leadership confirmed that the white man
was killed in the village of Karenga on December 30. But the journalist who
spoke to DW emphasized that most Congolese really can't tell if the men are
Russian or from other Eastern European nations. Still, the Congolese in Goma
refer to the mercenaries as "Russians," clearly linking them to the
Wagner Group.
Congo's government recently
explained why it does not need to hire Wagner's mercenaries. "If we get
Sukhoi aircraft [Russian fighter planes], we need the technical personnel to
maintain them. If we don't have that manpower, what do we do?" said
Communications Minister Patrick Muyaya.
He said that the military
should be trained with existing resources. He mentioned former members of the
French Legion as an example.
In May, Defense Minister
Kabanda watched a flight demonstration of Sukhoi jets at the Congolese Air
Force airfield in Kinshasa. On the tarmac, there were Eastern European men in
uniforms with the insignia of the private Bulgarian company
"Agemira." Kabanda praised them for having repaired old combat
helicopters in only 57 days.
UN investigators confirmed
that Agemira had stationed some 40 engineers and flight technicians at the
airport in Goma to carry out repairs. Among them were Bulgarians, Georgians and
Belarusians, who are familiar with Russian aircraft. In addition, Congo's air
force employs Georgian pilots to fly fighter jets.
Romanian mercenaries from
Potra's company now guard the Goma airport while Agemira technicians oversee
aircraft maintenance. Congo's army wants to ensure that the strategically
important tarmac, just a few dozen kilometers from the front line, will not
fall into rebel hands, as it did during the last war in 2012. Back then, M23
fighters looted the army depots at the airport, including medium-range missiles
from Russia.
Another picture, posted online
on January 2 by Fiston Mahamba, a journalist with the fact-checking portal
Congo Check, provided more concrete clues, says taz's report. It
shows a white, fairly mature-aged man with an AK-47 assault rifle standing
between two soldiers on the road, presumably north of Goma. This is believed to
be a photo of a seasoned mercenary from Romania named Horatiu Potra.
He was a member of the French
Foreign Legion in the 1990s and was known to be very active in Africa in the
following decades. He trained the bodyguards of then-President Ange-Felix
Patasse in the Central African Republic and taught insurgents in Chad how to
fight.
He also knows his way around
Congo. In 2002, he contacted Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, who helped
Patasse in the neighboring Central
African Republic, according to the taz article. The
publication asked several international Wagner experts and UN investigators,
but no one could confirm ties between Potra and Wagner.
Potra, in turn, is the
managing director of the Romanian mercenary group Asociatia RALF, based in
Sibiu. Its website states that the company trains bodyguards for VIPs, protects
"sensitive areas" such as mines, and trains special forces. The firm
did not respond to email inquiries.
An employee of Congo's
immigration authority stationed at the airport in Goma said that he stamped
Romanian passports of the white military personnel on arrival.
Kinshasa has
strengthened ties with Russia over the past year. As recently
as August, Defense Minister Gilbert Kabanda was invited to a security
conference in Moscow, where he praised Russia's support.
Moscow, in turn, had
promised to help to equip Congo's ailing army with new, modern military gear,
especially tanks, helicopters and combat aircraft.
Until recently, the promise
was not easy to fulfill because of the arms embargo that the UN Security
Council imposed on Congo in 2003.
Under a new
resolution adopted by the Security Council on December 20,
countries are no longer required to inform the UN about arms sales or military
support for the Congolese government. Two days later, the white mercenaries
with Romanian passports started arriving in Goma.
Congo's army can use all the
help it can get. Its air force consists mainly of old Russian planes. One of
two much-needed transport helicopters crashed in action last year. The rest of
the equipment, in constant use in the fight against M23, is in urgent need of
maintenance. But Russia needs its weapons in the war against Ukraine. Supply by
the world market has shrunk and has become very expensive.
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