KINSHASA, DR Congo
Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi on Tuesday gave the biggest warning yet that the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) will have to leave the country by June if they are not effective on the ground.
On a visit to Gaborone in
Botswana, where he has pushed for a plan B from the Southern African
Development Cooperation (SADC) to send troops, the Congolese head of state
accused the EACRF of ‘cohabiting’ with rebels after the regional troops
declined to enter combat.
“The head of state said that
under the terms of the EACRF's mandate, by next June, if the results of its
mission are not satisfactory, this contingent, which came to the rescue of the
DRC, will have to leave Congolese territory for good,” the Congolese presidency
said of his meeting with Botswana counterpart Mokgweetsi Masisi.
“The mandate of EACRF is
ending in June, if by that time we assess that the mandate was not fulfilled,
we will send those contingents home with honour and thank them for having tried
to bring their share of contribution to peace in DRC.”
The EACRF, first deployed in
November, includes troops from Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and South Sudan. Their
Status of Force Agreement (SOFA), a pact between Kinshasa and the East African
Community secretariat, initially gave them a mandate of six months which
expired in March. But just what their mandate is has been a bone of contention.
Tshisekedi says the troops
should attack rebels, singling out the M23 group which it accuses Kigali of
supporting (Rwanda rejects the accusations).
The EACRF says their mandate
is peacekeeping and protection of civilians while also supporting the political
track on dialogue.
In Botswana, Tshisekedi
revealed that the EAC Secretary-General Peter Mathuki had requested six months
more months for the troops. But DR Congo gave them three months, up to the end
of June. The SOFA, nonetheless, has not been signed to formally extend the
mandate yet.
The Congolese president wants
SADC troops to fight the M23.
On Monday, a SADC summit in
Windhoek, Namibia approved the deployment of its member troops to the DRC,
although there was no immediate clarification on which countries would send
forces. Tshisekedi's office has already announced that the SADC troops will
have “an offensive mandate”.
SADC had once deployed troops
to eastern DRC but still failed to end the menace of armed groups. And a UN
experts panel accused the southern Africa mission at the time of contributing
to looting.
President Tshisekedi,
meanwhile, has had a harsh assessment of the East African regional troops.
“We have accepted the EARCF to
accompany FARDC to impose peace by trying to stop M23, which Rwanda supports. But
unfortunately, we have noticed certain contingents among this force, except
Burundi, who is putting all the efforts in the mission as it was defined; other
contingents are now living with M23, collecting taxes in the zone that they are
illegally occupying. That's a genuine problem, and it also compels us to
question the purpose of the EAC mission.”
In the DRC, many are calling
on the Congolese president to rely on the "natural allies" of the
SADC. In 1998, Zimbabwean, Namibian and Angolan troops intervened to stop the
advance of the RCD rebels in Kivu and Kinshasa.
Last week, EACRF’s commander
Maj-Gen Jeff Nyagah left his station in unclear circumstances. And his
replacement has not reported to duty yet.
“We also have some officers of
EACRF who, when they reached DRC, said that they were not coming to fight M23,
which was not part of the plan. That was General Jeff's problem,” said
Tshisekedi.
“General Jeff left
spectacularly. He is talking about threats but has never told us about those
threats.”
A leaked letter said to be his
resignation was disowned by the EAC and the Kenya Defence Forces who termed it
fake. But Tshisekedi responded to it nonetheless.
“As if it (EACRF) only
belonged to Kenya. There must be a problem. So, we need to talk about it to
clarify the situation. Because you can see that, up to now, we subscribe
ourselves to the process of peace because we want to see peace quickly,"
Tshisekedi said.
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