Congo rebel leader seized in Rwanda

KIGALI, Rwanda — Congo's most notorious rebel leader was arrested yesterday in Rwanda. The arrest marked a sudden reversal of alliances for Laurent Nkunda, who observers say was previously backed by the Rwandan government.

Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo announced Friday morning that Nkunda — the leader of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) — was arrested while attempting to flee a joint Congolese-Rwandan military offensive against his base near Goma, the capital of the North Kivu province where the CNDP and the Congolese national army have been fighting since September. He is currently in Rwanda awaiting extradition, according to Agence France-Presse.

This is just the most recent round of fighting in a conflict that stretches back more than a decade, and which has left more than 5 million civilians dead. The latest round of violence has forced an estimated 250,000 people from their homes.

Click here for an audio slideshow about Congo's struggle to move from conflict to peace. 

Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi, had become best known for his national political ambitions, his finely tailored suits, and for the war crimes committed by soldiers under his command. According to AFP, there has been a Congolese arrest warrant for Nkunda since 2005.
Nkunda has said his soldiers are defending the minority Tutsi ethnic group against a Hutu-based militia, the Forces Democratique du la Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR). Rwanda says the FDLR leadership includes those responsible for planning and executing the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, in which extremist Hutus slaughtered 800,000 Tutsis over nearly 100 days.

But Nkunda's behavior, which one analyst called "flamboyant," alienated his one-time allies in Kigali.

"Rwandans had been getting frustrated Nkunda," said Jason Stearns, an independent political analyst based in Nairobi and a former senior fellow with the International Crisis Group. "He had been permanently present in media flaunting, almost, his excesses."

In October, Nkunda's troops nearly overran Goma, the capital of North Kivu and the hub of diplomatic and aid work in all of eastern Congo. That offensive embarrassed and weakened Congolese president Joseph Kabila, according to Stearns.

"After Nkunda … soundly defeated the Congolese army" in October, Stearns said, "the fact sunk in for Kabila that his army wasn't going to be able to the solve the problem in eastern Congo. So he dispatched his foreign minister to Kigali to broker a deal with [Rwandan president Paul] Kagame."

That deal paved the way for the movement on Tuesday of 3,500 Rwandan soldiers into eastern Congo. The precise details of the deal are unclear, but Stearns said Rwanda agreed to oust Nkunda in exchange for permission to deploy its troops and disarm the FDLR, which Rwanda considers a threat to its national security.

An FDLR disarmament plan has been in the works since December, when the two countries signed an agreement to begin joint operations against the FDLR in 2009.

But analysts say the arrest of Nkunda may be as politically expedient for Kagame as it is for Kabila. International pressure had been building against Rwanda for its support of Nkunda’s CNDP, which was detailed in a United Nations report last month. Following the report’s publication, Sweden and Holland pulled their aid to the country.

"Rwanda felt the pressure for them to take distance from CNDP was increasing," said Roeland van de Geer, the European Union's special representative to the Great Lakes Region.

Bosco Ntaganda, who declared himself head of the CNDP just weeks ago, is Nkunda’s likely successor, observers say. Ntaganda, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, appears to have Rwanda's blessing.

"There is evidence of meetings between the Rwandese and the leadership of the CNDP in which the Rwandese made an ultimatum," about CNDP leadership, said van de Geer.

The developments appear to have sidelined the United Nations, whose 17,000-strong peacekeeping force was not informed of the Rwandan troop movements or the arrest before the events took place. That leaves questions about who can protect civilians should the troop movements escalate into war between the FDLR and Rwandan forces, a task none of myriad aid agencies working in Congo can effectively take on.

"You need muscle, military muscle," van de Geer said.

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