Charcoal and the UN mission give robust activity to Eastern Congo
BY GEORGE KAGAME&
CHARLOTTE KINGSMAN
“You are very early going into the market at this time” said a young man selling a variety of products in a roadside bakery shop in Goma town, on top of bread; the roadside kiosk sold a range of other products from Vodacom telephony credit cards, cigarettes and bananas for early morning commuters in this busy town.
In the middle of Goma town is a sprawling outlay of makeshift wooden stalls, like in any other African food market the stalls are closely linked to each other that waking room for shoppers is a problem. That however is not the only problem, the market sellers open for daily business after nine o’clock in the morning and because electricity connection in Goma is limited to only a few buildings, the market closes with sunset.
The remains of dry lava, which comes from the inactive volcanoes of the Virunga are an ever enduring feature of Goma, the blocks from this lava just in western Rwanda are used to build domestic houses, wall fences and in to construct roads.
Goma is a bustling city of commercial and political action, at almost every turn is a motor cycle stage; the motor cycles transport Goma residents from one centre to another of this major town in Eastern Congo . The city was until only a few years back the seat of the remnants of the Interahamwe, and other elements of Rwanda ’s military and political hierarchy before 1994, the combination of these two stands largely accused for planning and implementing the 1994 Genocide which claimed close to one million Rwandans.
They are sworn enemy of the new Rwanda and have been actively involved in all wars in the Great Lakes Region since 1994, many bandit groups have since broken off from the two and formed smaller rebel groups, this has led to a complex socio-political situation in the entire eastern part of DR Congo and as a result of the presence of these rebel groupings, it is highly risky to travel in the area with Rwandan documents.
That threat however is not limited to Rwandans, the entire stretch from Goma, Sake to Masisi is occupied by a large military presence, some are for the regular national army of DR Congo, some from one rebel group or another and about 17,000 from the crafty UN Peace Keeping force in Eastern Congo known as MONUC.
As the Genocide in Rwanda was stopped in July 1994, Goma was immediately at the centre of proxies that led to the region in Eastern DR Congo getting into a constant clout of conflict, war, and many horrendous crimes which were classified by the UN as genocide too. As if to remind the residents of that area of the constant possibility of war, on Thursday 28 August, there were fierce battle exchanges between General Laurent Nkunda’s forces and the DRC national army thirty miles outside Goma.
These eruptions of war have made the presence of MONUC necessary; however, the MONUC forces especially from India and Pakistan are accused of raping the women in the area and exchanging gold and other gem stones with the rebel groups particularly the FDLR, this has made the UN to be viewed with suspicion by the residents.
Furthermore, as if to emphasize the counterproductive nature of events in this town is the fact that along the way from Gisenyi , Rwanda ’s western boarder town with DR Congo, you can get along with many people in Kinya-rwanda, the Rwandans in Goma are: “jack of all trades”, as the English adage goes.
They sell tomatoes in the market, ride commercial motor cycles in town, and work as tour guides and in many guest houses in this resort town on the DR Congolese side of Lake Kivu .
The Rwandans in Eastern Congo contrast sharply with their Congolese counterparts in western Rwanda , many Congolese in the Rwandan side of the boarder are lavish, they eat in influential restaurants like Gisenyi Auberge and frequent Gisenyi’s ultra modern night clubs.
The western part of Goma is also evidence of the feeling of uncertainty in the region, military roadblocks from Goma to Sake are numerous while the main road resembles a territory under siege, there’s a large presence of armed Congolese soldiers on both sides yet even with the uniformed and armed army men, security experts in the Great Lakes state that there has been a large commercial enterprise mainly involving charcoal which is extracted from the FDLR controlled jungles in Eastern Congo and transported for sale in Kigali.
The charcoal and timber business, experts add spawns the entire Eastern DR Congo region and that the FDLR-(Forces for the Liberatioin of Rwanda).
The FDLR are Rwanda ’s biggest security threat today and they are alleged to be the largest benefactor of this trade boom that has increased the profile of Goma commercially.
The timber and charcoal products come from the jungles of Eastern DR Congo and are controlled by the FDLR, through a myriad cobweb of networks, the charcoal and timber are sold in Goma town and later reaches Kigali .
The next time you purchase a sack of charcoal from a Kigali market there are many chances that it would have made its way from FDLR territory.
Sake town, to Goma west is another glimpse of Eastern town
As mentioned above, Eastern DRC has different armed groups fighting different government in the Great Lakes region, each of these rebels have their own territory but the most significant of them is Laurent Nkunda, other rebel groups have expanded in this largely undeveloped part of DR Congo and now their network are believed by security experts to be extending as far as the Central African Republic, some like the FDLR are reported to have been of the violence squads that were employed during the March presidential elections in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was at one point also involved in the DR Congo skirmishes.
Sake town only a few kilometers is where the action in Eastern DR Congo is intense, it’s at the cross roads of the territory under the DRC government, a short distance away are refugee camps in which FDLR has many of its contacts, while MONUC forces hold fort between the FDLR, Nkunda’s and the Congolese forces. Any new comer to the intricate workings of Sake is subject to deep scrutiny, and it is not clear who is working for which side.
Furthermore, among Nkunda’s forces are members who have integrated into the DRC regular security forces through various agreements, while there are others that have not, these different troops have close relationships and they are viewed suspiciously by the MONUC, the DRC army and several other formal and informal security organs, occassionaly when Nkunda’s integrated forces visit their non-integrated colleagues clashes breakout especially in Sake.
The town has been a centre with control rights swinging between Nkunda, MONUC and currently the DRC army. Sake, on the road to Mushake, has twice fallen to Nkunda in a year and serves as a staging point for the army. MONUC has said any rebel attempt to re-take the town would be met with force.
Because of the looming threat of war outbreak Sake market is largely dominated by women and children selling mainly cassava manioc, goats and sheep suspected t be from the territory controlled by General Nkunda.
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