I just read the Analysis of Jakaya Kikwete’s suggestion about FDLR/Rwanda talks by Dr. Charles Kambanda. It is an interesting analysis worth mentioning. Hence, I will give my 5-cents opinion. It is true that for the Rwandan regime, FDLR has come to mean “political opposition.” But I do not think that it was what President Jakaya Kikwete meant. He meant “armed Hutu opposition”, the way he meant “armed opposition” in Uganda and “armed Tutsi opposition” in DRC.
Now the question is who is the “armed Hutu opposition?
Before I get to that, I would like to put forward another idea: Jakaya Kikwete did not improvise his statements. It appears he disclosed an long term plan that has been in making for quite some time. To me, the “armed Hutu opposition” that Jakaya Kikwete has mentioned has been in preparation well before the statement itself: Paul Kagame knows it, Jakaya Kikwete knows it, and the powerful governments of the World know it.
Now the next question is how was this armed Hutu opposition prepared?
Question 1: Who is the armed Hutu opposition?
It is not the FDLR-FOCA. It could not be. In January 2013, Barack Obama signed a law that puts $5 millions on the head of General Mudacumura (dead or alive, I suppose). So, it cannot be General Mudacumura. All the top FDLR-FOCA military leaders are on the US and UN list of the sanctions. So it cannot be them. All the political leaders of FDLR-FOCA are in prison, under house arrest, or being prosecuted. So it cannot be FDLR-FOCA. So, who are they, may you ask? And I to answer: RUD-Urunana.
Reasons: no military leader of RUD-Urunana is on any list of sanctions (UN or US). No RUD-Urunana political leader has ever been arrested. They even travel back and forth to the bushes in the Congo. Why? Because those are the “good, God fearing, moderate armed Hutu opposition”, as viewed by the UN, the US, Great Britain, France, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and now the Tanzanian President Jayaka Kikwete and soon, I suppose, by South Africa and Angola. Now that you know who the “armed Hutu opposition” are, let us see how they were prepared.
Question 2: how was the armed Hutu opposition of RUD-Urunana prepared?
The powerful of the World have a secret (we now know it): when an extremist armed opposition is born, they promote another moderate armed opposition and they support it. FDLR was viewed as a bunch of genocidaire extremists. Then one day, Dr. Felicien Kanyamibwa (FDLR Executive Secretary), Dr. Jean Marie Vianney Higiro (FDLR Vice President), Dr. Augustin Dukuze (FDLR Spokeperson and Information Commissioner) and others (how many doctors they have by the way?) , mostly based in the West and who were not in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, suddenly said they have left FDLR, are creating RUD-Urunana and allying themselves with RPR-Inkeragutabara composed of Tutsis, within the National Democratic Congress (NDC). At the same time, an unknown FDLR officer, Colonel now General Musare was defecting from FDLR, along with 3,000 men and creating the armed wing of RUD-Urunana, AN-Imbonezagutabara.
That is classic. That is how a moderate armed opposition is created by the powerful forces of the World.
A few months after its creation, National Democratic Congress was negotiating in Rome with the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, negotiations officially mediated by the Norwegian Government and Sant Egidio Community. I stop here.
Before I finish, I would like to emphasize that Paul Kagame himself knows it and will negotiate with RUD_Urunana. That is perhaps why Ms. Louise Mushikiwabo is so confident when she says they will never negotiate with FDLR, meaning FDLR-FOCA of General Mudacumura and Dr. Ignace Murwanashyaka.
Another proof is the recent statement made by Professor Linda Melvern in a verbatim note to the British Parialament as I read on New Times’ website (rumored to belong to Rwandan Intelligence Services):
“To try to report the current political reality of Rwanda without mentioning the activities of the Hutu Power movement and its continued presence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in Europe and in North America, is simply biased reporting.”
“There is detailed evidence on the RUD‐Urunana recently provided to US investigators including documents on the group’s communication networks and money transfers. The leadership of this group, which is more efficient than that of the FDLR, resides in North America and it has considerable skills a lobbying operations.”
Rwandan supporters even went further when they addressed the British parliament. This, I read on afroamerica network website (under the title of Rwanda: Under International Pressure, General Kagame Increases Budget for External Intelligence), where Professor Phil Clark of the University of London repeated the statements from UN Group of experts on Democratic Republic of the Congo that Dr. Felicien Kanyamibwa is attempting to reunite RUD-Urunana and FDLR-FOCA.
I may be wrong, but I think that Paul Kagame will negotiate with FDLR, but not the FDLR-FOCA we know, rather the FDLR-RUD-Urunana Jakaya Kikwete and the international community may have been thinking about.
Sam Sekamana.
