(PHOTO 1: "MONUSCO Force Commander Gen. Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz during an observation mission on Munigi Hill as FARDC conduct an attack on M23 rebel positions in Kanyaruchinya near Goma, the 15th of July 2013." MONUSCO photo caption)
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(PHOTO 2: Col. Mamadou Ndala, operational commander in North Kivu, is mobbed by the press in Goma, Thursday, July 18)
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Radio-Trottoir, the relay of rumors and unsourced information in the DRC, has gone into overdrive ever since the appearance of M23 and this round of Rwanda-fueled instability in North-Kivu Province.
And some of those rumors could trigger riots, as the one that flared up in Goma on Thursday, July 18--a rumor alleging that the FARDC North-Kivu operational commander, Col. Mamadou Ndala, has been relieved of his command and recalled to Kinshasa.
This caused such anger and outrage among Goma residents--with mobs of unruly youths and army wives cutting off roads--that the government and the FARDC took the unusual step of having Col. Ndala deny the rumor at hastily-convened pressers.
(Dangerous rumor for the powers that be, indeed, as Goma demonstrators were chanting anti-Joseph Kabila slogans alleging that he was in cahoots with his old pal, Paul Kagame!)
People in the Kivus and throughout the DRC are still reeling from what they view as the betrayal by Kinshasa authorities when, in 2004, the late Col. Budja Mabe, then operational commander in Bukavu
Col. Ndala told Radio Okapi:
"It's not true; it's a rumor. A manipulation by rebels who want to destabilize the morale of the population and of troops engaged on the theater."
He added:
"Secondly, my chief, the region commander, General Bauma, I am in contact with him every five minutes. If I had to be relieved of my command, it's he, my immediate superior, who'd have indicated it to me. Therefore, it's absolutely untrue."
In Kinshasa meanwhile, there are three rumors that make Kinois laugh their heads off: 1) the Rwandan joke of strayed mortar shells lobbed by the FARDC and MONUSCO on Rwandan territory AND the desecration of dead M23 bandits; & 2) MONUSCO being caught between the rock of Rwanda and the hard place of the DRC.
1) The Rwandan joke of FARDC strayed mortar shells landing on Rwandan territory AND The Desecration of dead M23 bandits
The Rwandan accusation of FARDC and MONUSCO strayed mortar shells falling on Rwandan territory caused much merriment in Kinshasa.
"Do these Rwandan bastards remember what they did to Kisangani during the 6-Day War?" I heard a woman yell at a sidewalk bar.
She was referring to the blanket shelling of the city of Kisangani during what has been dubbed "The 6-day war" in 2000 pitting Rwandan against their erstwhile Ugandan allies. A stupid plunder war over the share of turfs and loots of Congo resources.
The 6-day war devastated the third Congolese city! And Congolese dead bodies were desecrated by Rwandans on a mass scale.
The feeling in Kinshasa is that more mortar shells should be aimed at Rwandan cities and that more M23 bodies ought to be desecrated!
2) MONUSCO between a rock and a hard place
Citing a local journalist reporting in North Kivu Province, veteran Belgian Africa reporter Colette Braeckman charged in a post published on her blog on July 17 that MONUSCO tanks at first had attempted to stop the FARDC offensive against M23 at Munigi.
"He'd seen with his own eyes Munusco in the process of blocking the road to FARDC with their tanks so as to prevent the tanks to get to the frontline with their munitions," Braeckman wrote.
"According to that witness," she goes on to say, "the civilian population then intervened: pelting stones in the direction of Monusco, they ended up opening the road to government forces."
It seems that MONUSCO doesn't want war, but a negotiated political settlement between the DRC government and M23. The very solution advocated by Mary Robinson, the UN Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
The collusion of MONUSCO with DRC foes is a persistent rumor here anyway. And this situation is seen by people as the unenviable situation of MONUSCO being between the rock of Rwanda and the hard place of DRC.
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PHOTO CREDITS: PHOTO1: by Sylvain Liechti/MONUSCO; & PHOTO 2: by Charly Kasereka via actudukivu.blogspot.com
