Window on the rebels
By Michael J Kavanagh
High up on a mountaintop in the forests of North Kivu in eastern DR Congo, Michel Sibilondire struggles to start his generator
With each tug on the ignition cord, a corrugated clunking sound echoes through the valleys below. It is 5am and forested hills stretch as far as the eye can see. When his generator finally chugs to life, Sibilondire points to the trees in the distance, still shrouded in mist.
“One kilometre from here you will start to see them in ones and twos, and if you keep going for about 30km, you will come to the place where the FDLR have been living for years and years,” he says.
The FDLR are the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda-a Rwandan Hutu rebel group whose existence in the DR Congo can be traced back to the 1994 Rwandan genocide which, it is thought, some of its members helped perpetrate.
Since then, they have hidden in the country’s forests and, along with other militias, continue to threaten the stability of the region.
Sibilondire’s job is to get them to go home which is tall order for a rather short radio host.
Each morning the 36-year-old powers up a small United Nations radio transmitter and starts broadcasting from his mountain shack. His antenna points directly at the rebels in the bush. They know him by his call name “Mike India”. After living through a decade of conflict with his wife and two children, in 2006 he was hired by the UN to be what he calls a “radio host for peace”. He broadcasts in four languages and refuses to divulge his ethnic group-tribalism, he says, has already caused too much destruction in the country.
In between spins of Rwandan and Congolese pop hits and American country music, Mike India announces the newest developments in the UN’s demobilisation programme-some good news for the peacekeeping force after a torrid few months of accusations concerning illegal trade with rebels and militias in the area. The programme has been running for four years now and has met with some success as more than 5,000 of the FDLR have returned to Rwanda. But judging by the mood at a January peace conference in Coma the roughly 7,000 rebels that remain will not be welcome in the country much longer These days Mike India’s message to the rebels is simpler than go home or be killed. Earlier this year the UN Security Council demanded that” all members of the FDLR... and other Rwandan armed groups operating in the [east] immediately lay down their arms” and surrender to the UN for repatriation to Rwanda. Any delay, and UN soldiers were authorized “to use all necessary means to support operations by the Congolese military to remove the Rwandans by force. Over the past few months, the army has deployed to FDLR-occupied zones of North Kivu in preparation for a fight, effectively to fight the rebels on their own turf.
Mike India is hoping it does not get to that point. “It is impossible to get the FDLR out of the DR Congo by force,” he says.
It will backfire. It will be very bad for the Congolese people.” Philip Lancaster, who runs the UN’s demobilisation programme in the country, says the unprofessional state of the Congolese army- who have fought side by side with the FDLR in the past-will make protecting civilians a challenge during any military action.
“Because of the integrated way in which the FDLR have taken up residence in the Congolese communities, the kinds of actions that need to be taken are more along the line of police action than military,” Lancaster says.
In the meantime negotiations with the Rwandan rebel groups continue. “The main problem is still the fear,” Lancaster says. “It is so deeply embedded in their psyche that finding a way past it is a real challenge. They are still absolutely convinced that if they go home to Rwanda today they will be killed or imprisoned or humiliated in some way.
If the rebels participated in the genocide they will face justice in Rwandan courts. But most of the current fighters are believed to have been children in 1994 and, according to human rights groups and UN officials, it is likely that only about a dozenoftherebels-at most -are truly génociduires. So when Mike India goes on the air he fills his broadcast with reassuring messages. First he explains that Rwanda is now at peace and that it is safe for the rebels to return. Then he explains the demobilisation package if they lay down their arms- money, training and other basic support to help them reintegrate.
Then, every so often, he reads out his phone number Between the hours of lam and 4am-whenmobile minutes are free-his phone is deluged. Some rebels want to know where to demobilise, others rant about Paul Kagame, the current Rwandan president and former Tutsi rebel leader Some just want Mike lndia to play different music.
These conversations are particularly extraordinary because neither the United States nor the United Kingdom-key Rwandan allies — have any official dialogue with the Hutu rebel groups (something diplomats from both countries complain about in private).
Mike India not only talks to the rebels, he exchanges texts with them.
“Hello Mike India!” one SMS in Swahili reads, ”We are with the FDLR—I am acaptain in Rusamambo. When God wishes, we are ready to return to Rwanda.”
Seconds later, another message comes from a Congolese citizen: “Congratulations! Keep telling the FDLR to leave our country and return home. We are tired of them. They attack us. They steal, they burn our vehicles and if they return it will be good thing.”
Hundreds of kilometers from Mike India’s shack in Coma, a UN plane flies over the main demobilisation camp in eastern DR Congo. From the camp you can see Rwanda’s hills just across Lake Kivu. Before the war, this was paradise; late Congolese leader Mobutu Sese Seko himself had a home on the lake. Now it is where the FDLR come just before they return home.
In a large, humid tent at the camp Daseroni waits for the truck that will take him back to Rwanda. He joined the FDLR in 1998 when he was eight years old
“While we were marching, I told my commanders I was going to collect firewood and then I ran,” he says. Daseroni knew that if he could sneak away from his commander and get to the UN forces, he would be safe. He knew, he said, because he heard it on the radio.
Mike India says he often hears stories like this. “When theFDLRcome into the camps, the first thing they say is ‘Where is Mike lndia? I want to see Mike India’s face.”’
Cetting the rebels to lay down their weapons is all about building trust, and personal appeals seem to work best. But the process is slow-about one or two excombatants are moving through the UN’s transit camps each day.
Mike India knows he does not have that much time. Tensions are growing between the FDLR and the Congolese army as it deploys throughout the region. These days he is broadcasting at least ten hours a day (along with three other UN radio hosts in strategic locations throughout the Kivus) and he is sleeping with his transmitter
“I am working to win these guys over,” he says, after signing off and cutting his generator at 10pm. He has only a few hours to sleep before he starts receiving texts again. “This is my contribution to the reconstruction of the country.”
Called form BBC Focus on Africa July-October 2008.