Laurent Nkunda
Rwanda Finally Ditches Nkunda
So General Laurent Nkunda has been arrested in Rwanda. About time too. His thuggish rebellion scattered 250,000 people in the last months of 2008 as he flexed his muscles and played games with the lives of the families he claimed to represent. There are still questions to be answered – will Rwanda hand over […]
New Rebel Group in DRC
Just when you thought you had a handle on what was happening among the myriad militia groupings in the Democratic Republic of Congo, The Independent reports the emergence of a new rebel army The findings of collaboration with the Tutu rebels by the Rwandan government came on the same day that some of its leaders […]
Who’d Have Thought It?
Certainly not Tony Blair, Paul Kagame’s new best friend and adviser, who has said Rwanda does not control Laurent Nkunda and his rebel army. Nor Foreign Office minister Lord Mark Malloch-Brown who told me exactly the same thing in Goma last month Lord Malloch-Brown said the region’s rich tin ore and coltan seams were a […]
Background to the crisis in North Kivu
Recent turbulence in the financial market is a reminder that economic stability is heavily reliant on collective perceptions and ‘market confidence’. So it is with security, and nowhere is this more evident than in a so-called fragile state like the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is plummeting into a different kind of recession. The seemingly […]
Can compromises bring peace at last?
Did you know that eastern Congo gets struck by lightning more often than anywhere else in the world? It’s usually preferable to agree some sort of ceasefire before holding formal talks. Suspending hostilities – however temporarily – is the polite thing to do. It builds confidence, sets the tone, and helps the concentration. But no […]
