When the first batch of Kenya Defence Forces left yesterday for eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, it signaled both a fulfillment of a promise Kenya made to the region, and a chance for President William Ruto to brush up his image in Kinshasa’s eyes.
The KDF troops are expected to join others from South Sudan, Uganda and Burundi, forming the East African Regional Force (EARF) mooted earlier in the year to tame the armed groups in the DRC, including the M23.
For President Ruto, however, this may be his personal project as much as it is Kenya’s. On the campaign stage, his main rival, Raila Odinga, passed off as closer friend of the Democratic Republic of Congo than he was.
When he won the elections, DRC was the last of East African Community members to congratulate him.
In February, he had aroused the Congolese anger after he was caught on camera commenting on their ‘inability’ to rear cows and their penchant for wearing high-waist trousers (mostly in music videos).
It forced Kenya’s Ambassador to Kinshasa, Dr George Masafu, to issue an apology in which he didn’t identify Ruto then as Deputy President. Mr Odinga lampooned him for being a “pathetic failure to see where opportunities abound for Kenya”.
It turns out Dr Ruto had been misunderstood, according to his handlers. His speech in Nyeri, they claimed, was meant to entice locals into dairy farming, seeing the DRC’s then imminent entry into the East African Community as a market to exploit.
Now as President, Ruto’s speeches on DR Congo have been more measured. When he handed over the flag to the troops last week, he was categorical that Kenya’s stake was at risk.
“As neighbours, the destiny of DRC is intertwined with ours,” he told the soldiers in Nairobi on November 2.
“We will not allow any armed groups, criminals and terrorists to deny us our shared prosperity.”
That prosperity is banked on DR Congo’s own wealth, location as well as its population. With 90 million people, Ruto had argued on the campaign trail that it would be a rich market for Kenya’s products. With its immense wealth, a safe tapping of it will be useful for Kenya.
At least 70 per cent of the world’s cobalt is sourced from DRC and half of the copper we use today comes from the mineral-rich country. Its proposed Grand Inga Dam, a complex expansion of seven dams on the Congo River, could produce energy enough to power the entire African mainland, if fully implemented under the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
The DRC is also connected to 11 trading corridors in Africa, including under the East African Community, the Southern Africa Development Cooperation (SADC) and Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS).
Except that its eastern parts are at war. According to the UN, at least 120 armed groups roam the region, making it the most unsafe place in DR Congo. Yet it is also the most important region for Kenya in terms of trade.
“Through this deployment, Kenya will also safeguard its vital interests including securing Kenyan businesses like banks operating in the DRC, numerous businesspeople in the country, bilateral trade with the DRC, and utilisation of the Mombasa port by the DRC among others,” Nelson Koech, MP for Belgut and chairman of the National Assembly Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations, told the Sunday Nation .
For Nairobi, viability of the Mombasa Port will be enhanced if trade flows in and out of eastern DRC. Officials have defended the financial cost of deploying the troops, Sh4.5 billion for six months, as cheaper than what would cost Nairobi were it to sit on hands and watch.
“The troops deployment is complementary and very strategic to the ongoing political process in DRC,” Mr Koech said, referring to Kenya’s reasons presented to parliament earlier this week.
Ruto has become the first Kenyan President to send troops to a combat mission in DR Congo. His predecessors often sent troops to UN peacekeeping missions, now known as Monusco.
The EARF is actually being labelled as an ‘enforcement’ force, with officials arguing they will insist on military presence while enticing armed groups to come out of their holes with white flags.
They will engage those who refuse to surrender. It will last six months, maybe extended by another two, before pulling out within four months, according to the Concept of Operations note seen by the Sunday Nation .
But it won’t be the only means. President Ruto has fully backed the Nairobi process, a mediation began by his predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta and backed by the East African Community.
Earlier this week, the EAC held a sideline meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh where they endorsed a decision to harmonise the DR Congo peace bid with that mediated by Angola to help Rwanda and DRC iron out their suspicions of supporting rebels.
On Sunday, President Kenyatta, now the EAC’s eastern Congo Peace Facilitator, flew to Kinshasa where he was expected to meet with representatives of the communities from Ituri, North and South Kivu, the three eastern Congo provinces where rebels thrive. According to the DRC presidency, he is expected to convince the community leaders to choose dialogue rather than war.
The planned meetings with representatives of the communities from the troubled provinces of the DRC are a prelude to the third round of the Nairobi talks to be held in the last week of November. The EAC wants to directly engage the traditional elders because it thinks previous peace bids ignored their roles.
A source in the Kenyatta entourage told the Sunday Nation the complexity of the conflict in the DRC has forced parties to push for peace together.
“There is a perception that peace building can happen in a whim, in two or three weeks. We are not blind to realities on the ground. Nothing in the history of peace building has been done in a timeframe of that nature,” the official indicated.
“We are pooling everyone in. This is Africans taking charge of their reality, solving their problems with African solutions.”
Kenyatta was expected to meet with Angolan President Joao Lorenco, who is the AU’s mediator in the Rwanda-DRC tiff. The two countries have accused one another of funding the M23 rebels, which have been fighting the Congolese army. The Angolan leader was in Kigali on Friday, after which he flew to the DRC.
While Ruto supports deployment and backs the shuttle diplomacy by his predecessor, his feeling is that Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi should localise the problem by ensuring the issue of armed rebels does not balloon into ethnic violence.
Tshisekedi met with leaders from the Tutsi community from eastern DRC on Friday. Closely related to the Tustis in Rwanda, the community also forms the largest portion of fighters in M23, which Tshisekedi claims are funded by Rwanda. Kigali denies the accusations.
Sources told the Sunday Nation Nairobi thinks Kinshasa has an obligation to prevent an ethnic war even as M23 are targeted, to avoid criminalising the Tutsi community, something that could be weaponised into a diplomatic feud with Rwanda.
