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The members of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo have the honour to transmit herewith the final report of the Group prepared in  accordance with paragraph 8 of Security Council resolution  

1857 (2008).

(Signed) Dinesh Mahtani

(Signed) Raymond

Debelle

(Signed) Mouctar Kokouma Diallo

(Signed) Christian B.

Dietrich

(Signed) Claudio Gramizzi

Final report of the Group of

Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo

re-established pursuant to resolution 1857

(2008)

[Original: English]

Summary

This report concludes that military operations against the FDLR have failed to dismantle the organization’s political and military structures on the ground in eastern DRC. The increasing rate of FDLR combatant defections and the FDLR temporary removal from many of its bases are only a partial success considering that the armed group has regrouped in a number of locations in the Kivus, and continues to recruit new fighters. This report shows that the FDLR continues to benefit from residual but significant support from top commanders of the FARDC, particularly those officers in the 10th military region (South Kivu), and has sealed strategic alliances with other armed groups in both North and South Kivu . External support networks, both regional and international, have been used by FDLR in the field to counteract the effects of Kimia II, for instance networks in Burundi and Tanzania . The Group has also documented that the FDLR has a far reaching international diaspora network involved in the day-to-day running of the movement; the coordination of military and arms trafficking activities and the management of financial activities. This report presents two case studies on the involvement of individuals linked to faith-based organizations.

The Group investigated the FDLR’s ongoing exploitation of natural resources in the Kivus, notably gold and cassiterite reserves which the Group calculates continue to deliver millions of dollars in direct financing into FDLR coffers. This report illustrates how FDLR gold networks are intertwined tightly with trading networks operating within Uganda and Burundi as well as the UAE. The Group also documents that a number of minerals exporting houses, some of whom were named in the Group’s previous report in 2008, continue to trade with the FDLR.

This report shows that end buyers for this cassiterite include the Malaysia Smelting Corporation and the Thailand Smelting and Refining Company, held by Amalgamated Metals Corporation, a UK entity.

The report analyzes the integration of non-state armed groups into the FARDC through the rapid integration in January 2009; as well as prior and during the FARDC/RDF joint operation Umoja Wetu and Kimia II. In this context, the CNDP officer class, in particular General Bosco Ntaganda, has continued to retain heavy weapons acquired during its period of rebellion in spite of its official integration into the FARDC and still controls revenue generating activities and parallel local administrations. The Group also presents documentary evidence showing that Gen Ntaganda continues to act as Kimia II deputy operational commander.

I. Introduction and methodology

The Group of Experts commenced its work on 2 March 2009 in New York , where it held consultations with United Nations officials and diplomatic missions before travelling to Europe to meet with representatives of various Governments and non-governmental organizations. The Group subsequently deployed to Kinshasa

on 20 March 2009 to begin five weeks of field work in the region following which it presented its interim findings to the Sanctions Committee on 9 May 2009. The interim report of the Group of Experts was issued as a document of the Security Council on 14 May 2009 (S/2009/253). From March through the end of October 2009, the Group maintained a regular presence in North and South Kivu and, in the Great Lakes region, held consultations with the Governments of Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda .

The Group continued to consult with central and provincial government authorities in the DRC, but regrets not being afforded an opportunity to hold substantive consultations with the Ministry of Defence of the DRC. The Group visited the United Arab Emirates where it held meetings with representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as with the Dubai authorities and private sector entities. The Group also visited Germany where it held meetings at the Federal Foreign Office. Pursuant to paragraph 10 of  esolution 1857 (2008), the Group continued to adopt a case study approach, focusing on North and South Kivu and Ituri. In North Kivu the Group undertook missions to the territories of Masisi, Rutshuru, Nyragongo, Walikale and Lubero territories, and in South Kivu to Kalehe, Kabare, Mwenga, Shabunda, Uvira and Fizi territories. The Group also undertook missions to Bunia and Ituri district.

II. Political and Military Context

In January 2009 several thousand combatants drawn from the CNDP, PARECO and other Mai Mai groups participated in a rapid integration exercise and were incorporated into FARDC ranks. According to FARDC officials and diplomatic sources, the exact number of integrated elements is not known to the FARDC high command, although all armed groups in the process provided figures totaling 12,000 elements. Due to the speed at which the integration process took place in North Kivu , many weapons stockpiles remained personalised and hidden away in secret caches, and children who had been previously recruited into the armed movements were integrated into the new FARDC structures. Due to the immediate ntegration of the majority of these elements, their subsequent deployment in joint Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF) -FARDC operations (known as Umoja Wetu) and, later, in MONUC-supported FARDC operations (known as Kimia II), the identification of newly integrated FARDC elements remains incomplete. The lack of an adequate identification process led to the delays in the payment of salaries for months, exacerbating waves of desertions from FARDC ranks during the early part of 2009, articularly Mai Mai PARECO and Hutu elements from the CNDP. In South Kivu roughly 550 elements from Mai Mai Asani, Yakutumba group and FRF – both groups based in the high plateau – accepted to join the integration process in August 2009 although it is not fully clear whether these troops are responding wholly under the chain of command of the FARDC. In North Kivu two main Mai Mai groups under the command of General Kakule Sikula Lafontaine and Col Janvier Buingo Karairi remain committed to opposing Kimia II operations.

Operation “Umoja Wetu”

Between 20 January and 25 February 2009, FARDC and RDF conducted joint operations in North Kivu ,known as Umoja Wetu, in an attempt to dismantle the FDLR’s military capacity. The Group established on the basis of its field work, and of reports received from FARDC and MONUC, that while such operations initially pushed the FDLR away from military bases in North Kivu and several other strategic positions, the FDLR subsequently managed to re-occupy some of the positions they had lost and conducted frequent reprisal campaigns against civilian villages, which included acts of killing, raping, looting and buring. These retaliations were also marked by the displacement of thousands of people. Some of these reprisals have been documented in this report and in the Group’s interim report, S/2009/253.

According to many reports received by the Group, including from FDLR and RUD-URUNANA active elements, FDLR and RUD-URUNANA forces have agreed a mutual pact of cooperation during the period of Umoja Wetu while the FDLR had already started benefitting from an unknown but allegedly significant number of Hutu excombatants drawn from PARECO, Mai Mai and other groups.

Operation Kimia II

FARDC operations against the FDLR, which began in March 2009, spread from North Kivu gradually southwards to South Kivu before slowing down in September 2009 due to lack of operational funds. The most aggressive operations against the FDLR have been conducted by FARDC units spearheaded by ex-CNDP commanders, notably in the territories of Masisi and Walikale, in North Kivu, and Kalehe, Shabunda, Fizi and Uvira in South Kivu . According to humanitarian and human rights workers operating in affected areas, the human cost of the operations has been high due to the abuses perpetrated against civilian populations by FARDC troops deployed in the operation theatre, FDLR and RUD-URUNANA reprisal attacks, and attacks by Mai Mai groups. Scores of villages have been raided and pillaged, thousands of houses have been burnt and several hundred thousand people have been displaced in order to escape from violence generated by military operations. Several hundred people have been killed by FARDC troops and FDLR reprisal attacks during this period (see Annex 2 for satellite image of villages razed by the FDLR). The operations have also been a vector through which ex-CNDP officers have cemented their control over mineral rich areas, notably the Hauts Plateaux in Kalehe, mining areas in Walikale, and areas around the Kahuzi Biega Park in Shabunda territory.

Ex-CNDP units have also forcibly displaced large numbers of civilians from land in the Mushake zone of Masisi in order to find grazing areas for cattle being brought in from Rwanda . During the period of Kimia II operations, several thousand refugees based in camps in Rwanda trickled back to reoccupy contested land in the Kivus, exacerbating ethnic and land-based tensions amongst local  ommunities.

Since July 2009, the FARDC has been occupied with heavy fighting in Masisi territory, North Kivu, against the troops of Col Janvier Buingo Karairi, commander of the Alliance des Patriotes pour un Congo Libre et Souverain (APCLS), a local defence group that has grown in strength throughout 2009 and recruited children, local Hunde community volunteers and largely Hutu ex-combatants from the FARDC to form a front against Kimia II. According to MONUC and other sources the APCLS could number up to 1000 combatants and have forged an operational alliance with FDLR axis commander Col Evariste Kanzeguhera (also known as “Sadiki Soleil”). APCLS have held the axis of Lwibo through Lukweti, in Masisi territory, while FDLR have regrouped behind them and started deploying units back into Masisi. According to human rights and humanitarian workers who have visited the area, FARDC have carried out numerous attacks deliberately targeting and killing hundreds of civilians there.

While the FDLR have been dispersed from many of their original bases, they have regrouped in significant numbers around four areas: on the Pinga-Oninga axis in Masisi and Walikale, around the Hombo area in Walikale, the Itombwe forest in Mwenga, as well as in Lubero territory in alliance with Mai Mai of General Kakule Sikula Lafontaine, who separately operates in collaboration with the RUD-URUNANA. With their local supply and logistics chain disrupted, the FDLR has attempted to adapt by launching smaller attacks on vulnerable civilian populations in order to pillage and take hostages for ransom.

MONUC have reported 1,261 surrendered FDLR combattants from January to 30 October 2009, and a total of 1,785 dependants, which represents roughly twice as many repatriations of FDLR combatants and three times as many total repatriations recorded between the signing of the Nairobi Communique in 2007 and the end of November 2008. In the mean time, FDLR have been engaging in fresh waves of recruitment of Congolese Hutus as well as numbers of Rwandan Hutus who are being infiltrated through Burundi and Uganda . It therefore remains difficult to assess whether the fighting force of the FDLR has diminished significantly from the 6000/8000 fighters the Group estimated the FDLR had in 2008.

The Group has researched extensively the internal and external support networks of the FDLR. In particular the Group has identified residual but substantive links between the FARDC and FDLR, and focused on the FDLR’s regional and international support networks. The Group has also researched the extent to which diaspora FDLR leaders present in North America, Europe and Africa are involved and complicit in the day-today operational command of the FDLR. The Group gathered evidence of FDLR involvement in local businesses in Goma (See Annex 3), from transport, general trade in goods, to the  exploitation of timber forests, charcoal and marijuana (see also S/2008/773 and S/2009/253). The Group continued its research into the FDLR’s illegal exploitation of natural resources in complicity with traders working for Congolese minerals exporting houses.

A. Internal Military Support Networks

FARDC-FDLR collaboration

In line with its report of 12 December 2008 (S/2008/773), the Group continued to research FARDC-FDLR collaboration. In particular, the Group focused on episodes of diversions of military equipment, which are detailed in the following paragraphs, as well as with cases of interference by the FARDC with MONUCDDRRR exercises and of operational collaboration between the FDLR and the FARDC.

10th military region (FARDC)

The Group has documented several cases of arms and ammunition that were diverted from FARDC stockpiles to various non-state armed groups, in particular the Mai Mai, Front National de Liberation (FNL)[2],

Forces Republicaines Federalistes (FRF) and the FDLR. In spite of military operations undertaken by the FARDC against the FDLR, the Group has gathered evidence and testimony demonstrating that certain FARDC officers, particularly senior officials in control of the 10th military region ( South Kivu ), are implicated in the deliberate diversion of this military equipment. The cases ocumented by the Group do not give a full picture of the current extent of FARDC material support to non-state armed groups. Nevertheless, the Group is of the view that the Kinshasa authorities are aware of some of these leaks and have taken no appropriate measures, undermining the FARDC’s control over its own internal stockpiles and military operations against the FDLR.

PPP

Four FARDC witnesses reported that Colonel Nakabaka phoned FARDC officers in charge of securing the camp at that precise moment. FARDC witnesses also reported that the driver had attempted to call Col Nakabaka just before he was arrested. The documents show that Col Nakabaka’s phone number was found in the driver’s phone.

According to the T2 case file, FARDC witnesses confirmed that the munitions were supposed to be delivered to Yves Mukulikire, a resident of Uvira, who confirmed that he had been a fighter in the Mai Mai Zabuloni and subsequently in the 111th brigade up until 2006, and that he was the cousin of Colonel Nakabaka. FARDC officials also inspected Mukulikire’s house in Uvira a few days after 13 December 2008 and discovered eight empty boxes of ammunition belonging to FARDC. The FARDC witnesses also testified to the T2 that there had been several diversions of military equipment in the three months prior to this specific incident, and that Yves Mukulikire was involved in at least two of them. The T2 case file also describes the results of an internal investigation into the state of the 10th military region’s stockpile conducted on the 2 February 2009, concerning significant stocks of arms and ammunition which had either disappeared or were not being accounted for.

The results show that two boxes of 40mm grenades, six boxes of 14.5mm ammunition and the equivalent of 7.5 cases of 7.62x39mm ammunition had gone missing and that there was a recorded surplus of seven boxes of 12.7mm ammunition, 25 boxes of 82mm mortar bombs, five boxes of 60mm mortar bombs, and 10 boxes of 7.62x54mm ammunitions. FARDC officers interviewed by the Group of Experts in Bukavu reported that the T2 case file was transmitted to General Masunzu and to the FARDC ground force intelligence (G2)  eadquarters in Kinshasa in early 2009, but that no measures had been taken against Colonel Nakabaka.

The Group, in collaboration with MONUC Pakistani military contingent, uncovered two arms caches in the town of Uvira , which the Group considers to be connected to non-state armed groups, notably the Mai Mai, FNL and FDLR. Acting on the Group’s information, MONUC’s Pakistani contingent seized a stock of 139 AK- 47 rifles, 34 rounds of 7.62x39mm ammunition, 5 hand-grenades and 6 Uzi submachine-guns (Annex 6) between the night and early morning of 15 and 16 June 2009. The equipment was found in a house owned by Col Nakabaka in Uvira. In the week following the seizure of arms, PAREC, a local NGO, claimed that it had been responsible for recovering the arms one by one over the period of 15 months as part of a cash-forweapons programme supporting disarmament activities. The Group does not consider this plausible, as 65 percent of the AK-47s seized were from five separate production series, and all the Uzis belonged to two production series displaying consecutive production serial numbers.

This pattern suggests the weapons are more likely to have been taken from a stockpile, rather than handed in individually by different fighters. The Group corroborated this conclusion through credible testimonies that the arms cache seized on 16 June 2009 belonged to a stock of weapons under the control of the joint FNL-FDLR-Mai Mai network responsible for the attack against the town of Uvira on 9 April 2009. According to two separate interviews with FDLR excombatants directly involved in the 9 April events, as well as individuals close to the FNL and FARDC military justice officials, the operation was jointly conducted by FNL, FDLR and Mai Mai Zabuloni forces and was perpetrated in a bid to release FNL prisoners arrested during previous attacks in February 2009 and to neutralize and replace the military and civilian authorities in Uvira town.

On the night of 14 July 2009, acting again on the Group’s information, the Pakistani MONUC military contingent seized another arms cache in a different house in Uvira, including eight 107mm rockets, two AK-47 rifles, nineteen rounds of 7.62x39mm ammunition, ten 82mm mortars bombs, twenty-one fuses for mortar bombs, and 62 rounds of 12.7mm machine-gun ammunition. Such equipment is commonly found in FARDC stockpiles. When the Group received information regarding the location of the weapons, it was also informed that these arms had been hidden by Col Nakabaka. The Group has not been able to meet the officials of DRC Ministry of Defence in Kinshasa to discuss these cases.

The FNL dissident elements participating in the 9 April 2009 attack were reportedly recruited in Burundi by Congolese nationals and given money and weapons. This fact was established on the basis of testimonies received from Congolese military officials, FDLR ex-combatants and an FNL ex-combatant directly involved in the 9 April attack. In addition, two Burundian nationals, arrested and interrogated by Congolese military justice officials with an element of the Mai Mai Zabuloni, stated that they had been approached in Burundi by recruiters who were specifically looking for well trained soldiers.

On the basis of consistent interviews collected throughout the mandate, the Group is of the view that the FDLR-Mai Mai-FNL networks have formed an alliance in the face of Kimia II operations and collaborate tightly with each other. As part of this alliance, the three armed groups cooperate in smuggling natural resources from the territory of Uvira to Burundi and Tanzania , share weapons stocks and assist each other infiltrate and hideout in the Ruzizi plain as well as across the border in forested areas in Burundi.

Colonel David Rugayi

Testimonies from five separate former FDLR combatants and three FARDC officers indicated that Col David Rugayi, formerly of the 14th integrated brigade, has been responsible for the diversion of large amounts of military equipment to the FDLR on several occasions in 2008, notably in February, June, October, November and December 2008 in the territory of Masisi and in the towns of Kalungu and Kibua. According to these testimonies, the equipment reportedly included hundreds of 107mm cannon rockets, a recoilless 107mm cannon, several RPGs, three machine guns of 12.7mm and 14.5mm caliber and two hundred boxes of 7.62x39mm ammunition (roughly 50,000 rounds), 230 AK-47s and several 82mm mortars.

Col Rugayi, who is loyal to former Rwandan-backed North Kivu governor Eugene Serufuli, one of the founders of the sanctioned entity Tous pour la Paix et le Developpement (TPD), is also reported by three FARDC officers, interviewed by the Group to have taken charge most of the heavier weapons controlled by the predominately Hutu PARECO Mai Mai before their fighters were integrated into the FARDC. According to several military sources, Col Rugayi’s 14th brigade was also heavily infiltrated by FDLR fighters when it was deployed in mining rich zones in the territory of Kalehe . The Group gathered several consistent testimonies from FDLR ex-combatants of Col Rugayi’s involvement in exploiting cassiterite and gold in mining areas under the control of the FDLR in Kalehe, before the FDLR were pushed out of these areas by newly integrated

FARDC units mainly composed of ex-CNDP elements.