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Foreign Armed Groups and Meddlesome Neighbors

The continuing presence of Ugandan and Rwandan rebel combatants in eastern Congo (mentioned above) threatens regional stability, complicates relations between Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC, and demands much attention from an overstretched MONUC. U.N. officials consider that these armed groups present no significant threat to either Rwanda or Uganda. An unpublished assessment from the Secretary General to the U.N. Security Council, concludes that there is “little evidence that the presence and activities of Rwandan armed groups in the DRC pose a significant military threat to the security of Rwanda.”⁵² Similarly, recent assessments conclude that Ugandan armed groups present no threat to Uganda.⁵³

In 2004 Rwanda intervened or threatened to intervene three times in the Congo and in September 2005 Uganda threatened to invade Congo after some forces of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), opposed to the Ugandan government, briefly crossed into Congo. Ugandan authorities further criticized MONUC for taking little action to tackle the problem of other Ugandan armed groups in the Beni area. While known to be longer established in the DRC, these groups are few in number and have shown no evidence of new military activity. In the meantime Ugandan military authorities themselves facilitated a meeting of Ituri combatants just outside Kampala, thus assisting in the creation of a new alliance, the Revolutionary Movement of Congo (Movement Révoluntionaire du Congo, MRC) to fight the Congolese government and MONUC. Under pressure from the international community, the Ugandan government later expelled these 'warlords' from Uganda but took no action to arrest them. Local residents in southern Ituri reported the presence of Ugandan soldiers along with MRC combatants some weeks later in Boga and in July a Ugandan intelligence agent was arrested in the gold mining town of Mongbwalu.⁵⁴

Intervention and threats of intervention from across the border contribute to continuing activity by armed groups in this region, making it difficult for voters to be sure of the security needed to vote in peace.