UN experts link Uganda, Mwenda to M23 rebels

Uganda is clandestinely offering support to March 23 Movement (M23), a sanctioned Congolese rebel group, according to a United Nations Panel of Experts.

A leaked report of the panel seen by this newspaper also names veteran Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda as an interlocutor in Kampala, the country’s capital, scouting diplomatic cover for the insurgents.

Uganda denies rendering support to M23 as does Mr Mwenda, with each separately saying their involvement in broaching a diplomatic end to the conflict was known to Kinshasa and other stakeholders.

The UN-authorised investigators report that Uganda’s military, the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), directly and through its intelligence arm, the Defence Intelligence and Security (DIS), actively supports M23 and Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC) rebel bands in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), was renamed DIS in the Uganda People’s Defence Forces Establishment 2021 unveiled in February.

Its head, Maj Gen James Birungi and his Rwandan Defence Intelligence counterpart, Brig Vincent Nyakarundi, in May 2022, signed a memorandum of understanding, signaling the thawing of then icy Uganda-Rwanda relations brokered by First Son Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

Insiders familiar with the arrangement said Uganda’s Foreign Affairs ministry, the clearing house for the country’s engagement with other states, was not directly involved although the spy agency-to-spy agency deal aided, among others, intelligence sharing.

Muhoozi was a lieutenant general and chief of UPDF Land Forces at the time and optimistic that the deal negotiated under his purview during a four-day engagement in Entebbe, a peninsula town south of Kampala, undergirded a reset of relations between Rwanda and Uganda after years of each giving the other a cold treat.

“…we have reached good resolutions on how to work together … I thank our two great presidents @kagutamuseveni and @paulkagame on revitalising our strong alliance. Viva UPDF! Viva RDF,” he noted in a May 16, 2022 post on X, formerly Twitter, referring to the Ugandan and Rwandan militaries.

Uganda had since November 2021 been conducting a joint military offensive dubbed Operation Shujaa with the Congolese army, FARDC, against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels sequestered in the jungles of eastern DRC.

The Entebbe deal came three months after M23 captured the significant Bunagana border town (they occupy to-date), and in the wake of Muhoozi fondly calling the rebels in his tweets as “our brothers”, which galvanised Congolese leaders to accuse Uganda of aiding the rebels and pressuring President Tshisekedi to order UPDF out.

Muhoozi was in October 2022 promoted to a four-star general and temporarily shipped out of the military to a senior advisor to the President, the commander-in-chief of UPDF, who returned him as Chief of Defence Forces in March this year.

Uganda has over the years denied claims it supports M23, but a Panel of Experts appointed under the aegis of the UN Security Council to scrutinise compliance with its sanctions regime on M23, says the allegations are true.

“The [UN Experts] Group … obtained evidence confirming active support to M23 by certain UPDF and Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) officials,” the leaked report reads in part.

“Intelligence sources and individuals close to M23 also confirmed the presence of Ugandan military intelligence officers in Bunagana since at least late 2023, to coordinate with M23 leaders, provide logistics, and transport M23 leaders to M23-controlled areas.”

We were unable to speak to Brig Felix Kulayigye, the defence public information officer, for this article.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, however, said the renewed accusations, like the past ones, are unfounded because Uganda is a peace builder, not a war monger in the region.

“The engagement we had with M23 was aimed at ending the conflict. We wanted them to have direct engagement and give their demands to the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was very simple,” said Mr Henry Oryem Okello, the State minister for International Affairs.

According to the minister, the government of re-elected Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi was in the know about Uganda’s contact with M23 to “share their demands so that Uganda would pass them to Kinshasa”.

We were unable to independently corroborate this account with the DRC government.

“We didn’t bring them (M23 rebels) to Uganda,” said Mr Oryem by telephone, “We didn’t give them arms.”

This rejoinder flies in the face of what the Panel of Experts said they found: Evidence of frequent M23 and AFC (rebel groups’) activities on Ugandan territory.

“Despite evidence documenting the regular transit of M23 and RDF troops, vehicles, and military supplies through Ugandan territory, the Ugandan government, including its military intelligence service, claimed not to have recorded the presence of any foreign troops or material on its territory since the beginning of the M23 crisis. However, the extent and frequency of the movements render such a presence highly unlikely to go undetected,” the report reads in part.

The United Nations Security Council sanctioned six rebel leaders in eastern DR Congo in February, among them, the M23 spokesman.

The world body said M23 is supported by Rwanda and the rebel group has committed serious violation of international law, including mass rape and killings, abductions and forced displacement.

Kigali has repeatedly denied claims of its involvement on the enemy side inside Congo, but retained its right to deploy capabilities for self-defence against remnants of the Interahamwe genocidaires holed up in North and South Kivu provinces.

Allegations that Uganda is complicit resurrect memories of the 1996-2003 invasion of then Zaire (now DRC) by Uganda and Rwanda, which ended in the former being fined $10b by the International Court of Justice for plunder of Congo resources.

The UN court found that the pillaging was by individuals, rather than institutions, but still fined the state of Uganda, leaving open the future consequences of the new findings of alleged Uganda support for M23 — even if tied to tacit endorsement by powerful military figures rather than UPDF as an institution.

The Panel of Experts reported that Uganda has allowed sanctioned M23 and other rebel leaders to evade travel bans under the sanctions, including hosting them.

“It is noteworthy that M23 leaders, including sanctioned individual Sultani Makenga, travelled to Entebbe and Kampala in violation of the travel ban,” the report indicated, adding, “AFC’s leadership, including Corneille Nangaa, who recently resided in Kampala, held meetings with representatives of Congolese armed groups and individuals closely linked with M23.”

The experts said multiple sources “witnessed Ugandan soldiers crossing into the DRC through Kitagoma on January 27, 2024 and operating in M23-controlled areas, in particular Busanza groupement and Rutshuru town, from where one group moved towards Tongo, and the other towards Mabenga”.

The group said veteran journalist-cum-lobbyist Andrew Mwenda moonlighted as a liaison officer and in that capacity contacted western embassies in Kampala to talk them into lifting the group off the sanctions list.

“Nangaa and Lawrence Kanyuka benefited from the support of Ugandan public figure Andrew Mwenda in approaching several embassies in Kampala in March 2024 to contest sanctions imposed on M23 leaders and to elicit sympathy for the cause of AFC/M23,” they wrote.

Mr Mwenda confirmed meeting Kanyuka, one Desire Rwigyema and a third M23 leader at his office in Kampala, but said he did so as a journalist and afterwards reached out to foreign missions that could leverage on Kinshasa to accept talks with the rebels.

“I was shocked, though not surprised, that the same ‘panel of experts’ produced a report repeating their original allegations without any reference to my explanation. They deliberately refer to me as ‘a public figure’, ignoring the fact that I am a journalist … Instead, they said I work as a liaison person between Kigali and Kampala, something I last did in 2018,” he said in an extract he shared with this newspaper from his original column in The Independent magazine edition on the stands.

The UN Panel of Experts in the report said M23 was drafting recruits from refugee settlements in Uganda, notably in Kyaka II in western Uganda and in Nakivale, near the southern Rwandan border.

Those enlisted are lured by false financial incentives, including children, and have been trafficked to DRC since 2022, mainly through Bunagana.

“These recruitment circuits were also utilised for the recruitment of Banyamulenge youth, including minors,” the report reads in part