What to watch for is the month of March which may represent a turning point. The Nairobi Agreement between DRC and Rwanda, brokered by the UN, and witnessed by the US's Tim Shortley and the EU's representative, stipulates that the DRC must start forceful disarmament of the FDLR linked to the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda.  

The difficulty lies in the fact that the Kabilist regime (whether under the father Laurent Kabila, the son Joseph Kabila during the transition period, or the
son Joseph Kabila's elected regime today) has always maintained close military, financial and political ties with the FDLR - despite the fact that they are on
the US list of Terrorist Groups and called a "genocidal military organisation" by the Nairobi agreement.

Therefore, most people believe that the Kabila regime has already made contact with the FDLR and they will organize operations with a lot of media attention for mostly
international consumption, but they have already agreed ahead of time and there will simply be more "fireworks" and burning empty (pre-evacuated) sites, with the FDLR agreeing to hand-over a limited amount of men in order to allow the Kabila regime to claim a victorious operation.  But in fact, the Kabila regime is pursuing
a policy of integrating the FDLR into its own army and security forces as much as possible simply granting them Congolese ID's.  If allowed to go through with
this scheme, the Kabila regime will set a dangerous precedent and create the foundation for future instability in the region, for the FDLR will now be able to continue to operate and organise under the guise of the Congolese army and
security forces... There can be no doubt that this would result in very serious future consequences.

The Genocide in Rwanda happened 13 years ago.  Since then the UN has pursued a "voluntary" disarmament program for the genocidal murderers and their more recent recruits. There is an increasing feeling in the region that the international community has always been "soft" on the "génocidaires" (doing nothing before the genocide
despite top-level reports to the UN of the impending catastrophe,  doing little during the genocide despite the fact that it was broadcast on CNN 24h/7 demonstrating a sort of paralysis in the face of thehorror,  and that ever since there has been only
voluntary disarmament).  This leads many to believe it is time,  13 years later, that the international community (given the fact that we are dealing with the worst crime of all a genocide) got tough with the perpetrators.

The month of March will reveal whether both Kinshasa and the International community are finally serious about taking off their gloves when dealing with the FDLR genocidal military organisation.   However, people have been so disappointed in the past that there is a lot of doubt...

Esther Wise
Political Analyst