When Congolese rebel General Laurent Nkunda was arrested by his former sponsors in the Rwandan military this past week, it looked like a promising instance of cooperation between Kigali and the Congolese government, which just six years ago were fighting each other in the bloodiest war since World War II. Then again, this is East Africa we're talking about, so it looks something could go terribly wrong instead:
[T]here is a growing fear that General Nkunda’s arrest may end in an unsatisfying way and that Rwanda may not hand him over, partly because he knows too much. On Sunday, the Rwandan military acknowledged for the first time that General Nkunda was not being kept in jail but at an undisclosed “safe” location in Rwanda.I don't claim any special insights into what the Rwandan government will do next; I certainly couldn't have predicted what's happened in the past couple weeks. But I will say that the Obama administration should push them hard to extradite Nkunda immediately. While having the obvious benefit of leading to the prosecution of a war criminal, extradition would also prevent a worst-case scenario, alluded to in Jeff Gentleman's article, in which Rwanda re-arms and releases Nkunda. Such a move would have a certain strategic logic to it, given as Rwanda and Congo have just been working to eliminate the latter's Hutu proxy militia, FDLR. At first glance, this seemed like an instance of mutual disarmament, with Congo working to eradicate the FDLR and Rwanda turning against Nkunda, but it also provides an opportunity for Rwanda to defect by releasing Nkunda and backing him again. A push from the US - which has had close ties with Paul Kagame's government in Kigali during the Bush years - could be what's needed for a quick extradition to take place, and for this scenario to be averted.…
General Nkunda is Congolese but is widely seen as an agent for Rwanda’s extensive business and security interests in eastern Congo. Like Rwanda’s leaders, he is an ethnic Tutsi and he began his military career as an intelligence officer for the Tutsi-led guerilla force that now rules Rwanda.
He was there in Kigali when the jet carrying Rwanda’s president was mysteriously shot down in 1994, setting off the genocide. He was there in eastern Congo when countless Hutus were massacred in reprisal killings, many of which have never been investigated. He was also there in the early 2000s when, according to United Nations reports, the Rwandan military created a criminal network that exploited Congo’s vast mineral resources.
