{"id":31412,"date":"2016-12-27T22:49:34","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T22:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/dr-congo-blames-shadowy-rebel-group-for-wave-of\/"},"modified":"2016-12-27T22:49:30","modified_gmt":"2016-12-27T22:49:30","slug":"dr-congo-blames-shadowy-rebel-group-for-wave-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/dr-congo-blames-shadowy-rebel-group-for-wave-of\/","title":{"rendered":"DR Congo blames shadowy rebel group for wave of massacres"},"content":{"rendered":"

{The official explanation for a two-year wave of massacres in a restive corner of DR Congo centres on a shadowy rebel group accused of having ties to the global jihadist underground.}<\/p>\n

But some basic details about the alleged killers of more than 700 victims \u2014 the latest over the Christmas weekend \u2014 haven\u2019t quite convinced observers and experts.<\/p>\n

The truth, they say, is more complicated and may lead all the way to the halls of power in the vast, mineral-rich and unstable central African nation.<\/p>\n

UN experts, referring to the claimed jihadist links in past reports, have simply stated: \u201cThere is no proof of this allegation.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that has not stopped the Democratic Republic of Congo\u2019s leadership and the UN peacekeeping mission Monusco from blaming the bloodbath around the town of Beni, in the country\u2019s strife-torn northeast, on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).<\/p>\n

Secrecy shrouds the group, which is dominated by hardline Ugandan Muslims who were initially focused on overthrowing Uganda\u2019s Yoweri Museveni.<\/p>\n

The group went on to absorb other rebel factions and started carrying out attacks in 1995. Gradually pushed westwards by the Ugandan army, the ADF relocated most of its activities to DR Congo.<\/p>\n

When the Beni massacres started in October 2014, with most of the victims hacked to death, the ADF was quickly branded the culprit by both Congolese authorities and Monusco.<\/p>\n

PROTECT CIVILIANS<\/p>\n

More than two years on, the government and UN have been unable to protect civilians from the attacks, and the ADF remains the only official explanation \u2014 with Kinshasa insisting on a jihadist link to the killings.<\/p>\n

Many ADF recruits \u2014 who were drawn this year from Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya and as far as Somalia \u2014 were not hardcore ideologues but young Muslims lured by the promise of going to study in Saudi Arabia, an intelligence agent and civil society source told AFP.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the ADF has not claimed any of the massacres, and no experts on DR Congo have found a link between the group and the global jihadist underground.<\/p>\n

Others have gone further, alleging government agents have a role in the killing.<\/p>\n

A group run by US researcher Jason Stearns published a report in March claiming several distinct groups \u201cappear to be involved in the massacres\u201d, including soldiers from the regular army.<\/p>\n

The government rejected the claims and said the ADF was \u201cdefinitely\u201d responsible. Stearns was expelled from DR Congo after the report\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

In explaining the violence, some have cited struggles for control of trafficking in various industries like timber, agricultural produce or minerals in a region with extremely rich potential.<\/p>\n

\"M23<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{The official explanation for a two-year wave of massacres in a restive corner of DR Congo centres on a shadowy rebel group accused of having ties to the global jihadist underground.} But some basic details about the alleged killers of more than 700 victims \u2014 the latest over the Christmas weekend \u2014 haven\u2019t quite convinced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[228],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-afp"],"bylines":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"contributors":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31412"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31412"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}