Everywhere, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), this man made an impression. Everywhere, the inhabitants of the hills of North Kivu tell his story to anyone who wants to hear it. In his native territory of Rutshuru, Sultani Makenga is as well known as he is discreet. “I saw him once last year from afar,” recalled a local administrative officer. “He drove past me in his car in mid-March, escorted by other soldiers,” said a farmer.
During his rare appearances, his face is always hidden under a khaki cap. His speeches are exceptional: never, since leading the military wing of the March 23 Movement (M23), has the warlord publicly addressed the local population. However, his group launched a large offensive in the spring of 2022 against the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC) and has since controlled part of the territories of Rutshuru and Masisi.
At 49, Nziramakenga Ruzandiza Emmanuel Sultan (his full name) is not his first attempt. The so-called “general” has taken part in all the insurgencies that have shaken the eastern DRC since the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994. A tragic event which, with the massive arrival of refugees in Congo, has upset the fragile balance of the region and sparked an endless series of rebellions.
Former sergeant of the Rwandan Patriotic Front
The latest is that led by Sultani Makenga. Eight years after reaching a peace accord with the government in Nairobi and putting his movement to sleep, the general has revived the M23 from the Congolese maquis of Sarambwe. By the end of 2021, its then-weak army numbered just 400, according to the UN Panel of Experts. Although no reliable estimate is available, reports from Kinshasa and the UN are clear: M23 soldiers are now much more numerous. The rebellion enlisted new recruits, not to mention the help of soldiers from the Rwandan army. The proof of this direct support exists, even if Kigali continues to deny it.
In the early 1990s, Sultani Makenga, barely 20 years old, left the former Zaire to learn how to handle arms with the armed wing of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the political formation in power since 1994 and still led by President Paul Kagame. “He was a sergeant there, one of the highest ranks that Congolese Tutsi could claim,” said Reagan Miviri of the Congolese research institute Ebuteli.
But the relationship between the warlord and Kigali “has not always been a long calm river”, nuances the researcher. In 1997, Makenga was even imprisoned on the island of Iwawa for several years, according to a biography published by the United Nations. The soldier had refused to obey the orders of his superiors from the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL), the rebellion that brought Laurent-Désiré Kabila to power in 1997, also supported by Kigali. “When there are differences, it is discord; but when there are common interests, they are together,” continues Reagan Miviri.
Another regional power counted for the rebel. After the M23 was defeated by the Congolese army in 2013, Uganda hosted some of its fighters in a camp in Bihanga (southwest). At the time, Sultani Makenga lived between this place of cantonment and Kampala, the capital, where Bertrand Bisimwa, today head of the political branch of the M23, was also located. Since the resurgence of the armed group a year ago, several Congolese politicians have denounced the “complicity” on the ground of the Ugandan army.
The boss of the “lions of Sarambwe” has nevertheless always denied any external support. “My men come from Rutshuru or other territories nearby, such as Kalele, Masisi or South Kivu. They are fighting here at home, in their environment,” he explained to a journalist from Igihe, a Kigali-based media outlet, in early January in one of the few interviews given in French. The “general” has a much better command of Kinyarwanda or Swahili, his mother tongues, despite the claims of those around him. Always serious in his impeccable fatigues, he has been walking with a cane since being shot and wounded in Katanga, in the southern part of Congo, during the rebellion of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD), at the end of the 1990s.
Companion in arms of Laurent Nkunda
An attribute that recalls one of his comrades in arms: Laurent Nkunda. Together, they were the leaders of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), a rebellion born in 2004 and accused of numerous crimes and abuses against civilians. The two men would have remained close, even if since his arrest in Kigali in 2009, Laurent Nkunda has lived under close surveillance in the Rwandan capital. “Nkunda’s family, who remained in Congo, is supported by whom do you think? “, ironically Major Willy Ngoma, spokesperson for M23.
Nkunda the voluble and Makenga the austere had little in common, except the cane and their community. The mutineers are Congolese Tutsi and waged with their rebel group, for five years, a war against Kinshasa to defend the integrity of their people. “At the time, all eyes were on the charismatic Nkunda. Little importance was given to Makenga,” recalls an employee of the government’s combatant demobilization program, who wishes to remain anonymous: “Nobody understood what this commander had in mind. »
After the fall of the CNDP and the signing of a peace agreement in 2009, Sultani Makenga sided and joined the Congolese army. The practice is not extraordinary. The mixing, mixing or integration of insurgents has always been presented by the Congolese administration as a way of settling conflicts. Makenga knows the workings of the FARDC well, having already served in North Kivu in the early 2000s. This time, he was admitted to the rank of colonel and sent to South Kivu. He remained in the ranks for a few years, before deserting in 2012, for the umpteenth time, to join the M23.
Placed under UN sanction in 2012 for “murder, mutilation, sexual violence, kidnapping” and for recruiting minors, he is also accused by the NGO Human Rights Watch of “massacres” in North Kivu. The soldier, however, says he “does not like war” and justifies his military campaigns by the political struggle started with his “mentor” Laurent Nkunda, explains a source close to Congolese intelligence. “We chose this path because all else failed. We have irresponsible people at the top of the state, bandits, people who believe that the country belongs to them,” he describes in the interview with Igihe.
But its objectives remain mysterious to this day. Is he a warmonger driven by Kigali and Kampala? A military strategist who has played a role in all Congolese rebellions? A political opponent driven by the protection of his community? Maybe a little of all of these. “His community was slaughtered and he is now advocating for his people. It has to start somewhere to change the Congo,” replies Willy Ngoma. Inclinations for change which in less than a year have thrown more than 900,000 people on the roads of North Kivu.
