This week a U.N. Security Council committee placed sanctions on a Ugandan
Islamist group, the Allied Democratic Forces, for using child soldiers,
killing and abusing women and children, and attacks on U.N. peacekeepers.
Council diplomats say the group, which has been operating in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, will now be subject to travel bans and asset freezes.
The Allied Democratic Forces is one of the oldest armed groups in eastern
Congo, but it is also one of the most mysterious. The ADF originated as a
coalition of groups in western Uganda who found themselves marginalized
after the fall of the late president Idi Amin.
In the early 1990s they regrouped inside Congo, in the territory of Beni,
where they forged alliances with powerful individuals from the Nande
community and made money from timber and gold.
ADF's various links
The Ugandan government has alleged that ADF has support from Sudan, an
assertion backed up by Western diplomatic sources. It also says the ADF has
links with Somalia's al-Shabab, although some analysts contest this.
Analysts agree the group has a bad human rights record. Residents of Beni
are calling for an investigation of mass graves that were found near some
former ADF camps to see if people the group kidnapped were buried there.
"The ADF is particularly known for its kidnapping campaigns," said Timo
Mueller, who studies armed groups in eastern Congo for the U.S.-based Enough
project. "They kidnapped people -- children, as well as elderly people -- in
2013. Unfortunately, this did not evoke the same kind of international
outrage that another rebel group in Nigeria, Boko Haram, caused."
Hardly any of the kidnap victims have been found, and very few of the
estimated 800 to 1,200 ADF fighters have deserted or been captured. Mueller
suggested they differ somewhat from Congo's other armed groups.
"Unfortunately few people have direct insights into the group's dynamics,
but what is known is that this group is Islamic in nature - fundamentalist
in nature," he said. "There's a strong ideology and also coercion and a
control system inside the group."
Intensified operations
In the past six months the Congolese army, or FARDC, has stepped up
operations against the group, and both sides have taken significant
casualties.
"The FARDC did secure most of the group's former strongholds, but the
problem is that the ADF has not been neutralized yet," said Mueller.
"Rather, the problem has been displaced elsewhere, namely to the Orientale
province, north of their former strongholds, so the FARDC, together with the
U.N. peacekeeping mission need to keep up the pressure on the ADF, not just
militarily but also economically."
Mueller believes the U.N. sanctions will help to weaken the group, but says
other actions will be needed.
"I think overall sanctions against the rebel leaders, or against the rebel
group as such, are important but they are not sufficient. They do have an
effect," he said. "There are travel bans in place, limitations against their
financial transactions, cutting off their revenues, not all of them but some
that are important."
The governor of Congo's North Kivu province recently praised the army for
its success against the ADF, but said he thought it might take another six
months to a year to finish them off.