The eastern Congo is awash with rebels and militias, as well as troops of the Democratic Republic and the UN forces sent to the region. Twenty plus rebel / military groups have been noted in various parts of the region.

The two major rebel factions in the Goma region are the FDLR and the CNDP. The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) consist of several thousand Hutu tribesmen who fled Rwanda after their genocidal hold on that nation was overthrown. Laurent Nkunda heads a rebel army of Tutsis, National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), which consists in part of the remnants of two brigades of the national army.

The region has been subject to military invasion from Rwanda and Uganda in the last decade, and enemies of those governments have sought refuge in the area.

Nearly all the armed parties have been accused of brutal atrocities, the use of child soldiers and the use of rape as a weapon of war.

The mineral wealth of the eastern Congo attracts bandits and the armies, and mineral smuggling is unchecked. Charcoal is the most common form of fuel for cooking, and its production is also a key means of financial support for the combatants. Virunga National Park is an attractive source of wood for this, and operations in the park threaten the silverback gorillas there as well as the other flora and fauna.

Yesterday, a number of bloggers were able to interview Major Shannon Beebe who is the Senior Africa Analyst, Office of United States Army Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence. His talk concerned emerging concepts of human security and their application to defense and security strategies in the 21st Century.

He brought up the Congo as an example of a place where human security concerns should be addressed. His studies have broken those down into four topics:

1. Security sector reform
2. Poverty
3. Health
4. Climate change / Environmental shock

It is easy to see how these four concerns, lumped together as human security, are daily if not minute to minute concerns of the people of the eastern Congo.

I challenged him on the mechanisms for addressing the first of these concerns, security sector reform. He suggested that something as simple as paying the local police more would have an impact.

My counter was to point out that in most of Africa, and in the Congo in particular, the national government could only view such reforms as an attempt to overthrow the existing government. From independence on, the Congo and its regions have changed governments as often as some officer or local leader could accumulate enough resources to stage a revolt. Many of these revolts and coups were supported and sponsored by foreign governments and large corporate interests.

Major Beebe went on to discuss his activites in the Congo.

From the transcript [PDF]:

Great example is when I was in Goma. There was charcoaling going on in the Virunga National Park, the oldest national park in Africa, home of some of the remaining 800 silverback gorillas. There was real concern there.

Now, was it because these rebels that were in the park really wanted to destroy the environment, really wanted to destroy this international heritage? No. It was because they were starving to death and needed food, needed money to buy supplies.

So again, they start — they understood, there are a lot of connections here. This is a system of systems type of approach. And there is a need to reach out to the military and to work, again, proactively, not in — not in a combat kind of way, not in a kinetic force kind of way, but to use comparative advantage. So that’s one group, is the conservation NGOs.

Q Can I — can I interrupt there? As — to take that concrete example, what would the military’s role be under your paradigm in that kind of instance, the charcoaling issue?

MAJ. BEEBE: I think — well, one of the things that I was able to do was to go in and to talk with some of the — some of the rebel leaders. And there’s — there’s a respect. Militaries pretty much have respect for other militaries. And to be able to talk with them and actually get to sort of the crux of “What it would take for you to stop, how — what are the ways that we can get around doing this?” And just that very simple dialogue that the military was concerned about this — and again, this was in a personal context. I wasn’t over there on a mission from the United States government.

Q Right.

MAJ. BEEBE: But being able to just come back and to understand, okay, well, first off, there’s a need for the charcoal. They’re selling — they’re selling — they’re getting money because there’s a need for it. Well, being able to work with WWF and some of these others to take — it’s a pellet, type of pellets — and substitute these pellets for charcoal and the cutting down of trees; also looking at, “Okay, you’re starving to death; you’re needing food; you’re needing resources,” those kinds of things, then being able to then go back into even some of the microfinance organizations and say, “Look, let’s find some kind of viable legitimate legal type of — type of job framework for these folks so they have some types of incomes.”

Major Beebe had personal contact with rebel leaders, in revolt against a friendly government, the DRC. His activities increased their ability to raise money and fund their rebellion.

It is the official policy of the United States to support the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to support the UN peacekeeping forces, to disarm rebels and to repatriate those from other nations.

His actions disturb me greatly. They call into question his judgment as an Army officer as well as his reliability in carrying out the policies of the United States government despite his personal feelings on the matter.

Major Beebe is on the list to be promoted to Lt Col as of 1 Nov. His next assignment will be at the American Embassy in Angola.