National Intelligence Agency (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

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The Agence Nationale de Renseignements (ANR) is a government intelligence agency of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The role of the agency is to ensure "internal security and external security" of the state. The agency was strongly criticized for the disrespect of human rights by several organisations.[1] Inzun Kakiak has led the agency since 2011.

History

Background

In 1993 the administrative director of the Service national d'identification et de protection (SNIP) was Admiral Mavua Mudima, now Defence minister in the 1996-97 Kengo wa Dondo government.[2] In November 1993 Admiral Mavua was replaced by his assistant, Mr. Goga wa Dondo, a half-brother of prime minister Kengo wa Dondo. Mr. Goga wa Dondo was replaced in November 1995 by his assistant, a Mr. Atundu (first name unknown).

On Tuesday, February 13, 1996, Zaire handed to the Rwandan government rusting artillery pieces, troop carriers, arms and ammunition seized from fleeing Hutu former Rwandan government troops at the end of Rwanda's 1994 genocide.[3] Zairean Defence Minister Admiral Mavua Mudima handed over the weapons in a ceremony near the northwestern Rwandan border with Zaire. The weapons included two 105mm howitzers, one without its barrel, four anti-aircraft guns and six dusty French-made armoured personnel carriers with flat tyres and smashed windows.

Formation & early years

The ANR was created in the beginning of 1997 as intelligence service of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL). In May 1997, the agency integrated the premises of the former Service national d'intelligence et de protection (SNIP), which had been renamed Direction générale de la sûreté nationale (DGSN) in 1996. On 16 April 1997 Mudima accompanied by General Baramoto Kpama fled the collapsing Mobutu regime, flying to South Africa aboard Baramoto's private jet.[4]

On 13 December 1997, three former senior Mobutu officers (Admiral Mavua Mudima accompanied by Baramoto Kpama, and Nzimbi Nzale) were briefly detained in South Africa after returning from Kahemba, an area still controlled by UNITA forces and awash with ex-FAZ and Hutu militiamen.[5] Their arrest may have pre-empted a coup attempt.

In October 2002, Georges Leta Mangasa, the chairman of ANR, was sentenced to death with other persons in the course of Laurent-Désiré Kabila's assassination. Before this, in 2001, the interim president, Joseph Kabila, appointed Kazadi Nyembwe for the chair of the ANR.

Notes and references

  1. Responses to information requests: Democratic Republic of the Congo (RDC38748.FE), Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, 25 March 2002.
  2. Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, [1], accessed January 2014
  3. http://jiscmediahub.ac.uk/record/display/043-00039296;jsessionid=6E0BAEC13FB9D8FD4DEFF60235BF03F9#sthash.NncVYf3r.dpuf
  4. Prunier, From Genocide to Continental War, 136.
  5. Southern Africa Report, May 1998. Mudima was only formally retired from the FARDC in July 2013.