An op-ed from South Africa's "(Sunday) Times"...
Until Rwanda extends full political rights to its Hutus, their fight will continue play out in its western neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and destabilise the region, writes Jan van Eck.
Since the signing of the comprehensive peace accord for the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003, the eastern part of the DRC has continued to destabilise, resulting in hundreds of thousands of Congolese citizens fleeing on a continuing basis.
It is clear that, unless a new strategy is formulated, one that will focus on addressing the real root causes of the conflict, the region will move irrevocably towards a major new crisis.
In such an event, not only the eastern DRC will be drawn in, but also its eastern neighbours, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, since the present ethnically based conflict in eastern DRC has its origins in these countries.
While much attention has been paid to the negative role the so-called renegade Congolese Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda has played in stoking the fires in eastern Congo, he has, in the process, helped to expose the ethnic cancer that continues to fester in the sub-region and [that] prevents member countries from genuinely stabilising. Although in some circles it may be seen as politically incorrect to acknowledge this, it remains a critically important fact that too many people are trying to ignore.
Nkunda has made it clear that he has refused to be part of the Congolese army (FARDC), since it is not protecting the Tutsis in eastern Congo from attacks by Rwandan Hutu militia, including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which inhabit the same region as his Congolese Tutsis.
The FDLR, as well as other Rwandan Hutu political and military movements and groupings, comprise not only conventional Hutu political opponents of the “oppressive Tutsi regime of President Paul Kagame”, but also Hutus who participated in the 1994 genocide of about one million Rwandan Tutsis.
These anti-Rwandan Hutu militias and movements are seen by Nkunda as posing a threat not only to the Congolese Tutsis of Rwandan origin in eastern Congo (who have been living there for generations), but also to the Tutsi-led government in Rwanda.
In spite of official denials by Kigali, virtually all informed observers believe that Nkunda is quite clearly fighting a proxy war in eastern Congo on behalf of the Rwandan government. When Rwanda invaded the DRC (then Zaire) in 1996, and again in 1998, its objectives were exactly the same as those of Nkunda: destroy all the Rwandan Hutu militias and opposition groups based in eastern Congo, which threaten the security of both the Congolese Tutsis and Rwanda itself.
It needs to be remembered that the 1998 Rwandan invasion of eastern Congo, with the support of then-ally Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, brought about Africa’s so-called First World War, which lasted from 1998 to 2003.
Not only did this war draw in at least six other regional armies, but it [also] resulted in about six million Congolese being killed by fighting, hunger, and disease. Among them were many of the people [that] Rwanda had targeted: the armed and unarmed Hutu opposition movements and militias based in eastern Congo.
The fact that many non-Tutsi Congolese, who were sympathetic to these Rwanda Hutu exiles and had given them refuge, were also killed by the invading Rwandan forces has created an extremely volatile anti-Rwandan/Tutsi sentiment among ordinary Congolese inhabitants of eastern DRC.
Since Nkunda will also target those Congolese who “harbour” Hutu militias (generally described as being genocidaires), his present military actions will heighten anti-Rwandan/Tutsi sentiments in the region.
Because these Hutu exiles and militias — and even those suspected of having participated in the Rwandan genocide — have lived in eastern Congo for the past 13 years, many of them have been integrated into Congolese society. The fact that many of these Hutu militias have also been integrated into the Congolese Army resulted in Nkunda refusing to remain part of it, claiming that the army was willing neither to fight the Hutu militias nor to protect the Congolese Tutsis.
Although this allegation, too, is officially denied, there is little doubt that he has a point.
Contrary to the Rwandan and Ugandan governments, the Congolese government has always been more sympathetic to the Hutus of the region than the Tutsis. Tanzania falls in the same category. In the case of DRC President Joseph Kabila, who owes his presidency to the support [that] he received from the eastern DRC — a region strongly anti-Rwanda/Tutsi — it would be politically virtually impossible for him to be seen to move contrary to this sentiment.
It is Kabila’s perceived support for Rwandan Hutu exiles and, indirectly, for their militias — and their reported inclusion into the Congolese Army — which makes it impossible for relations between him and Rwandan President Kagame to normalise — however many conciliatory statements they may make during regional peace conferences. The latest agreement on this issue between the DRC and Rwanda on November 9 in Nairobi, that the DRC will “disarm and expel genocidal forces from the DRC”, is the seventh such agreement. Rwanda’s ambassador commented that it was welcome “if honoured”.
Ongoing threats since 2003 by the Rwandan government that it would again invade eastern DRC [in order] to “deal with” the genocidal Rwandan Hutu militias (as it did in 1996 and 1998) unless the international community took action, resulted in the region and the international community, under the leadership of the US, creating the Tripartite Plus Commission.
The objective of this commission, which includes Rwanda, the DRC, Uganda, and Burundi (since its democratic elections of 2005), is to identify what it calls foreign “negative forces” operating against neighbouring countries from eastern Congo. Presently this includes every Rwandan Hutu militia and groups opposed to the Rwandan government. Actions proposed and implemented include international military action, sanctions against militias, and arresting and charging identified rebel and militia leaders at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. (Other armed movements from neighbouring countries, who are accused of using eastern DRC territory to destabilise their countries of origin, are also targeted.)
It is, however, evident that this punitive and military approach will not succeed. And if it fails, Rwanda will again be “justified” in invading eastern DRC and “solving the problem themselves”.
Kagame hinted at this earlier this year when he said: “I plan to talk to President Kabila about ending this situation of insurrection against Rwanda, which always comes from part of the eastern DRC.” He added that an incursion by Rwanda was “currently not necessary”. Five months after he made this statement, and looking at the present developments in eastern DRC and the obvious inability of both the DRC army and the UN force Monuc to deal militarily with this issue, one can only speculate about what his present position is.
The only solution is a political one.
Due to the horrific ethnic slaughter during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front, which invaded Rwanda from Uganda before the genocide and took power afterwards, decided on a policy of making it illegal to politically mobilise Hutus and Tutsis.
Although the intention was to prevent people from mobilising and entrenching ethnic divisions, spreading ethnic hatred and, in the process, prevent a repetition of 1994, Rwandan Hutus who oppose what they perceive to be a dominant Tutsi government until today have no political voice in Rwanda. Even the former Hutu Rwandan president, Pasteur Bizimungu, who was a high-ranking member of the dominant Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front, has been in jail for years.
Unless the Rwandan government opens up the possibility of Rwandan Hutus exercising what should be a normal democratic right, that is, forming a predominantly Hutu party, the Hutu military and political movements in exile in the eastern DRC will continue to grow — both in determination to liberate their country and in numbers — with more and more politicised Hutus supporting them.
Unless Rwanda liberalises its internal political situation, and allows freedom of political and ethnic expression (as is, for example, the case in neighbouring Burundi), it will remain under threat from politicised Hutus — most of whom are either in eastern DRC or in the diaspora.
If 13 years after the genocide Rwandans still cannot be trusted to not use ethnicity to repeat the genocide, the country is surely in serious trouble. Invading the DRC to root out these Hutus is neither justified nor a solution.
If the Rwandan government is not able or willing to do this, the conflict will worsen and continue to create the humanitarian disaster [that] we are yet again witnessing. Other neighbouring countries, such as Burundi, will be drawn in.
With its transition from years of conflict and war to democracy still very fragile, and with attempts to include the remaining Burundian-based Hutu armed movement, the Palipehutu-FNL, having reached virtual deadlock, a regional ethnically based conflict could seriously undermine its attempts to conclude its peace process.
Van Eck has for 12 years been involved in conflict resolution and informal peace facilitation in Burundi. As conflict analyst he has focused on the region as a whole. He is [a] consultant to the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria and a former ANC MP.
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