Text:
http://www.africanews.org/central/congo-kinshasa/stories/19981221_feat3.html
Source App: [War in Democratic Republic of Congo: Participants, Events and
Motivations - Netscape]
War in Democratic Republic of Congo: Participants, Events and
Motivations
December 21, 1998
Kinshasa - The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is in turmoil with current
happenings obfuscated by a cloud of claims, counter-claims and general
confusion. This article by AANA Correspondent Tom Heaton helps to cast a beam of
light through that cloud and make sense of what really is going on in this vast
African republic.
To bring clarity to the current DRC situation, it is necessary to trace events back to January 1986 when Yoweri Museveni's troops marched into Kampala.
During his five-year campaign at the head of the National Resistance Army, NRA, to bring about the overthrow of the government of Milton Obote and his successors, Museveni relied on the services of substantial numbers of Rwandan Tutsi soldiers. These soldiers were either refugees who had taken refuge in Uganda following the 1973 massacres in Rwanda or the children of refugees who had fled earlier massacres.
They joined the NRA because they sought military training and experience which, following Museveni's victory, they hoped to apply in order to fulfil their aspiration of overthrowing the then Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana. Some of these soldiers, such as the present Rwandan vice-president, Paul Kagame, and the late Fred Rwigyema Kisa, had risen to high ranks in the NRA and, after its victory, began planning their own.
Museveni was fully aware of these plans. However, he believed that a peaceful solution for Rwanda remained possible.
Soon after taking office, therefore, he travelled to Kigali and met Habyarimana, to whom he suggested that the Rwandan refugees in Uganda be allowed to go home and be resettled in Rwanda. He explained to Habyarimana the impending dangers, considering that so many of the refugees were now highly trained and battle -hardened soldiers.
In response, Habyarimana is said to have picked up a bottle of water and poured
its contents into a glass up to the brim. He said to Museveni: "Rwanda is like
that glass." With this response, Habyarimana set the scene for what was
inevitably to come next.
Having rejected Museveni's solution, Habyarimana embarked upon a highly detailed plan for a massacre of Rwandan Tutsis to be physically perpetrated by Rwandan Hutus. While he was doing so, the Uganda-based Tutsis were equally deviously planning to invade their homeland.
The 10,000-strong Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) was formed and struck its first blow on 1st October 1990 when it crossed the border from Uganda. Three and a half years later it had advanced to the approaches of Kigali. It was at this point, on 6th April 1994, that the aircraft in which Hayarimana was travelling was shot down as it was landing at Kigali airport and all on board were killed. By this time the killing plans in Rwanda had been perfected and Habyarimana's death triggered their implementation.
The horrors which followed have been well documented. What remains highly regrettable, however, is that the UN had accurate information already in January 1994 that a genocide was being planned and that its unleashing was imminent.
But instead of acting on it, the present UN secretary-general Kofi Annan instructed the commander of the UN troops there, the Canadian Maj-Gen Romeo Dallaire, who had provided the information, to do nothing beyond reporting the matter to Habyarimana's government. (So much did this inaction at the time prey on the mind of Dallaire that he is recently reported to have suffered a nervous breakdown).
When the massacre actually began, instead of intervening to stop it, the UN withdrew all but 270 of its troops. In June the UN authorized the entry of French troops, which effectively facilitated the exodus into eastern Zaire of what was left of the defeated government army together with the Hutu Interahamwe militia perpetrators of the genocide, taking with them government arms, movable assets and money.
Then, in the huge refugee camps in Zaire, the UN took no action to separate killers from innocent people, leaving the running of the camps to the most extreme elements among the inmates, which in turn terrorized those wishing to go home into refraining from doing so. Faced with this situation, the Zairean president, Mobutu Sese Seko, decided to act to restore the former Rwandan government to power.
Having earlier deprived the Tutsi Banyamulenge, who had lived in eastern Zaire for about 200 years, of their citizenship, he now ordered his army, reinforced by former Rwandan army soldiers and militias, to attack them. The idea was for the Banyamulenge to be driven into Rwanda and for their territory to be occupied by the Hutu refugees as a base for an onslaught on Rwanda to overthrow the government put in place by the RPA.
The plan, launched in November 1996, misfired. The Banyamulenge had long prepared and armed themselves, and now crushingly defeated their attackers. More than a million of the refugees suddenly found themselves free to walk back into Rwanda. About 200,000, however, stayed on.
It would not be unreasonable to conjecture that they included the rump of the hardliners, who feared the consequences of falling into the hands of the new Rwandan government. Large numbers were subsequently massacred, most probably by the Tutsis.
At this point, seeing before them no greater an obstacle than a defeated and demoralized army, the Zairean rebels formed an alliance. Led by Laurent-Desire Kabila and reinforced by Rwandan and Ugandan troops, it swept westwards to Kinshasa.
Mobutu ran away. By May 1997 Kinshasa had been captured and Kabila installed as
president of the phoenix risen out of the ashes of Zaire: the Democratic
Republic of Congo. But then, instead of behaving like the leader of a democratic
country, Kabila soon began to turn himself into an uncompromising dictator.
As this became increasingly apparent, his closest associates proceeded to desert him, one after the other, in favour of a new rebellion, the Congolese Rally for Democracy led by Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, a former professor at Dar es Salaam University.
Its headquarters are at Goma in the east. Having thus alienated the Congolese and Rwandan Tutsis, who, together with the Ugandans, had brought him to power, Kabila, remained with no proper army of his own other than remnants of Mobutu's army.
Desperately needing soldiers he could trust to keep him in the top seat, he turned to Mobutu's former allies. He recruited and rehabilitated 10,000 Interahamwe militias and soldiers of the former Rwandan army.
Kabila announced to the world that what was happening in the DRC was not another rebellion, but an invasion by Rwanda and Uganda, which aimed to create a new empire dominated by Tutsis. Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe responded by sending in troops to help him in his fight against these new enemies.
Imbued with new confidence then, on 2nd August this year, Kabila ordered all the Ugandans and the Rwandan Tutsis to leave the country immediately. This move caused non-Tutsi Congolese to feel justified to attack and kill Tutsis in all towns still controlled by the government.
That this is likely to have been done at the instigation of Kabila himself is indicated by the fact that on 8th August the government-controlled short wave radio station at Bunia in the northeast broadcast a message inciting people to kill Tutsis. The broadcast, in French, monitored by the BBC, told the people to arm themselves "in order, dear listeners, to kill the Rwandan Tutsis." This broadcast alone has served to arouse distrust of Kabila and his group both at home and abroad.
So much for the participants in the turmoil and what they have done so far. Now for what motivates them and the consequences they may face.
The Banyamulenge and Banyarwanda Tutsis of eastern DRC feel ethnically targeted by the Kabila government, particularly since it placed its military reliance on Hutu former soldiers and militias. Moreover, because of what befell members of their tribe in other parts of the DRC, the Congolese Tutsis believe they have no alternative but to defend their land and livelihood by force of arMs.
The Rwandan Tutsis are the natural allies of their Congolese counterparts and know that they will never have any peace in their country unless they defeat once and for all the Rwandan Hutu refugee forces which have now allied themselves with Kinshasa.
The Rwandan Tutsis have also heard Kabila's threat to push his military offensive as far as Kigali, so they see their presence in the DRC as part of a life and death struggle. The Ugandan rebel Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) are based in eastern DRC, from where they are consistently attacking towns and villages in western Uganda.
After Kabila's installation as president, the Ugandan army had troops deployed in the DRC to hunt down the ADF with his blessing. But now the Ugandans have become the enemy.
The Kampala government cannot afford to allow the depredations of the ADF rebels to continue. Besides killing and abducting civilians, they burned parts of Kasese in August and have all but wiped out tourism in the Queen Elizabeth National Park.
Moreover, Sudanese troops accompanied by Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army rebels have, with the blessing of Kabila, entered northeastern DRC with the aim of attacking Uganda. Like the Rwandans, the Ugandans accordingly also see their military presence in eastern DRC as a matter of self-defence.
It is said that President Robert Mugabe sent 8,000 Zimbabwean soldiers into the DRC not so much because he supports Kabila, but because Kabila owes him $80m for goods and services provided him by Zimbabwe during his "great march" to Kinshasa. Mugabe therefore has an interest in Kabila's staying in power in the hope that the debt will be repaid.
But the Zimbabwean soldiers on the ground do not know why they are fighting the Congolese rebels and their allies; nor do they know the terrain. Their enemies know both and are likely to wipe the floor with them.
Mugabe's position at home is already weakened due to land issues and the rising cost of living. If his troops are defeated in the DRC, his position may well become untenable.
The Angolans went in at the less dangerous western end of the country and helped out a bit, mainly to get the chance to hit their own National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA) rebels from DRC territory. Mobutu, who supported UNITA on behalf of the West, had always blocked them from so doing.
But this in turn will encourage UNITA to step up its attacks within Angola. Recent reports that Angola is withdrawing some of its mechanized units from Kananga suggest that such a scenario may already be unfolding.
It is more difficult to understand why the Namibians have sent troops to help Kabila. What is known, however, is that after several of them were killed in the DRC early this month, there was a great outcry by the parents, who had not been told that their sons had been sent there.
President Nujoma would like another term in office, but the more his soldiers are killed in the DRC the less popular he will become. Kabila's argument that his opponents are invaders bent on establishing a Tutsi empire is difficult to sustain when it is realized why there are Rwandan and Ugandan troops on DRC territory in the first place.
They are there because instead of helping to crush the Rwandan and Ugandan rebels, Kabila has allied himself with them, thereby embarking on the same disastrous course as Mobutu when he ordered his army to attack the Congolese Tutsis. Now Kabila does not want to talk with his opponents, who he insists are Rwandan and Ugandan invaders allied with Congolese traitors.
Whoever they might be, they now claim to be in control of about 40 per cent of the country. Kabila declares that he is determined to fight them, but it is a fight which, when all aspects are carefully considered, he cannot be sure of winning.
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