East Africa: Violence in the Eastern Congo - Rwanda Fights to Maintain
Economic Control of the Region
By Herman J. 'Hank' Cohen, 30 July 2012
analysis
An army mutiny that began in the eastern DRC last April has now become
extremely serious with the creation of thousands of refugees and much
controversy over who is behind the continued violence. A United Nations
panel of experts has accused the Government of Rwanda of supporting mutinous
Congolese army units with arms, money, training and new recruits. The
government of Rwanda has vehemently denied the charges. The United States
Government has sent a hostile signal to Rwanda by canceling a small military
assistance program. US-Rwanda relations are cooling.
To put the current conflict into perspective, it is important to note that
what happens in the eastern Congolese provinces of North and South Kivu is
of vital importance to Rwanda's economic and political security. The 1994
genocide that resulted in the deaths of as many as 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis,
the country's minority ethnic group, tied the security of the eastern Congo
and Rwanda inexorably together.
The 1994 genocide ended when the Rwanda Patriotic Army, a group of exiled
Tutsi invaders from Uganda, defeated the Rwandan military. Over a million
Hutu civilians ran away across the border into refugee camps in Kivu. The
ecaping perpetrators of genocide went into the refugee camps as well, and
began plotting to regain power in Rwanda through guerrilla warfare.
In 1996, the Rwandan army crossed the border into Kivu and broke up the Hutu
refugee camps. Most of the refugees returned to Rwanda. Approximately
100,000 ran westward more deeply into the Congo, along with the genocidal
perpetrators. The Rwandan army pursued them, and captured most of them near
the major city of Kisangani at the headwaters of the Congo River. These
civilians, men, women and children, were murdered because their refusal to
return to Rwanda apparently made them accomplices to genocide.
In addition to perpetrating this second genocide in the Great Lakes region
in a matter of two years, the Rwandan army also created a surrogate army of
Congolese dissidents, and supported them in a campaign to capture the
capital city of Kinshasa, driving the sitting president, Mobutu Sese Seku,
into exile, and installing a new head of state, Laurent-Desirée Kabila, a
long time Congolese dissident in exile.
Between their first armed entry into Kivu in 1996, and their formal
departure in 2002, after six years of multinational military conflict, the
Rwandan army controlled eastern DRC under military occupation. It is not
hard to imagine that during those six years, the Rwandan government
developed very strong economic, political and security ties to the two Kivu
provinces. Indeed, even after the formal departure of Rwandan forces in
2002, local Congolese militias, and some Congolese army units, remained
under Rwandan influence and control.
North and South Kivu are rich in mineral resources, some of which are vital
to telecommunications, and are imported in massive quantities by American
and European equipment makers. During their military control of the Kivus,
the Rwandans established strong commercial links with the mineral producers.
These links developed to such an extent that a substantial percentage of
Rwanda's gross domestic product comes from the non-legal mineral trade
originating in the eastern Congo.
At present, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, after
the completion of its 2011 election, is trying to regain control of its own
territory and natural resources. Several units of the Congolese army,
stationed in the Kivu provinces, have effectively been under the control and
influence of the Rwandan government. These units have been protecting
Rwanda's commercial supply lines that deliver the valuable minerals. The
Congolese Government wants to retake control of these units, and either
disarm them, or transfer them to other regions of this vast country. The
economic stakes are too high for Rwanda, and it is virtually impossible for
Rwanda to acquiesce in this attempted reversal of the military balance in
the eastern Congo.
The current fighting may however be the end of the line for Rwanda's
illegitimate exploitation of the eastern Congo's mineral resources. The fact
that the UN peacekeeping mission in the Congo (MONUSCO) is fighting on the
side of the official army is an indication that the international community
has had enough. Rwanda may consequently be entering a period of difficulty.
Herman J. "Hank" Cohen served as the United States Assistant Secretary of
State for African Affairs from 1989 to 1993.
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Received on Mon Jul 30 2012 - 17:55:45 EDT
