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Fighting in
Congo
Ethnic violence has claimed thousands of lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the past few years. Sarah Left explains Tuesday May 27, 2003 What is happening in Congo? Rival ethnic factions in the country's Ituri province, near Uganda, have been taking part in a chaotic two-way slaughter that has left around 50,000 people dead since 1998. The latest town to attract attention is Ituri's capital, Bunia, where residents fled in fear of Hema and Lendu militias wielding machetes, spears and guns. The corpses of men, women and children lie rotting, burning and abandoned in Bunia's streets. The ethnic violence claimed approximately 800 lives in the town over two weeks. How did it come to this? The situation in Ituri must be seen in the context four and a half years of civil war in Congo, which has involved the armies of six African countries. As part of that war, soldiers from neighbouring Uganda exacerbated rivalries in Ituri by favouring one side over the other. When the Ugandan troops withdrew as part of a peace deal to end the larger civil war, local Hema and Lendu militias went to war with each other. What is the UN doing about the slaughter in Ituri? At the moment, very little. The UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, has called for countries to contribute peacekeeping troops. Canada, France, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa and the UK have all expressed interest in the project, but so far no force has moved in to stop the fighting and support the small UN observer contingent already on the ground. How many people have died in the civil war? No one knows. Estimates range from 3.3 million to 4.7 million, with most succumbing to famine and disease. Why has the UN not intervened? Many would say that Congo simply lacks the strategic importance and oil reserves of Iraq, or the proximity of Kosovo and Bosnia. But there is also a pragmatic explanation: with whom would the UN side? Congo's government has limited reach in a deeply divided country nearly the size of western Europe. Even if UN troops stopped the slaughter in the short term, it would be a much tougher job to ensure security when the UN inevitably pulled out. Previous attempts by western governments to stabilise meltdown states in Africa - the US in Somalia, France in Rwanda - ended in disaster. One thing is certain: the current UN force of 4,000 in Congo is woefully inadequate to the task of protecting civilians in areas consumed by ethnic violence. If they had been in Bunia in force, lives could well have been saved. How did the civil war start? The Democratic Republic of the Congo - known as Zaire before former leader Laurent Kabila changed the name in 1997 (and not to be confused with neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville) - was ruled for over 30 years by Mobutu Sese Seko, a brutal dictator. Mobutu's grip on power was slipping nine years ago when a civil war in neighbouring Rwanda broke out. The Hutu, who make up the majority of the Rwandan population, began slaughtering the minority Tutsi. The genocidal murder of 800,000 Tutsis came to an end when Tutsi forces gained control of the country. The now outlawed Hutus fled to Zaire where they were sheltered by Mobutu. How did the Rwandan war spill over into Zaire? Rwanda - along with another neighbouring country, Uganda - wanted to round up the Hutu rebels and bring them back, but the government felt it could not simply invade Zaire without a better excuse. To cover up its actions, Rwanda and Uganda recruited Kabila to lead an indigenous revolt within Zaire to bring down Mobutu. The Rwandans and Ugandans felt that if Kabila won power, he would protect their countries by stamping out the Hutu rebels. What went wrong? Kabila was hailed as a conquering hero when he marched into Congo's capital, Kinshasa, in May 1997 to oust Mobutu. The people of Congo needed a change of leadership and hoped he would turn around the legacy of terror and corruption left behind by Mobutu. And Kabila's backers in Rwanda and Uganda felt they could now wage war on the Hutu rebels with his blessing. One year later, Kabila changed his mind about the Hutus and refused to force them back into Rwanda. The Rwandans and Ugandans abruptly switched sides and began to support rebels seeking to overthrow Kabila. For his part, Kabila courted support from Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, all of which had interests in using the vast nation of Congo for its own purposes. Angola wanted to fight the rebels from its own civil war who sheltered in Congo, and Zimbabwe was hoping to get rich off the mineral rights Kabila signed over. Has the civil war ended? The foreign armies have withdrawn, or mostly so, as the result of a peace deal signed in December. However, convincing unofficial militias - most importantly the Hutu Interehamwe from Rwanda - to cease the killing will prove far more difficult. It can be difficult to find out which, if any, foreign powers are behind a particular local outbreak of ethnic violence. Prolonging the war would benefit some of Rwanda's neighbours, who have access to the country's mineral wealth while the government in Kinshasa is distracted. But it could also benefit the ruling administration, which will have to submit to a power-sharing deal under the terms of the peace accord. Why is the Congo's government so ineffective? Congo never recovered from the vacuum of power left when Mobutu fled the country in 1997. The intimate involvement of numerous and competing foreign interests makes the Congo difficult to govern effectively, and the current leader, Joseph Kabila, got the job only after his father Laurent was assassinated in 2001. Much of the country's infrastructure has been destroyed in the civil war, particularly in the eastern part of the country nearest Rwanda and Uganda. Is Congo doomed to war and poverty? It does not have to be. Congo sits at the centre of Africa and is the third largest nation on the continent. It has a vast wealth of minerals, including gold and oil, and plenty of land that could be used for lucrative agriculture or mineral exploitation. But years of war and the vast debt left behind by Mobutu will present stark challenges to future governments The
Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy" Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie" |
