The continued presence of the Hutu militias provided Nkunda with a cause.
In 2005, the general refused an order by the Congolese army
to deploy to another area of the country and officially became a renegade.
His argument: The Tutsis of eastern Congo needed his protection.
LUMUMBA-LIKE LAURENT NKUNDA
For a while, Nkunda had the support of Rwanda,
which considered his forces a necessary bulwark against Hutu militiamen.
Though Rwanda says it no longer supports him,
its sympathy for Nkunda's activities borders on justification.
"Rwanda cannot establish a relationship with such a person,
but we can understand why Nkunda is Nkunda.
We can understand his argument."
To Orwell Today,
re: GOMA'S LUMUMBA VOLCANO and CONGO IS LUMUMBA LAND
Dear Jackie,
I followed your trips very closely to Rwanda. During your first tour I read
that you had visited the North Kivu. I was very pleased about it. LUMUMBA LAND
is a beautiful country indeed. Patrice LUMUMBA was one of the greatest sons
AFRICA has ever had.
This time I would like to introduce to your readers one of his messenger's.
This is LAURENT NKUNDA MIHIGO.
LAURENT was born in the most beautiful place in this world, the North Kivu.
So beautiful that the first European missionaries who came to Africa in the
beginning of the last century thought that they had reached PARADISE on this
EARTH.
Laurent Nkunda was born in Rutshuru in 1967 near the Park of Virunga which is
to be called Park Albert in colonial days. A very nice place. That is where I
first saw LIONS, ELEPHANTS, LEOPARDS in ther natural habitat when I was
younger. It was during MOBUTU's time.
Laurent attended primary school in his birthplace and among his peoples, the
BANYABWISHA, as the Banyarwanda are called in that area.
After his primary school he moved to Goma for his high school studies and
went further to register after graduating to the University of Kisangani in
1987. In the then Zaire the academic teaching was extremely poor so he left and
registered to study psychology at the University of MUDENDE in Rwanda. This
happened during the HABYARIMANA regime.
While in Rwanda Laurent saw the suffering of the Tutsis peoples over there.
When the RPF started the war of liberation Nkunda was in Rwanda. He saw the
repercussions on the little peoples in the country especially on the Tutsis of
Rwanda and at the same time he learned that his own folks were being hunted
back home in Zaire because of being Tutsis and that the Habyarimana regime was
the one orcherestating it.
In 1993 Laurent Nkunda and many other Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese decided
to join the RPF in its struggle for justice, liberation and dignity for all
humankind.
Given his political maturity, Nkunda became right away a POLITICAL cadre in
the RPF from the start. He lived and fought the entire time of the struggle up
to the fight which ended the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.
After the genocide in Rwanda the killers moved to Nkunda's homeland and
proceeded on doing the same thing they had done in Rwanda. They spread the
venom of ethnic hatred in North Kivu and killings against the Tutsis of Congo
got under way.
When the AFDL of Kabila Sr started the war against the Mobutu Regime, Laurent
was there. He fought all the way to Kisangani. When the city fell he was the
man who was in charge of security for Joseph KABILA, the now President of Congo.
Nkunda did not go all the way to Kinshasa. He returned to North Kivu to
insure the security in the region.
When the second war started he was based in Walikale. In 1998 he learned that
KABILA had called for the killings of all Tutsis in the Congo. He got the news
that the banyarwanda peoples were being slaughterd all over the country. Nkunda
took his men and they marched all the way to the Oriental Province capital,
taking over the city on August 29th, 1998, before even the Rwandans and
Ugandans had arrived.
During the entire military campaign in the Congo he played a major role in
all the victories made by the RCD and RPA. Altough he was more of a military
person, he was definitely the most Revolutionary person in the entire RCD - a
man with Conviction and Ideals.
There is a lot to be said about this great person of our times.
All the best,
Sharangabo Rufagari
Greetings Sharangabo,
Thank you very much for explaining how Laurent Nkunda came to be the
protector of Tutsis in the Congo. I have heard a little bit about him over the
past few years as I follow news about the Congo and Rwanda.
When I first started studying the history of the Congo and Rwanda I learned
that in the very old days - before the Germans or the Belgians were there -
that the Mwami of Rwanda had advanced his kingdom into the west beyond Lake
Kivu - in what later became Eastern Congo when the powers-that-be drew their
arbitrary lines dividing Africa amongst the colonizers. That is why that Kivu
area is full of Tutsis - which go by the name of Banyarwanda - but which some
people in the Congo accuse of having come from Rwanda. Yes, it is true that
they DID at one time come from what is NOW known as Rwanda, but that was as
part of winning and expanding their kingdom into what is NOW designated as
belonging to the Congo but before circu 1848 did not.
When I look at a map of Rwanda and the Congo and see where the arbitrary line
was drawn it doesn't make sense that so little was left for Rwanda and so much
was given to the Congo - even though Rwandan people lived there. I'm not saying
that the Congo and Rwanda borders should be redrawn (although deep down I think
they should be) but I'm saying that it isn't fair to treat the present-day
Tutsis there as though they are trespassers in what was once their land. As far
as I can see, they have as much right to be there as any of the other tribes of
the Congo - of which there are hundreds (compared to Rwanda where there are
only three).
With that basic background I understand what some of the fighting is about in
that Eastern part of the Congo and why the Tutsis who are living there (the
Banyarwanda) need some protection from the forces which are trying to empty
them from the Congo - either by forcing them to leave and, if they don't, by
killing them.
Therefore, I have great sympathy for their plight, and am glad that they have
someone - like Laurent Nkundu - sticking around to protect them from the Hutu
genocidaires who - after killing Tutsis in Rwanda - are now in the Congo
killing Tutsis there.
I have a love for the Congo - just as I have a love for Rwanda - and I
appreciate their heroes - ie Lumumba in the Congo and Kagame in Rwanda. And it
may be, as you say, that Nkunda can be added to the list of heroes of "the
people" - the ones who, as George Orwell said, "are passed continually from
conqueror to conqueror, and are expended like so much coal or oil in the race
to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory... to control more labour
power... to turn out more armaments... to capture more territory... and so on
indefinitely".
It's hard to imagine that a place so like "paradise on earth" - as your
pictures show (and as I saw for myself when I was on the Rwandan side of Lake
Kivu in the south AND north) is suffering the pangs of hell with this
never-ending war waged by the Hutus and their accomplices against the Tutsis in
the Eastern Congo. Thank heaven for Laurent Nkunda because from what I've read
so far, he has solutions for living side-by-side peacefully - but will fight -
if must be - to get that peace.
Below are two articles about Laurent Nkunda that I read recently in the
Washington Post and Uganda's New Vision. The map shows the areas of Nkunda's
"domain" - with the locations of some of the places you mentioned.
All the best,
Jackie Jura
Congo struggling to stay in one piece
New Vision, Aug 20, 2007
".....Hutu rebels from Rwanda, many of whom took part in the genocide of
1994, once gave the Rwandan government a reason for invading eastern Congo.
They no longer threaten Kigali, Rwanda¡¯s capital. But their presence in Congo
enrages their Tutsi enemies in Congo¡¯s east, especially their self-proclaimed
protector, Gen. Laurent Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi who refused to join the army
after the war and has led a rebellion in the east instead.
Kabila¡¯s government says it wants Nkunda arrested for war crimes, but Kabila
has also sent an envoy to negotiate. Turning down an offer of $2.5m and a life
of exile in South Africa, Nkunda accepted a deal in January to integrate some
of his men into the national army. Kabila hoped this would weaken Nkunda.
Instead, it let him recruit more Tutsis and others from Rwanda. He claims still
to want to join the national army, but his influence has spread across North
Kivu. By taking over the police, tax collection and the intelligence services,
he runs a parallel administration.
Kabila is now sending soldiers, tanks and helicopter gunships to the east,
threatening to squash Nkunda for good. ¡°There is an international plot against
the Tutsis and we won¡¯t accept it,¡± says Nkunda in his headquarters. ...
(http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/459/582368)
For Tutsis of Eastern Congo, Protector, Exploiter or Both?
Washington Post, Aug 6, 2007
KICHANGA, Congo -- On the way to the mountain headquarters of renegade
Congolese Gen. Laurent Nkunda, there are villages patrolled by Laurent Nkunda's
police and checkpoints where Nkunda's soldiers demand that truck drivers pay a
tax to support their leader's cause. Local residents can settle disputes these
days in Nkunda's courts or attend church with a priest appointed by Nkunda, who
is wanted on war crimes charges but lately has been wearing a button that reads
"Rebels for Christ." What amounts to Radio Free Nkunda broadcasts from a
mountaintop around here. And though the general denies it, villagers said that
earlier this year Nkunda hoisted a flag and declared his mountain fiefdom a new
country: Land of the Volcanoes.
"Is it really Nkunda who is the problem?" asked Nkunda, who carries a
gold-tipped baton and often refers to himself in the third person. "They want
to keep me as the problem so that they can explain all the problems in Congo
through Nkunda. . . . But I will protect myself, and I will protect these small
number of Tutsis who are here."
Congo is a vast country with a history of vast personalities. Mobutu Sese
Seko, who renamed the nation Zaire and ruled for almost four decades, ordered
news broadcasts to open with an image of him descending godlike from the
clouds, and some here consider Laurent Nkunda the country's latest well-armed
megalomaniac.
U.N. officials blame the general for forcing an estimated 230,000 people from
their homes since January and creating the worst humanitarian disaster Congo
has experienced since the peak of its decade of civil war. Displacement camps
filled with sick, hungry and injured people are scattered across the east once
again, and U.N. officials warn that Congo is on the brink of another all-out
conflict.
But Nkunda, an admirer of such diverse leaders as Gandhi and President Bush,
says he is fighting for a cause greater than himself: protecting Congolese
Tutsis, whose story is wrapped up in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan
genocide, evidence of which still litters the rolling, green forests here.
"The government can get rid of Nkunda," said Joseph Sebagisha, a leader in
the Tutsi community, which backs Nkunda heavily and includes some of the
region's wealthiest businessmen. "But the reasons why he is doing what he is
doing will continue to exist."
Though it is difficult to speak of a minority in a country with more than 400
different tribes, the Tutsis have for decades considered themselves a
vulnerable group.
As is common across Africa, the ethnic group was divided by arbitrary
colonial borders, with most of its members living in what became Rwanda and
others in eastern Congo. During Rwanda's independence struggle, many wealthy
Rwandan Tutsis fled into eastern Congo, and over the years, politicians here
have frequently cast Tutsis as outsiders.
Ethnic clashes targeting the Tutsis broke out in eastern Congo in 1993. A
year later, following the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate
Hutus were killed, more than a million Hutu refugees and genocidal Hutu
militiamen poured across the border and continued to massacre Congolese Tutsis.
The Rwandan army, allied with the Tutsi-dominated rebel forces of Congo's
future president, Laurent Kabila, soon followed, carrying out massacres in Hutu
refugee camps and villages. Among Kabila's anti-Mobutu forces at the time was a
young, Rwandan-trained intelligence officer named Laurent Nkunda, a Tutsi who
had lost members of his family in ethnic clashes.
After the Rwandan invasion, anti-Tutsi sentiment ran high. One politician
gave a speech urging Congolese people to "exterminate the vermin," referring to
Tutsis. And Kabila, after overthrowing Mobutu, turned on his Rwandan backers,
arming the genocidal Hutu militiamen to fight them.
One of the century's bloodiest wars followed, with nine African nations
eventually engaged in a mad scramble for eastern Congo's abundant mineral
riches. Some researchers have estimated that at least 4 million people died
during the war years, mostly from disease, hunger and the collapse of human
services associated with the fighting.
Although a peace agreement was signed in 2004, militia groups have continued
to plague eastern Congo, including at least 6,000 Rwandan Hutu militiamen who
were never disarmed.
By now, some of them have blended into village life, starting farms and
marrying Congolese women. Others, however, have remained organized under
genocidal leaders in the thick eastern forests, living off whatever they can
pillage from the local residents they routinely terrorize.
"The root causes of the wars in eastern Congo have never been solved," said
Jason Stearns, an analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.
"The problem of the Tutsis and of the Rwandan Hutus has not been addressed."
The continued presence of the Hutu militias provided Nkunda with a cause. In
2005, the general refused an order by the Congolese army to deploy to another
area of the country and officially became a renegade. His argument: The Tutsis
of eastern Congo needed his protection.
For a while, Nkunda had the support of Rwanda, which considered his forces a
necessary bulwark against Hutu militiamen. Though Rwanda says it no longer
supports him, its sympathy for Nkunda's activities borders on justification.
"Rwanda cannot establish a relationship with such a person, but we can
understand why Nkunda is Nkunda," Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Murigande
said in an interview. "We can understand his argument."....
In his territory -- a wide swath of lush, black-soil mountains including
farms owned by wealthy Tutsi businessmen -- villagers report having to submit
to ideological training in which they profess loyalty to the movement, which
now has a political party, a Web site, flags, songs and the radio station that
broadcasts messages about "tribal unity." Nkunda has usurped local government
authority, establishing police and courts, paying some villagers' school fees
and even purchasing generators for local hospitals. There is a video in
circulation that shows Nkunda's men -- some of whom belong to an elite group
called Che, for the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara --
goose-stepping and saluting their leader, who waves and smiles back. "I'm
sensitizing others to protect the minority," Nkunda said in a recent interview.
"I want to be one of the great hearts in Congo." He was relaxing in a Nike
tracksuit at a farmhouse high on a hill, his soldiers standing guard
outside. His current reading was a French book titled "The Paradox of
Strategy." He talked at length about Congo's potential greatness, Christian
leadership, Bush, military strategy and an idea he has of importing 100,000
macadamia nut trees to help develop his area. He spoke of biofuels.
Yet Nkunda insisted that his goals are limited: He wants the Congolese
government to disarm the Hutu militias and to allow thousands of Congolese
Tutsi refugees who fled into Rwanda during Congo's war to return home. Instead
of addressing those issues, he said, the Congolese government is "turning
Nkunda into the problem," and planning to attack him. At the moment, there are
signs that the Congolese army could be preparing for such an offensive, which
U.N. officials have warned could trigger a wider regional conflict.
Analysts fear that as his father did, Congo's President Joseph Kabila could
decide to use the Hutu militias because the Congolese army is weak and because
the Hutu commanders would like nothing more than to occupy Nkunda's position
along the Rwandan border. Murigande, the Rwandan foreign minister, said that
such a move would "start worrying us seriously." "That might be a disaster," he
said. "Because we are also able to fight."
Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events
~
website: www.orwelltoday.com & email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
email: Orwell Today
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