Africa, Headlines | Analysis

POLITICS-AFRICA: Jitters About the Congo

Analysis by Moyiga Nduru

JOHANNESBURG, Jun 22 2004 (IPS) - A substantial build-up of troops along the Democratic Republic of Congo’s border with Rwanda has sparked fears of renewed conflict in central Africa.

Latest reports indicate that about 10,000 troops have been flown to eastern Congo (DRC) by Kinshasa – this after former rebels broke ranks with the army to seize the eastern town of Bukavu earlier this month (Jun. 2). The soldiers withdrew from the town as news of loyalist troops grouping to recapture Bukavu hit the city.

The rebels, led by Jules Mutebusi and Laurent Nkunda, claimed the takeover was motivated by the need to protect Congolese Tutsis, the Banyamulenge, from ethnic cleansing by the military. However, this argument has received short shrift from President Joseph Kabila who believes Rwanda, a former backer of the rebels, is responsible for the incident.

This tiny nation has twice invaded the DRC in pursuit of Hutu extremists who were responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, in which about 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered. Kinshasa has denied that the extremists – also known as the interahamwe, or “those who fight together” in Kinyarwanda – are using Congo as a stepping stone to attack targets inside Rwanda.

The Tutsi-dominated government in Kigali views the latest troop build up as hostile, and has indicated that it will not remain passive in the face of this development.

The Banyamulenge, who speak the same language as the Tutsi, found themselves in the Congo following the partitioning of Africa by European powers in 1885.

In the eyes of most Congolese this ethnic group, which numbers only 300,000 out of a population of 46 million, is composed of foreigners – or to be specific, Rwandans. Highly motivated and battle ready, the Banyamulenge were at the forefront of the 1996 incursion that ultimately led to fall of Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko a year later. They took up arms after Mobutu refused to recognise them as citizens of Zaire, which was later renamed the DRC.

In 1998, the Banyamulenge again found themselves at war – this time with Kabila’s predecessor, his father, Laurent Kabila – whom they had installed in power. However, Kabila senior later ordered the remaining Rwandan military instructors and soldiers who helped him to overthrow Mobutu, out of the country.

The elder Kabila maintained his leadership of the DRC thanks to the intervention of Zimbabwean, Angolan and Namibian troops – which supported him against rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe would later say that had these troops delayed their arrival for just a day, Kabila would have been toppled.

The junior Kabila succeeded his uncompromising father after the latter was assassinated by renegade soldiers in Jan. 2001.

Since 1998, anti-Banyamulenge feelings have been running high in the DRC. These feelings are even reflected amongst Congolese exiles in Burundi.

About 30,000 Congolese fled to this country from the eastern DRC recently. Aid workers say the refugees – who cross the border at a rate of 1,000 a day – have divided themselves into two camps separated by a distance of eight kilometres: one housing Banyamulenge, the second various other Congolese ethnic groups.

Towards the end of 2002, South Africa brokered an end to the five-year civil war that broke out in 1998. Kabila now heads a transitional government that includes former rebel groups and opposition representatives.

The east of the country remains volatile, however, and the integration of government and rebel forces into a well-managed national army has been slow. The 10,000 United Nations peace-keepers deployed in eastern DRC also lack the capacity to police the region effectively.

Concerns about the stability of the Congolese peace accord deepened with a failed coup attempt in Kinshasa on Jun. 11.

The events of the past month have alarmed members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which includes the DRC. South Africa’s Minister of Provincial and Local Government, Sydney Mufamadi, warned that the grouping would not tolerate military coups.

Mufamadi, who brokered talks to end the war in the DRC, also led an eight-person delegation that returned from Congo about two weeks ago.

The attempted coup and the capture of Bukavu prodded SADC into attempting a fact-finding mission to Rwanda and the DRC this weekend (Jun. 20). Representatives from Lesotho, South Africa and Mozambique were supposed to travel to Kinshasa, Bukavu and Kigali. But, the trip was called off.

“Unfortunately the trip has been postponed,” a spokesman at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Lesotho’s capital, Maseru, told IPS in a telephone interview Friday, Jun. 18.

“We understand that a certain important official, whom the troika wanted to meet, would not be available during the visit,” he said. “So another visit will be arranged, hopefully in the near future.”

The cancellation of the trip was confirmed by South Africa’s Department of Foreign Affairs. “It will not happen. It has been postponed,” spokeswoman Manusha Pillai said in an interview with IPS.

Lesotho’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohlabi Tsekoa, was to have served as chairman of the troika group. In a press conference held Jun. 16, he stopped short of following in Joseph Kabila’s footsteps by accusing Rwanda of being behind the latest hostilities in the Congo. However, he told journalists in Maseru that “some of those rebel soldiers (who captured Bukavu) come from Rwanda”.

Regional analysts are divided on what SADC’s role in the DRC should be.

Norman Mlambo of the Pretoria-based think tank, the Africa Institute of South Africa, says it would be unwise for SADC to send troops to quell fighting in the DRC without a UN mandate.

“I’m not comfortable with a move that will exclude the United Nations and the rest of the African Union from a peace-keeping role in the DRC,” he told IPS Monday, Jun. 21.

“What’s happening in the DRC is not a local issue. It is an international issue,” he added, in reference to the fact that a wide array of countries has been implicated in resource exploitation in the Congo. The UN has pointed the finger at Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola – which are said to have profited from the Congo’s vast reserves of diamonds, gold, coltan and other resources.

“What SADC can do is pressure the UN to expand its presence in the DRC by offering troops and logistics,” Mlambo said.

But Claude Kabemba of the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, located in Johannesburg, believes SADC needs to unite and step in as a regional grouping.

“If they go under the UN mandate they will operate under Chapter Six which will tie their hands,” he said in an interview with IPS.

UN peace-keeping in global hot spots is often regulated by the so-called Chapter Six mandate. This is a reference to the chapter in the UN Charter which stipulates how the multinational body is mandated to maintain stability in conflict-prone areas where its forces have been deployed. While a Chapter Six mandate may allow peacekeepers the use of force to protect people from imminent harm, a Chapter Seven mandate allows for more substantive military action.

“SADC should send a clear signal that it’s united. And if push come to shove, then it can send troops as a regional organisation,” Kabemba noted.

SADC’s concerns about the security situation in the DRC come as Pretoria and Kinshasa have entered into a military co-operation agreement.

Under the pact, which was signed on Jun. 18, South Africa will train the new Congolese army once all government and rebel forces in that country have been integrated into one body. The deal was signed by South African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota and his Congolese counterpart, Jean Pierre Ondekane.

After the troika has traveled to the DRC and Rwanda, it will present a report on its findings to a SADC heads of state and government summit to be held on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius in August.