POLITICS-DRC: “Stronger Commitment” Needed for Peace

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

JOHANNESBURG, Jul 28 2005 (IPS) - Ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has underscored the difficulties of bringing lasting peace to this vast Central African country.

Nearly 3.5 million people have died, mostly from malnutrition and preventable diseases such as diarrhea and malaria, since civil war first began in the DRC in 1996.

While an accord to end conflict was signed in South Africa at the end of 2002, lives are still being claimed. A fortnight ago gunmen attacked Kigalama, a village in the eastern province of South Kivu, killing 13 people. South Kivu Governor Didace Kaningini Kyoto told journalists that the 5,000 villagers who normally live in Kigalama had fled.

The attack has been blamed on Hutu militants from neighbouring Rwanda who entered the DRC after the 1994 genocide in their country. Upwards of 800,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed in the genocide, perpetrated by hardline Hutus.

Tutsi rebels gained control of Rwanda after the killings, and fearing reprisals, Hutu militants took refuge in the former Zaire.

“The Hutu rebels are active in South Kivu. They hide in the forest and some of them have integrated into society,” Pierre Kosmas of the Congo Support Group, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in the South African commercial centre of Johannesburg, told IPS. “If the Hutu rebels are not neutralised they could ignite another Congo war.”

Cross-border incursions by Hutu militants prompted Rwanda and Uganda to assist Congolese rebels to overthrow President Mobutu Sese Seko, after a one-year campaign, in 1997. Laurent Kabila was subsequently installed as the new head of state, but a year later ordered all Rwandan soldiers to leave the country.

This sparked another round of fighting, which saw Rwanda and Uganda supporting a plethora of rebel groups, while Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe backed Kabila.

All foreign troops were officially pulled out of the DRC under the 2002 peace deal. But the Congolese government claims Rwanda still maintains forces in the east of the country – an allegation denied by Kigali.

“I think a lot needs to be done to disarm the Interahamwe,” Dennis Kadima, executive director of the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, a Johannesburg-based think tank, told IPS. (Interahamwe – meaning “those who fight together” in Kinyarwanda – is the name given to militants who helped carry out the Rwandan genocide.)

“Congo has been victimised by this group since 1994,” Kadima added. “They have exported Rwanda’s problem to Congo, and they use Congo as a battle ground. The Congolese are peace-loving people. They don’t have a history of violence.”

Kadima returned to Johannesburg this week from the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, which he had visited to discuss general elections scheduled to take place during the early months of 2006. A transitional government is currently ruling the country.

“The Hutu rebels should be persuaded to return home. We can’t hold elections when we have armed people intimidating voters. They know that when Congo has a legitimate government, they will be disarmed,” Kadima said.

It appears that a certain number of militants are going back to Rwanda, despite fears that they will be arrested for their alleged role in the 1994 massacres.

“When I was returning to Johannesburg via Nairobi there were about 30 Rwandan refugees on a plane who were traveling home from Congo,” said Kadima. “Their repatriation was arranged by the UNHCR (the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). So we now know that Rwandans can return home.”

“Those who cannot be persuaded to return home, I’m sorry to say, force must be used to expel them from Congo.”

However, the DRC’s woes are not confined to South Kivu: they also extend to copper-rich Katanga, a province on the border with Angola.

Last week, Doctors Without Borders ( Médecins Sans Frontières – MSF – a Paris-based NGO), accused local army units and militias in the region of terrorising civilians. MSF claimed that villages had been burned and looted, and women raped.

Katanga last made world headlines in the 1960s when it tried unsuccessfully to secede. Widespread violence ensued, prompting the United Nations to send peacekeepers to the then Zaire.

Now, the U.N. has again deployed troops in the country – 16,000 in all. Peacekeeping operations have been complicated, however, by the fact that the soldiers are spread over an area the size of Western Europe. The DRC’s population is put at about 53 million.

In South Kivu, the Congolese army complained that it did not have vehicles to rescue the Kigalama villagers when they were attacked two weeks ago. “This is not an excuse. Congo has a government and it must deliver to the population,” Jean Marie Gasana, senior researcher at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, said in an interview with IPS.

These words were echoed by Kadima, who noted that “stronger commitment” was needed from all parties in the DRC.

However, Gasana acknowledged that the Kinshasa administration still suffered from the effects of years of neglect under Mobutu.

“For the time being there is no structure at local levels – there is no culture of state management: there was nothing for 40 years. But we will get there. Europe was like that. It went through two world wars and has now stabilised,” he said.