AFRICA’S WORLD WAR
To the memory of
Seth Sendashonga
GÉRARD PRUNIER
Africa’s World War
Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Prunier, Gérard.
Africa’s world war: Congo, the Rwandan genocide, and the making
of a continental catastrophe / Gérard Prunier.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-537420-9
1. Congo (Democratic Republic)—History—1997–
2. Rwanda—History—Civil War, 1994—Refugees.
3. Genocide—Rwanda.
4. Political violence—Great Lakes Region (Africa).
5. Africa, Central—Ethnic relations—Political aspects—20th century.
6. Geopolitics—Africa, Central.
I. Title.
DT658.26.P78 2009
967.03’2—dc22 2008020806
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
CONTENTS
Abbreviations
Glossary
Maps
Introduction
1. Rwanda’s mixed season of hope (July 1994–April 1995)
The immediate aftermath
The politics of national unity
Justice and the killings
Rwanda outside Rwanda: the world of the refugee camps
The international community’s attitudes
2. From Kibeho to the attack on Zaire (April 1995–October 1996)
The Kibeho crisis
The collapse of the national unity government
The refugees and the Kivu cockpit
North Kivu: ethnicity and the land conflict
South Kivu: the Banyamulenge and the memories of 1965
The impact of the Rwandese refugees on the Kivus
The Burundi factor
General Kagame goes to war
3. The Congo basin, its interlopers, and its onlookers
Into the Zairian vortex
The interlopers
Sudanese and Ugandans
Far from the Great Lakes: the Angolan conflict
Standing by, trying to keep out: three uneasy onlookers
4. Winning a virtual war (September 1996–May 1997)
Rwanda in Zaire: from refugee crisis to international war
Laurent-Désiré Kabila and the birth of AFDL
The bogey of the multinational intervention force
The refugee exodus
The long walk into Kinshasa
War and diplomacy
The mining contracts: myths and realities
The fate of the refugees
5. Losing the real peace (May 1997–August 1998)
Kabila in power: a secretive and incoherent leadership
Diplomacy and the refugee issue
The economy: an ineffectual attempt at normalization
Between Luanda and Brazzaville: the DRC’s volatile West African environment
The unquiet East: the Kivus and their neighbors
6. A continental war (August 1998–August 1999)
Commander Kabarebe’s failed Blitzkrieg
Heading for an African war
Kinshasa’s friends: godfathers and discreet supporters
Kinshasa’s foes
Fence-sitters and well-wishers
Fighting down to a stalemate
Behind and around the war: domestic politics, diplomacy and economics
The Lusaka “peace” charade
7. Sinking into the quagmire (August 1999–January 2001)
The war is dead, long live the war
The East: confused rebels in confused fighting
Westwards: the river wars
Rwanda drives south into Katanga
The shaky home fronts
The Congo: an elusive search for national dialogue while the economy collapses
Angola: the pressure begins to ease off
Zimbabwe: trying to make the war pay for itself
Rwanda and Uganda: the friendship grows violent
The international dimension: giving aid, monitoring the looting, and waiting for MONUC
Mzee’s assassination
8. Not with a bang but with a whimper: the war’s confused ending (January 2001–December 2002)
Li’l Joseph’s new political dispensation
Diplomacy slowly deconstructs the continental conflict
The actors start jockeying for position
Negotiations, national dialogue, and disarmament in competition
The South African breakthrough
The bumpy road toward a transitional government
The economy: slowly crawling out of the abyss
The eastern sore: the continental conflict shrinks into sub-regional anarchy
9. From war to peace: Congolese transition and conflict deconstruction (January 2003–July 2007)
The conflict’s lingering aftermath (January 2003–December 2004)
The peripheral actors drop off
Rwanda and Uganda refuse to give up
An attempt at violently upsetting the transition
Tottering forward in Kinshasa
Slouching toward Bethlehem: the transition slowly turns into reality (January 2005–November 2006)
The pre-electoral struggles
DDRRR, SSR, and assorted security headaches
The elections
The morning after syndrome (November 2006–July 2007)
The risk of internal political paralysis
The economy: donors, debts, and the Great Mining Robbery
The east refuses to heal
10. Groping for meaning: the “Congolese” conflict and the crisis of contemporary Africa
The war as an African phenomenon
The purely East African origins of the conflagration
Antigenocide, the myth of the “new leaders,” and the spread of democracy in Africa: the world projects its own rationale on the situation
The “New Congo
,” between African renaissance and African imperialism
From crusading to looting: the “new leaders” age quickly
The war as seen by the outside world
What did all the diplomatic agitation actually achieve?
Moral indignation in lieu of political resolve
An attempt at a philosophical conclusion
Appendix I: Seth Sendashonga’s Murder
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ABBREVIATIONS
AAC:
Anglo-American Corporation.
ABAKO:
Alliance des Bakongo. Led by Joseph Kasa Vubu, it was the political expression of the Bakongo tribe at the time of the independence of the Congo in 1960.
ACRI:
African Crisis Response Initiative. The U.S.-sponsored structure that had been developed in the late 1990s in the hope of creating a kind of “peacemaking” African multinational force.
ADF:
Allied Democratic Forces. A multiethnic Ugandan guerrilla group created in 1996 in Zaire by fusing elements of the ADM, NALU, and UMLA to fight the Museveni regime.
ADM:
Allied Democratic Movement. A Baganda anti-Museveni guerrilla movement created in 1996. See ADF.
AEF:
French Equatorial Africa.
AFDL:
Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération. The umbrella rebel organization created in October 1996 in eastern Zaire under Rwandese tutelage to spearhead the fight against Mobutu’s regime. See CNRD; MRLZ.
ALIR:
Armée de Liberation du Rwanda. Anti-RPF movement based in the Congo, led by former FAR officers. At times referred to by its more political name PALIR, or Peuple Armé pour la Liberation du Rwanda.
AMFI:
American Mineral Fields International.
AMP:
Alliance pour la Majorité Présidentielle.
ANACOZA:
Alliance of North American Congo-Zaire Associations. Congolese association in the United States from which AFDL recruited quite a number of cadres.
ANC:
African National Congress. The main South African nationalist organization that fought against apartheid and swept into power in the 1990s.
ANC:
Armée Nationale Congolaise. (1) Name of the Congolese Armed Forces after independence before the country changed its name to Zaire, whereby ANC was renamed FAZ. (2) Under the same appellation, name given by the RCD (Goma faction) to its armed forces in 1998.
AND:
Agence Nationale de Documentation. One of Mobutu’s most feared secret services, headed for a long time by his close adviser Honoré N’Gbanda.
ANR:
Agence Nationale de Renseignements. Kabila’s new secret police after taking power.
ASD:
Alliance pour la Sauvegarde du Dialogue Inter-Congolais.
AZADHO:
Association Zairoise des Droits de l’Homme. The largest human rights association in Zaire, which became ASADHO (Association Africaine des Droits de l’Homme) after the overthrow of Mobutu.
BCMP:
Bourse Congolaise des Matières Précieuses.
BDK:
Bundu dia Kongo. A political/religious Congolese sect.
BOSS:
Bureau of State Security. Apartheid South Africa’s secret service.
CCM:
Chama cha Mapinduzi (Party of the Revolution). The Tanzanian party born from the fusion between the continental TANU (Tanganyika African National Union) and Zanzibar’s Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) after the 1964 island revolution. CCM remained a single party for over twenty-five years when the country opened to multiparty politics.
CEEAC:
Communauté Economique des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale.
CFA franc:
Communauté Financière Africaine. The common currency of former French African colonies
CIAT:
Comité International d’Accompagnement de la Transition.
CND:
Centre National de Documentation. One of Mobutu’s internal spying organizations.
CNDD:
Conseil National de Défense de la Démocratie. The mostly Hutu organization created in exile in Zaire by former Burundi interior minister Léonard Nyangoma in February 1994. See FDD.
CNDP:
Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple.
CNL:
Conseil National de Libération. The ephemeral left-wing Congolese “government” of 1963–1965.
CNRD:
Conseil National de Résistance pour la Démocratie. New name of the PLC in the mid-1990s, one of the four anti-Mobutu organizations that joined to create the AFDL.
CNS:
Conférence Nationale Souveraine. The national Zaire reform conference that convened between August 1991 and December 1992. It then turned into the HCR and HCR/PT.
CONAKAT:
Confédération des Associations Tribales du Katanga. Created in November 1958, it was at first the political expression of Katangese regionalism. It developed later into an instrument of the “genuine Katangese” (i.e., opposed to the Baluba immigrants from Kasaï) and led the secession of the province against the Leopoldville government.
CZSC:
Contingent Zairois de la Sécurité des Camps. The armed unit raised by UNHCR to ensure the security of the Rwandese refugee camps in Zaire.
DDRRR:
Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation, Reintegration, and Resettlement.
DEMIAP:
Direction Militaire des Activités Anti-Patrie. President Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s military secret service created in November 1997.
DGSE:
Directorate-General for External Security. (French Secret Service).
DISA:
Direciao de Informaciao de Segurança de Angola. The MPLA secret police.
DMI:
Directorate of Military Intelligence. The Rwandese military secret service.
DRC:
Democratic Republic of Congo.
DSP:
Division Spéciale Présidentielle. President Mobutu’s elite force recruited among his Ngbandi tribe and other related ethnic groups from the northern Equateur Province.
ESAF:
Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility.
ESO:
External Service Organization. The Ugandan external secret service.
FAA:
Forças Armadas Angolanas. The name taken by the supposedly unified MPLA-UNITA Angolan army after the Bicesse Agreement of 1991. After the 1992 breakup it remained the name of the MPLA forces.
FAB:
Forces Armées Burundaises. The Burundese regular army.
FAC:
Forces Armées Congolaises. The new national army created by President Laurent-Désiré Kabila after he took power in 1997.
FALA:
Forças Armadas de Libertação de Angola. The UNITA army.
FAPLA:
Forças Armadas Populares de Libertação de Angola. The name of the MPLA forces until the Bicesse Agreement of 1991.
FAR:
Forces Armées Rwandaises. The army of the former Rwandese regime overthrown in July 1994. It reorganized in Zaire and kept fighting, at first independently and then either as part the FAC or with ALIR.
FARDC:
Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo.
FAZ:
Forces Armées Zairoises. The national army of Zaire, it collapsed under the impact of the 1996 rebellion and invasion.
FDD:
Forces de Défense de la Démocratie. At first the military arm of the Burundese CNDD, which later split from its mother organization under the leadership of Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye.
FDLR:
Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda. Anti-RPF Hutu guerrilla group based in the eastern DRC.
FLC:
Front de Libération du Congo. Supposedly unified Congolese rebel
movement regrouping MLC and the various RCD factions. Largely a paper organization.
FLEC:
Frente de Libertação do Enclave de Cabinda. The Cabinda Enclave rebel movement. Closely linked to UNITA, it later split into two fractions. The largest one was FLEC/FAC (Forças Armadas de Cabinda), led by Henriques Nzita Tiago, followed by FLEC-Renovada, led by Jose Tiburço Luemba.
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