Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe

by Gerard Prunier

  In such a situation the simplest thing to do would have been to cut one’s losses and get out of the DRC. But this was not really an open option, for two reasons. First, President Museveni still cherished a certain image of himself as the elder statesman of eastern and central Africa. He had gone to war in the Congo partly because he saw himself as the lawgiver of post–cold war Africa, ready to “open up” the wild and primitive regions to the west of civilized east Africa.30 Second, in the meantime, UPDF officers had developed their own networks and their own commercial interests. Contrary to what had happened with Rwanda, there was no “Congo Desk” in Kampala. Congo looting was a private sport that hardly benefited the state. But these interests were perfectly ruthless and, among other things, triggered the abominable “ethnic” conflict in the Djugu territory of the Ituri District in Province Orientale. Cleaning that hornets’ nest would not be easy.

  “Old Africa hands” explained the Ituri bloodshed in ethnic terms, whereas the Congolese themselves saw it as an artificial conflict engineered by “foreign imperialists” in order to exploit Congo’s riches.31 In fact, both explanations were wrong: the conflict resulted from the exploitation by corrupt Ugandan army officers of latent social contradictions (mostly about landholdings) in order to brutally control the local economy. Fostering the conflict helped rough-and-ready short-term economic exploitation, but it also unleashed forces that soon festered beyond the control of the sorcerer’s apprentices who had initially put them into motion.32 Nevertheless, even if the situation was due only to rogue UPDF freebooters masking their greed under the guise of security concerns, Museveni could not dismantle his presence overnight because Rwanda had meanwhile acquired a new ground for anti-Ugandan subversion in the region, just as in Sudan earlier.33 Hence the strange pattern of Uganda’s “disengagement” from Congo’s northeast: two steps forward and one step (if not two) back. Although Museveni favored all global solutions to the war (as when he supported, or perhaps even fostered, the April 2002 Sun City “partial agreement” between Kinshasa and the MLC), at the same time he finagled anything having to do with his “immediate neighborhood” in Congo’s northeast. And in order to maintain his presence in the northeast he resorted to supporting increasingly violent and increasingly illegitimate tribal militias, who committed atrocities rarely seen before in a war that had been notorious for its cruelty toward civilians.34

  The September 2002 Luanda Agreement had provided for the quick evacuation of Ugandan troops, but in early 2003 they were still there, and it took a difficult meeting with Joseph Kabila and Angolan Foreign Minister João de Miranda in Tanzania to renew the commitment.35 Strangely enough, the Ituri Peace Commission, the new neutral body that was supposed to try to get a handle on the situation, was created in faraway Luanda on February 14, perhaps because the Angolans realized that their Congolese protégés were impotent in the northeast and the Ugandans could not be trusted. Museveni had agreed to remove twenty-five hundred men from Bunia, but on March 11 Defense Minister Amama Mbabazi “revealed” the “invasion plans” of the Ituri-based and Kigali-supported People’s Redemption Army, saying that this “threat” made a preemptive strike necessary. As a result, the UPDF stayed in the Congo.36

  The Rwandese threat was initially somewhat controversial,37 but it became quite concrete after Kigali recruited Thomas Lubanga, warlord chief of the Union des Patriotes Congolais, Uganda’s former main proxy in the region. In a last desperate attempt at regaining control of the situation, the UPDF then turned against its erstwhile protégé and on March 6, 2003, took by storm the regional capital of the Ituri, Bunia. A week later the Porter Commission released a report criticizing Museveni’s brother Salim Saleh, chief suspect in the looting of northeastern Congo, for “disobeying the President’s directive forbidding the Army to trade in the DRC.” The reprimand was moderate, but coming from such a tame body, it amounted to an indirect vindication of the UN verdict on the looting of the Congo.38 From then on the choice was clear: it was either stay in the Congo (with the attendant huge military expenses) and risk losing donor support or else withdraw by any means possible. By then the Ituri catastrophe was complete: the Luanda-born Ituri Peace Commission was powerless to install any form of civilian administration, seven tribal militias were fighting each other in bloody horror and total confusion, and MONUC was impotent to control the situation. In a desultory attempt at maintaining a semblance of local influence the Ugandan army left some of its artillery to its latest and completely unreliable tribal militia proxies39 when it pulled out in May. The withdrawal was a near rout, and on June 2, 2003, the last elements of UPDF’s 53rd Battalion crossed the Semliki River on foot after walking 240 kilometers from Bunia to the border.40 Meanwhile, the military situation in northern Uganda had escalated to such a point that going back into the DRC was no longer a feasible proposition. In any case the United States, Kampala’s main protector, was clear about it. After it had been solicited to help in the anti-LRA fight, the American Embassy in Uganda declared, “A condition attached to disbursing [anti-LRA insurgency] funds is to remain outside the DRC.”41

  As for Rwanda, it remained the odd man out, the last country trying to hang on to its bloody chunk of the Congo. But U.S. support, which had weakened since the beginning of the Bush administration, was waning. Washington was tired of seeing Rwanda exploit its “genocide guilt credit” to justify what appeared more and more like a policy of deliberate deception in the Congo. As U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Charles Snyder put it in his usual blunt language:

  We said to Kagame when he was here most recently and we said to Museveni just last week, we need to put things right in the Eastern Congo and that means you need to stay the hell out. Museveni’s response was: “I agree” and Kagame’s was “I don’t think so.” . . . So we said privately to him (and we will say publicly if he does anything outrageous) that if MONUC is doing the right thing and demobilizing these ex Interaham-we and if the international community is satisfied, we won’t let Rwanda be the odd man out. We will sanction them and we will take them to the UN if it comes to that. But I don’t think we’ll have to go there, Kagame will let it play out.42

  In the Congo the Rwandese government was pursuing an ambiguous policy. Just like Uganda, and possibly even more, Rwanda had been fingered by the first report of the UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Congolese Resources. But the panel made a distinction in the “style” of the exploitation, clearly recognizing that in the case of Uganda the looting was essentially private and due to UPDF rogue elements, whereas in the case of Rwanda it was coordinated by the government and part and parcel of a general policy of financing the war effort. This did not preclude individuals enriching themselves,43 but it placed their private operations in a secondary role in comparison to the regime-sponsored resource extraction. In that perspective the “military withdrawal” of October 2002 has to be seen as a tactical measure within a global policy and not as a strategic policy reorientation.44

  At first Kigali simply used its old surrogate, the RCD-G, as a proxy. But after the RCD-G became a “Congolese government” element in December 2002, it was seen by Rwanda as being in an ambiguous position. Where would its future loyalty lie: with Kinshasa or with Kigali? The men of the RCD-G, after all, were Congolese. So by mid-2003 Kigali had developed a new strategy for keeping control of the Kivus, using the Tous Pour le Développement militia of “Governor” Eugéne Serufuli in North Kivu45 and the smaller and less well-organized militia developed in South Kivu by Xavier Chirhibanya.46

  But the Rwandese regime was quite aware of the progressive change of mood in the international community. And since it depended heavily on international financing for its continued economic survival, it used all the right buzzwords—reconciliation, democratization, and good governance—while efficiently pursuing its goal of an airtight authoritarian state. Former president Bizimungu, who had been kicked out of the presidency when General Kagame stopped needing a docile Hutu s
tand-in, had been gradually boxed into an ever tighter corner as he struggled to develop some kind of a democratic civilian opposition. He and his deputy, Charles Ntakirutinka, were at first restricted from leaving Kigali and cut off from outside contact;47 then they were placed under house arrest in April 2002 and jailed a month later.48 Finally the former president and his political associates were brought to trial and condemned to long prison sentences in June 2004 for “embezzling state funds and forming a militia that threatened state security.49

  The press, never very free, was brought under even tighter control. The chief editor of Umuseso was arrested in January 2003 simply for printing a cartoon representing the president as King Solomon ready to cut in two a baby labeled “MDR.” The cartoon was prescient: a few days later the MDR was actually banned on the ground that it stood for “divisive politics.” Amnesty International wrote that “the government was organising a crackdown on the opposition ahead of the planned presidential elections.”50 In late May 93 percent of the voters approved the draft constitution, which would give the president extensive powers during a seven-year renewable mandate.51 At the beginning of July, in a touching show of unanimity, four political parties joined hands with the ruling RPF to support Paul Kagame’s candidacy.52 With the MDR out of the way, this forced opposition candidate Faustin Twagiramungu to run as an independent. To keep a clear field of fire, a court decided that former president Bizimungu had to stay in jail to answer some more vague charges, which were never officially made. And just in case people had not gotten the message, another court condemned eleven people to death for their participation in the genocide.53

  The electoral campaign was perfectly organized: Kagame was everywhere, flying all over the country in his presidential helicopter, while Twagiramungu had no airtime, no money, and no posters, and his few supporters were discreetly harassed and accused of inciting ethnic violence. Kagame kept his claws in but never let anybody forget that they were there. His last campaign speech ended on an unforgettable note when he said, “Others are advocating genocide. But you need not be afraid when you elect me on Monday. I will protect you.”54 His audience understood perfectly the meaning of being protected by such a powerful man. In the end, after the security men made sure that everybody voted “well,”55 Twagiramungu got 3.62 percent of the vote to Kagame’s 95 percent.

  But the newly elected president still had to deal with his radical wing, and it was at least partly Congo-related. A number of Kagame’s top men retained a bellicose nostalgia for the war days. “Commander James” Kabarebe for one did not agree with the 2002 troop withdrawal. This “Congolese” position dovetailed with the ethnic hard-line positions of a group loosely gathered around Kayumba Nyamwasa.56 The danger for the Congolese peace process then painfully crawling forward was that these Rwandese warmongers had venomous counterparts on the other side of the border.

  In Kinshasa, a small lobby of “old Kabilists” (Samba Kaputo, Gen. John Numbi, Yerodia Ndombasi) discreetly kept helping the génocidaire-linked FDLR guerrillas, in whom they saw a counterweight to Kigali’s proxy influence in the Kivus. These were being glared at by a group of former RCD-G officers of Tutsi or Banyamulenge origins who, because the Sun City “all-inclusive” peace agreement was terribly imprecise on army integration, feared being marginalized in the new armed forces due to their background. These antagonisms on the Congolese side of the border, which reflected the extension of the Banyarwanda world into the Kivus, provided the hard-liners in Kigali with all the ingredients of an explosion, were they to try to provoke one.

  An attempt at violently upsetting the transition

  The first intimation of trouble came in February 2004, when Munyamulenge Col. Jules Mutebutsi refused to obey his commanding officer, Gen. Prosper Nabyolwa. The explicit reason for Mutebutsi’s defiance was the decision of the Defense Ministry to accept the transfer to Kinshasa of a former RCD-G officer who had been charged in the convoluted Laurent-Désiré Kabila murder trial.57 Kinshasa backed down and flew the officer back to Bukavu, but the impact of this near mutiny reverberated all over the east, causing everybody to take sides. The Bukavu populace demonstrated (against Mutebutsi), and dissident Ituri warlord Jérôme Kakwaku Bokonde reneged on the armistice he had signed with MONUC two weeks earlier.

  Since former U.S. ambassador to Kinshasa William Swing had replaced Amos Namanga Ngongi as head of MONUC in July 2003, the UN mission had taken a higher, more proactive profile. Correctly perceiving it to be the main trouble spot, Swing had just decided to redeploy 80 percent of MONUC’s troops in the east, declaring, “The former frontline is now a part of history. We now need to redeploy where our troops are most needed.”58 This gave an added dimension to Mutebutsi’s disobedience. It now became a test of wills not only between the remnants of the pro-Kigali factions in the east and the Kinshasa government, but also between those factions and the international community. The transition itself now hung in the balance.

  Then, in late April, Kigali security boss Patrick Karegeya denied that Rwanda was massing troops on the border with Burundi.59 only to declare the next day that there was indeed a heavy troop deployment on the border with Burundi “in anticipation of possible attacks from Hutu rebels.”60 In Bujumbura the FAB chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Germain Niyoyonkana, announced that RPA forces had entered Burundian territory in Cibitoke Province two days before and were moving in the Kaburantwa Valley. On that same day MONUC reported a positive identification of over one hundred Rwandese troops in South Kivu, near Buganaga.61 There was panic in Kinshasa, where pro-transition politicians quickly put together some anti-FDLR sweeps to try to remove the pretext of a Rwandese attack. Kinshasa declared that it had killed thirty-nine Rwandese rebels since April 20 in the 8th and 10th Military Regions (i.e., around Rutshuru and Bukavu, respectively), losing three men; fifteen civilians had been killed.62 Kigali’s Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Richard Sezibera gave a long interview to the UN press agency, declaring that the FDLR had recently attacked Rwanda’s territory,63 that the Hutu rebels were afraid of losing their sanctuary after the planned DRC elections, that there was “no doubt” that the present Congolese government was supporting the FDLR, that his government was “not willing to sit back and watch these people come back and complete the genocide,” that there were no Rwandese troops at present in the Congo, and that fifteen thousand FDLR guerrillas were amassed in the Kivus and ready to attack Rwanda.64 The tension grew noticeably, and a week later Jean-Marie Guehenno, the head of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, arrived in Kinshasa to investigate the increasingly explosive situation. Five days after he arrived, the fighting started in Bukavu.

  At first it was limited to groups of Banyamulenge soldiers loyal to Colonel Mutebutsi attacking other soldiers loyal to Gen. Mbuza Mabe, 10th Military Region commander of the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC).65 But four days later over a thousand ex-RCD-G troops arrived in Bukavu from other parts of South Kivu. They claimed to be defending Banyamulenge civilians “who were victims of an attempted genocide.” In fact, the rebellion triggered, if not a genocide, at least a wave of cross-ethnic killings: Mutebutsi’s soldiers started to kill and rape Babembe and Barega civilians, while civilians of these same ethnic groups and FARDC troops started to kill and rape Banyamulenge and even some Bashi who were supposed to be sympathetic to them.66 These attacks started an exodus of civilians toward Cyangugu in Rwanda and even more extensively across the Ruzizi plain into Burundi.67

  On May 31, coming down from North Kivu, Gen. Laurent Nkunda appeared on the scene with around twenty-five hundred troops. Nkunda, a North Kivu Tutsi from Rutshuru, had a long track record as Kigali’s man. He had fought as a volunteer with the RPF during the Rwandese civil war and had later become one of the top RCD-G commanders. His soldiers had been deeply implicated in the 2002 massacres in Kisangani, and Nkunda was furious that this was held against him and had prevented him from joining the new FARDC, while some of his former comrades, such as the notor
ious Gabriel Amisi, a.k.a. “Tango Four,”68 had received important positions. When Nkunda showed up coming from the north he first occupied the airport, some thirty kilometers outside of town, and then “negotiated” with the Uruguayan MONUC troops who were “defending” Bukavu. To the horror of the civilian population the Uruguayans declined to fight and let Nkunda proceed into town. As soon as he arrived, the violence increased. Refugees were pouring into Burundi.69 Nkunda was loudly clamoring that he was protecting the Banyamulenge civilians from genocide, omitting to mention the fact that he had started his military move from Goma on May 24, that is, before the first killings took place. There were anti-UN riots in Kinshasa, in Kindu, in Kisangani, in Lubumbashi, and even in Goma to protest MONUC’s dereliction of duty and indirect role in the violence. Five people were killed and sixty-five wounded.70 But Nkunda seemed lost about what to do with his “victory,” and he eventually pulled out of Bukavu on June 4. His withdrawal meant only that the fighting spread to Walikale, and Kigali closed its border on the night of June 5. Kinshasa decided to deploy twenty thousand troops in the east, and RPF Secretary-General Charles Morigande accused the Congolese government of preparing to invade Rwanda.71 Kofi Annan warned Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the DRC against going back to war.72

  The fighting spread quickly as the Tutsi-Banyamulenge insurgents had the support of the Mudundu 40 Mayi Mayi group73 and of Bashi militia elements. The newly integrated FARDC units were trying to hold their own but not doing very well. MONUC troops seemed demoralized and rudderless. To make things worse the governor of the Burundi province of Cibitoke declared that around a hundred FDLR guerrillas had entered his territory and were heading for Kibira Forest, while at the same time the armistice painstakingly brokered by MONUC on May 14 completely broke down and the militias began to fight each other again in the Ituri.74 The combat spread to Kalehe, displacing thirty thousand more refugees.75