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

by Gerard Prunier

  95. The pro-Lissouba militias (Zulu, Cocoye, Aubevillois) had theoretically been included in the regular army, but in reality they had kept separate financial and command structures. Interview with Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga, Paris, January 1998.

  96. “Congo Brazzaville: A Dictator Returns,” Africa Confidential 38, no. 21 (October 24, 1997).

  97. The best objective analysis on that war can be found in the special issue of Afrique Contemporaine, no. 186 (April–June 1998) edited by Roland Pourtier on the Brazzaville Congo (articles by R. Pourtier, P. Yengo, R. Bazenguissa-Ganga, E. Dorrier-Apprill, and A. Kouvouma). The best book on these events is Y. Koula, La démocratie congolaise brûlée au pétrole (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999), which is anti-Sassou without being pro-Lissouba. N. Dabira, Brazzaville à feu et à sang (Paris: l’Harmattan, 1998) is a colorful document by a Soviet-trained officer who became one of Sassou’s main militia commanders.

  98. Césaire to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, May 10, 1995, quoted in La Lettre du Continent, May 18, 1995.

  99. FIBA was Elf’s private bank, used for its dubious deals with foreign heads of state and oil ministers. It was later closed down when Elf was bought by TOTAL.

  100. “Congo/Angola: La paix pétrolière,” La Lettre du Continent, October 30, 1997. August 31 was the expiration date for Lissouba’s presidential mandate. Sassou’s irritation was partly due to the fact that when he won the war he found documents in the presidential palace proving that the oil fees had been directly transferred to pay for Lissouba’s weapons: see Dominique Gallois, “Le jeu ambigu d’Elf au Congo,” Le Monde, October 30, 1997.

  101. Lissouba had subcontracted a lot of his security to UNITA and FLEC-Renovado, which were taking care of the Pointe Noire Airport while Lissouba’s militias were battling it out with sassou’s Zulus in the capital.

  102. This rivalry between Kabila’s two main backers over Congo Republic policies went largely unnoticed at the time. But it was a forerunner of the radical split that was to occur a year later, showing the largely illusory nature of the whole “new African leaders” theory.

  103. IRIN Bulletin, no. 268, October 13, 1997. For a discussion of the political context of the interventions, see Y. Koula, La démocratie congolaise, 104–109.

  104. R. Bazenguissa-Ganga, “Les milices politiques dans les affrontements,” Afrique Contemporaine, no. 186 (April–June 1998): 55.

  105. Quoted in ibid., 52.

  106. For details of that return to war, see Human Rights Watch, Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process, New York, 1999.

  107. For the immediate consequences, see ICRC communiqué, Geneva, June 18, 1997, and WFP communiqués of October 1, 1977 (Kinshasa) and November 17, 1997 (Nairobi).

  108. An overview of how the Kivu problems led to the war can be found in G. Prunier, “The Catholic Church and the Kivu Conflict,” Journal of Religion in Africa 31, no. 2 (2001): 139–162.

  109. For a good description of how the democratic opening worked in antidemocratic ways for the east, see K. Vlassenroot, “The Promise of Ethnic Conflict: Militarisation and Enclave Formation in South Kivu,” in D. Goyvaerts, ed., Conflict and Ethnicity in Central Africa (Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 2000), especially 72–74. Generally speaking, Vlassenroot offers the best short analysis of the relationship between land, ethnicity, politics, and violence in the Kivus since independence.

  110. The perfect example was the way the Bashi got split into pro- and antigovernment groups when Faustin Birindwa, a Mushi, was made prime minister by Mobutu.

  111. The same could be said later of the Lusaka Agreement of July 1999. Even though it was roughly implemented at the international level, it did not solve the domestic problem of the Kivus, as became abundantly clear during 2002–2003 when the national situation improved while that of the east worsened. Even now, in the aftermath of the 2006 elections, implementing the final 2002 peace settlement remains a daunting task in the east.

  112. IRIN Bulletin, no. 201 (June 26, 1997).

  113. IRIN Bulletin, no. 240 (September 3, 1997).

  114. IRIN Bulletin, no. 243 (September 8, 1997).

  115. IRIN Bulletin, no. 245 (September 10, 1997).

  116. For a detailed description, see African Rights, Rwanda: The Insurgency in the Northwest, London, September 1998, 94–98. What the Rwandese government called abacengezi (“infiltrators”) the local population often called abacunguzi (“liberators”). They were mostly ex-army regulars who had turned back during the Zaire campaign and had been reorganized as the Armée de libération du Rwanda (ALIR) under the command of former FAR officers (Major Rwabukwisi, Colonel Mpiranya, General Kabirigi). They received support from some of the civilian returnees who had “voluntarily” crossed the border in mid-november 1996.

  117. Amnesty International, Rwanda: Ending the Silence, London, September 1997, 36.

  118. Author’s interviews with UNHRFOR employees, Kigali and Butare, April 1997.

  119. On the events of this period, see G. Prunier, “Rwanda: The Social, Political and Economic Situation in June 1997,” Writenet Analysis Network, July 1997.

  120. See Human Rights Watch, Uprooting the Rural Poor in Rwanda, New York, May 2001. The Rwandese government was incensed at the publication of this report, which damaged the virtuous image it depended on for continued foreign financial support. Interestingly, my somewhat sketchy field notes dating back to April 1997 fully corroborate the more detailed Human Rights Watch document.

  121. See IRIN Bulletin, no. 259 (September 30, 1997) for the North Kivu Provincial Security Commission denial. The facts were confirmed to me by a former AFDL eyewitness. Interview, Kampala, January 2000. The dead were said to number 500. The real figure could have been around 200 to 300.

  122. IRIN Bulletin, no. 293 (November 17, 1997).

  123. For a description of how the new government’s policies made a bad situation worse, see J. C Willame, “Les relations du régime Kabila avec le Kivu,” in G. de Villers and J. C. Willame, eds., Congo, especially 240–255.

  124. IRIN Bulletin, no. 300 (November 26, 1997).

  125. Interview with his uncle Aristide Chahihabwa Bambaga, Kampala, January 2000.

  126. IRIN Bulletin, no. 303 (November 29, 1997). An unconfirmed report published in the New York Times said there were eighteen casualties in the shootings. Two days later Kabila created his new secret service, the Direction Militaire des Activités Anti-Patrie (DEMIAP), which was given the job of carrying out internal political repression.

  127. IRIN Bulletin, no. 304 (December 2, 1997).

  128. IRIN Bulletin, no. 305 (December 3, 1997). Masasu’s subsequent stormy trial in Lubumbashi is vividly described in Joris, La danse du léopard, chapter 10. The Masasu Nindaga episode was the distant beginning of the chain of events that eventually led to Kabila’s assassination in January 2001.

  129. See Willame, “Les relations,” 247–252.

  130. Kabila had many relatives of Masasu arrested, both in Kinshasa and in South Kivu. Upon arrest they were told that their crime was “to have consorted with the USA and France,” a perfect display of how the president’s mind was stuck in the 1960s groove, when all the “imperialists” had worked in alliance. Interview with Aristide Chahihabwa Bambaga, Kampala, January 2000.

  131. Quoted in Willame, “Les relations,” 261–262.

  132. For a description of the rough treatment meted out to the former FAZ, see Kisukula Abeli Meitho, La désintégration de l’armée congolaise de Mobutu à Kabila (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2001), chapter 6.

  133. On the causes of the mutiny, see Memorandum de la Communauté Banyamulenge à Son Excellence le Président de la République Démocratique du Congo, eut égard à la situation sécuritaire qui prévaut au Sud Kivu, Bukavu, February 24, 1998.

  134. This was a logical development given the fact that many Banyamulenge families had relatives in Burundi and that several more had taken refuge there to escape from FDD attacks.
The FAB had had troops in South Kivu since October 1996 to counter FDD infiltrations.

  135. See IRIN Bulletin, no. 366 (March 3, 1998). Commenting on the Ugandan involvement following in the steps of the Burundese intervention in South Kivu, the Deutsche Tageszeitung was the first paper to speculate on the possibility of “a future regional war of invasion” (February 27, 1998).

  136. Interestingly enough, the third large group of dissenters (i.e., the Baluba from Kasaï) remained on the sidelines, biding their time, hoping for a Tschisekedi breakthrough at some point.

  137. Up to the time when their shabby treatment in his hands led them to revolt (see chapter 6).

  138. The attempts at recruiting former Mayi Mayi logically proved disappointing. Their differences with Kabila had to do with the Rwandese; once they sensed an imminent fallout between the two, they were bound to side with the president, even if they had few illusions about him.

  139. Charles Petrie, Report to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Goma, June 16, 1998.

  140. The Congolese journalist Bapuwa Mawamba had recently written, “One is almost surprised that war has not yet broken out in Kivu. All the ingredients are there for a conflagration which could set fire to the whole region.” Jeune Afrique Economie, June 1–14, 1998.

  141. See Gérard Prunier, “Convoitises multiples sur le Kivu: Une poudrière au cœur du Congo Kinshasa,” Le Monde Diplomatique, July 1998. It is difficult to resist the temptation of quoting what I was writing a month before the war started: “Kivu is on the verge of blowing up and nobody is trying to find the scissors to cut the fuse. There will be time later to write long reports about international financing, ‘lessons learned’ and other adequate recommendations for the next crisis.”

  142. It is interesting to note that even at that late stage the Mayi Mayi were still considered by Kinshasa to be the major danger.

  143. République Démocratique du Congo, Présidence de la République, Communiqué de Démenti, June 8, 1998 (extract of an interview with Didier Mumengi, minister of information, on June 5, 1998).

  144. Chamuleso was the leader of the dwindling band of real or supposed survivors of che Guevara’s adventure in South Kivu. After having spent years living in Cuba he came back to the Congo in 1997 and was instrumental in promoting a modicum of help for Kabila from the Castro regime.

  145. IRIN Bulletin, no. 468 (July 28, 1998).

  146. IRIN Bulletin, no. 469 (July 29, 1998).

  147. Kabarebe had been replaced a few weeks before by Pierre-Célestin Kifwa, Kabila’s brother-in-law.

  148. Interview with a relative of one of Kabila’s bodyguards who witnessed the scene, Kampala, January 2000. This gung-ho mad dog attitude is rather typical of a certain category of RPA “Ugandan” officer and was later to prove an important factor in the conduct of the war.

  Chapter 6

  1. For the situation on the eve of the war as seen from North Kivu, see International Crisis Group, North Kivu, into the quagmire? Brussels, August 1998. For the general situation in the Kivus, see Bapuwa Mawanda’s article in Jeune Afrique Economie and mine in Le Monde Diplomatique: “Convoitises multiples sur le Kivu: Une poudrière au cœur du congo Kinshasa,” July 1998.

  2. The first official pronouncement of a rebellion came on August 2 at 4:00 p.m. from Cdr. Sylvain Mbuki, commanding officer of the FAC 10th Battalion in Goma, who declared, “We, the Army of the DRC, have taken the decision to remove President Laurent-Désiré Kabila from power.” SWB/Radio Rwanda, August 2, 1998.

  3. “This is an affair that concerns only Congolese soldiers, the Rwandese Army is not involved in the movement,” declared Cdr. Ilunga Kabambi, the FAC deputy commander for Kivu. SWB/AFP, August 3, 1998. Anastase Gasana, Kigali’s minister for foreign affairs, insisted that the “crisis now arising in Kinshasa and the eastern part of the DRC is purely an internal matter and the government of Rwanda is not involved in it in any way.” SWB/Radio Rwanda, August 3, 1998.

  4. IRIN Bulletin, no. 473 (August 4, 1998). RPA commandoes highjacked a number of commercial and cargo planes of various nationalities from the airport in Goma and used them to ferry troops clear across the Congo to Kitona during the next few days. With guns put to their heads, the pilots had no choice. See, in Libération, August 22–23, 1998, the story of the Nigerian pilot Raymond Niang, who managed to get away and fly his Boeing 707 to Lagos. Most of the money for the operation was quickly raised from the old Mobutists Nzimbi, Baramoto, and their friends, who rushed to Kigali. Interview with a former RPA officer, Washington, DC, October 1999.

  5. REC report 8 (August 31, 1998). Most of the forty-eight officers shot (and the majority of their bodyguards) were former Katangese Tigers, and the massacre immediately drove a wedge between the mostly eastern rebels and their Balunda comrades-in-arms. Many of those later deserted the rebellion and went back either to Katanga or to Angola, where they fought against UNITA.

  6. In addition, several hundred young Banyamulenge recruits who were being trained at Kasindi were massacred by the government forces on the assumption that they would join the rebellion.

  7. The same goes for the political local cover of the makeshift rebellion: AFDL Health Minister Jean-Baptiste Sondji declared on TV a few days later that he had been contacted on August 2 at 1 p.m. by a defecting member of his staff who wanted him to come over to Goma and join the leadership of the rebellion. SWB/Radio Television Nationale Congolaise (RTNC), August 5, 1998.

  8. Interview with a former RPF cadre, Brussels, February 1999.

  9. Telephone interview with the freelance journalist (later Human Rights Watch employee) Corinne Dufka, Freetown, April 1999.

  10. Some of the officers were bought outright with quite large amounts of cash (up to $150,000 in some cases; see the September 1999 testimony of one of the FAC officers kindly communicated by Mauro de Lorenzo). Jealousies and rivalries developed around who got how much, but the rumors of loose cash led to quite a few cases of loyalty switching. See G. de Villers, J. Omasombo, and E. Kennes, Guerre et politique: Les trente derniers mois de L. D. Kabila (août 1998–janvier 2001) (Tervuren, Belgium: CEDAF, 2001), 18.

  11. The rebels eventually occupied Kisangani on August 23, but their hold on the city remained precarious. The population rose against them three days later in a bloody counteruprising in which twenty-eight people were killed and dozens wounded. Interview with Alphonse Maindo, Paris, December 1999.

  12. Kabarebe himself had put them there when he was FAC chief of staff and he was partly responsible for their poor treatment. The majority were ex-FAZ but there were also Angolan UNITA elements and former Lissouba militiamen from Brazzaville.

  13. He eventually came to have about eight thousand men under his command. But their military fitness varied enormously depending on whether they came from Goma or Kitona. Many of the ex-FAZ were of no use.

  14. IRIN Bulletin, no. 475 (August 6, 1998). The very fact that he felt obliged to say that spoke volumes about the perceived reality of the situation.

  15. IRIN Bulletin, no. 476 (August 7, 1998). The defense minister’s declaration was somewhat disingenuous: if it was true that the FAB had not crossed the border it was because they had been in the DRC all along. Bujumbura had stationed about two thousand troops on the Congo side of Lake Tanganyika to try to prevent FDD guerrilla incursions into Burundi.

  16. IRIN Bulletin, no. 478 (August 11, 1998).

  17. Hundreds more crossed the river and took refuge in Brazzaville. Popular anger against the Tutsi was such that quite a few Tutsi-looking people (mostly Somali traders) were lynched by angry mobs. For a description of the situation in Kinshasa at that time, see Lieve Joris, La danse du léopard (Arles: Actes Sud, 2002), chapter 12; J. B. Gervais, Kabila, chronique d’une debâcle annoncée (Villeurbanne, France: Editions Golias, 1999). Gervais, himself a Tutsi half-caste, gives an honest description of the reasons Banyamulenge were disliked in the capital (68–70) and of the resulting violence against them, in which he himself was caught
(128–152).

  18. Thus the Bunia radio issuing calls to kill “those tall and slim ones with the long noses who want to dominate us” (SWB/RTNC, August 8, 1998) just a few days before the town fell to rebel forces. There were similar anti-Tutsi pogroms in lubumbashi, driving hundreds of Banyaviura refugees into Zambia. Although this was a godsend for Kigali’s propaganda mill (on August 11 Cdr. Sylvain Mbuki aired the first rebel accusation about Kinshasa, making use of Interahamwe militiamen), the largely spontaneous Congolese lynch mobs were quite differently motivated than the Rwandese génocidaires of 1994.

  19. IRIN Bulletin, no. 477 (August 8–10, 1998).

  20. This was actually a dangerous strategy because he would have been fully dependent on South African electrical supply to Katanga, as the Inga line would have been cut off. See La Lettre Afrique Energies, August 26, 1998. And, as we will see, South Africa’s attitude toward Kinshasa was by then extremely ambiguous.