GOING EAST
GOMA, CONGO: When President Obama introduced his “just war” doctrine to rationalize his accepting a Nobel Peace Prize while he escalated the war on Afghanistan, he cited mass rape in the Congo as one reason wars are needed.
What he didn’t explain is causes of this war and the abuse–and how the US contributed to it over the years. He also didn’t mention that to the parties fighting here, this is their own version of a “just war” with each side rationalizing its conduct, denying abuses, and fighting on in the name of higher principles.
The President also did not announce any new initiatives to do something about this crisis as Congo Peace advocate John Prendegast noted on Huffington Post:
“In Congo, the new Nobel Laureate could help catalyze efforts to end the trade in conflict minerals, helping to lay the foundation for peace in much the same way ending the blood diamonds trade helped end the wars in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Angola.
As the world celebrates Human Rights Day today, it is hard to conceive of a more propitious time for President Obama to act on his words.” READ MORE
After a week in Kinshasa talking about the war in Congo, it was time to see it for ourselves, or at least visit its epicenter in the East of the country, a very different region where Swahili is the main language.
Personally, I am not one of those reporters who loves what we used to called “bang bang” coverage so I am not looking for combat or “action.” I want to see the human impact of the war and try to find out how people here think peace can be achieved. This is the region where rape has been used as a weapon of war, where rebel groups challenge government forces militarily and occupy territory. Literally millions have been killed. 1.8 million people have been displaced causing a major humanitarian crisis; territory seems to change hands weekly and, as they say, tension is always high. Like our security alerts, the UN categorizes some areas as “red zones.”
The UN military observer and peace keeping mission, MANUC, spends $4 billion a year trying to ease the situation and protect the population. Earlier this year, the Congo launched a month-long joint military operation with Rwanda called UMOJA WETU to neutralize a rebel force, The FDLR thought to be funded by neighboring Rwanda. The Rwandans denied they were behind it and sent troops to battle alongside the Congolese government. There were initial successes in the one month campaign after Congo’s President Joseph Kabila reached out to his counterpart in Rwanda, Presisdent Paul Kagame in the belief that both sides had an interest in making peace.
He took a risk, a big political risk because if it failed, he would be accused of collaborating with an enemy.
Many Congolese blame the Rwandans for starting this in the aftermath of the genocide where a largely Hutu army took refuge in Congo. In those days, the war seemed straightforward — Rwanda’s surviving Tutsi’s pursuing the Hutu that murdered them en masse, but the battles were taking place not in Rwanda but across the border where Congolese civilians were caught in the cross-fire with all sides plundering Congo’s wealthy resources. Slowly, this became not just an ethnic conflict but an economic war fought by militias and armies funded by outside or with funds stolen from the Congolese.
In 1998, A Tutsi rebellion against Kabila began in Kinshasa. By mid-August, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia sent troops to back DRC President Laurent Kabila.
Human Rights Watch has a full chronology online but you can see how one crisis led to another:
July 1994: An estimated 50,000 people die when cholera spreads through the huge, squalid refugee camps in eastern Zaire.
November 1994: Aid agencies stop working in the refugee camps in eastern Zaire stating that the camps are becoming increasingly militarized. Former Rwandan Hutu soldiers control access and food distribution.
November 1996 - May 1997: The Rwandan army, in support of an anti-Mobutu rebel group, the Alliance for Democratic Liberation (AFDL), attack the refugee camps in eastern Zaire and march on the capital, Kinshasa, while Mobutu is abroad for medical treatment. Tens of thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees flee westwards into Zaire’s forests pursued by Rwandan army soldiers.
June 1998: The UN investigation team issues a preliminary report indicating that gross human rights violations, and possible genocide, were committed in 1996 and 1997 by the Rwandan army and their AFDL allies against the Rwandan Hutu refugees. It calls for further investigations at a more “opportune” time.
August 1998: President Laurent Kabila demands that his Rwandan army backers leave the country. Kabila purges Tutsi from his government and whips up anti-Tutsi sentiment in an attempt to show his independence from Rwanda. Less than a week later, Rwandan and Ugandan armies invade Congo, backing a hastily formed Congolese rebel group seeking to oust Kabila.
une 2002 ‘
Human Rights Watch publishes a report “The War Within the War” documenting for the first time the widespread use of rape as a weapon of war in eastern Congo.
September 2002: An estimated 3,000 civilians are brutally massacred when rival militias clash in the hospital town of Nyankunde, Ituri district. The event marks the largest massacre of the second Congo war. Only one international newspaper reports it.
There is more, much more, showing how volatile this conflict has been.
The Congo had been weakened by the overthrow of the Mobutu regime, the death of President Laurent Kabila and a difficult process of preparing elections which Kabila’s son, Joesph, won although the results were contested.
Allies of the Congo, armies from Angola, Zimbabwe and Uganda went to help Congo while also, or so it is charged, helping themselves to the resources they could grab. Congo was under attack by its friends and enemies while trying to reassert control in the Kivu region at a great cost in lives and instability.
Back in 2002 in Goma, on top of everything else, the Nyiragongo Volcano erupted, sending its scalding lava to devastate large parts of the city.
If they didn’t have bad luck, they would have had no luck at all.
So, here we are at the end of 2009.
The current UN mission mandate will be extended only by 6 months, which is fine with most Congolese because they are very critical the UN role and failure to protect victims. On the other hand, this mission puts $4 billion into the country and many fear that the situation will destabilize further if they leave.
Clearly, Congo needs its own “surge” but here, like in Afghanistan, more soldiers alone will not necessarily help the people because the crisis is not just a military one. The US helps fund the peace keeping operation but does not participate in it.
In some ways, war has become a business, employing people and dominating the political landscape.
There is a peace treaty between the government and one of the rebel groups, the CNDP, which “integrates” their soldiers into the government army but is very, unevenly implemented.
The US condemns what is happening but has given little aid. There is a feeling of exhaustion, paralysis, and global indifference as the victims pile up.
Maybe if Osama’s boys showed showed up and set off some grenades near our Embassy in Kinshasa, Washington would do more. I am sure that if the marauders here could be classified as extremist Muslims, the West would be more attentive.
Next report tomorrow. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org
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