Kampala's commitments

So, after the summit in Kampala, the leaders agree: there must be a neutral, international force deployed in eastern DRC to ensure peace and stability. However, one big question must be asked: will this help?

Given the history of the Kivus, another military force could be petrol on top of a burning fire. Then again, how else can M23 be kept at bay?  Force seems to be the only language that rebel groups understand. But, in the future, when/if these rebels give up (be they M23, FDLR, or others) how does one treat the post-traumatic stress disorder, the bitterness, the ethnic tensions? Ethnicity is a huge problem in the Kivus; many Kinyarwanda-speaking people probably feel threatened by anti-Rwanda backlashes thanks to M23 activity in the area. That's right: Rwanda's militarism and cross-border smuggling could be threatening its own people.

Anyway, for the moment, the Great Lakes region leaders agree on the military solution for the military problem. A good story by the East African on the Kampala summit can be found here. Good luck Great Lakes leaders! Oh, and the people in the region, I hope you survive the skirmishes--at present and in the future. You are, to me and your leaders, a mere afterthought.

The Congo and Rwanda: Limping out of the violent legacy?

The recent rebellion in Congo is a great starting point for understanding the legacy of the Congo Wars of the 1990s. The infernal mess of problems that was still lies strewn across the region. In treaties, diplomacy, and accusations by one country against the other, the reality of Congo’s current predicament is lost. In the First Congo War, the ideology of “New African Leaders” consolidated Yoweri Museveni’s and Paul Kagame’s acts of being ‘new’—compared to Mobutu. The Second War confounded this act and revealed an ulterior motive of being involved in eastern Congo—money. Rwanda and Uganda’s current involvement in the M23 movement, along with other destabilization tactics, suggests the current motive is not far from the old one. Money is central to Central Africa’s woes. Thus, comparing the aftermath of Africa’s World Wars with Europe’s is fascinating—whereas Germany, the aggressor, was economically punished for imperial ambitions, Africa’s authoritarian regime has essentially boomed with opportunity. The current Tutsi regime in Rwanda has ensured this. Their involvement in the Kivu region can be seen as either a matter of security or a profitable revenue stream. In 1996, Kivu held a threat to Tutsi hegemony; now, Rwandan involvement seems closer to opportunistic piracy than a national security campaign. Thus, the Kivus are very unstable, suffering from Rwandan proxy-force incursions, while the diplomatic situation is at a dangerous stalemate.

Joseph Kabila, President of the Democratic 

Republic of the Congo. Has a knack

 for sniffing out secrets.

            The recent talks in Addis Ababa between Joseph Kabila and Paul Kagame, coupled with Kabila’s recent remarks about the “open secret” of Rwandan support for the M23 movement are bemusing (a source in English is here). How are these (recent) historical enemies talking and collaborating while one supports a rebel movement in the other’s territory? The answer requires some background. The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), is a rebel group, made up of some of the participants in the 1994 genocide. It is Hutu—and a continuation of the Armed Forces of Rwanda (FAR), the Rwandan national army under the former government. This threat to Rwanda has long been an issue: their presence across the border precipitated the First Congo War, and, although the genocidaires murdered Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994, the Kagame administration sees the survival of the last Hutu militia as a serious security threat. (Millions of Hutu refugees and militants were murdered in the Congo Wars and since then; the FDLR is not a serious threat anymore.) If Kabila did not comply with Rwandan paranoia over the FDLR, it is possible hit squads would be sent across the border. Also, two militias tied to the current Tutsi regime count the FDLR as their enemy. These two militias are Laurent Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defense of the People (known as CNDP; made to protect Congolese Tutsis) and Bosco Ntaganda’s M23 movement (named after the March 23 agreement with the government that turned the CNDP into a political party and integrated them into the Congolese army—FARDC). The M23 movement is alive and well, currently wreaking havoc in North Kivu.

The Kivu region of eastern DRC.

Many Hutus, after the genocide, fled to

refugee camps in Goma and Bukavu,

on the shores of Lake Kivu.

            Bosco’s M23 is basically a faction of the CNDP, which, nominally, no longer exists. When Nkunda fled to Rwanda and got a surprise arrest in 2009, Ntaganda took over CNDP and joined forces with the Congolese army. However, the official leader of M23, Sultani Makenga, allegedly heads the Nkunda faction, separate from Ntaganda. Although the whole movement has rebelled, it is said Makenga has different reasons from Bosco—maybe he is positioning himself as a key player in the Kivu-Kigali circuit. Bosco’s partnership with Kinshasa turned sour in March when rumors spread that Kabila was considering handing Bosco over to the International Criminal Court. The M23 movement was born out of fears that Kinshasa would hand over the ‘Terminator,’ as Bosco is known. (The man’s 2006 indictment from The Hague accuses him of using child soldiers.)

General Bosco Ntaganda, informal leader of M23;

 on the run from The Hague.

Possibly the least loved man in the Congo.

            So how is Kabila getting along with Kagame with all this drama? Easily. The economy in the Kivus is very militarized; the only way to sell anything is to share part of your earnings with the nearest man with a gun. Since Rwanda is entrenched in eastern Congo, some money can be spent supporting the troops on the ground, and the minerals can be sent across the border to be exported. This is a lucrative structure for Rwanda. It is probably lucrative for Kabila and his pals, too. However, recent talks between the two governments have brought harmony: both sides support a neutral, international force, which would secure the border. Jason Stearns points out that this force, if mustered, will not appear overnight. This harmonious idea may never materialize, as the mineral smuggling brings revenue. Gérard Prunier, a great contemporary historian focused on Central Africa, offered a deft analysis in 2009:

“‘I don't think the [Rwandan army] is in Kivu just to cleanse the earth of the FDLR. The point is to control the mines which the FDLR now controls and to share the proceeds with the Kinshasa administration rather than with the Hutu genocidaires’” [1].

So would the corrupt Congolese government accept a mission that might eliminate this source of revenue? Only time will tell.

            Rwanda’s next move is important: with the recent UN Group of Experts report linking M23 to Kigali, the US, UK, Netherlands, and Germany have cut aid to the small nation. This, diplomatically, is a good sign, but will it keep Rwanda from stealing Congolese minerals? Could the plunder now be fully focused on the Kivus? This would isolate Kagame, with his greedy appetite further exposed; not to mention the amazingly destructive image Rwanda would hold in the collective unconscious of Congolese (possibly all Central Africans). Kagame, for all his intelligence, has built himself a risky perch—denying involvement in M23 will not work, and now he has to support an African Union mission to reconcile his image—even if it eradicates a key revenue stream. As more than $40 million worth of aid has been cut, the M23 movement is Rwanda and Congo’s hot potato: it has burned Rwanda diplomatically, Congo spectrally.

President Paul Kagame, Rwanda's great military mind.

His wedding ring is made of Congolese gold.

        It appears Kagame has a strategy that he wanted with or without M23: a seat on the UN Security Council. This is crucial to what occurs in the Great Lakes region; Kabila knows this. At the conference in Addis, he was hoping to strip Rwanda of this seat [2]. Somehow, Kagame convinced Kabila that he should keep the seat. This move will no doubt give Rwanda the diplomatic upper hand. Kagame has long milked the legacy of the genocide for an advantage but now the work won’t be as hard. Maybe then, Kagame can cancel this neutral international force.

            The idea of sending an AU mission to secure the border and hunt down the FDLR and M23 could be helpful. Unlike a Congolese, Rwandan, or Ugandan force, this mission would not tax the locals, would not stoke ethnic tensions, and would be less likely to mutiny—theoretically. However, given the violent past of eastern Congo and Rwanda, can we fight fire with fire? Would another military force on the ground be good or would it just make the situation worse? These are questions African leaders must raise before making another mistake in the Great Lakes region.

            Placing these recent developments into context, my biggest fear is that the unresolved conflicts around Rwanda and the Kivus could advance into another continental war. The Second Congo War (1998-2002) killed somewhere between 2 and 5.4 million people, and many of the problems from the Genocide and the two Congo Wars still exist. With the corruption of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s government, along with the supply chains the Rwanda has in the east, social inequality has been amplified. Tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold, which are mostly smuggled through Rwanda to be exported, originate from Congo; these minerals are making someone rich. But most Congolese and most Rwandese are poor and struggling. Whereas the governments of Central Africa may be profiting off of disorder, this arrangement is shaky at best. One scenario that could save the Congo’s economy and Rwanda’s image: the great military mind of Rwanda orders a tactical retreat.

The nature of "Vipande za mayele"

A mixed title of Lingala and KiSwahili, "Vipande za mayele" can be translated as, "Pieces of intelligence," but I would like to translate it as, "Pieces of wisdom." The mixture of these two languages, both used a lot in the Congo, gives direction for this blog. Although mainly focused on Congo and Central Africa, I will also analyze other phenomena on the African continent. Welcome. Bienvenue. Karibu. Boyei Bolamu.