Abstract
When war broke out in Eastern Congo in August 1998, many observers noted the similarities between the new rebellion and the war that had toppled the regime of Mobutu Sese Sekou only fourteen months earlier.1 Like the first war, the second began with ethnic Congolese Tutsi taking up arms to defend themselves against scapegoating and attacks by government supporters. Both wars began along the Congolese border with Rwanda, in Uvira, Bukavu, and Goma, and quickly spread along two fronts—up the Congo River and along Congo’s northern border and to the south into the mineral-rich provinces of Katanga and Kasai. In both wars, after initially denying involvement in the fighting, the Rwandan government eventually admitted to participation, justifying its intervention on humanitarian and defensive grounds, and, as before, Uganda threw its support behind the rebellion as well.
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Notes
Cf, Jacques Depelchin, “Crisis in the Congo,” lecture given at Columbia University, New York, NY, September 30, 1998 (mimeograph). Louise Turnbridge, “Revolt Threatens Kabila Regime in Congo: Tutsis Seem Intent on Separation,” The Ottawa Citizen, 5 August 1998. Reuters reported on 4 August 1998, for example, that “Army rebels have risen up against President Laurent Kabila in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a revolt that mirrors the uprising that brought him to power just over a year ago.” (italics added)
The Clinton White House gave mixed signals to the warring parties. While State Department spokesperson James P. Rubin said just after the start of the rebellion “I’m not prepared to comment on whether we would like to see a change in the Government there …” (Steven Erlanger, “U.S. Sees Rwandan Role in Congo Revolt,” New York Times, 5 August 1998), just a few days later another State Department spokesperson, James Foley, said “We urge all countries in the region to respect the territorial integrity of the Congo, refrain from becoming involved in the conflict and respect international law” (“More Congo Fighting, Rwanda Denies any Blame for Rebellion,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 6 August 1998)
Philip Gourevich, We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed along with Our Families (New York: Farrar Strauss and Giroux, 1998) is an excellent expression of this perspective of the RPF as heroes motivated only by the desire to save their families.
For example, respected historian Jean-Pierre Chrétien [“Le Rwanda piégé par son histoire,” Esprit (August–September 2000) 170–189] writes. “On comprendra donc que je n’aie pas fais partie des bonnes âmes qui, dès lendemain du génocide, se sont précipitées pour exiger la perfection du nouveau régime établi à Kigali, d’autant que ce pays avait besoin d’un Nuremberg et d’un plan Marshall à sa mesure et qu’il n’a eu ne l’un ni l’autre.” (“One will understand, thus, that I was not among those good souls who, from the day after the genocide, rushed to demand perfection of the new regime established in Kigali, all the more so since this country had need of a Nuremberg and a Marshall plan in its measure and that it got neither.”)
Mahmood Mamdani, “A Foreign Invasion in Congo Can’t Deliver Democracy” Mail and Guardian, 30 October 1998.
George Dash, “Understanding What Is Happening in the Congo,” posting on Rwandanet, August 25, 1998.
Filip Reyntjens, “Briefing: the Second Congo War: More Than a Remake,” African Affairs 98 (1999): 241–250.
For a discussion of the diverse origins of Congo’s Tutsi and Hutu communities, see Timothy Longman, Forced to Flee (New York: Human Rights Watch, July 1996).
Jean-Claude Willame, L’Odyssée Kabila: Trajectoire pour un Congo nouveau? (Paris. Karthala, 1999), 139–159; “Fighting Flares in Eastern Democratic Congo,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 27 February 1998.
Lara Santoro, “Congo Leader Urges Nazi-Style Tactics against Tutsi,” The Christian Science Monitor, 2 September 1998; “Foreign Troops in Congo”
On the relationship between war and genocide, see Robert Melson, “Revolutionary Genocide: On the Causes of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and the Holocaust,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 4, no. 2 (1989) 161–174
See my report, Timothy Longman, Eastern Congo Ravaged: Killing Civilians and Silencing Protest, New York: Human Rights Watch Short Report, vol.12, no. 3 (A) (May 2000). 30.
Timothy Longman and Allison DesForges, Zaire, Attacked by All Sides: Civalians and the War in Eastern Congo, New York: Human Rights Watch Short Report, vol. 9, no. 1 (A) (March 1997): 13.
Ann Simmons, “Rising Violence in Rwanda Stirs Fears of Ethnic War; Officials Insist Rebel Attacks Unconnected,” The Toronto Star, 15 December 1997; Mseteka Buchizya, “Hutu Rebels Renew Fight in Rwanda, Burundi,” The Toronto Star, 14 January 1998; Ronald Siegloff, “Murder and Vengeance Stalk Rwanda as War Rages Once More,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 18 February 1998.
African Rights, Rwanda: The Insurgency in the Northwest (London: African Rights, September 1998); Stephen Handelman, “The Killing Fields of Africa Are Busy Again,” The Toronto Star, 15 February 1998; Simmons, “Rising Violence.”
Filip Reyntjens, Talking or Fighting? Political Evolution in Rwanda and Burundi, 1998–1999, Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1999, 11; African Rights, Rwanda.
Ian Fisher, “Rwanda’s Huge Stake in Congo’s War,” New York Times, 27 December 1998, Reyntjens, Talking or Fighting 11.
Rony Brauman, Stephen Smith, and Claudine Vidal, “Politique de terreur et privilège d’impunité au Rwanda,” Esprit (August–September 2000): 147–16.
Howard French, “The Curse of Riches. In Africa, Wealth Often Buys Only Trouble,” The New York Times, 25 January 1998.
Cf., Bjorn Willum, “Civil War Finance by Diamonds and Donors: Struggle for the Treasure Below,” Aktuelt, 18 January 2001.
Gunnar Willum, “Rebel Leader Confirms What Western Donors Deny: Uganda Plunders Congo,” Aktuelt 22 January 2001.
Dena Montague and Frida Berrigan, “The Business of War in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Who Benefits?” Dollars and Sense (July 2001): 15–19.
Gerard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), provides excellent insight into the RPF. See especially 61–74, 356–389.
Willame, L’Odyssée Kabila, 39. “Pour Kagame donc, les ‘rebelles congolais’ ne jouent qu’un rôle d’appoint à un processus mené de bout en bout par le Rwanda.”
John Pomfret, “Rwandans Led Revolt in Congo,” The Washington Post, 9 July 1997
On the anti-Tutsi propaganda in the Rwandan genocide, see Allison DesForges, Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999), 65–95.
Ian Fisher, “Rebels Can’t Conquer the Hearts of the Congolese,” New York Times, 13 August 1999.
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© 2002 John F. Clark
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Longman, T. (2002). The Complex Reasons for Rwanda’s Engagement in Congo. In: Clark, J.F. (eds) The African Stakes of the Congo War. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403982445_8
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