FROM INSIDE THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO-DRC

COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 19 Nov 2008

Submitted by Marianne Perez

Editor’s Note: the name of the author has been omitted to protect her/his personal security in the DRC.

In fact, western media does not highlight enough the economic and financial stakes of the conflict in Congo. If there weren’t immense resources to exploit in the region, the resolution of the conflict would be easy.  Under the pretext of defending the Tutsis, President Nkunda, helped by Rwanda and multinational corporations, leads a cynical war, raping, killing and displacing civilians, whose children—under 5 years old—and the elderly cannot resist the environmental hazards and many of whom are now dying because it is the rainy season.  For me, it’s a voluntary homicide the rest of the world is watching as if it were a soccer or a rugby match.
 
On two occasions, EU meetings have ended without a compromise, tripping on the refusal of Great Britain and Germany to send European troops to bring safety to civilians and humanitarian organizations on the ground. Only France, Belgium and Spain see this as opportune. And here I must underline that Nkunda presents Germany as a mediator of the conflict.  I wonder if a mediator who has a stake in the conflict can be neutral.
 
Western multinational corporations play a negative role in this war because if these resources didn’t find immediate takers, the belligerents would already be discouraged.  Claiming to protect the Tutsis sounds good, but that is only an alibi as the Tutsis are everywhere in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and nobody is against them.  Some are ministers; others are directors of public companies or high-ranking military officers.  In the region, politics of lies have developed.
 
All you need to do is read Pierre Péan to know more.  He says, "It is important to know that Rwanda is a country of a thousand illusions—as long as the culture of lying and deceit dominates all the others amongst the Tutsis, and to a lesser extent is impregnated amongst the Hutus." Academics such as Reyntjens, Guichaouia, and the journalist Smith say the same thing.
 
The only problem is that in Eastern DRC stray a group of Hutus who no longer present any real danger for Rwanda; the talks for their return are in progress.  Also, the Rwandan army has been in Congo under Anglo-American protection, but instead of fighting their enemy brothers, by whom I mean the Hutus, the Rwandan army ended up in Kinshasa, 2000 km from Kivu where the Hutus are located… Go figure that the Rwandan genocide has become a happy accident that allows for the destabilization of countries that weren’t implicated in the events.  

In regards to the Hutus, the international community’s attitude remains unjust and contradictory.  It asks the DRC to fight the Hutus who have come to the DRC as refugees, and at the same time does not want to lift the embargo on arms that strikes this country.  The question is simple: are we going to fight them with sticks?  This way of doing leads many Congolese to believe that there is an international conspiracy to balkanize the country as was the case in Kosovo.  But is there such a thing as a clean war? A war that doesn’t affect the ecology?  As long as the planners are spared, the others can die.  Besides, some wonder why more media attention is given to the massacre of gorillas that the same rebels perpetrate with total impunity.  So, if this is the case, I wonder why millions have been spent to seed democracy in the DRC?
 
Fortunately, the Rwandan president is going after everyone now; yesterday it was France, now Germany has seen its ambassador expelled from Kigali for having arrested a woman who took part in the attack that took Habyarimana’s life—the former Rwandan president whose death triggered the genocide.  Kagame, the current Rwandan president, does not want to dialogue with the Hutus, and that is the real problem.  But only true reconciliation can help the Rwandans live better.  There is already justice, but it is insufficient in this country, whose history is characterized by interethnic massacres.

The Banyamulenge are there.  They are the Congolese of Rwandan descent, but during this conflictual period, they always ally themselves with negative forces.  In fact, out of the 450 tribal groups in the DRC, only four are at odds with each other: the Hutus and Tutsis, and the Lendus and Hemas. All the others have cohabited without any major problems for ages.
 
UN peacekeepers are in the country—about 17 000 of them—and they are said to be the most costly UN mission. But the DRC is a continental country.  You know that in Kosovo, NATO deployed 40 000 troops to survey a country 215 times smaller than the DRC and 25 times smaller than Kivu.  As opposed to the MONUC (Mission d’Observation des Nations Unies au Congo) peacekeepers, NATO soldiers came from wealthy countries.  MONUC troops largely come from developing and poor countries that lend themselves to illegal trafficking of diamonds, gold and columbite-tantalite. (Coltan is a valuable metallic element that is resistant to heat and corrosion.  It is essentially used in electronics, cellular phones and surgical tools.  Kivu alone has 80 percent of the world’s reserves.)   
 
We saw on our screens an Indian officer leaving to thank and encourage the rebel chief Nkunda, and the latter reciprocated by thanking him for the help received.  What kind of help was it? No one knows. The UN had promised to lead an investigation, but the results were never made public.  Similarly, under MONUC’s orders, loyal forces had to abandon positions they had conquered from the rebels. But presently all these positions have once again been ceded to the rebels.  Could MONUC be impotent vis-à-vis the rebels?  May we speak of complicity?  I don’t know. What is certain is that very few believe in MONUC, which is said to be politicized.  The resignation of the Spanish officer who was supposed to command the troops three weeks after his start date says a lot.  According to AFP, the officer gave orders that were not executed—the "peace" keepers preferred to consult with their countries of origin.  
 
Of course there is also the weakness of the Congolese state, which is justified by the fact that the war does not give it time to organize.  But also, I have to say that impunity reigns at the peak of the state and of course corruption too.  The Congolese state is not wise because it signs agreements but does not implement them, at least not in my opinion. But some explain the war by the fact that the country signed an agreement to the tune of 8 billion dollars with China, which may have irritated the West during this financial crisis.  During the Congolese president’s last visit to France, Sarkozy alluded to that.  The Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister even made a trip to Beijing to dissuade China.  The IMF is involved as well.  Bulldozers, tractors, cranes and other heavy construction machines arrived in DRC ages ago, but not a single construction site has opened and unemployment continues!
 
In my opinion it would be relevant for a summit to be called, which would bring together the US, the EU and certain South-East Asian countries, so that they can resolve their geo-strategic, economic and even their fundamental problems, which feed the murderous tensions in this region generally and in the DRC in particular. We would thus spare the death of innumerable peasants and there would be fewer criminals.  This would also alleviate the tasks of humanitarian organizations and favor the actions of investors.  That sums it up.
 
That is in brief the situation in the DRC… But we also say "No Nkunda, No Job" which means that without Nkunda, the UN would need to pack its bags.  So we are maintaining them and some UN personnel have even been accused of arms trafficking with the rebels.  It should be noted that there was a fight on the front between the Indian contingent, which wanted to leave the rebels, and the Senegalese one, which was against it.  Too many stories, too much mafia… and each time a UN promise to investigate and punish the guilty.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 19 Nov 2008.

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