|
Archbishop Francois-Xavier Maroy of Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, in a recent letter to the French
ambassador, raised the alarm on what he deemed to be an
imminent return to war in the East of Congo. Here, Jacques
Bahati, AFJN intern originally from the DRC, offers us his take on the
present precarious situation:
In late May, the provincial government of the South
Kivu province and the church in the eastern Congo
raised the alarm, stating that they had evidence of the imminent preparation of
a war against the Congo
coming from the east. The Democratic Republic of the Congo
has always been at war at all fronts. Who are its enemies? An analysis reveals three. The first is its own government. The D.R.C.
has never had a responsible government, only selfish and corrupt ones. The second is made up of the foreign
multinationals that have been looting Congolese natural resources, leaving
nothing to the people and nurturing war by arming rebel factions. The third enemy ...
The third enemy is comprised of
foreign nations. The D.R. Congo has a
long and painful history of colonization, neo-colonization and the foreign
military invasion by its neighbors Rwanda,
Uganda and Burundi, who
occupied three quarters of the country from 1996 until recently.
On May 28th, UN radio
announced a report of the infiltration of foreign fighters in the Minebwe Mountains: “…a Burundian was presented to the governor
of the province by the commander of the 10th regional military, General
Sylvain Tshikwej. The man said that he
was contacted at his sport club in Bujumbura (Burundi) to participate in a competition in
Uvira (South Kivu). When he got to Congolese territory, he was
taken with two other Burundians to the Minebwe Mountains
at gun point. After he escaped, he was
captured by a soldier of the 10th regional military. The South Kivu
province governor, Celestin Cibalonza, said that he was worried about the
situation. According to him, it was a
recruitment to destabilize the province”.
What the central government in
Kinshasa has called an interethnic conflict, calling for a round table for
negotiations, was rejected by political and religious authorities from the
East, who, through Archbishop Maroy’s letter, made clear that the evidence
points not only to internal actors such as the Banyamulenge, but to neighboring
countries. This information is based in part on the testimony of captured infiltrators
recruited from Rwanda and Burundi. One of them explained that he was promised
a job opportunity in the Congo.
But when he got there, he was taken to a military training camp from which he
escaped.
History also seems to point to
what authorities in the East are saying about a new war. Since 1990 and the beginning of the efforts
to overthrow the Hutu regime of Juvenale Habyarimana in Rwanda, the Congolese
Banyamulenge have been part of the planning, the beginning and the end of both
the Rwandan war and the 1996 invasion of Congo. After the Tutsi, exiled Tutsi from the Hutu
revolution of 1959 in Rwanda,
retook in 1994 the power that they had held since the 1300s, they moved on with
their plan to have a Tutsi-led central Africa.
They invaded the Congo,
using the Banyamulenge citizenship crisis that existed even prior to their
participation in the Hutu-Tutsi Rwandan war.
This issue was minimized, if not supported, by the international
community that accepted the Rwandan Tutsi-led government’s pretext to invade
the Congo: that the Congo
had welcomed the former Rwandan army. The
war was long and very deadly.
Today, Congolese still suffer
from the consequences of the recent war, namely the birth of tribal armed
self-defense groups, the presence on the Congolese territory of the Hutu armed
factions that hope to return in power in Rwanda and the rebellion movement of
Laurent Nkunda, who today is the cause of many massacres of the people in the
North and South Kivu provinces. The
security situation in eastern Congo
has never improved since its invasion by Rwanda,
Burundi and Uganda. Just one of the many recent events reported
by the UN radio MONUC involved 500 families of the village of Kanyiola
who fled their homes. Some were kidnapped, women were raped and others
killed. Thousands fled Kisharo in
Rutshuru/ North Kivu.
The cry of the Catholic Church in
South Kivu is a challenge to the D.R. Congo government to tackle the question
of the readiness of the Congolese army to secure peace with Rwanda, Uganda and
Burundi and to deal with the issues of the Banyamulenge (because of their relationship
to these countries in planning to harm Congolese), the armed Hutu of the F.N.L
from Burundi, the rebels of the L.R.A from Uganda, the
Interahamwe from Rwanda who live and operate on the Congolese territory
attacking their countries and harming Congolese.
On June 7, 2007, in Lubumbashi, Rwanda, Burundi
and Uganda
ended a meeting attempting to find a solution to the security issue. From June 12 to 14, 2007 the UN was to hold
a conference on disarmament, demobilization and reinsertion (DDR), as part of
the effort to assist the newly elected government in addressing one of its many
challenges.
|
