Kivu in center of conflicts

June 16, 2009 • Dan Perlman ('10)/ Eastside Global Commentary Editor  
Filed under Global Commentary

Kivu is, geographically, a relatively small area of the Democratic Republic of Congo, along the Republic’s eastern border. North Kivu shares a border with both Uganda and Rwanda, while South Kivu shares with Rwanda and Burundi. On a map of Africa, the region is roughly halfway between the Atlantic and Indian oceans. This is the epicenter of one of the most devastatingly violent human conflicts since the Second World War.

Today, five primary armed factions roam in Kivu: the CNDP (National Council for the Defense of the People), an ethnically-Tutsi organization led by a rogue general of the Congolese army; the Congolese army itself (the FARDC, the Armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo); the FDLR (Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda), the aggregated remnants of the armed Hutu factions of Rwanda’s own recent conflict; “Mai-Mai” militias, or PARECO (Congolese Patriot Resistants); and MONUC, the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A tangled web of allegiances and backing links the separate armies—all at some point have fought the other. The UN force maintains ostensible neutrality, however it is devoted by definition to the preservation of peaceful political processes for the Kinhasa government, the official DRC government; in field terms in Kivu, this translates to support for the FARDC and in cooperation the Mai-Mai.

These factions have been carving up North and South Kivu into enclaves for years, raiding villages, capturing cities, kidnapping, murdering, stealing—just about everything terrible which can happen in postmodern warfare except biological or nuclear fighting, has been going on in Kivu. The current stage of what is really a decades-old history of conflict began when in 2002, an “All Inclusive Accords” was signed, seeking to integrate the Congolese national army, including Rwandaphone Tutsi forces, under the government of Joseph Kabila. Tutsi comprise only five percent of the Congolese population; they are geographically centralized around Kivu and have strong cultural and political ties to Rwanda. Tutsi representation among elite Congolese business and military circles, however, is perceived (often legitimately) as outweighing their actual demographic size—and thus Tutsi have become objects of discrimination on occasion. Resisting the integration policy, known as “brassage”, due to incidents of prejudice and violence against Tutsi in the federal army, General Laurent Nkunda led a splinter faction in a mutiny in the town of Bukavu (in South Kivu). His group would become the CNDP, backed by Rwanda—Rwanda being led by a Tutsi government since the end of the 1994 violence.

Enter the FARDC, FDLR, Mai-Mai, and MONUC. When the CNDP rose, the FARDC was sent in by Kinhasa, and Mai-Mai organized as their paramilitary support. The FDLR has been in Kivu for a decade, having fled Rwanda after the triumph of their opponents the Tutsis—of course, they fled to an area yet populated by Tutsis, only complicating the situation and provoking further hostilities. MONUC has organized refugee camps (now flooded and vulnerable to attack) and occupied provincial cities in an attempt to control the centers of power.

The convolution only begins there—foreign interest sketches an even more complex system which churns the fatal mixture. Kivu’s natural resources—oil potentially among them—have drawn the attention of foreign capital. The Asia Times ran an article which provocatively suggested that the conflict in Kivu is in fact a form of surrogate warfare being waged by elements of American society, specifically economic leaders, against China. Certainly, both the People’s Republic and the United States have been overtly expanding influence in sub-Saharan Africa—and neither side has ever been above aggravating bloodshed in the Third World in order to get ahead of the other. America has been ally-building in the region, with China in mind. President Kabila of the DRC has signed a nine-billion dollar cooperative economic development agreement with the People’s Republic. At the end of his final term, George W. Bush engineered a free-trade deal with Rwanda, a “BIT,” bilateral investment treaty, agreement. Under its stipulations, Rwandan-American trade is virtually de-regulated. This treaty came as a larger effort to bring a wider capitalist market to central sub-Saharan Africa—a mineral-rich region, laden in resources; and cheap labor too, and repressive governments. The government of Rwanda, supporter of the CNDP, is the object of a portentous courting by business conglomerates, as it advertises the lucrative potential of its country’s resources. While American interests partner with Rwanda, Chinese interests sidle up to the Kinhasa government.

Tying back into the conflict, Rwanda’s Tutsi-dominated government is widely seen as an agitator of the conflict. Rwandan weapons and supplies have been found among combatants in Kivu; speculations and rumors of front-line combat troops from Rwanda’s national army joining in frays within Kivu itself have flown. One reason in the public Congolese mind for these fears is that should the CNDP (Tutsi-dominated, remember) triumph, Rwanda (Tutsi-led) would be in place to economically—if not out-and-out politically—annex Kivu. This would be done in order to gain control of Kivu’s resources and sell them off to foreign (Western-allied) corporations in exchange for further guarantees of American backing; with American weapons and diplomatic clout, the small central sub-Saharan Rwanda would be poised to become the trading hub of a new capitalized central Africa, in accordance with the plans outlined by Bush’s BIT agreements and further goals set forth in a New York Times op-ed by Herman Cohen, assistant secretary of state for Africa from 1989 to 1993, still involved in African policy.

“After his inauguration, Barack Obama should appoint a special negotiator who would propose a framework for an economic common market encompassing Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda…It would give Rwandan businesses continued access to Congolese minerals and forests…The big change would be the payment of royalties and taxes to the Congolese government. For most Rwandan businesses, those payments would be offset by increased revenues,” says Cohen in the article published back in December. What this effectively would entail is in fact what many Congolese fear—the natural wealth of Kivu would be controlled by the Rwandan business elite, whose agreements with the United States would guarantee them great profit and continued control.

Interestingly, Cohen in the article flatly states that Rwanda is in fact sponsoring the CNDP. He further states that “from 1996 to today, the Tutsi-led Rwandan government has been in effective control of Congo’s eastern provinces of North and South Kivu,” which reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, along with recent developments in hostilities, would seem to contradict. Nobody has been in control of Kivu—though everyone’s trying their best. Cohen concludes by stating that if President Obama gives total control to the Rwandan government, the refugee camps would empty and the region would be transformed.

American policymakers, at least under George Bush, followed Cohen’s ideas. So far, Obama’s administration has not focused much on Africa. The conflict rages on. The International Rescue Committee reports that almost 5.5 million people have died since 1998 of the fighting and resultant issues. Tacitly, American support filters down through Rwanda to the CNDP—in other words, approving of Rwandan annexation of Kivu, which will only happen with a CNDP victory or an unlikely concession from a DRC government which has not shown any intentions of forfeiting their valuable province. What does this mean for 21st-century American foreign policy in Africa? Either President Obama makes some decisive changes in the programs set forth under past administrations—halting support for Rwanda’s expansion into Kivu, and seriously reconsidering the BIT and plans for constructing the Cohen-proposed market—or the region’s future will be darkened by further bloodshed and new conflicts yet to come. Transforming sub-Saharan Africa into a capitalist experiment—complete with repressive military governments, concentration of wealth in the hands of a small business elite, widespread poverty, oppression, labor abuse (in other words, the conditions of Rwanda today, under the American-backed Kagame regime)—is absolutely unacceptable. Chinese capital is being applied liberally in the region, and Beijing is making friends; apparently that is not acceptable to the men and women running our foreign policy. What is not acceptable to me is the wanton proliferation of brutality for the sake of a creating a neoliberal market. A few Rwandan businessmen may want to see themselves in shiny new mansions in Dubai—but a country full of farmers and workers wants to live.

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