WAR and GENOCIDE of MILLIONS IGNORED (1994-2003)

            This chapter will take a look at the dynamics between the Rwandan genocide of 1994 from April to June of that year, the First Congo War (1996-1997) which was sparked by the Rwandan genocide and ended with the ouster of Mobutu from power, and the Second Congo War (1998-2003) from the massive regional instability to the beginning of the new government. In the Rwandan genocide, 800,000 or more Tutsi people were massacred along with their Hutu supporters. There was massive loss of life in the First Congo War. These were both incomparable tragedies that set the stage for the genocide of the Second Congo War with a death toll that ranges from 3 million to as high as 8 million by experts. The Second Congo War was a blood diamond and resource war that enriched multinational corporations while Afrikan lives bled the Earth red. The world ignored this catastrophic loss of life while the Congo and Rwanda bleed rivers of blood for lack of unity and Pan-Afrikan nationalism. The chapter will address the background and development of these events.   

           

Michela Wrong, in her book, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Distaster in Mobutu’s Congo, does very poorly on the subject of Lumumba. Yet, overall it is a worthwhile read on the kleptocracy (government based on theft) created by neo-colonialism and Mobutu’s governing of the country. Wrong notes the outlandish spending habits of Mobutu on mansions and cars, and how he gave away millions to help control the country. His wealth came from White and American “investment,” and from the copper, diamonds, and other resources of the country. Mobutu leeched the country dry, but he did so with international assistance from countries who were neo-colonial supporters. America in particular considered Mobutu’s Zaire a country of immense resources to exploit and a strategic location in the Cold War. As a result, for decades America was willing to ignore the Human rights abuses of their puppet Mobutu. Another major flaw in her work is that Michela Wrong believes that Mobutu became dictator of the country primarily through his sheer cleverness, and she does not always acknowledge the heavy influence of neo-colonialism in the post-independence era. Any analysis of the “post-independence” era in Afrika must consider the present day resource theft of the continent, or at least the nation in question. Wrong does not appropriately address this crisis of neo-colonial resource theft. Take the following quote as an example:

            They are all the evidence one needs that Congo has fallen victim to that paradox of sub-Saharan Africa, which dictates that countries with the greatest natural assets are doomed to war and stagnation, while nations with almost nothing somehow prove better at building contented societies. It is as though an impish god has decided to keep the scales of each country’s destiny level: if one nation is blessed with oil, it will be cursed with a civil war, if another abounds in diamonds, they shall lie behind rebel lines, if a third is awash with copper, its leadership will prove too inept to organize its extraction. Or maybe the reason is simpler: the richer the nation, the more spoils there are to fight over. Sharing only seems to make sense when there is scarcely enough to go around (In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, 112).

            There is absolutely too much historic and present day evidence of the theft of Afrikan nations for any researcher not to understand the depths to which Afrika is crippled through the loss of valuable resources and international exploitation. Neo-colonialism is not the work of “an impish god” or a “curse,” but rather a system of theft and modern day slavery. A more accurate picture on neo-colonialism is painted in the following analysis by Amos Wilson in Blueprint for Black Power. In an essay entitled “The Planned Suffering of Afrika,” Wilson gives the following analysis:

            It is to some significant degree justifiable and it is certainly easy to blame the sufferings of Afrikan nations and peoples on the ineptness, kleptomania, and the lack of genuine concern for the general welfare of the people, of Afrika’s heads of state, its ruling elites, and its self-serving bureaucracies. But the significance and validity of these charges are vastly inflated when we stop to consider the fact that all the socially dysfunctional orientations which now characterize much of collective Afrikan political behavior occur within the context of, and in reaction to, European colonialism and neocolonialism as well as Western imperialism (377).         

           

            Michela Wrong does not adequately address neo-colonialism, and she ventures on being an apologist of that system, definitely an excuser. Many authors/analyst avoid the issue for several reasons. Exactly how an analysis of any of the conditions within the last few decades can be made without the heavy consideration of a century of colonialism and neo-colonialism is bewildering.

If Afrika will be united, we must come to grips with the historic reality that there exist powers that intend to steal everything possible from the nations or destroy the people in the process. This is why a proper analysis is essential. We cannot correct the tragedies of any nation without dealing with the historic roots of the crisis. How inaccurate is it to deal with Congo, or any Afrikan nation, and not properly address the tragedy of enslavement and colonization? A sober analysis must be made, not to languish in the past, but to use those critical lessons to address the great direction of the Afrikan future.

   

            The influence of Lumumba carried into the future beyond his death. Although assassinated, Lumumba was not forgotten. He will be remembered throughout the world, especially in the Congo. He became a martyr of Pan-Afrikan unity and liberation. He became an ancestor who was one to measure the level of commitment of those in the freedom struggle. Lumumba became a global symbol of resistance to oppression. The legacy of Lumumba and other martyrs inspired forces in the Congo who fought for years after his death.

            In the struggle for liberation, these leaders of service felt they had no choice but to continue to advance the campaign. The leaders or individuals of opportunism who chose to align themselves with neo-colonial powers will never understand this dedication. There are those who want a sense of comfort, even a false sense of comfort. Then, there are others who want liberation, and they are willing to sacrifice for it. They are so dedicated to liberation that they will sacrifice comforts of life, or even life itself, to achieve some level of the ultimate goal in the freedom struggle. Although Lumumba and many other Pan-Afrikan nationalists were gone since the 1960s, we can safely say that it was their legacy that played a role in finally getting Mobutu out of power. The puppet would be overthrown, and Laurent Kabila in whatever are his faults, he carried the freedom struggle with uncontrollable chaos in the nation. 

            In the early 1960s, Laurent Kabila was one of the many young nationalists who believed in the struggles of Lumumba. Kabila also believed that the puppet neo-colonial regime of Mobutu should be fought at all cost. A Cuban revolutionary of Argentinean descent felt the same way and would help in the struggle for liberation against the neo-colonial dictatorship of Mobutu, and that Cuban revolutionary was Ernesto Che Guevara, the right hand man of Fidel Castro. In his war diaries, Che had expressed disappointment in the pace of the revolution in Congo against neo-colonialism before departing. However, Castro and Che had led a revolution in an island, not a country the size of Congo. Nonetheless, Cuba and Cubans of Afrikan descent had a presence in the Congo at a very critical time in the struggle (The African Dream, 8).

            For years, Kabila was in the guerrilla-nationalist struggle to overthrow the neo-colonial forces in the nation of Congo which Mobutu renamed Zaire. Joseph Mobutu, who would change his name to Mobutu Sese Seko, was notorious for brutally wiping out his opposition. Those who maintained their commitment against the neo-colonial regime did so with everything at stake. Countless thousands died under Mobutu.

            It is without doubt that Mobutu looked over at the conflicts in neighboring Rwanda that erupted in the 1994 genocide with some worry about how his administration would be effected. Mobutu had very serious concerns as tens of thousands of Hutu crossed over the borders from Rwanda. Eventually, about 2 million refugees fled into eastern Congo. He had no idea that the tragedy in Rwandawould be a tragedy for him. The conflict was between the Hutu and Tutsi. That conflict would spill over in the Congo, and it led to the 1997 overthrow of Mobutu by Kabila. Let us be clear, Kabila was placed at the head of the forces which overthrew Mobutu, but Kabila did not build this force which came from the rebel groups who gained control of Rwanda as a result of the 1994 genocide. Abdul Joshua Ruzibiza is a name that should not be left out when discussing the emergence of Rwandan politics after the genocide. Ruzibiza authored Rwanda L’histoire secrete, which documents how he was an eyewitness to and involved in the April 1994 shooting down of the airplane carrying Rwanda President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burudi President Cyprien Ntaryamira. The orders, documents former RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) Lieutenant, were given by the soon-to-be President of Rwanda, then current leader of RPF, and current puppet of the United States foreign policy, Paul Kagame, a Tutsi. Although Pasteur Bizimungu was Hutu, he became President of Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, yet the real power came from Paul Kagame, who became the Vice President. By 2000, Kagame and his supporters had muscled Bizimungu out of office.

            It is essential to understand the Rwandan conflict that we know the Museveni-Kagame relationship. Yoweri Museveni overthrew the government of Uganda and came to power in 1986, and he was supported by Paul Kagame. The regimes of Kagame and Museveni were the two main forces that waged the long and very costly war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burundi was a supporter of both warlords, Kagame and Museveni, who had troops and military leaders trained by the United States. Kagame and Museveni have received weapons and supplies from the United Statesand European countries for years. Both Kagame and Museveni helped siphon away billions of Congo’s mineral resources. The conflicts within Afrika have been armed by the multi-national world to facilitate strategic theft. The Congo genocide is a prime example. Again, rather with the DR Congo or Rwanda, I come to the same conclusion - it is only Afrikan unity that could have saved Afrika, that will save Afrika. It is only unity that will stop the hemorrhaging of blood and resources from continent.

            The long Hutu-Tutsi conflict is a great issue in all of the countries around Rwanda. Millions have died because of the conflict. Anger and bitterness runs to the core. And these Hutu and Tutsi are both Afrikans and interrelated. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja discusses how the genocide in Rwanda crossed over into then Zaire, shortly thereafter renamed Democratic Republic of Congo. He notes the common kinship, “language and culture,” between the Hutu and Tutsi, and that there is “no evidence of systematic violence between Tutsi and Hutu during the precolonial period...” (The Congo, 219) The violence between these two Afrikan groups in the last half of the 20th century have its creation under European colonialism, and a catastrophic absence of Afrikan unity.  

            A detailed discussion of the conflict in Rwandais Gerard Prunier’s The Rwanda Crisis: History of A Genocide. It is important that we document the events of the Afrikan world. Most importantly, we must not engage in victimization focused history. In documenting slavery, colonialism, or genocides, we must lay out practical solutions for this generation and future generations.

            Originally, “Hutu” and “Tutsi” referred to class and not ethnic differences. The general pattern in pre-colonial Rwanda was that the Tutsi were the wealthier pastoralist, and the Hutu were the more common farmers. Rwanda was first colonized by the Germans in 1890 and later by Belgians in 1916. It was under European colonialism that the great divide between the Hutu and Tutsi was created. It began under the Germans and was completed under the Belgians who would reduce the influence of the Hutu in society, and they would place the Tutsi in positions of control, of course to the benefit of the colonial system. Instead of a Pan-Afrikan view of ethnic kinship, the European concept of race superiority was accepted to the detriment of Rwanda as a whole. This fostered a growing ethnic division in Rwanda and the Hutu and Tutsi conflict lasted for decades, eventually become one of the saddest chapters in the region’s history. This “ethnic” rivalry led to the 1994 genocide of nearly a million people, mostly Tutsi. The great irony is that both of these Afrikan groups, the Tutsi and Hutu, are so closely related. 

            In conspiratorial fashion, as a USpuppet himself, Paul Kagame would initiate the Rwandan genocide. Bizimungu was a temporary figure head. The Hutu government would be overthrown by a Tutsi led militia and the genocide ceased. After the Hutu lost control of the government, they fled into Zaire. The Tutsi military followed them. The Tutsi government was supported by some of the European powers of the world who fell out of favor with their puppet, Mobutu. Truly beyond irony, Paul Kagame, the future President of Rwanda and military leader received extensive training in the United States. Uganda’s President, Yoweri Museveni was also backed by the US. Rwanda and Uganda both sent troops into Zaire, supposedly to capture the Hutu (also known as the Interhamwe) who participated in the 1994 genocide. Rwandaalso claimed that its soldiers were protecting its borders and pursuing security interest in this war. Ugandabacked Rwanda. Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni had a long history of cooperation in the National Resistance Army which took power in Uganda with United Statesbacking. Kagame and Museveni are backed by America and other Euopean powers in the world. It is highly questionable if they sent armies into the Congo for the Hutu as their primary or secondary goal.

            Rwanda and Uganda found an ally that they could use, Laurent Kabila who was trying to topple Mobutu’s regime for many years. With the backing of these forces, Kabila overthrew Mobutu in 1997. The following year, the Rwandan and Ugandan rebels turned against Kabila. Burundi, also backed by the US, followed the lead of Rwandaand Uganda. August 16, 1998 is when the counting begins for the Congo genocide, the worst genocide in half a century. Edgar O’Ballance in The Congo-Zaire Experience, 1960-98, states that:

            During 1997 the leaders of Angola, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda and Uganda, in a mood of African renaissance and having agreed to work together to reduce instability, had ganged up against President Mobutu and helped the ADLF to remove him, but that mood had since changed, owing to Kabila’s poor record in office (181).

            O’Ballance is correct in his analysis of the mood change from 1997 to 1998, and it was due partially to Kabila’s favoring of the Hutu in his army against the wishes of Kagame and the Tutsi who wanted to exact revenge from the Rwandagenocide. Kabila gave little attention to his Tutsi “advisors,” and even expelled many from the army. He showed no signs of planning to hunt the Hutu down as Rwandahoped. Yet, with all this considered, the hidden cause for the beginning of the war was not Kabila’s ineptness or apathy as he is often considered the scapegoat on this issue. The major cause for the beginning of the war was the same cause that fueled it for the next several years, the exploitation of resources.

            On August 16, 1998, the Tutsi rebels announced opposition to Kabila, and in response Kabila announced his opposition and forces were called to arms in what would amount to this tragic episode in Afrikan history. Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia sent troops to help the Kabila government. The war became very complicated, and was quickly becoming marked by a high death toll. Chad and Sudan had temporary forces in the Congo to support Kabila. Angolawas fighting against neo-colonial forces for years who supported Jonas Savimbi. Namibia, anti-colonial in its own right, was also an admirer of Zimbabwe’s land reform.

            President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was confiscating land from the European farmers who were descendents of colonizers who had stolen land from the Afrikans in his country, and he found it wise to keep neo-colonial forces out of this region. O’Ballance and many others accuse Mugabe of being motivated by profits. Even Joseph Kabila was accused of misusing the resources of the country. The DRC government’s response to the question of the use of resources was that it cost to wage wars in any country with internal enemies.

            This 1997 ousting of Mobutu and resistance to neo-colonial influence was a great opportunity for the destiny of Afrika. Yet, Kabila had bargained with the devil in Kagame, Museveni, and their international supporters. He could not go back at that point and war was imminent. It appeared to be a great opportunity for establishing unity in a large Afrikan country which had been torn by one genocide of colonialism and the other of slavery, but a third genocide was about to happen. However, as I said, Kabila had bargained with the devil. Forces unseen hindered any progress before it happened.

            The war in the DR Congo was not a civil war. It was not as if one section of the country, or certain elements of the people, rose up in rebellion against the government. The war was called “Afrika’s First World War” in the very little media coverage received. Unlike the World Wars of Europe, the war in the Congo was not about one nation controlling another or one nation blocking the spread of the imperialism of another. The war in the DR Congo, like the wars in other Afrikan countries, was about the theft of Afrikan resources by rebels and warloards in cooperation with multi-national neo-colonials. The war was a resource war. In the Congo, the war that was tearing the country to pieces was fuelled by diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt, coltan, timber, and other natural resources. There were several rebel groups, and splinter groups, which controlled certain resource rich areas. They remained armed by selling illegally obtained resources to the industrial world in exchange for weapons and money.

            Beginning in 2000, there were several United Nations studies done on how multinational corporations and mining companies were profiting in the midst of millions of Afrikans dying in the genocide. One such study was “Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” The studies established the fact of continued neo-colonial exploitation in the worst conflict in Afrika to that date. America, European countries, and Israelwere profiting from the Congogenocide.

            Timothy Longman in the essay, “The Complex Reasons for Rwanda’s Engagement in Congo,” notes the following:

            Strong evidence suggests that Rwanda has profited substantially from its involvement in Congo. Rwandaand Ugandahave both become transit points for diamonds and other minerals extracted from Congo and generally smuggled out of the country illegally (African Stakes of the Congo War, 136).

            A new form of slavery has emerged in post-colonial Africa, a global resource based slavery in which the perpetrators who receive the most wealth have been far away from the crime on the ground. The resources whisked away from Congo through Rwanda and Uganda had their destinations in the global market controlled by the heirs of slavery and colonialism from the past. Term it “slavery,” “colonialism,” “neo-colonialism,” “resource wars,” etc., Afrika is still under attack and in need of a massive and effective defense system.

            People have been forced to labor for the rebels who were robbing the country of its resources. They have been made to carry loads for long distances. They were forced to mine for diamonds, coltan, and other resources. Children were forced to become soldiers and fight in this war. All those who refused forced labor, rape, and the evil will of rebels were tortured and/or murdered. According to UN reports, coltan was one of the most exploited resources in the Second Congo War. Coltan is a critical mineral used by technologically advanced countries in a variety of computers and weapon systems from computer chips and cell phones to jets, missiles, and night vision goggles. Coltan is considered essential to the advancing of modern computers and weapons by these technologically advanced countries that have backed rebels in the Congogenocide. 

            As the war raged on, women and children were the greatest victims of the genocide. Countless women and girls were held hostage and tortured. They were repeatedly raped, often by dozens of soldiers. Some of the women and girls were held for years to endure this inhumanity. When and if they escaped, many were turned away by their husbands because of fear from the high rates of AIDS cases. AIDS, another factor in this genocide, greatly increased the number of victims in the death toll.  Still, we should treat the topic of AIDS in Afrika with care. According to independent studies published in 2003 by an international team of experts, in the International Journal of STD and AIDS, the disease has been spread by the health care field’s use of dirty needles. With the far majority of all global HIV/AIDS cases being in Afrika, when the disease did not begin with that pattern, it is questionable if this is not a continued genocide at work even today.  

            In 1998, at the outbreak of fighting in the Second Congo War, thousands were becoming refugees daily. These displaced people often ran into the rain forest, which was not safer. Rebels and murderers were often lurking in the rain forest. Also, the forest did not provide enough food for the countless victims running for their lives. Malnutrition lurked in the forest. There was no planting in times of war, and neither was there any tending of crops and harvesting. Malnutrition was killing hundreds of thousands. There were no medical supplies, and the lakes where people would rely on water were poisonous because of the lack of proper waste removal systems. With horrible sanitation and diseases such as malaria and cholera, death was a constant reality. Bodies were buried in shallow graves, if they were buried at all. Other bodies of the dead drifted down the Congo River and other waterways. The smell of rotting corpses remained ever present. A few thousand were dying daily, tens of thousands monthly. Entire towns and villages were descended upon by vicious rebels who had no qualms about the killing of people, regardless of age or gender. Entire towns and villages had women and girls who were raped, from the very young to the very old. The innocent people of Congo will walk in emotional and psychological trauma for decades from this terrible episode in history. The death was everywhere yet inconceivable. All we know is that millions have died, more millions than any war since World War II.  The Congo genocide has been the worst torn and embattled region in the world in half a century.

            For centuries, the Congo has been devastated, like the rest of Afrika. From slavery to the Leopold-Belgium colonial period, countless millions died. Under neo-colonialism and fomented wars, millions more have died. No matter when, or what type of regime was in place in the Congo, one thing was certain, the Congo continued to be a place of great exploitation for the benefit of the European world. The Arab slave trade had devastated the nation as well. The loss of Afrikan wealth, life, and potential in the Congo has continued even to this day. When the Afrikan world can redirect this continued loss of Afrikan potential in Congo, prosperity can be certain throughout the continent.

            The Congo genocide was the largest carnage of human life in half a century, or since World War II. The last time the world saw so many deaths by war was in Viet Nam, but those numbers were far exceeded by Congo’s death toll. The social protest reactions to the Viet Nam massacres, on the other hand, cannot be compared to the neglect we have given to the Congo. Upwards of 8 million innocent people died from war and/or war related causes in the Second Congo War when the conflicts escalated. At the height of the war, several thousands of Congolese were dying a day; tens of thousands were dying every month. If the people escaped the gunfire and violence, they ran into the rainforest where they faced starvation and diseases. The rape of women and the AIDS crises became very real in the Congo. As the world ignored a horrendous human carnage in the Congo a hundred years ago under Leopold, the same occurred today in our lifetime. 

            It is difficult to grasp the genocide of 8 million people in one country. Imagine if the populations of several large American cities were wiped out. Imagine if the populations of a few states were wiped off the map. This is the level of human carnage that the world ignored. Remember that America has yet to recover from the loss of the two World Trade buildings from September 11, 2001. As horrible as the after effects of such a tragedy would be in our imaginations, that is the reality in the DR Congo today. The deaths and loss of property in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was incomprehensible, yet to come near the tragedy of the Congo genocide/war, the Hurricane would have had to wipe out cities from Florida to Texas. The world ignored the genocide/resource war in Congo and other Afrikan nations. It contradicts the very core of what we call humanity in the world.

            Besides a few scattered journalists, little or no needed attention was given to the war. Journalist Ted Koppel of Nightline brought many of the realities of the Congogenocide to television with a weeklong special called “Heart of Darkness.” It seemed as if this news special passed unnoticed as everyone was still absorbed in the events of 9-11. The irony of this is that Koppel is a long time supporter of Henry Kissinger, a Jew who grew up in Nazi Germany; Kissinger, former National Security Adviser and former Secretary of State under the Nixion administration. Kissinger was called the bloody “butcherer” of Viet Nam and Cambodia (see The Trial of Henry Kissinger by Christopher Hitchens). Still, Koppel’s documentary of Congo was an exception to mainstream media. The US invasion of Iraq was constantly in the media. It should have been, but the Congo genocide should have even more. However, the Afrikan American media ignored the genocide no different from mainstream media. I’ve heard Black radio talk show hosts, community leaders, and others expound on the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, even giving comprehensive reports on the histories of the countries. They should. Yet, these same Afrikan Americans didn’t take the time to report anything about the Congo genocide, far more tragic than Afghanistan and Iraq, exponentially.    

            The September 11, 2001 suicide attacks on Americaleft nearly 3,000 innocent people dead. They will be memorialized. However, in the Congothere were more people who were dying every single day for the past three years after 1998 than those who died one day in the suicide attacks on America. That would be similar to a “9-11” attack occurring every day for years. Several thousands were dying every day, over 70,000 a month at the height of the war. At the lowest estimates, the Congo genocide is the worst human tragedy of any nation since World War II.  If the conflict regions of Afrika are looked at collectively, the continent’s solution of unity becomes central to the new century. If Pan-Afrikan unity is not reached in Afrika, millions more may tragically perish. The American government, the UN, and others have taken no initiatives to bring about sustained peace in the Congo or other Afrikan nations. This is interesting considering America’s relationship with colonialism and neo-colonialism in the Congo. It is all the more disturbing when we consider that America has played a role with the rest of the European world in arming and militarizing every army that fought in the Congo, and almost every army in every recent war in Afrika. The UN soldiers who were eventually sent into the Congo were too little and too late as many observed.

            Edgar O’Ballance (2000) stated the following words in the conclusion of his recommendable book, The Congo-Zaire Experience, 1960-98:

            What the Congo needed was a strong leader with the ability to unite all factions in the interests of national unity - a leader who could persuade the Congolese to rise above tribalism and regionalism, and who could develop a loyal and efficient civil service, as well as loyal and effective defense forces.

            ...Unfortunately war clouds still hover over the Congo, where tribalism is clashing with nationalism on the battlefield (193).

            O’Ballance is correct that the Congo needed and needs a leader, or body of leadership to be more accurate, who can unite the country. He doesn’t call it Pan-Afrikan unity, but that is the proper term. Yet, I must go further and say that what the Congo needs is a generational leadership with a great vision for the nation as a whole. The spirit of Lumumba lives on and is still needed today. Unity is not a radical concept. It is essential to nation-building and human governance. Pan-Afrikanism should not be feared by any nations unless they are determined to exploit the continent. Pan-Afrikanism should be embraced by all freedom loving people of the world who want the Congo and Afrika to have sustainability. Pan-Afrikan governance and military systems were needed to protect the people and the nation of Congo from genocide. It is also still needed today in Congo and the other nations of the continent. The Congo has shown the world that without Pan-Afrikanism the future of Afrika hangs in question.