Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe Read online

  AFRICA’S WORLD WAR

  To the memory of

  Seth Sendashonga

  GÉRARD PRUNIER

  Africa’s World War

  Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe

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  Copyright © 2009 by Gérard Prunier

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Prunier, Gérard.

  Africa’s world war: Congo, the Rwandan genocide, and the making

  of a continental catastrophe / Gérard Prunier.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-19-537420-9

  1. Congo (Democratic Republic)—History—1997–

  2. Rwanda—History—Civil War, 1994—Refugees.

  3. Genocide—Rwanda.

  4. Political violence—Great Lakes Region (Africa).

  5. Africa, Central—Ethnic relations—Political aspects—20th century.

  6. Geopolitics—Africa, Central.

  I. Title.

  DT658.26.P78 2009

  967.03’2—dc22 2008020806

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  Printed in the United States of America

  on acid-free paper

  CONTENTS

  Abbreviations

  Glossary

  Maps

  Introduction

  1. Rwanda’s mixed season of hope (July 1994–April 1995)

  The immediate aftermath

  The politics of national unity

  Justice and the killings

  Rwanda outside Rwanda: the world of the refugee camps

  The international community’s attitudes

  2. From Kibeho to the attack on Zaire (April 1995–October 1996)

  The Kibeho crisis

  The collapse of the national unity government

  The refugees and the Kivu cockpit

  North Kivu: ethnicity and the land conflict

  South Kivu: the Banyamulenge and the memories of 1965

  The impact of the Rwandese refugees on the Kivus

  The Burundi factor

  General Kagame goes to war

  3. The Congo basin, its interlopers, and its onlookers

  Into the Zairian vortex

  The interlopers

  Sudanese and Ugandans

  Far from the Great Lakes: the Angolan conflict

  Standing by, trying to keep out: three uneasy onlookers

  4. Winning a virtual war (September 1996–May 1997)

  Rwanda in Zaire: from refugee crisis to international war

  Laurent-Désiré Kabila and the birth of AFDL

  The bogey of the multinational intervention force

  The refugee exodus

  The long walk into Kinshasa

  War and diplomacy

  The mining contracts: myths and realities

  The fate of the refugees

  5. Losing the real peace (May 1997–August 1998)

  Kabila in power: a secretive and incoherent leadership

  Diplomacy and the refugee issue

  The economy: an ineffectual attempt at normalization

  Between Luanda and Brazzaville: the DRC’s volatile West African environment

  The unquiet East: the Kivus and their neighbors

  6. A continental war (August 1998–August 1999)

  Commander Kabarebe’s failed Blitzkrieg

  Heading for an African war

  Kinshasa’s friends: godfathers and discreet supporters

  Kinshasa’s foes

  Fence-sitters and well-wishers

  Fighting down to a stalemate

  Behind and around the war: domestic politics, diplomacy and economics

  The Lusaka “peace” charade

  7. Sinking into the quagmire (August 1999–January 2001)

  The war is dead, long live the war

  The East: confused rebels in confused fighting

  Westwards: the river wars

  Rwanda drives south into Katanga

  The shaky home fronts

  The Congo: an elusive search for national dialogue while the economy collapses

  Angola: the pressure begins to ease off

  Zimbabwe: trying to make the war pay for itself

  Rwanda and Uganda: the friendship grows violent

  The international dimension: giving aid, monitoring the looting, and waiting for MONUC

  Mzee’s assassination

  8. Not with a bang but with a whimper: the war’s confused ending (January 2001–December 2002)

  Li’l Joseph’s new political dispensation

  Diplomacy slowly deconstructs the continental conflict

  The actors start jockeying for position

  Negotiations, national dialogue, and disarmament in competition

  The South African breakthrough

  The bumpy road toward a transitional government

  The economy: slowly crawling out of the abyss

  The eastern sore: the continental conflict shrinks into sub-regional anarchy

  9. From war to peace: Congolese transition and conflict deconstruction (January 2003–July 2007)

  The conflict’s lingering aftermath (January 2003–December 2004)

  The peripheral actors drop off

  Rwanda and Uganda refuse to give up

  An attempt at violently upsetting the transition

  Tottering forward in Kinshasa

  Slouching toward Bethlehem: the transition slowly turns into reality (January 2005–November 2006)

  The pre-electoral struggles

  DDRRR, SSR, and assorted security headaches

  The elections

  The morning after syndrome (November 2006–July 2007)

  The risk of internal political paralysis

  The economy: donors, debts, and the Great Mining Robbery

  The east refuses to heal

  10. Groping for meaning: the “Congolese” conflict and the crisis of contemporary Africa

  The war as an African phenomenon

  The purely East African origins of the conflagration

  Antigenocide, the myth of the “new leaders,” and the spread of democracy in Africa: the world projects its own rationale on the situation

  The “New Congo
,” between African renaissance and African imperialism

  From crusading to looting: the “new leaders” age quickly

  The war as seen by the outside world

  What did all the diplomatic agitation actually achieve?

  Moral indignation in lieu of political resolve

  An attempt at a philosophical conclusion

  Appendix I: Seth Sendashonga’s Murder

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  ABBREVIATIONS

  AAC:

  Anglo-American Corporation.

  ABAKO:

  Alliance des Bakongo. Led by Joseph Kasa Vubu, it was the political expression of the Bakongo tribe at the time of the independence of the Congo in 1960.

  ACRI:

  African Crisis Response Initiative. The U.S.-sponsored structure that had been developed in the late 1990s in the hope of creating a kind of “peacemaking” African multinational force.

  ADF:

  Allied Democratic Forces. A multiethnic Ugandan guerrilla group created in 1996 in Zaire by fusing elements of the ADM, NALU, and UMLA to fight the Museveni regime.

  ADM:

  Allied Democratic Movement. A Baganda anti-Museveni guerrilla movement created in 1996. See ADF.

  AEF:

  French Equatorial Africa.

  AFDL:

  Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération. The umbrella rebel organization created in October 1996 in eastern Zaire under Rwandese tutelage to spearhead the fight against Mobutu’s regime. See CNRD; MRLZ.

  ALIR:

  Armée de Liberation du Rwanda. Anti-RPF movement based in the Congo, led by former FAR officers. At times referred to by its more political name PALIR, or Peuple Armé pour la Liberation du Rwanda.

  AMFI:

  American Mineral Fields International.

  AMP:

  Alliance pour la Majorité Présidentielle.

  ANACOZA:

  Alliance of North American Congo-Zaire Associations. Congolese association in the United States from which AFDL recruited quite a number of cadres.

  ANC:

  African National Congress. The main South African nationalist organization that fought against apartheid and swept into power in the 1990s.

  ANC:

  Armée Nationale Congolaise. (1) Name of the Congolese Armed Forces after independence before the country changed its name to Zaire, whereby ANC was renamed FAZ. (2) Under the same appellation, name given by the RCD (Goma faction) to its armed forces in 1998.

  AND:

  Agence Nationale de Documentation. One of Mobutu’s most feared secret services, headed for a long time by his close adviser Honoré N’Gbanda.

  ANR:

  Agence Nationale de Renseignements. Kabila’s new secret police after taking power.

  ASD:

  Alliance pour la Sauvegarde du Dialogue Inter-Congolais.

  AZADHO:

  Association Zairoise des Droits de l’Homme. The largest human rights association in Zaire, which became ASADHO (Association Africaine des Droits de l’Homme) after the overthrow of Mobutu.

  BCMP:

  Bourse Congolaise des Matières Précieuses.

  BDK:

  Bundu dia Kongo. A political/religious Congolese sect.

  BOSS:

  Bureau of State Security. Apartheid South Africa’s secret service.

  CCM:

  Chama cha Mapinduzi (Party of the Revolution). The Tanzanian party born from the fusion between the continental TANU (Tanganyika African National Union) and Zanzibar’s Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) after the 1964 island revolution. CCM remained a single party for over twenty-five years when the country opened to multiparty politics.

  CEEAC:

  Communauté Economique des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale.

  CFA franc:

  Communauté Financière Africaine. The common currency of former French African colonies

  CIAT:

  Comité International d’Accompagnement de la Transition.

  CND:

  Centre National de Documentation. One of Mobutu’s internal spying organizations.

  CNDD:

  Conseil National de Défense de la Démocratie. The mostly Hutu organization created in exile in Zaire by former Burundi interior minister Léonard Nyangoma in February 1994. See FDD.

  CNDP:

  Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple.

  CNL:

  Conseil National de Libération. The ephemeral left-wing Congolese “government” of 1963–1965.

  CNRD:

  Conseil National de Résistance pour la Démocratie. New name of the PLC in the mid-1990s, one of the four anti-Mobutu organizations that joined to create the AFDL.

  CNS:

  Conférence Nationale Souveraine. The national Zaire reform conference that convened between August 1991 and December 1992. It then turned into the HCR and HCR/PT.

  CONAKAT:

  Confédération des Associations Tribales du Katanga. Created in November 1958, it was at first the political expression of Katangese regionalism. It developed later into an instrument of the “genuine Katangese” (i.e., opposed to the Baluba immigrants from Kasaï) and led the secession of the province against the Leopoldville government.

  CZSC:

  Contingent Zairois de la Sécurité des Camps. The armed unit raised by UNHCR to ensure the security of the Rwandese refugee camps in Zaire.

  DDRRR:

  Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation, Reintegration, and Resettlement.

  DEMIAP:

  Direction Militaire des Activités Anti-Patrie. President Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s military secret service created in November 1997.

  DGSE:

  Directorate-General for External Security. (French Secret Service).

  DISA:

  Direciao de Informaciao de Segurança de Angola. The MPLA secret police.

  DMI:

  Directorate of Military Intelligence. The Rwandese military secret service.

  DRC:

  Democratic Republic of Congo.

  DSP:

  Division Spéciale Présidentielle. President Mobutu’s elite force recruited among his Ngbandi tribe and other related ethnic groups from the northern Equateur Province.

  ESAF:

  Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility.

  ESO:

  External Service Organization. The Ugandan external secret service.

  FAA:

  Forças Armadas Angolanas. The name taken by the supposedly unified MPLA-UNITA Angolan army after the Bicesse Agreement of 1991. After the 1992 breakup it remained the name of the MPLA forces.

  FAB:

  Forces Armées Burundaises. The Burundese regular army.

  FAC:

  Forces Armées Congolaises. The new national army created by President Laurent-Désiré Kabila after he took power in 1997.

  FALA:

  Forças Armadas de Libertação de Angola. The UNITA army.

  FAPLA:

  Forças Armadas Populares de Libertação de Angola. The name of the MPLA forces until the Bicesse Agreement of 1991.

  FAR:

  Forces Armées Rwandaises. The army of the former Rwandese regime overthrown in July 1994. It reorganized in Zaire and kept fighting, at first independently and then either as part the FAC or with ALIR.

  FARDC:

  Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo.

  FAZ:

  Forces Armées Zairoises. The national army of Zaire, it collapsed under the impact of the 1996 rebellion and invasion.

  FDD:

  Forces de Défense de la Démocratie. At first the military arm of the Burundese CNDD, which later split from its mother organization under the leadership of Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye.

  FDLR:

  Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda. Anti-RPF Hutu guerrilla group based in the eastern DRC.

  FLC:

  Front de Libération du Congo. Supposedly unified Congolese rebel
movement regrouping MLC and the various RCD factions. Largely a paper organization.

  FLEC:

  Frente de Libertação do Enclave de Cabinda. The Cabinda Enclave rebel movement. Closely linked to UNITA, it later split into two fractions. The largest one was FLEC/FAC (Forças Armadas de Cabinda), led by Henriques Nzita Tiago, followed by FLEC-Renovada, led by Jose Tiburço Luemba.