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twelve

War in the
Great Lakes Region

F ILIP R EYNTJENS

INTRODUCTION

This chapter examines a two-decade period of instability, violence, war, and

extreme human suffering in central Africa. Considered in the past as periph-
eral, landlocked, and politically and economically uninteresting, in the 1990s
the African Great Lakes region found itself at the heart of a profound geopo-
litical recomposition with continental repercussions. Countries as varied as
Namibia in the south, Libya in the north, Angola in the west, and Uganda in
the east became entangled in wars that ignored international borders. How-
ever, the seeds of instability were sown from the beginning of the 1960s: the
massive exile of the Rwandan Tutsi, who fled to neighboring countries during
and after the revolution of 1959–1961, and the virtual exclusion of Tutsi from
public life in Rwanda, the radicalization of Burundian Tutsi who monopo-
lized power and wealth, and the insecure status of Kinyarwanda-speakers in
the Kivu provinces—all these factors were to merge with others to create the
conditions for war.
I argue that a unique and contingent combination of factors explains the
occurrence of the war, its course, and its outcome.1 While this combination of
factors helps us to understand the past, it may also have some value for assess-
ing the future. Indeed, as long as these factors persist, the risk of renewed war
continues to exist. The factors studied here are (i) the weakness of the Zairean/
Congolese2 state; (ii) the territorial extension of neighboring countries’ civil

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256 FILIP REYNTJENS

wars; (iii) the shifting regional alliances; (iv) the profitability of war; (v) the
linking up of local stakes; and (vi) the impunity for major human rights
violations.
The acute destabilization of the region started on October 1, 1990, when
the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) attacked Rwanda from Uganda with Ugan-
dan support. After the collapse of the 1993 Arusha peace accord and following
the genocide and massive war crimes and crimes against humanity, the RPF
won a military victory and took power in July 1994. Over a million people died
and over 2 million fled abroad, mainly to Zaire and Tanzania. Eight months
earlier, the democratic transition had ended in disaster in Burundi: tens of
thousands of people were killed, and the country embarked on a decade-long
civil war. At the end of 1993, some 200,000 Burundian refugees inundated the
Zairean Kivu provinces, followed in mid-1994 by 1.5 million Rwandans. This
was the beginning of the dramatic extension of the neighboring conflicts, most
prominently of the Rwandan civil war.
Given the complexity and abundance of events, a brief timeline of the war
is proposed here.3 After the genocide and the overthrow of the Rwandan
Hutu-dominated regime in July 1994, 1.5 million Hutu refugees settled just
across the border in Zaire. Among them were the former government army,
the Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR), and militia. They launched cross-border
raids and increasingly became a serious security threat for the new regime,
dominated by the mainly Tutsi RPF. First under the guise of the “Banyamu-
lenge rebellion” and later the “AFDL [Alliance des Forces pour la Libération du
Congo-Zaïre] rebellion,” the Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA) attacked and
cleared the refugee camps during the autumn of 1996. Having security con-
cerns similar to those of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi joined from the begin-
ning, later to be followed by a formidable regional coalition intent on toppling
Mobutu. In May 1997, Laurent Kabila seized power in Kinshasa. During the
latter half of 1997, relations between the new Congolese regime and its erst-
while Rwandan and Ugandan allies soured rapidly. In August 1998, Rwanda
and Uganda again attacked, once more under the guise of a “rebel movement,”
the RCD (Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie), which just like the
AFDL was created in Kigali. The invading countries expected this to be a re-
make of the first war, only much faster this time. The reason for this failing to
occur was a spectacular shift of alliances, when Angola and Zimbabwe sided
with Kabila against their former allies Rwanda and Uganda. This intervention
made up for the weakness of the Congolese army, thus ensuring military stale-
mate along a more or less stable frontline that cut the country in two.
Considerable pressure from the region led to the signing of the Lusaka Ac-
cord in July 1999.4 However, Kabila blocked its implementation and only after his
assassination and succession by his son Joseph in January 2001 was the peace
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12: War in the Great Lakes Region 257

process resumed. Again under great pressure, by South Africa in particular, and
after cumbersome negotiations, the Congolese parties signed a “Global and All-
Inclusive Accord” in December 2002.5 It took another three and a half years to
implement the accord, along a bumpy road replete with incidents, obstructions,
negotiations, and renegotiations, and constantly threatened by the resumption
of the war. An informal international trusteeship, supported by a large UN
peacekeeping force and also by the international and Congolese civil society,
imposed elections on very reluctant political players. These took place in July–
October 2006, in an overall free and fair fashion, and were won by Joseph Kabila
and his party, PPRD. Kabila was sworn in in December, both houses of parlia-
ment were installed in January 2007, and a new government was formed in early
February, thus formally ending the transition.

STATE FAILURE
Well before the start of the war, Zaire had ceased to empirically perform a
number of essential state functions, such as territorial control, public taxa-
tion, the provision of essential services, the monopoly of violence, and the
rule of law. The gradual failure of the state preceded its collapse, and the first
signs of a “shadow state”6 were visible in the 1970s, after the “Zaireanization”
measures allowed the transfer of large parts of the economy to political and
military elites. This heralded the putting into place of a prebendary and neo-
patrimonial exercise of power that profoundly corrupted official institutional
norms and frameworks.7
Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja writes that “the major determinant of the present
conflict and instability in the Great Lakes Region is the decay of the state and its
instruments of rule in the Congo. For it is this decay that made it possible for
Lilliputian states the size of Congo’s smallest province, such as Uganda, or even
that of a district, such as Rwanda, to take it upon themselves to impose rulers in
Kinshasa and to invade, occupy and loot the territory of their giant neighbour.”8
Indeed, the void left by the state was filled by other, nonstate actors. Some of
these—such as NGOs, churches, local civil society, or traditional structures—
assumed some functions abandoned by the state, but other less benign players
also seized the public space: warlords, (ethnic) militias, and “entrepreneurs of
insecurity,” both domestic and from neighboring countries.9 This not only ex-
plains the extreme weakness in battle of the FAZ/FAC,10 which mirrored the
collapsed state, but also why a small country like Rwanda was able, without
much of a fight, to establish extraordinary territorial, political, and economic
control over its vast neighbor. What Achille Mbembe has called the “satelliza-
tion” of entire provinces by (much) smaller but stronger states was accompa-
nied by the emergence of new forms of privatized governance.11
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258 FILIP REYNTJENS

In eastern DRC, most functions of sovereignty were thus privatized, as

some examples show. In 1996 and 1998, the Zairean/Congolese government
forces hardly engaged in combat; during the war that started in 1998, foreign
and nonstate forces faced each other—the Angolan and Zimbabwean (and, at
one point, Chadian and Namibian) armies, and Rwandan and Burundian
rebel groups on Kabila’s side, and on the other the Rwandan and Ugandan
armies with their RCD and MLC (Mouvement de Libération du Congo) prox-
ies. Territorial control, the provision of (in)security, and the management of
populations were taken over by militia, rebel groups—both domestic and
from neighbors Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi—and the armies of neighbor-
ing countries (and even the former Rwandan government army).
A UN panel monitoring an arms embargo reported compelling data on the
absence of the state in controlling cross-border traffic, including at ports and
airports; indeed “irregular aircraft practices are the norm.”12 The state’s fiscal
function, too, which was limited anyway, was profoundly eroded. Import and
export levies collected by militias, rebel groups, and Rwandan and Ugandan
“elite networks” funded the wars and lined the pockets of individuals. Toll bar-
riers (péages) were put up to extract resources from peasants taking their mea-
ger surplus products to markets, so the possession of a gun was a sufficient
means to impose internal taxation. In North Kivu, travelers passing between
the zones controlled by two opposing wings of the RCD13 were required to
declare goods and pay duties at the “border.” There were fixed tariffs for pedes-
trians and vehicles, and traders were required to hand over some of their mer-
chandise. In areas controlled by the RCD, there were annual taxes on vehicles
and a panoply of charges for individual journeys, road “tolls,” and “insur-
ance.”14 The RCD taxed the coltan15 trade, sold mining rights, and demanded
license fees, nonrefundable deposits, various export taxes, and a “war effort
tax.”16 The panel documented a number of other examples showing that bor-
ders and their control became prized assets for armed groups and their spon-
sors in Rwanda and Uganda, allowing them the necessary revenue to maintain
and resupply troops.17 It concluded that “as an institutionally weak state, the
DRC significantly lacks control over both customs and immigration.”18

TERRITORIAL EXTENSION OF CIVIL WARS

While the sources of instability in the Great Lakes region were, in essence, do-
mestic, reflecting as they did the political conflicts in Rwanda, Burundi, the
Kivu, and Zaire more generally, their repercussions were increasingly felt
throughout the larger region. This regionalization of violence was reinforced
by the geographic proximity of conflicts, by the game of alliances, and by pop-
ulation flows.
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12: War in the Great Lakes Region 259

In the mid-1990s, the territory of Zaire was used by insurgent forces of sev-
eral neighboring countries as a base for attack and retreat. They included the
Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) from Uganda and several groups (CNDD-
FDD and Palipehutu-FNL, in particular) from Burundi. From mid-1994, the
most serious threat concerned Rwanda, after 1.5 million Hutu refugees fled
into North and South Kivu after the genocide and the victory of the RPF.
Rwanda was facing an increasing security threat since 1995,19 particularly in
the three western prefectures, affected by commando operations emanating, at
least in part, from Zairean territory. During a speech in Tambwe on February
19, 1995, General Kagame set the tone: “I wholeheartedly hope that these at-
tacks take place! Let them try! I do not hide it. Let them try” (translated from
Kinyarwanda). Kagame candidly told journalist François Misser that “if an-
other war must be waged, we shall fight in a different fashion, elsewhere. We
are prepared. We are ready to fight any war and we shall contain it along the
border with Zaire.”20 Officials from the United States and The Netherlands,
two countries close to the Rwandan regime, confirmed that they had had to
dissuade Kagame on several occasions from “breaking the abscess” of the
Rwandan refugees in Zaire the hard way.21 During a visit to the United States
in August 1996, one month before the start of the “rebellion,” Kagame told the
Americans that he was about to intervene,22 the more so since, according to
some sources,23 the ex-FAR were preparing a large-scale offensive against
Rwanda from Goma and Bukavu. Faced with the obvious unwillingness or in-
ability of the international community to tackle this problem, Kigali’s patience
had reached its limits.
In September 1996, under the guise of the “Banyamulenge rebellion” first
and later hiding behind the back of a Congolese rebel group, the AFDL created
in Kigali, the RPA cleared the refugee camps around Goma and Bukavu. Thou-
sands of civilian refugees were killed in the initial attack, hundreds of thou-
sands were forcibly returned to Rwanda, and hundreds of thousands more
moved westward, where they became the victims of a phased extermination
campaign by the RPA. Pourtier noted that “the strategic choice (of Kigali) to
attack the camps clearly shows the fundamental objectives of a ‘rebellion’ that
was no longer (a rebellion), because what really happened was the extension of
the Rwandan civil war into Zairean territory.”24
Faced with similar (though less vital) security concerns, Uganda and, to a
lesser extent, Burundi participated in the war, thereby destabilizing the bases
of their “own” rebel groups. By the end of 1996 Angola, another country fac-
ing a rebellion (UNITA) supported by Mobutu’s cronies and operating in part
from Zaire, realized that its security concerns had not been met by the situa-
tion created in eastern Zaire and decided to make a difference.25 Luanda’s po-
sition, which was to expand the ambitions of the rebellion to the whole of
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260 FILIP REYNTJENS

Zaire, eventually prevailed.26 Angola provided the crucial impetus through

the Katangese Gendarmes, known as the “Tigres.”27 During two weeks in mid-
February 1997, several battalions (2,000–3,000 “Tigres” men) were airlifted to
Kigali, and taken from there by road to Goma and Bukavu. This operation
was logistically supported by the Angolan army, obviously in close coopera-
tion with Rwanda. The entry of the Gendarmes and, later during the war, of
the Angolan army caused the “rebellion” to pick up speed. While it took four
months (October 1996–January 1997) to occupy less than one-twentieth of
the country, the remainder of Zaire was captured in the three months that fol-
lowed the arrival of the “Tigres” (mid-February to mid-May 1997). The out-
come of the war, namely regime change in Kinshasa, was the consequence of
the merger of several civil wars that were intrinsically unlinked, but that came
together against the background of a weak state in Zaire and of geographical
proximity.

SHIFTING ALLIANCES
The players in what became a regional civil war reasoned in the logic of “the
enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The fact that Mobutu had made many ene-
mies explains the emergence of the formidable regional alliance that eventu-
ally defeated him. But that such a circumstantial alliance is also very fragile
was clear during the second phase of the war, from 1998, when yesterday’s
friends became today’s enemies almost overnight. Indeed, coalitions shifted
dramatically.
At the beginning of the resumption of the war in August 1998, Kabila was
saved by Angola and Zimbabwe, who turned against their former allies
Rwanda and Uganda. Angola was concerned about two developments. Former
Mobutu generals Nzimbi and Baramoto had been seen in Kigali before the
new war broke out, and some politicians of the Mobutu era openly joined the
rebellion, as did some former FAZ units. Because of their support for UNITA
in the past, these elements were considered archenemies in Luanda. Moreover,
Angolan intelligence was aware that there were contacts between UNITA and
the rebel leadership and their Rwandan and Ugandan sponsors. Indeed, ele-
ments of UNITA later fought alongside rebel forces, the MLC in particular.
Given the likelihood of the resumption of the Angolan civil war (which indeed
materialized a few months later), for Luanda the choice was clear: those sup-
porting UNITA were the enemy, and their enemies merited support.
The motives behind the involvement of Zimbabwe were diverse. The DRC
had an important war debt outstanding toward Zimbabwe, and the Zimbab-
weans were worried about repayment in the event of Kabila’s being over-
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12: War in the Great Lakes Region 261

thrown.28 A second motive was also economic: Zimbabwean business inter-

ests had made efforts during the past year to penetrate the Congolese market
and to invest in the mining sector, partly at the expense of South African ven-
tures. Some of President Mugabe’s business associates and high-ranking army
officers stood to lose important assets if Kabila were defeated. Finally, the “old
revolutionary” Mugabe saw the Congolese crisis as an opportunity to reassert
some of his leadership in the region,29 lost to Mandela’s South Africa, and to
short-circuit the new leaders of the “African Renaissance,” such as Museveni
and Kagame,30 who were being promoted—notably by the Americans31—
much to Mugabe’s dismay.
Other realignments soon occurred. Thus the local mai-mai militias32 in the
East, which had been fighting Kabila even before he came to power, now aligned
with him in the context of an “anti-Tutsi” coalition. Within the same logic, an
even more spectacular shift brought the ex-FAR and former Interahamwe mili-
tia into Kabila’s camp, although less than a year earlier, the Rwandan Hutu had
suffered massive loss of life during and after the previous rebellion at the hands
of Kabila’s AFDL and his erstwhile Rwandan allies. FAR were brought in from
neighboring countries, rearmed, retrained, and deployed on the northern and
eastern fronts.33 A UN report noted that “the changing alliances in and around
the DRC have unexpectedly worked to the advantage of the former Rwandan
government forces,” because the ex-FAR and ex-Interahamwe “have now
become a significant component of the international alliance against the Con-
golese rebels and their presumed sponsors, Rwanda and Uganda.” The commis-
sion found it “profoundly shocking that this new relationship has conferred a
form of legitimacy on the Interahamwe and the ex-FAR.”34 Likewise, the Burun-
dian FDD’s (Forces pour la Défense de la Démocratie) alliance with Kabila
opened access to equipment, weapons, training, and bases, and even to a degree
of respectability. They were headquartered in Lubumbashi, and troops re-
cruited in Tanzanian refugee camps were transferred to the DRC.35 Another
shift in the East concerned Sudan, which had supported the Mobutu regime
against Kabila’s rebellion but now sided with Kabila against the new rebellion.
The context here was the conflict between Khartoum and Kampala, as the latter
supported the South Sudanese rebellion.
The frailty of the alliances again showed when conflict erupted between
Rwanda and a major section of the Banyamulenge, who had earlier sought the
protection of Kigali, while at the same time being used as a pretext for the
Rwandan invasion in 1996. Already by the autumn of 1996, Banyamulenge
leaders had realized that they were being instrumentalized by Rwanda and that,
rather than protecting their community, their close association with Kigali fur-
ther marginalized and threatened them. This feeling of being used increased
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262 FILIP REYNTJENS

further when, in October and December 1996, the RPA attempted to convince
Banyamulenge leaders to resettle their entire community in Rwanda, an idea
most of them rejected.36 Disagreements with RPA commanders of the FAC over
command positions and deployment of troops further exacerbated the tensions
in the early months of 1998. When the second “rebellion” started in August
1998, the Banyamulenge were again faced with a crucial dilemma. On the one
hand, they knew they were going to be instrumentalized once again by Rwanda
and that this would worsen their relations with other groups, but on the other
hand, they needed the physical security the RPA provided, including for their
men in Kinshasa.
As the war progressed, it became increasingly clear that those Banyamu-
lenge (like Ruberwa, Nyarugabo, and Bizima Karaha) who had joined the RCD
were a minority, and that most Banyamulenge opposed the RCD and Rwanda.
This rejection received both a political and a military translation. On the one
hand, leaders such as Müller Ruhimbika and Joseph Mutambo created the
Forces Républicaines et Fédéralistes (FRF) just after the beginning of the war.
Operating from outside the territory occupied by the RCD/RPA, they vehe-
mently opposed the RCD and the occupation by the Rwandan army.37 On the
other hand, the military response was the result of the growing distrust be-
tween Banyamulenge officers and the RPA. After repeated confrontations since
early 1999, Munyamulenge commander Patrick Masunzu retreated to the
South Kivu Haut Plateau in early 2002, and in the following months several
battles were fought between the RPA and Masunzu’s men. Masunzu even co-
operated with mai-mai, and he eventually joined the government army, be-
coming a commander of the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique
du Congo (FARDC).38
The most dramatic shift occurred between the former core allies Rwanda
and Uganda. In the words of Charles Onyango-Obbo, chief editor of the
Ugandan daily the Monitor, in August 1999 “the impossible happened”:39 the
Rwandan and Ugandan armies fought a heavy battle in Kisangani, and more
clashes followed later. In May and June 2000, the RPA and the UPDF again
confronted each other in Kisangani; heavy weapons were used and some 400
civilians and 120 soldiers were killed. The rift had several causes. While
Uganda wished to avoid repeating the mistake made in 1996–1997, when Ka-
bila was parachuted into power without much Congolese ownership, Rwanda
preferred a quick military solution and the installation of yet another figure-
head in Kinshasa. Prunier noted that Kampala had no problem with an inde-
pendent and efficient government in the DRC, a vision dramatically opposed
to the view of Kigali that wanted to keep its Congolese proxies under con-
trol.40 In addition, “entrepreneurs of insecurity” belonging to the elite net-
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12: War in the Great Lakes Region 263

works in both countries were engaged in a competition to extract Congolese

resources (see below).41 Finally, Museveni resented the geopolitical ambitions
of his small Rwandan neighbor and the lack of gratitude displayed by
Kagame, who owed his accession to power to Uganda’s support.
Just like the extension into the DRC of the Rwandan civil war, the conflict
with Uganda was fought out on the soil of a weak neighbor and, in part, by
proxy. Both countries supported rebel movements and (ethnic) militias in the
context of an increasingly fragmented political-military landscape. They con-
tinuously traded accusations of supporting each other’s rebel groups, which
both sides indeed did. In March 2001, Rwanda was declared a “hostile nation”
by the Ugandan government. Despite attempts at appeasement during the
following months, on August 28, 2001, Museveni sent a long and bitter letter to
UK Secretary of State for International Development Clare Short “about the
deteriorating situation in the bilateral relations between Uganda and the gov-
ernment of Rwanda, led by President Kagame.” As a consequence, Rwandan-
Ugandan relations further deteriorated, and troops were massed on both sides
of their common border. On November 6, 2001, Short summoned her two
protégés to London to put an end to a situation that risked becoming a fiasco
for the UK, just like the Ethiopian-Eritrean war of 1998–2000 had been for
the United States. While relations did not become cordial, the threat of direct
war subsided.
A dangerous escalation occurred again when, in early 2003, Rwanda
started sending troops and supplies to the Ituri region in support of the Union
des Patriotes Congolais (UPC), which until then had been supported by
Uganda.42 The attempt by the RCD-Goma and Rwanda to intervene in the
Ituri conflict was seen by Kampala (which considered Ituri as its “backyard”)
as a lethal threat and again brought the two countries to the brink of direct
war.43 In the summer of 2003, both countries were forced out of Ituri as a result
of a great deal of pressure by the international community,44 while at the same
time the political evolution in the DRC, where an agreement on political tran-
sition was arrived at and the war formally came to an end (see below), made
it more difficult for them to be seen as overtly derailing the process. As Kigali
and Kampala were held on a leash by the United States and the UK, the Congo
offered less food for conflict between them, though relations were never again
friendly.45

PROFITABILITY OF WAR
A UN panel46 set up in 2001 published a number of increasingly detailed re-
ports on the criminal practices of “elite networks,” both Congolese and from
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264 FILIP REYNTJENS

neighboring countries, and identified elements common to all these networks.

They consisted of a small core of political and military elites and businesspeo-
ple and, in the case of the occupied territories, rebel leaders and administra-
tors. Members of these networks cooperated to generate revenue and, in the
case of Rwanda, institutional financial gain. They derived this benefit from a
variety of criminal activities, including theft, embezzlement and diversion of
“public” funds, underevaluation of goods, smuggling, false invoicing, nonpay-
ment of taxes, kickbacks to officials, and bribery. International “entrepreneurs
of insecurity” (among them Viktor Bout) were closely involved in this criminal
economy, as the local and regional actors drew support from the networks and
“services” (such as air transport, illegal arms dealing, and international trans-
actions of pillaged resources) of organized international criminal groups.47
The linkage between military engagement and illegal economic activities
was a clear trend. Indeed pillaging was no longer an unfortunate side effect of
war, but economic interests rather became its prime driving force. Christian
Dietrich has drawn attention to the dangers inherent in what he calls “military
commercialism,” whereby a stronger state deploys the national military in a
weaker neighboring country, supporting either the sovereign power (as did
Zimbabwe) or insurgents (in the cases of Rwanda and Uganda), in exchange
for access to profits.48 Under these circumstances, economic criteria invade
military decision-making, for example with regard to troop deployment and
areas of operation.49 In addition, if domestic resources are scarce or cannot be
illicitly mobilized as a result of the scrutiny of the international community,
cross-border predatory behavior, out of sight and/or hidden behind political
and military concerns, provides an alternative resource. Finally, when control
over resources has become a military objective in itself, this is a strong dis-
incentive for troop withdrawal, simply because the “expeditionary corps” and
those they support, whether rebels or governments, need each other. Put sim-
ply by Samset, “war facilitates excessive resource exploitation, and excessive ex-
ploitation spurs continued fighting.”50 As late as mid-2007, a panel monitoring
the UN arms embargo confirmed that “the most profitable financing source
for armed groups remains the exploitation, trade and transportation of natural
resources. . . . All supply chains from areas controlled by armed groups are
compromised.”51 Crawford Young notes that this “ability to sustain themselves
through traffic in high value resources under their control” distinguishes con-
temporary insurgents from their predecessors.52
Nowhere is this as clear as in the case of Rwanda, a small and very poor
country with few natural resources, but with an elite needing to maintain a lav-
ish lifestyle and possessing a large and efficient army.53 In 2000, the revenue col-
lected by the RPA in the DRC from coltan alone was believed to be US$80–100
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12: War in the Great Lakes Region 265

million, roughly the equivalent of official Rwandan defense expenditure (which

stood at US$86 million).54 In a similar vein, the UN panel found that in 1999–
2000, “the RPA must have made at least US$250 million over a period of 18
months.”55 Stefaan Marysse calculated that in 1999, the total value added of dia-
mond, gold, and coltan plundered in the DRC amounted to 6.1 percent of
Rwanda’s GDP,56 and to 146 percent of its official military expenditure.57 The
Kigali economy, which is virtually disconnected from the Rwandan economy as
a whole, was largely dependent on mineral and other extraction in the DRC (as
well as on international aid). Pillaging the Congo not only allowed the Rwan-
dan government to beef up the military budget in a way that was invisible to the
donor community,58 but also bought much-needed domestic elite loyalty. This
is what Stephen Jackson calls the “economisation of conflict”: a process whereby
conflicts progressively reorient from their original goals (in the case of Rwanda:
securing its borders) towards profit, and through which conflict actors capi-
talise increasingly on the economic opportunities that war opens up.59
The Rwandan military and civilian elites thus benefited directly from the
conflict.60 Indeed a UN panel noted a great deal of interaction among the mili-
tary apparatus, the state (civil) bureaucracy, and the business community. It
found that the RPA financed its war in the DRC in five ways: (i) direct com-
mercial activities; (ii) benefits from shares it held in companies; (iii) direct pay-
ments from the RCD-Goma; (iv) taxes collected by the “Congo Desk” of the
external military intelligence office ESO (External Security Organisation),61
and other payments made by individuals for the protection the RPA provided
for their businesses; and (v) direct uptake by soldiers from the land.62 In sum,
the Congolese funded their own occupation by neighboring countries’ armies.
Local coltan diggers were even forced out of the market in 2001–2002, when
Rwanda used its own forced labor, among other things under the form of pris-
oners “imported” from Rwandan jails. After officially withdrawing its troops
from the DRC in September 2002 as a result of discreet but intense interna-
tional pressure, Rwanda therefore changed tactics by seeking alternative allies
on the ground and sponsoring autonomist movements, in order to consolidate
its long-term influence in eastern Congo and make the most out of the Kivu
region.63 In addition, even after its official withdrawal, Rwanda maintained a
clandestine military presence in the DRC.64
The unpublished part of the UN panel’s final report of October 2003 is par-
ticularly revealing in this respect.65 At the request of the panel, this section was
to remain confidential and not to be circulated beyond the members of the Se-
curity Council, as it “contains highly sensitive information on actors involved in
exploiting the natural resources of the DRC, their role in perpetuating the con-
flict as well as details on the connection between illegal exploitation and illicit
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266 FILIP REYNTJENS

trade of small arms and light weapons.”66 The findings showed an ongoing
presence of the Rwandan army in the DRC. It had, the panel found, continued
shipping arms and ammunition to the Kivus and Ituri, provided training, exer-
cised command, supported North Kivu Governor Serufuli’s militia, and manip-
ulated ex-FAR/Interahamwe by infiltrating RDF (Rwanda Defence Forces, the
name of the RPA since 2002) officers into them. The panel considered the
“Rwanda Network” “to be the most serious threat to the Congolese Govern-
ment of National Unity. The main actor in this network is the Rwandan se-
curity apparatus, whose objective is to maintain Rwandan presence in, and
control of, the Kivus and possibly Ituri.”67 Rwandan support for dissident forces
went on throughout 2004, while the DRC was engaged in its delicate and fragile
political transition. A later UN panel was concerned that “the territory of
Rwanda continues to be used for recruitment, infiltration and destabilisation
purposes,”68 and it observed a “residual presence” of the RDF in North Kivu.69
Uganda, too, greatly benefited from its military/commercial presence in the
DRC. Although, unlike Rwanda, it did not set up an extra-budgetary system to
finance its activities there, the UN panel found that the “re-exportation econ-
omy” had a significant impact on the financing of the war, in three ways: by
increasing the incomes of key businessmen, traders, and other dealers; by im-
proving Uganda’s balance of payments; and by bringing more money to the
treasury through various taxes on goods, services, and international trade.70 By
way of example, Ugandan gold exports totaled US$90 million in 2000, while
the country produced practically no gold.71
The logic of military commercialism could also be seen in the strategies
developed by domestic armed groups. Thus the Walikale region west of Goma
became a battleground between RCD rebels and mai-mai, both supposedly in-
tegrated into the FARDC, but who ceased to obey the FARDC Eighth Military
Region commander, an RCD general who himself refused to obey orders from
Kinshasa. In their fight for control over Walikale’s cassiterite mines, these ex-
mai-mai units cooperated with FDLR troops. Small aircraft based in Goma
collected the cassiterite “caught” by the RCD for purchasing agents; once it ar-
rived in Goma, shares were distributed to local military and political authori-
ties before being transported across the border to Rwanda, where a smelting
plant is located near Kigali, or exported to South Africa.72
Clearly, criminal or informal regional integration was very real, and it was
certainly more effective than the often-called-for formal integration. Jeroen Cu-
velier has shown how the support of Rwanda for the RCD heralded a growing
cooperation between businesspeople, politicians, and high-ranking military on
both sides of the border.73 The establishment of SOMIGL (Société minière des
grands lacs) and of the Congo Holding Company were instruments set up by
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12: War in the Great Lakes Region 267

the rebel group and Rwanda to get as much financial benefit as possible out of
the international interest in Kivu’s natural resources. Two Rwandan companies
with close links to the RPF and the army, Rwanda Metals and Grands Lacs Met-
als, were key in organizing the Congolese commercial ventures of the Kigali
regime. What is novel about what Ian Taylor suggests are “neo-imperialist” re-
gional networks of violence and accumulation is that they are managing to de-
velop their own links and ties to the international arena, often on their own
terms.74 The type of alliances and transboundary networks currently reconfig-
uring central Africa may well, in his view, offer a prophetic vision of what is in
store for vulnerable and peripheral areas of the world.75

LOCAL DYNAMICS
The mega-conflict developed against the background of several local level con-
flicts. Problems related to identity in the Kivu region are ancient. Important
migratory flows before, during, and after the colonial period, considerable de-
mographic pressure, the uncertain status of (neo-)traditional authorities, the
political and economic dynamism of the region, its peripheral situation in the
Zairean context, and its partial incorporation in the East African space: these
factors form the local background to events in eastern Zaire. The most visible
and violent expression of this was the situation of the Banyarwanda, the Kin-
yarwanda speakers living in the Kivu. They consisted of several groups: the
“natives,” established since precolonial days; the “immigrants” and the “trans-
planted” of the colonial period;76 the “infiltrators” and “clandestines” before
and after independence (1960); and the Tutsi77 and Hutu78 refugees. This mix-
ture gave birth to conflict in the 1960s during the so-called Kanyarwanda re-
bellion, when the Banyarwanda faced the threat of expulsion from the North
Kivu region.79 After a long period of calm under the regime of Mobutu, whose
influential director of the political bureau, Barthélémy Bisengimana, was him-
self of Tutsi origin, the problem came to the fore again during the National
Conference (1991–1992), when representatives of civil society of North and
South Kivu raised the question of the “Zaireans of dual or doubtful citizen-
ship,” a coded expression referring to the Banyarwanda.
While the conflicts have older roots, this chapter picks up the story from
early 1993 onward.80 The events that started in North Kivu in March 1993
show how fluid ethnic categories are. Indeed, those who became the victims
of a wave of violence waged by such “indigenous” ethnic groups as the Hunde,
Nande, and Nyanga, supported by their respective militias (the mai-mai and
the Bangilima), were the Banyarwanda, Hutu, and Tutsi alike. Only two years
later, the Hutu and Tutsi confronted each other in “ethnic” strife.
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There are various reasons for the violence that erupted in early 1993. First,
the democratization process under way since 1990 opened up a new way of
competing for power. As only nationals exercise political rights, citizenship
became important, particularly in regions with a high proportion of Ban-
yarwanda (in the extreme case of the zone of Masisi, they numbered 70 per-
cent of the population). Second, in this relatively overpopulated part of Zaire,
conflicts over land set groups against each other in two ways. On the one
hand, two types of land use, agriculture and stock breeding, began competing
with each other. On the other hand, two concepts of land tenure and access to
land clashed with each other: land use by members of a group that holds cor-
porate ownership (the customary law regime), as opposed to the concept of
individual ownership of the modern law type, which allows for contractual
transactions in land. A third source of conflict, not unrelated to the previous
one, concerned the position of customary authorities. Groups that are immi-
grant or presented as such tend to try to free themselves from the authority of
local chiefs, thus threatening their position and differentiating themselves
from “indigenous” populations. This attitude of distancing was more fre-
quently adopted by pastoral communities of Tutsi extraction. Under these cir-
cumstances, the denial of citizenship became a means for the political and
economic exclusion of the Banyarwanda, and of the Tutsi in particular.
The conflict came to the fore again during the Zairean National Confer-
ence, and confrontations had already taken place in 1991 and 1992, particularly
in the zones of Masisi and Rutshuru.81 However, conflict spread dramatically in
March 1993.82 Violence started in Ntoto in the zone of Walikale, close to Masisi.
There were large-scale killings of Hutu and Tutsi Banyarwanda, their houses
were burned, and their cattle were stolen. During the following days, the vio-
lence extended to the zone of Masisi, where, however, the Banyarwanda were
the majority group and had organized their defense. As the casualties show, a
real war broke out with many deaths: “indigenous” and “immigrant” communi-
ties lost about 1,000 each; tens of thousands more were displaced. Each party
accused the other: the Banyarwanda claimed that the “indigenous” wanted to
chase and even massacre them, while according to the “indigenous,” the Ban-
yarwanda, and the Hutu in particular, intended to claim a territory they al-
legedly considered to be part of “Ancient Rwanda.”
Two factors contributed to the pacification of North Kivu, at least for a
short period. President Mobutu went to Goma, where he stayed for a month
and met with most local players, and units of the Special Presidential Division
(Division spéciale présidentielle—DSP) were deployed; their sheer presence
brought apparent calm without a shot being fired. In the long run, “reflection
days,” organized in November 1993 and February 1994, consolidated the re-
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12: War in the Great Lakes Region 269

turn to order. Together with NGOs, the local Catholic church of Mweso
brought together representatives of territorial units, tradespeople, teachers,
local NGOs, clergymen, officers of the DSP, leaders of cooperatives, custom-
ary chiefs, civil servants, and simple peasants—a total of eighty-eight local ac-
tors who were joined by thirty external “observers.”
Only a few months after pacification, North Kivu was flooded by over
700,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees who fled the civil war in their country and
the victorious RPF, accompanied and to some extent controlled by those re-
sponsible for the Rwandan genocide. Concentrated in five huge camps (Katale,
Kahindo, Kibumba, Lac Vert, and Mugunga) on a limited area close to the
Rwandan border, they completely upset the demographic situation, and there-
fore the politics of the region. At the beginning of the 1990s, approximately
425,000 Banyarwanda lived in the three zones (Masisi, Rutshuru, and Goma)
where the refugees settled; out of a total population of about 1 million, this was
about 40 percent.83 Obviously, as a result of this massive injection of people,
the Banyarwanda and the Rwandan refugees suddenly constituted the major-
ity of the regional population. In addition, the Hutu (both the Rwandan
refugees and the Zairean Hutu) had now become largely dominant in num-
bers, thus breaking the fragile balance put in place earlier in the year. The al-
liance of Hutu and Tutsi Banyarwanda broke up and, as in Rwanda, the two
groups entered into violent conflict. The massive arrival of refugees also had
other destabilizing effects: the environment was thoroughly disturbed by de-
forestation, poaching, and pressure on water supplies; the economy was desta-
bilized by dollarization and the dramatic decrease of livestock; and basic
infrastructure, already very weak before the crisis, was badly damaged.
However, large-scale violence did not start until November 1995. Probably
unwillingly, the Zairean government contributed to the instability in August
1995 by announcing that the Rwandan refugees were to be expelled; they were
given until December 31, 1995, to leave the country. As a result, many refugees
left the camps and attempted to settle in the zones of Masisi and Rutshuru,
where they inevitably clashed with the “natives” and Tutsi Banyarwanda,
whose houses and land they threatened to occupy. On a more general political
level, these attempts at occupation heightened the fears of many Zaireans that
a “Hutu-land” was being put in place in North Kivu.84 Incidents of uneven in-
tensity in September and October 1995 were the prelude to a real war that
started first in Masisi but rapidly spread to Rutshuru and Lubero.
Massacres by Hutu militias against the Hunde and Tutsi and by Hunde
militia against the Tutsi and Hutu progressively created ethnically homoge-
nous spaces. By March and April 1996, the zone of Masisi had been “ethni-
cally cleansed”: most local Tutsi fled to Rwanda, where about 18,000 refugees
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270 FILIP REYNTJENS

had arrived by the end of April. In March, the conflict extended to the zones
of Rutshuru, Walikale, and Lubero, where the Bangilima, a Hunde militia, at-
tacked the Banyarwanda. In May and June about 65,000 people were dis-
placed in Rutshuru alone.
The spread of violence was enhanced by the ambiguous attitude of the
local authorities, used to manipulating ethnicity for plutocratic purposes.
Thus in May 1995, the governor of North Kivu, Christophe Moto Mupenda,
stated during a public meeting before a Hunde audience in the town of Masisi
that “hospitality has its limits” and that it was necessary “to strike and strike
now against the immigrants.” During the following year, two Goma-based ra-
dio stations fueled anti-Tutsi feelings, while megaphones were used to call on
residents to chase the Tutsi out of town; Tutsi businessmen were arrested by
local authorities without specific charges.85 In November 1995, FAZ Chief of
Staff General Eluki declared publicly that “the Hunde, Nyanga and Batembo
are right to fight for the land of their ancestors and to chase the foreigners
away from it.”86
Séverine Autesserre has shown that the relationship between local and na-
tional or regional tensions was not merely top-down, and that issues usually
presented as regional or national had significant local components, which fu-
eled and reinforced the larger dimensions.87 This reality was particularly strong
in the region, as Hutu and Tutsi are found in Kivus, Rwanda, and Burundi, a sit-
uation that is conducive to cross-border alliances, solidarities, and strategies.

IMPUNITY
Although an important factor, the practice of impunity for persistent gross
violations of human rights can only briefly be mentioned. The humanitarian
consequences of the conflicts in the Great Lakes region over the past twenty
years have been disastrous. Millions have died since 1990, of which over a
million were the victims of direct violence. Generally speaking, those respon-
sible for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and even genocide have re-
mained unpunished. The only justice at work in the region has been victor’s
justice meted out to the authors of the genocide in Rwanda, MLC leader Jean-
Pierre Bemba and a few Ituri warlords. However, the RPF, for instance, was
not held accountable for the crimes it committed in Rwanda before, during,
and after the genocide or for those perpetrated in Zaire/DRC, particularly at
the end of 1996 and the beginning of 1997. While these crimes were well doc-
umented,88 no prosecutions took place before the International Criminal Tri-
bunal for Rwanda, before Rwandan or Congolese courts, or before courts in
third countries on the basis of universal jurisdiction.89
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12: War in the Great Lakes Region 271

This practice of victor’s justice had a dual consequence. On the one hand, as
impunity prevailed, it reassured criminals that they could commit new crimes
without risk of judicial prosecution. For instance, it is likely that the RPA would
not have massacred tens of thousands of civilian refugees in Zaire/DRC had
those responsible for crimes committed in Rwanda in 1994 been prosecuted
before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). On the other
hand, biased justice created frustration and resentment among the victims of
these crimes, thus creating a fertile breeding ground for new violence. Many
Rwandan Hutu and Congolese remember what the RPA did to them, and they
may well take revenge if and when the occasion presents itself.

CONCLUSION
This chapter has addressed the combination of factors that allows one to un-
derstand why war occurred in the Great Lakes region, and why it unraveled
the way it did. While this analysis has an explanatory function, it may also of-
fer clues as to future developments. Indeed, if these factors are still present,
one could conclude that a context favorable to new wars continues to prevail.
Although some steps have been made toward state reconstruction in the
DRC, the state remains very fragile, particularly (but not exclusively) in the
East, where earlier conflicts started. Territorial control is limited, private taxa-
tion continues, and the illegal exploitation and the smuggling of natural re-
sources goes on.90
With regards to neighbors’ civil wars, the one in Angola came to an end in
2002. The last remaining Burundian rebel movement, Palipehutu-FNL, laid
down arms at the end of 2008 to become a political party under the name FNL.
However, after the outcome of the 2010 elections was rejected by several opposi-
tion parties, some politicians, including chair of the FNL Agathon Rwasa, went
underground. At the time of writing, a new rebellion seemed to be under way,
with Burundian combatants operating in South Kivu, where they were joining
forces with Congolese and Rwandan insurgent groups.91 The Ugandan Allied
Democratic Forces continue to operate on both sides of the Congo-Uganda
border in the Ruwenzori region. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is no longer
active inside Uganda, but it operates in the DRC, though many of its fighters
have relocated to the Central African Republic.92 The porous region straddling
the DRC, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan remains particularly
open to insurgent activities. While peace seems to have returned in Rwanda, this
is only apparent. Structural violence is widespread, and an authoritarian regime
attempts to keep a lid on the volcano.93 Dissident Tutsi who once occupied very
high positions in the Rwandan political and military establishment entered into
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272 FILIP REYNTJENS

open opposition in 2010. They created a political structure, the Rwanda Na-
tional Congress, and there are signs that they are preparing a military capacity
intent on overthrowing Kagame (see below). The Hutu FDLR continue to be ac-
tive in both South and North Kivu, and Rwanda supports the Tutsi CNDP,
which, while officially incorporated into the FARDC, continues functioning as
a militia.
In a situation of relative regional peace, alliances between states have be-
come less prominent, but they continue to be concluded at more reduced
scales. Thus the Rwandan RPF dissidents are suspected of having been in con-
tact with armed movements in eastern DRC, such as the Nkunda wing of the
CNDP and the FRF, and possibly with elements of the FDLR, while at the same
time seeking support inside Rwanda.94
In the Kivu provinces in particular, the national army, several armed
groups, and Uganda and Rwanda continue the exploitation of Congolese re-
sources. Despite attempts to tag some materials and to raise awareness in the
business community of due diligence guidelines, conflict around mineral and
other wealth remains attractive. The UN panel of experts found that minerals
continued to be transported through illegal border crossings between the two
Kivus and Rwanda.95
Local tensions based on (ethnic) identity remain as intense as before, in
Rwanda in particular, and cross-border alignments along these lines are still
present. However, intra-Tutsi elite differences, as shown by the dissidence of
the RNC and by the fact that many Tutsi Banyamulenge are opposed to the
regime in Kigali, may alleviate the ethnic divide, though this may be replaced
by other lethal alliances and the emergence of new violent strategies.
Finally, the issue of impunity has not been addressed seriously. For in-
stance, the 2010 mapping report of the UN High Commission for Human
Rights (see above) has not (yet) been acted upon. Despite an arrest warrant
issued by the ICC against General Bosco Ntaganda for crimes committed in
Ituri, he lives and moves about openly in Goma, where—in addition to being
involved in illegal activities (see above)—he was involved in the murders of
family members or former supporters of Laurent Nkunda, whom Ntaganda
ousted from the leadership CNDP in January 2009 with the help of Rwanda,
where Nkunda remains illegally detained. The Congolese government refused
to execute the ICC arrest warrant “in the interest of maintaining peace,” as-
serting that Ntaganda is needed to keep the former CNDP troops integrated
in the Congolese army.
Clearly the conflict factors outlined in this chapter have not disappeared,
although they have generally decreased in extent and intensity. Two of these
factors need to be especially monitored. On the one hand, for both the devel-
opment of the country and regional stability, state reconstruction in the DRC
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12: War in the Great Lakes Region 273

is essential. Given the colossal nature of this endeavor, putting Humpty

Dumpty together again will need to start with the main functions of sover-
eignty: regaining control over the state’s territory and reestablishing links with
the population; rebuilding public fiscal capacity, with revenues collected and
spent in a transparent, efficient, and honest fashion, and resources harnessed
as public goods; and restoring legal security and the rule of law. On the other
hand, the Rwandan regime must address the country’s severe problems of po-
litical governance. Rwanda has been at the origin of two major regional wars,
and it could be so again if current authoritarian practices are not amended.

NOTES
1. I use the term “war” in singular, because the two wars (the one in 1996–1997
was called the “war of liberation” by many Congolese, whereas the one from 1998 to
2003 was dubbed the “war of occupation”) were in reality two episodes of one and the
same conflict.
2. This text uses the name of the country at the time of the events that are ana-
lyzed: Zaire before May 1997, Congo or DRC after that date.
3. Appendix 12.1 summarizes the timeline. Appendix 12.2 offers an overview of the
main actors. For a fuller treatment of the war, see G. Prunier, Africa’s World War:
Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009); F. Reyntjens, The Great African War: Congo and Re-
gional Geopolitics, 1996–2006 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); and J. K.
Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War
of Africa (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011).
4. In addition to a cease-fire signed by Congo, Angola, Namibia, Rwanda, Uganda,
and Zimbabwe, as well as by the Congolese rebel movements, the accord provided for
an “open national dialogue” involving the government, the rebel groups, the unarmed
opposition, and civil society. This was to lead to a new political dispensation.
5. The accord provided for a two- to three-year transitional period, during which
the executive branch would be made up of a president and four vice presidents, and a
government in which the rebel movements and the unarmed opposition would be
represented. A bicameral parliament included the same entities as those represented
in the government.
6. W. Reno, “Shadow States and the Political Economy of Civil Wars,” in Greed and
Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, ed. M. Berdal and M. Malone (Boulder,
CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000), pp. 43–63.
7. G. de Villers, “La guerre dans les évolutions du Congo-Kinshasa,” Afrique Con-
temporaine, 215 (2005): 54.
8. G. Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History
(London and New York: Zed Books, 2002), p. 214.
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274 FILIP REYNTJENS

9. The expression is from S. Perrot, “Entrepreneurs de l’insécurité: la face cachée

de l’armée ougandaise,” Politique Africaine 75 (1999): 60–71. It refers to rational mak-
ers of cost-benefit analyses, who realize that war, instability, and absence of the state
are more profitable than peace, stability, and state reconstruction.
10. Forces Armées Zaïroises until May 1997, Forces Armées Congolaises between
1997 and 2003. The national army was renamed Forces Armées de la République Dé-
mocratique du Congo (FARDC) as a result of the agreement.
11. A. Mbembe, On the Postcolony (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2001), pp. 92–93.
12. UN Security Council, Report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, S/2004/551, July 15, 2004, para. 56.
13. In 1999, a wing known as the RCD-ML broke away in protest over Rwandan
domination and placed itself under Uganda tutelage. The RCD-Goma remained a
proxy for Rwanda.
14. Amnesty International, Democratic Republic of Congo: Rwandese-Controlled
East: Devastating Toll (London: Amnesty International, June 19, 2001), pp. 16–18.
15. Coltan, short for “columbite-tantalite” and known industrially as tantalite, is a
dull black metallic ore from which the elements niobium (formerly “columbium”) and
tantalum are extracted.
16. Ibid., p. 33.
17. UN Security Council, Report of the Group of Experts, para. 44.
18. Ibid., para. 31.
19. In The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth and Reality (London and New York: Zed
Books, 2007), pp. 15–16, Thomas Turner rightly points out that this threat applied to
the regime, but not per se to Rwanda as a whole. Indeed, the majority of the popula-
tion may well have considered those posing this threat to be its allies and potential lib-
erators. Likewise, when Kigali argued that it needed to protect the Congolese Tutsi,
this may well have reflected the feelings of many Rwandan Tutsi, but probably not
those of many Hutu.
20. F. Misser, Vers un nouveau Rwanda? Entretiens avec Paul Kagame (Brussels,
Belgium: Luc Pire, 1995), p. 121.
21. EU Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region Aldo Ajello has con-
firmed this information to this author.
22. According to the then–US ambassador to Kigali, Robert Gribbin, Kagame had
already told him in March 1996 that “if Zaire continues to support the ex-FAR/Inter-
ahamwe against Rwanda, Rwanda in turn could find anti-Mobutu elements to sup-
port,” adding that “if the international community could not help improve security in
the region, the RPA might be compelled to act alone”; R. E. Gribbin, In the Aftermath
of Genocide: The U.S. Role in Rwanda (New York: iUniverse, 2005), pp. 144–145.
23. The existence of this project was later confirmed by documents discovered in Mu-
gunga camp in November 1996. Although these documents have never been published,
some echoes can be found in extracts published in newspapers, for example, Le Monde,
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12: War in the Great Lakes Region 275

November 19, 1996, and Le Figaro, November 20, 1996. It is surprising that neither the
AFDL nor the RPA has kept these archives; on the contrary, they reportedly burned
them (S. Boyle, “Rebels Repel Zaire Counter-Offensive,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, April
1, 1997). However, copies of a number of these papers are on file with this author.
24. R. Pourtier, “Congo-Zaïre-Congo: un itinéraire géopolitique au coeur de l’Afrique,”
Hérodote 86–87 (3rd–4th Term 1997): 27.
25. The more historical causes for the Angolan intervention in the war are addressed
by T. Turner, “Angola’s Role in the Congo War,” in The African Stakes of the Congo War,
ed. J. F. Clark (New York and Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 77–81.
26. Thus, the Angolan weekly Espresso of May 3, 1997, affirmed that President Dos
Santos insisted that Kabila should pursue his offensive to the end.
27. Having fled to Angola after the collapse of the Katangese secession in early
1963, a number of them were eventually integrated into the Angolan army, of which
they (or rather their sons) became the 24th Regiment in 1994.
28. The exact amount, due mainly to the state-owned Zimbabwe Defence Indus-
tries, is unknown, but estimates range from US$40 million to US$200 million.
29. Zimbabwe happened to chair SADC’s Organ on Politics, Defence, and Security.
As Kabila’s Congo had become a member of SADC, it benefited from a defense agree-
ment providing for member states’ assistance in case of an attack. However, South
Africa and Botswana disagreed with the intervention in the DRC. Although presented
as such by the coalition of the willing, it is doubtful whether the operation of Angola,
Namibia, and Zimbabwe occurred under the SADC umbrella.
30. Other members of the club included Eritrea’s Afewerki and Ethiopia’s Meles
Zenawi. All four eventually turned out to be just banal African dictators.
31. Addressing the Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa on December
9, 1997, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated, without mentioning their
names, that “Africa’s best new leaders have brought a new spirit of hope and accom-
plishment to your countries—and that spirit is sweeping across the continent. . . .
[Africa’s new leaders] share a common vision of empowerment—for all their citizens,
for their nations, and for their continent. . . . They are moving boldly to change the
way their countries work—and the way we work with them.”
32. Space prohibits a discussion of the mai-mai phenomenon. Suffice it to say that
this is a generic term designating a wide array of local groups with very diverse organi-
zational structures and ideologies, all claiming to protect the “indigenous” populations
against exactions by “foreigners.” A useful treatment can be found in K. Vlassenroot,
“The Making of a New Order: Dynamics of Conflict and Dialectics of War in South
Kivu (DR Congo),” PhD diss., University of Ghent, 2002, pp. 300–343. Vlassenroot in-
sists that, while the mai-mai were also a resistance movement against foreign occupa-
tion, they can be understood only as an indigenous reaction to marginalization and
exclusion. The theme of the mai-mai militias as an experience of more egalitarian
forms of solidarity-based social organization, with violence as its main discursive
mode, is developed in F. Van Acker and K. Vlassenroot, “Les ‘maï-maï’ et les fonctions
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de la violence milicienne dans l’Est du Congo,” Politique Africaine 84 (December 2001):

103–116.
33. It is important to restate that, contrary to Rwandan claims (thus “justifying” the
invasion by the RPA), this occurred after the beginning of the war. In other words, the
Rwandan invasion was not a consequence of the involvement of génocidaires, but
rather its cause.
34. UN Security Council, Final Report of the International Commission of Inquiry
(Rwanda), November 18, 1998, S/1998/1096, paras. 86–87.
35. International Crisis Group, Scramble for the Congo: Anatomy of an Ugly War,
December 20, 2000, p. 19.
36. On this strange episode, see M. Ruhimbika, Les Banyamulenge (Congo-Zaïre)
entre deux guerres (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2001), pp. 61–63, and K. Vlassenroot, “Citizen-
ship, Identity Formation & Conflict in South Kivu: The Case of the Banyamulenge,”
Review of African Political Economy 29, no. 93–94 (2002): 510–511.
37. Ruhimbika explained that “we have founded the FRF as a reaction to the inva-
sion of our country by Rwanda and to express our refusal of the instrumentalization
of the Banyamulenge by Kigali” (La Libre Belgique, September 1, 2000).
38. More details on the parting of ways between the RCD/RPA and most Banyamu-
lenge can be found in M. Ruhimbika, Les Banyamulenge . . . , op. cit., pp. 80–109, and
K. Vlassenroot, The Making of a New Order . . . , op. cit., pp. 235–250. Vlassenroot
notes that, as a consequence of their instrumentalization by Kigali, “the future of the
Banyamulenge community risks becoming very grim” (Ibid., p. 248).
39. East African, August 30–September 5, 1999.
40. G. Prunier, “L’Ouganda et les guerres congolaises,” Politique Africaine 75 (Octo-
ber 1999): 47.
41. A Congolese acquaintance of this author compared the fighting in Kisangani to
two neighbors breaking into his house and then fighting in his living room over who
would steal his television set.
42. Only in the summer of 2003 were the supplies from Rwanda to the UPC cut off
through airspace surveillance by the Interim Emergency Multinational Force (AIP,
APFO, CSVR, FEWER, “Ituri: Stakes, Actors, Dynamics,” September 2003, p. 5).
43. On Rwandan and Ugandan involvement in the Ituri conflict, see, e.g., Human
Rights Watch, Ituri: “Covered in Blood”: Ethnically Targeted Violence in North-Eastern
DR Congo (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2003); B. Leloup, “Le contentieux rwando-
ougandais et l’Est du Congo,” in L’Afrique des grands lacs. Annuaire 2002–2003, ed. S.
Marysse, F. Reyntjens (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003), pp. 246–252.
44. Between May and September 2003, a French-led Interim Emergency Multi-
national Force was deployed by the European Union. It pacified Ituri’s capital, Bunia,
after which a reinforced Ituri brigade was deployed by the UN peacekeeping mission
MONUC.
45. On Rwandan-Ugandan relations in the context of the Congo war, see B. Leloup,
“Le contentieux rwando-ougandais et l’ordre politique dans la region des grands lacs
d’Afrique,” PhD diss., University of Antwerp, 2008.
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12: War in the Great Lakes Region 277

46. The panel’s early work was criticized on account of both its focus on the activi-
ties of the rebel groups and their sponsors, and its definition of “illegality.” While these
criticisms were not unfounded, the value of the panel’s work is considerable: it has
unearthed a large amount of empirical data and, in its later phase, redressed the bal-
ance by inquiring into the predatory practices of the Kabila regime and its allies, Zim-
babwe in particular.
47. UN Security Council, Final Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploita-
tion of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, S/2002/1146, October 16, 2002. The panel produced another “Final Report” in
October 2003 (see below).
48. C. Dietrich, The Commercialisation of Military Deployment in Africa (Pretoria,
South Africa: ISS, 2001); C. Dietrich, Hard Currency: The Criminalized Diamond
Economy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Its Neighbours Occasional Pa-
per #4, Partnership Africa Canada, June 2002.
49. Several reports point to the direct link between the exploitation of resources
and the continuation of the conflict. The UN panel noted that the control of mineral-
rich areas “could be seen primarily as an economic and financial objective rather than
a security objective for Rwanda” (UN Security Council, Report of the Panel of Experts
on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, S/2001/357, April 12, 2001, para. 175); “Most of the
fights between Rwandan soldiers and mai-mai have occurred in the so-called ‘coltan
belt’” (ibid., para. 176). Under the title “Rwanda’s unusual tactics,” the panel found
that “attacks (by the RPA) seem to coincide with the period when coltan has been ex-
tracted and put in bags for evacuation by the mai-mai. Attacked, the mai-mai aban-
don their coltan, which is then taken away by small aircraft” (ibid., para. 177).
50. I. Samset, “Conflict of Interests or Interests of Conflict? Diamonds & War in the
DRC,” Review of African Political Economy 29, no. 93–94, (2002): 477.
51. UN Security Council, Final Report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1698 (2006), S/2007/423,
July 18, 2007, para. 37.
52. C. Young, “Contextualizing Congo Conflicts: Order and Disorder in Postcolo-
nial Africa,” Clark, The African Stakes, p. 25.
53. Indeed, post-1994 Rwanda has been called “an army with a state,” rather than a
state with an army. In the Kivus, the Rwandan army was nicknamed “Soldiers With-
out Borders,” a wink to the international NGO Médecins sans frontières.
54. Sénat de Belgique, Rapport fait au nom de la commission d’enquête Grands Lacs
par MM. Colla et Dallemagne, session 2002–3, February 20, 2003, No. 2–942/1, p. 72.
55. UN Security Council, Report of the Panel of Experts, para. 130. See note 49.
56. This may seem a modest figure, but in light of the structure of the Rwandan
economy, it is gigantic. Indeed in that same year, the production of export crops
(mainly coffee and tea) accounted for only 0.4 percent of GDP (International Mone-
tary Fund, Rwanda: Selected Issues and Statistical Appendix, IMF Country Report No.
04/383, 2004, p. 80).
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278 FILIP REYNTJENS

57. S. Marysse, “Regress and War: The Case of the DR Congo,” European Journal of
Development Research 15, no. 1 (2003): 88.
58. Of course, it was not really invisible, but the international community preferred
to turn a blind eye to these practices. US Ambassador Gribbin, for one, candidly ac-
knowledged this reality: “Rwanda had discovered during the first war that war in
Congo was relatively cheap—even profitable. . . . Well connected Rwandans . . . could
seize opportunities . . . to accumulate wealth” (Gribbin, In the Aftermath of Genocide,
pp. 282–283).
59. S. Jackson, “Making a Killing: Criminality & Coping in the Kivu War Economy,”
Review of African Political Economy 29, no. 93–94 (2002): 528.
60. Marysse (“Regress and war,” p. 89) added that “as military spending . . . was lim-
ited as a condition for access to financial flows provided by the Bretton Woods institu-
tions, . . . wartime plunder has helped finance the conflict.” He denounced the “ostrich
policy” of a number of bilateral donors and the international financial institutions
that, by continuing to fund the invading countries (Rwanda and Uganda) in the
knowledge that their aid is fungible, indirectly supported the continuation of the war.
61. The “Congo Desk” had an office called “Production,” which oversaw the eco-
nomic aspects of Rwandan operations in the DRC.
62. UN Security Council, Report of the Panel of Experts, para. 126. See note 49.
63. International Crisis Group, The Kivus: The Forgotten Crucible of the Congo Con-
flict (Nairobi and Brussels, January 24, 2003).
64. Many civil society sources in North and South Kivu reported Rwandan troop
movements, and MONUC openly suspected the presence of the Rwandan army on
Congolese soil (see, for instance, “DRC: MONUC Denounces Obstruction of Verifica-
tion Missions in East,” Nairobi, IRIN, October 29, 2003).
65. UN Security Council, Final Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploita-
tion of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, S/2003/1027, October 23, 2003.
66. Letter dated October 20, 2003, from Mahmoud Kassem, chair of the panel, to
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
67. Para. 2 of the unpublished Section V.
68. UN Security Council, Report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, S/2005/30, January 25, 2005, para. 185.
69. Ibid., paras. 199–200.
70. UN Security Council, Report of the Panel of Experts, paras. 135–142. See note 65.
71. Sénat de Belgique, Rapport fait, p. 119.
72. UN Security Council, Report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, S/2005/30, January 25, 2005, paras. 140–146.
73. J. Cuvelier, “Réseaux de l’ombre et configurations régionales: le cas du com-
merce du coltan en République Démocratique du Congo,” Politique Africaine 93
(2004): 82–92.
74. I. Taylor, “Conflict in Central Africa: Clandestine Networks & Regional/Global
Configurations,” Review of African Political Economy 30, no. 95 (2003): 48.
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12: War in the Great Lakes Region 279

75. Ibid., p. 52.

76. The latter category of Rwandans was imported between 1937 and 1955 as work-
ers as a result of deliberate policies by the Belgian colonial authorities, which even set
up an agency (Mission d’immigration des Banyarwanda) to that effect.
77. The Tutsi arrived mainly in 1959–1964, 1973, and 1990–1994.
78. The Hutu arrived massively in mid-1994.
79. See J. Gérard-Libois, J. Van Lierde, Congo 1965 (Brussels, Belgium: CRISP, 1965),
pp. 79–80.
80. For details on earlier developments, see, e.g., J.-P. Pabanel, “La question de la na-
tionalité au Kivu,” Politique Africaine 41 (March 1991): 32–40; A. Guichaoua, Le prob-
lème des régugiés rwandais et des populations banyarwanda dans la région des grands
lacs africains (Geneva, Switzerland: UNHCR, 1992); P. Kanyamachumbi, Les popula-
tions du Kivu et la loi sur la nationalité. Vraie ou fausse problématique (Kinshasa,
Congo: Editions Select, 1993); “Dossier: la ‘guerre’ de Masisi,” Dialogue 192 (August–
September 1996); F. Reyntjens and S. Marysse, Conflits au Kivu: antécédents et enjeux
(Antwerp, Belgium: Centre for the Study of the Great Lakes Region of Africa, 1996);
J.-C. Willame, Banyarwanda et Banyamulenge. Violences ethniques et gestion de l’iden-
titaire au Kivu (Brussels, Belgium, and Paris: Institut Africain-L’Harmattan, Cahiers
Africains, No. 25, 1997); P. Mathieu, J.-C. Willame, eds., Conflits et guerres au Kivu et
dans la région des grands lacs. Entre tensions locales et escalade régionale (Brussels, Bel-
gium, and Paris: Institut Africain-L’Harmattan, Cahiers Africains, No. 39–40, 1999).
81. An important precedent took place in June 1991, when armed Hutu groups at-
tacked state agents in charge of a census of nationals in Masisi. Offices were ransacked
and registers destroyed. Already at that stage, the insecurity was linked to the Rwan-
dan conflict: in March 1991, a retired Rwandan army officer, Colonel Aloys Simba,
was arrested in Goma while carrying weapons and funds.
82. For details, see Willame, Banyarwanda et Banyamulenge, pp. 66–68, 124–131.
83. As seen above, this proportion reached 70 percent in the zone of Masisi.
84. AZADO, Nord-Kivu: Etat d’urgence, Kinshasa, April 1996, p. 4; on August 3,
1996, the NGO SIMA-Kivu organized a conference in Brussels around the theme
“Zaire-Rwanda-Burundi: Who would profit from the creation of a Hutu-land and a
Tutsi-land?”
85. US Committee for Refugees, Masisi, Down the Road from Goma: Ethnic Cleans-
ing and Displacement in Eastern Zaire (Washington, DC: US Committee for Refugees,
1996), p. 16.
86. Africa News Bulletin–Bulletin Information Africaine, April 1, 1996.
87. S. Autesserre, The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of In-
ternational Peacebuilding (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
88. Already in 1998, a UN investigative team concluded that “the systematic massacre
of those (Hutu refugees) remaining in Zaire was an abhorrent crime against humanity,
but the underlying rationale for the decision is material to whether these killings consti-
tuted genocide, that is, a decision to eliminate, in part, the Hutu ethnic group” (UN Se-
curity Council, Report of the Investigative Team Charged with Investigating Serious
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280 FILIP REYNTJENS

Violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law in the Democratic Re-
public of Congo, S/1998/581, June 29, 1998, para. 96). A mapping exercise conducted on
behalf of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, published in 2010, confirmed
and detailed a long list of atrocities uncovered earlier by UN panels, national and inter-
national NGOs, and investigative journalists. It concluded that the vast majority of the
617 listed incidents were to be classified as war crimes and crimes against humanity. On
the issue of genocide, it noted that “several incidents listed in this report, if investigated
and judicially proven, point to circumstances and facts from which a court could infer
the intention to destroy the Hutu ethnic group in the DRC in part, if these were estab-
lished beyond all reasonable doubt”; UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1993–2003: Report of the Mapping Exercise
Documenting the Most Serious Violations of Human Rights and International Humani-
tarian Law Committed Within the Territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo be-
tween March 1993 and June 2003 (Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations, 2010), para. 31.
89. See, e.g., V. Peskin, “Victor’s Justice Revisited: Rwandan Patriotic Front Crimes
and the Prosecutorial Endgame at the ICTR,” in Remaking Rwanda: State Building
and Human Rights After Mass Violence, ed. S. Straus and L. Waldorf (Madison: Uni-
versity of Wisconsin Press, 2011), pp. 173–183.
90. The final report of the UN group of experts on the DRC offers ominous read-
ing: UN Security Council, Letter Dated 29 November 2011 from the Chair of the Secu-
rity Council Committee Established Pursuant to Resolution 1533 (2004) Concerning
the Democratic Republic of the Congo Addressed to the President of the Security Coun-
cil, S/2011/738, December 2, 2011.
91. Ibid., paras. 136–158.
92. Ibid., paras. 41–68.
93. F. Reyntjens, A Volcano with a Lid: Governance in Post-Genocide Rwanda,
forthcoming.
94. UN Security Council, Letter Dated 29 November 2011, paras. 115–122, 284–288.
95. Ibid., paras. 484–492. For instance, the panel found that the house in Goma of
General Bosco Ntaganda is on a street that crosses the border into Gisenyi, Rwanda,
and that the entire area between the official border crossings is controlled exclusively
by soldiers loyal to Ntaganda. The minerals are usually brought in vehicles into the
neutral zone, after which they are carried to the Rwandan side, where they are loaded
onto other vehicles. During smuggling operations, Ntaganda’s troops cut off all access
to the area. Rwandan soldiers had sentry posts all along the border, and nothing could
cross without their knowledge. The panel estimated that Ntaganda made about
$15,000 per week by taxing at this crossing point (ibid., paras. 485–487).
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APPENDIX 12.1. TIMELINE

1993
October 21. Coup d’état in Burundi; beginning of civil war.

1994
April–July. Resumption of the civil war in Rwanda; genocide against the Tutsi; RPF
seizes power; 2 million Hutu, including defeated army and militia, flee to neigh-
boring countries, Zaire in particular.

1995
Fall. Large-scale violence in North Kivu; hit-and-run operations by Rwandan Hutu
refugees, operating from Zaire, against targets in Rwanda.

1996
September. Start of the “Banyamulenge rebellion” supported by Rwanda.
October. Creation in Kigali of AFDL, with Laurent-Désiré Kabila as its spokesperson.
October–December. AFDL, supported by Rwanda and Uganda, occupies a buffer zone
in eastern Zaire, stretching from Kalémie to Bunia.

1997
February. Angola joins the anti-Mobutu coalition.
May 17. Fall of Kinshasa.
May 29. Kabila sworn in as president of DRC, the new name of Zaire.

1998
August 2. Beginning of a new Congolese “rebellion” masterminded by Rwanda.
August 12. RCD rebel movement formally launched.
August 19. Deployment of Angolan, Zimbabwean, and Namibian troops in support of
Kinshasa regime.
August 23. Fall of Kisangani.
November. Creation of another rebel movement, the MLC, with Ugandan support.

1999
May–June, August. Fighting between Rwandan and Ugandan armies in Kisangani.
July 10. Signing of the Lusaka Accord.

2000
June 5–10. Heavy fighting between Rwandan and Ugandan armies in Kisangani. Close
to 1,000 civilians killed. Widespread destruction.
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2001
January 16. Assassination of Laurent-Désiré Kabila.
January 26. Joseph Kabila assumes office.

2002
February 25. Launch of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue in Sun City (South Africa).
September. Rwanda officially pulls out troops from the DRC but retains a covert
presence.
December 17. Global and Inclusive Accord signed in Pretoria, South Africa.

2003
June. European Interim Emergency Multinational Force deployed in Ituri; replaced by
MONUC Ituri brigade in September.
June–July. 1+4 presidency, transitional government, and transitional parliament in
place.

2005
December 18–19. Constitution adopted by referendum.

2006
July 30. First round of presidential elections: Kabila 44.81%, Bemba 20.03%, Gizenga
13.06%; parliamentary elections: PPRD 111 seats, MLC 64, PALU 34, RCD-
Goma 15.
October 29. Second round of presidential elections: Kabila 58.05%, Bemba 41.95%.
December 6. Joseph Kabila sworn in as president.
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APPENDIX 12.2. MAIN ACTORS

Alliance des Forces pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL): Rwanda- and

Uganda-backed rebel group led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila that overthrew the Mobutu
regime in May 1997.

Banyamulenge: Congolese Tutsi group living in South Kivu; started the war in Sep-
tember 1996 with the support of Rwanda.

Banyarwanda: Kinyarwanda speakers living in eastern DRC; both Hutu and Tutsi.

Jean-Pierre Bemba: Leader of the MLC rebel movement; unsuccessful presidential

candidate in 2006; indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes com-
mitted in the Central African Republic.

Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP): Congolese Tutsi militia, for-
mally integrated in FARDC, supported by Rwanda; its leader Laurent Nkunda ar-
rested by Rwanda in early 2009, replaced by Bosco Ntaganda.

Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR): Former Rwandan government army that retreated
to Eastern Zaire after its defeat in the summer of 1994, and conducted raids against
Rwanda from the refugee camps in 1995–1996.

Forces Armées Zaïroises (FAZ)/Forces Armées Congolaises (FAC)/Forces Armées de

la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC): Successive names of the Zairean/
Congolese government army.

Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR): Rwandan Hutu rebel

movement operating in eastern DRC.

Joseph Kabila: Son of Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who succeeded his father as president in
January 2001; elected president in 2006, reelected in 2011.

Laurent-Désiré Kabila: Leader of the AFDL; became president in May 1997; assassi-
nated in January 2001.
Paul Kagame: Leader of the RPF/RPA; de facto ruler of Rwanda since 1994; became
president in 2000; elected in 2003, reelected in 2010.

Mai-mai: Local militias operating in North and South Kivu; claim to protect local
populations against “invaders.”

Mobutu Sese Seko: President of Zaire from 1965 to 1997; overthrown by Laurent-
Désiré Kabila in May 1997; died a few months later in exile in Morocco.

Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC): Uganda-backed rebel movement created

in November 1998; its leader, Jean-Pierre Bemba, unsuccessfully stood for president in
2006.
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Yoweri Museveni: President of Uganda since 1986.

Bosco Ntaganda: Leader of the CNDP and general in the FARDC; indicted by ICC for
war crimes committed in Ituri.

Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD): Rwanda-backed rebel group

that started a war against the Kabila regime in August 1998.

Rwanda Defence Forces: Rwandan national army.

Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A): Tutsi dominated movement that started a re-
bellion in October 1990 and took power in July 1994; de facto single party.

Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF): Ugandan national army.

União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA): Angolan rebel move-
ment defeated in 2008.

Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC): Main Ituri militia group; its leader, Thomas
Lubanga, was the first to be convicted by the International Criminal Court in 2012.