*Congo pays $192m annually to European mercenaries
IKENNA EMEWU
In Congo DR, around the eastern borders of Rwanda, live the Tutsi, Hutu, and other ethnic nationalities in the Kivu region, whose kinsmen spill into Rwanda.
The people of Congo call them Banyarwanda meaning ‘people of Rwanda.’
When the Hutu of Rwanda levied genocides on the Tutsi of Rwanda in the early 1990s, especially in 1994, the spillover effect and ripples were felt across the international borders of Congo DR and Rwanda.
It is the typical case of internationalized ethnic aggression. It is also the ghosts of the sanguinary genocide of 1994 in Rwanda still refusing to fade into forgotten history.
When this carnage ended, many Hutu people accused of being guilty in the genocides on Tutsi fled to Congo DR and hid from punishment.
These were in the days of maniacal ruler, Mobutu Sese Sekou. He accommodated the accused genocidists to the chagrin of Rwanda which needed them to be punished. His refusal to let Rwanda have them for punishment led to his fall from power as Rwanda with the support of countries who decried the genocide aided the ousting of Sese Sekou. However, Desire Kabila who took over, and aligned with Rwanda reneged in the pact to allow the hiding genocidists to be punished. This soured the relationship again.
As this face-off festered, rebel groups against the government that were visibly aligned with those wanted Hutu people arose. One of them, and a very prominent group, is the M23, which is said to be mainly Tutsi of Congo and with some alignment with possibly their kinsmen in Rwanda and ostensibly with the Rwanda government.
When the genocidal machinery that killed people in Rwanda was defeated and crossed into the Congo, it continued its bloody campaign, this time targetting Congolese Tutsi, which prompted the rise of Tutsi-led armed rebellions. Successive Congolese governments have used the anti-Rwanda extremists, operating under the FDLR banner, in fighting the Tutsi-dominated M23 rebels and other Tutsi-led armed groups before. The FDLR is a UN- and US-sanctioned group, which is fighting alongside the Congolese army, FARDC, forces from the SADC region, including from South Africa, Burundian forces, European mercenaries and a myriad of local militia groups, known as the Wazalendos (the Patriots),” a published narrative disclosed.
ACE Magazine spoke on the phone with Rwanda journalist, James Munyaneza who explained why Rwanda seems to have sympathy for the M23 militia. He said his country feels the hiding of accused persons and genocide collaborators by the Congo government encourages what they did against fellow human beings. The Tutsi having suffered an earlier genocide, Rwanda feels it’s not right to watch it happen again, especially when they are also citizens of Congo.
Munyaneza who told the story of the conflict from the problems of the partitioning of Africa by the West in 1885 also noted that Rwanda’s government rightly thinks that the Tutsi should not be exposed to killings again as the Congo military with a strong affinity with the Hutu still do.
The journalist traced the interest of South Africa in the matter to the economics.
Our other sources added that such interest included those of the person of President Cyril Ramaphosa who is alleged to have close affiliates with mining businesses in the Kivu and Goma areas of Congo. This, however, also needs to be proved. On the other hand, in the days of the Rwanda genocides, South Africa apartheid regime is alleged to have played compromising roles in arming and supporting Hutu killers.
Spread the pain
While Congo and the rebels are at each other’s throats, the refugees from Congo, mainly of the Tutsi nativity fled to Rwanda, causing pressure on the country, a situation Rwanda feels uncomfortable about. About 100,000 of them spilled over to Rwanda. But Uganda is worse affected as over 300,000 of such Tutsi refugees found squatting spots in the country.
Benefit to West
To consolidate its ranks against the militia groups, Congo sought help in Europe from where it hired over 1,700 mercenary fighters mainly from France, Romania, and a few other eastern European countries. They are there precisely to protect the mining businesses of Western countries that reap bounties from these crises. A good instance is that Congo, in the Kivu region especially, has a huge deposit of coltan, a principal raw material for the production of cellphones and computers.
As the M23 takes the eastern regions of Kivu, and Rubaya, they allocate mining licences to new miners other than the companies of Europe and the US that had been the beneficiaries.
Because of this interest, in 2012, Western countries and the UN pressured Rwanda to ask M23 to pull out of the regions it occupied. Even in the present situation, the UK government has already threatened Rwanda of losing up to $1 billion of aid in the year if it doesn’t drop its support for the militia group.
In response, Kigali dared London to do its worst and take its aid rather than watching the Congolese government in alliance with Hutu killers keep hounding and oppressing the Tutsi of the same country.
Wastage in poverty
From Congo’s lean resources and a burden of 103 million people, over 92% of whom are very poor, it is stretching to pay the close to 2,000 European mercenary fighters a princely $8,000 each in a month whereas Congolese soldiers earn about $100 fighting the same war, and sometimes owed for months. To the foreign mercenaries, poor Congo bleeds its coffers of $192 million a year to keep them. European countries volunteered this horde of fighters for known economic reasons.
As the war rages, the UN, Congo, and some countries accuse Rwanda of positioning over 4,000 military troops at the border with Congo to back the M23 fighters led by Sultani Makenga, a former military chief with Congolese government before breaking off to team up with the militia said to be protecting the interest of Tutsi and other ethnicities of Congo that speak the Kinyarwanda language from another genocide by Hutu that is in pact with the Congolese government.
Even the UN last year warned against a high risk of an outbreak of genocide against the Tutsi due to the heightened ethnic hate roused by the Hutu who are in pact with the Congolese government and military.
Weighed down Africa
These crises have the multiple effects of taking the African region backward for many years. With this problem at hand, Rwanda which has been some ray of hope and a good example for many other African countries would halt its growth while embroiled in war and its containment. Congo will sink deeper into penury with already impoverished citizens. Their refugees would spill into struggling nearby countries and weigh down the economy and security. At last, with the help of African people, the West will keep reaping the benefits that should be for African natives, and grow richer.
