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  • Murder, muddle and panic

    Congo
    Murder, muddle and panic

    Nov 6th 2008 | KINSHASA
    From The Economist print edition
    As chaos and massacres overwhelm north-eastern Congo, diplomats and peacekeepers are struggling to get a grip

    “THE situation is catastrophic,” says a Red Cross man. “There’s no other word.” Tens of thousands of terrified civilians are jamming the roads of Congo’s North Kivu province in a frantic southbound exodus in the hope of self-preservation (see map). General Laurent Nkunda’s mainly Tutsi rebels are poised to grab the eastern city of Goma after capturing most of the smaller towns in the area. Reports of massacres on the night of November 5th in Kiwanja, a small town north of Goma, have increased the panic. An officer in General Nkunda’s force said that his men had “neutralised” men in civilian clothes there who, he said, covertly belonged to the so-called Mai-Mai militias; they, along with the Congolese army and others, have been fighting the Tutsi rebels. A local clergyman said at least 180 civilians had been killed during the night.

    The UN’s mission to Congo, known by the acronym MONUC, which has 17,000 peacekeepers across the country, including 6,000-odd in North Kivu, has been unable to cope. Diplomacy, hitherto fruitless, is intensifying. European diplomats, led by the foreign ministers of Britain and France, David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, have visited regional capitals, calling for talks and troop reinforcements. The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, was set to host a summit on November 7th in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, bringing together the presidents of Congo and Rwanda, Joseph Kabila and Paul Kagame respectively, who have been sponsoring some of the rival rebel armies. Nigeria’s former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has been tapped as a mediator; he immediately called for MONUC to be beefed up. The French government suggested that a robust European force of 400 to 1,500 soldiers be dispatched urgently to protect the humanitarian missions that are struggling to give relief to hundreds of thousands of hapless and hungry civilians. So far the European Union has been loth to give the go-ahead.

    In the past two years, some 850,000 people have fled their homes due to fighting between the rebels, Congo’s army and assorted militias. Though General Nkunda launched his latest offensive in August, his 4,000 or so battle-hardened fighters have been lording it over the area for four years, claiming to champion the rights of eastern Congo’s Tutsi minority. But the root of the problem goes back to the genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994. If a wider regional peace is to be achieved, an accommodation between the surviving former victims and their exiled persecutors must be arranged.

    After the genocidal Hutu militias were chased out of Rwanda, they fled to Congo, called themselves the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), and have marauded in North Kivu ever since. Successive weak regimes in Kinshasa, Congo’s distant capital, have used them as a tool, first against a Rwandan intervention that helped spark a wider conflict from 1998 to 2003. Congo’s President Kabila is now using them as proxies against General Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP). Mr Kabila’s failure to rid eastern Congo of the Hutu génocidaires has nourished General Nkunda’s own brand of Tutsi extremism. Mr Kabila has also winked at local militias, including the Mai-Mai, who have been fighting General Nkunda’s men too.

    Neighbouring Rwanda is also culpable. Its government has repeatedly endorsed various demands of the general, who refuses to register his group as a political movement in Congo, eschewing the UN-sponsored elections there two years ago. Instead, Rwanda’s President Kagame has pursued a contradictory policy, telling Mr Kabila to squash the Hutu rebels of the FDLR but refusing to meet the FDLR’s demands to have a legal stake in Rwanda’s politics. If Mr Kagame let it do so, many of the FDLR fighters, especially those who did not play known roles in the genocide, would probably go home.

    Western governments have been in a muddle. They have economic and historic interests in the region; they feel bad about letting atrocities take place in the past; and they have their own protégés whom they sponsor and fail to denounce when they behave badly. As a result, the governments of Congo and Rwanda have been on a collision course. Outsiders have also failed to turn Congo’s lousy army—a hodgepodge of Mr Kabila’s loyalists, former rebels and militias—into a disciplined fighting force capable of nailing the Hutus’ FDLR.

    Congo’s President Kabila may have to meet General Nkunda’s demand for direct negotiation, simply because the Tutsi rebels are militarily dominant; indeed, Mr Nkunda has threatened to “march on Kinshasa” unless Mr Kabila meets his basic demand to clobber the Hutu rebels of the FDLR. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council will again be asked to strengthen MONUC’s mandate so that it can suppress all illegal armed groups in the area, should talks fail again. The most immediate requirement is for Messrs Kabila and Kagame to sit down together and talk.

    http://www.economist.com/world/midea...ry_id=12573363
    It is quite a mess in Africa.

    There is too much of tribal rivalries.

    Suppress one group and out pops the other.

    There appears to be no solution!


    "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

    I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

    HAKUNA MATATA

  • #2
    There is a solution, Sir, just not an acceptable one.

    Give everyone an AK-47 and seal the borders for 6 months. Then shoot the victors.

    Comment


    • #3
      Colonel,

      :))

      You are too aggressive!

      I wish those who have experience in Africa, could give their honest opinion.

      Those who have not operated in Africa are so helpless without inputs to realise what makes Africa tick!

      Is Africa such a wild and unregulated area, where there is no law and order or societal niceties?

      Or are these stories motivated and not true?
      Last edited by Ray; 10 Nov 08,, 08:39.


      "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

      I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

      HAKUNA MATATA

      Comment


      • #4
        I think that two major factors are at work here.

        First, Africa's national boundaries were purposely drawn by the colonial powers to cut across tribal and ethnic boundaries, in an effort to divide opposition and make it easier to control the native populations. It worked well for the colonial powers, but has led to a myriad of problems today.

        Second, at the time of colonization, as it had a relatively "young" continental population, Africa was still undergoing the same kind of shaking out of ethnic and tribal groups and territories that had ended in Europe (and other places) long before. Colonial rule put this process on hold, but did not resolve it. This process is still asserting itself.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Ray View Post
          Those who have not operated in Africa are so helpless without inputs to realise what makes Africa tick!

          Is Africa such a wild and unregulated area, where there is no law and order or societal niceties?

          Or are these stories motivated and not true?

          India is a perfect model for Africa, we have a lot of similarities like different ethnicities, languages, religion, food etc that you see in most African nations, but again we all unite as a nation. Like wise these small nations in Africa have to unite under a banner which of course is the most elusive thing. The more I look at the fights in Africa, the more I appreciate India. I wonder what makes India tick?? The same can be used in Africa.
          A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by GraniteForge View Post
            I think that two major factors are at work here.

            First, Africa's national boundaries were purposely drawn by the colonial powers to cut across tribal and ethnic boundaries, in an effort to divide opposition and make it easier to control the native populations. It worked well for the colonial powers, but has led to a myriad of problems today.

            Second, at the time of colonization, as it had a relatively "young" continental population, Africa was still undergoing the same kind of shaking out of ethnic and tribal groups and territories that had ended in Europe (and other places) long before. Colonial rule put this process on hold, but did not resolve it. This process is still asserting itself.
            An interesting analysis worth note!


            "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

            I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

            HAKUNA MATATA

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Jay View Post
              India is a perfect model for Africa, we have a lot of similarities like different ethnicities, languages, religion, food etc that you see in most African nations, but again we all unite as a nation. Like wise these small nations in Africa have to unite under a banner which of course is the most elusive thing. The more I look at the fights in Africa, the more I appreciate India. I wonder what makes India tick?? The same can be used in Africa.
              I think it has got to do with Hindu culture......
              Seek Save Serve Medic

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by 667medic View Post
                I think it has got to do with Hindu culture......
                we Hindus are just too lazy and laid back to start a civil war, besides as my Gujarati friends would say " a civil war would not be good for dhando":P

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by 667medic View Post
                  I think it has got to do with Hindu culture......
                  I dont really think so, reason being I have seen violent ethnic riots in southern parts of TN, they are no less violent than Africans fwiw with sickle (aruval) and spears(vel kambu).
                  Last edited by Jay; 10 Nov 08,, 19:42.
                  A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by 667medic View Post
                    I think it has got to do with Hindu culture......
                    But we still speak different languages and have different gods. How can you reconcile these?.

                    I guess it has more to do with Independence struggle that brought us together.
                    Question everything, answer nothing.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      I have a question. What is common to all these tribes? or there isn't any?.
                      Question everything, answer nothing.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Most of them speak some language of the Bantu family.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          IMHO, I guess they need a common cause to be together, something that can act like a glue.
                          Question everything, answer nothing.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Skywatcher View Post
                            Most of them speak some language of the Bantu family.
                            Basically true for sub-Saharan Africa, but a bit misleading. Bantu languages only predominate from the middle of Africa to the South. Bantu is actually a very large sub group of the larger Niger-Congo language family, which predominates throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The Khoisan (formerly known as Bushmen or, even earlier, Hottentots) of South-Western Africa are not Bantu. Estimates of the numbers of Bantu languages run as high as 9,000. Hardly a point of commonality on which to build a community.

                            You also need to remember that the Bantu are not the original inhabitants of much of their range. Rather, they displaced the aboriginal peoples in a series of great migrations, moving into what they perceived to be an endless territory, empty except for the small, weak tribes of natives,who they regarded as inferior.

                            During these great migrations, the formation and breakup of new states and tribes was a constant process, where each round of warfare in one area set off new waves of displacement and further warfare, radiating out further and further like ripples in a pond from a thrown rock.

                            These states and this process had not yet reached a natural equilibrium at the time they first encountered the Trekboers, likewise expanding northwards into what they perceived as an endless, uninhabited territory.

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