DRC conflict is complex and complicated
Goma war scenes in East of DRC
…as it is a cauldron of history, ethnicity, geopolitics and minerals
After the M23 dramatically seized Goma, the capital of the mineral-rich
North Kivu province in DRC, on Monday, the conflict, a cauldron of history, ethnicity, geopolitics and minerals, is threatening to suck into its vortex at least nine countries in the region.
South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania are already deep in the trenches through the Sadc force which has been in there since 2023.
Zimbabwe, which fought in the DRC war from 1998 to 2002, wrecking its economy and fueling the current protracted crisis, is not directly involved after burning its fingers.
The Great Lakes conflict is complex and complicated, but let me simplify my narrative, without being simplistic.
The DRC army – FARDC – is fighting on the same side with Sadc, including South Africa, and the UN as well as the genocidal Hutu FDLR (militias who committed genocide in Rwanda) and European mercenaries against the Tutsi-based M23 supported by the Tutsi-ruled Rwanda.
Now the problem is while DRC has a right to defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty, as well as its people, it is working with Hutu genocidal forces and mercenaries to fight its own citizens whom it calls foreigners – that is eastern DRC Tutsis and Kinyarwanda-speaking minorities, which M23 is fighting for, with all the concomitant atrocities it has also committed.
M23, whose genesis lies in the failed 23 March 2009 peace agreement, is a proxy for Rwanda, but it has genuine and serious grievances because Felix Tshisekedi is refusing to recognise eastern DRC Tutsis, saying they are foreigners, which is xenophobic, and should go back to Rwanda when they are Congolese.
In other words, you have the DRC government which is working in collaboration with foreigners (FDLR comprising Hutus from Rwanda who ran away after committing genocide and Kagame’s ascendancy) fighting against its own citizens (M23, the marginalised and unwanted Congolese Tutsis) supported by a Tutsi-ruled foreign country, Rwanda.
That is why Sadc and South Africa are in a quandary.
They can’t support DRC to protect its sovereignty as a member state, while also working with mercenaries (it’s against the AU charter) and Hutu forces who committed genocide, killing almost a million Tutsis in 100 days.
All things considered, M23 and DRC Tutsis are fighting an existential threat, just like Kagame and Rwandan Tutsis before and after the genocide.
So to secure peace, Sadc must broker an inclusive dialogue between DRC government, M23, FDLR, Rwanda and Uganda which is what Angola and Kenya are currently trying to do.
To ensure peace, M23 must be in the DRC army as they were before to make the DRC Tutsi feel protected so that they don’t support insurgent movements amid calls for secession in that region.
Remember there are over 100 armed rebel groups fighting Congolese and Sadc forces in the mineral-rich eastern DRC.
These groups have different, yet sometimes similar grievances, but the bottom line is the DRC should engage in proper nation-building, not their xenophobic model which is primitively ethnic, highly divisive and fuels conflict, allowing neighbours and foreign powers to steal the resources.
Dialogue without conditions is the necessary first step, not what Sadc and its allies are doing. Kagame is wrong to support a rebel movement in another country and to pursue Hutus in DRC violating sovereignty and borders of a neighbouring country, but you need to look into the Tutsi existential threat and how they are dealing with the situation at home and regionally to at least understand from their side why Kagame is behaving like that.
Kagame says he going after the Hutu militias in DRC because they are killing Tutsi in the Congo with the support of the government and also want to topple him.
Yet it is futile for Kagame to think he can rule the majority (Hutus) in Rwanda by the sword forever in the post-genocide era.
Only an inclusive, representative and stable democracy – not authoritarian repression – can guarantee peace and stability in Rwanda beyond its current structure-induced order.
Both DRC and Rwanda are complicit on this account as they violate each other’s sovereignty with reckless abandon.
Cyril Ramaphosa is looking at it from a Sadc sovereignty perspective, but not considering all other things; that is why he even wrongly calls the Rwanda Defence Force a “militia” which Kagame finds unacceptable.
It’s like calling the South African army South African National Defence Force a “gang”, or worse still Sturmabteilung (storm troopers).
Presidents usually don’t work like that.
That is why Kagame is wrong to insult Ramaphosa in public and threaten he is ready for war.
A national army of a country can’t be called a militia, which explains why Kagame says South African officials are not handling the situation properly, hence he accuses them of misrepresenting things, badly framing the conflict and lying.
Ramaphosa urgently needs proper briefing on that multifaceted conflict and to reconsider South Africa’s role in that war.
South Africa and other Sadc countries should not be involved in an offensive military campaign, but a peacekeeping mission.
Pretoria, which wanted to arrive like a knight in shining armour as a regional superpower in pursuit of its geopolitical and economic interests, can’t work with mercenaries and genocidaires, and hope to bring sustainable peace in DRC.
South African companies, like Western multinationals, have big interests in the DRC.
Harare, driven by power elites’ political agendas and greed for diamonds and other precious minerals, tried that, helped to keep the slain Laurent Kabila in power, and later his son Joseph Kabila, but later realised it’s a notoriously difficult, intractable and unwinnable war.
It did not end well for Robert Mugabe. Connecting critical threads, the DRC contributed to his downfall years later.
Of course, Rwanda and Uganda are looting mineral-rich eastern DRC exporting minerals which they don’t have or produce in their own territories and this conflict provides good cover, but Sadc can’t be on the same side with mercenaries and genocidaires, and still claim the moral high ground.
It’s just unworkable and unsustainable.
Rwanda will never accept that and is prepared to go to war with South Africa because the Hutu-based FDLR, an ally of DRC, Sadc/UN, wants to overthrow Kagame and exterminate Tutsis.
The DRC conflict has deep roots in history, ethnic and geo-ethnic rivalries, colonial borders and legacies, regional and international interests (Western companies which hire mercenaries), minerals and power/geopolitics.
It’s a cauldron of ethnic conflicts, geopolitics and a fight for minerals; an explosive and deadly cocktail which needs a holistic solution, not Sadc’s militaristic approach which will ignite a regional war involving at least nine countries.
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