Deployment to the DRC: The Rwandan Dilemma
17 April 2001
stratfor.com
After years of fighting Africa’s most complex contemporary war, the armies of six nations disengaged March 29 and allowed U.N. observers to deploy in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Contingent upon the complete disengagement of the estimated 60,000 foreign troops, the deployment marks the first substantive step toward ending the country’s nearly three-year-old war.
Efforts to end the war have become increasingly complex, but the simple motivations behind the war will dictate the terms of its end. Five of six nations involved are motivated by greed: a grab for land and resources.
Rwanda is the exception to this equation. Unlike the other players, the Rwandan government has been driven by security concerns. The government in Kigali has pursued the conflict as an extension of Rwanda’s ethnic struggle between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi-led government.
The Rwandan Patriotic Army (APR) has an increasingly strained relationship with its local rebel allies. A split is probable between the rebels’ former leadership, which still commands loyalty from its fighters, and the government of Rwandan President Paul Kagame. Simultaneously, the Rwandan forces’ chief concern – some 60,000 Hutu rebels, known as the Interhamwe – show no evidence they will stop fighting.
The conflict is a labyrinth of political alliances between no less than six nations and as many as 10 local groups. On one side are more than 20,000 Angolan, Namibian and Zimbabwean soldiers allied with government troops fielded by the government in Kinshasa.
On the other side is a tenuous alliance between Rwandan forces and an estimated 6,000 Ugandan troops. Ugandan forces have set up a friendly government in the northeast under the Congolese Liberation Front (CLF), led by Jean Pierre Bemba, reports Ugandan daily New Vision. The Rwandans provide support and direct the 25,000 fighters of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), a conglomerate of ethnic groups headquartered on the Rwandan border.
The government of the DRC on April 16 called for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council in order to seek economic sanctions against Rwanda, accusing the government of delaying its redeployment of forces. The request follows a setback in the peace process over the weekend when rebels from the RCD barred nearly 120 U.N. peacekeepers from deploying in Kisangani.
The current government, led by Joseph Kabila, appears to have moved toward a peace settlement to preserve itself and appease senior officers in the military, worn out by a war of attrition. But there are clear signs the Rwandan government does not believe Kabila is committed to peace.
The Rwandan Hutu refugee population has no reason to buy into the peace process now unfolding. They are not part of the inter-Congolese dialogue, will not be part of any unity government, and will not return peaceably to take power in Kigali. In fact, since the cease-fire agreement, fighting has intensified in South Kivu, according to South Africa’s News24.
Rwanda ultimately has no compelling reason to withdraw its forces. While Rwandan forces are worn out by the war, the government can continue to fund its effort, based on revenues from mines in South Kivu and North Kivu provinces.
Compounding problems for the Rwandan government is evidence of a rift that may emerge inside the political leadership of the Rwandan-backed rebels, the RCD.
Last October, Kigali reportedly sent a delegation of high-level government officials to Goma, the RCD capital, to accept the resignation of the group’s president and two vice presidents, according to Reuters. The group’s president, Emile Llunga, was replaced by Adolphe Onusumba, a 35-year-old doctor who previously acted as the RCD’s foreign minister.
Kigali was likely trying to tighten its hold on local rebel allies, but the move may backfire. Where Llunga enjoyed considerable loyalty within the ranks of the RCD’s combatants, Onusumba has only limited military training. The way Llunga was replaced suggests the move was heavy-handed and could reinforce the view of Onusumba as a puppet of the Rwandan government.
As pressure grows for the war’s end, the interests of Rwanda’s allies will begin to diverge from Rwanda itself. With a peace deal, there is no hope of taking Kinshasa by force – a stated goal of the RCD. Even the Inter-Congolese Dialogue, intended to draw up a post-war DRC, does not offer the RCD rank and file very much.
An outright withdrawal by Rwandan forces would be problematic, as they need their allies to secure their western flank. A split with the RCD would make such an operation complicated. Such a possibility is not far-fetched; the RCD has split before and sent a splinter group into the arms of the Ugandan government in 1999.
A reoccurrence could turn some of the rebels toward Uganda in order to ensure a flow of weapons into the country while securing an avenue for trade to the outside world. The Ugandan government’s aims are economic and it could be enticed to assist splinter elements of the RCD in an effort to gain the economic assets now under Rwanda’s control. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni would be happy to fight the Congolese down to the last Rwandan. |
