IS DRC INDEPENDENT?, UGANDA AND RWANDA HAVE BEEN AT THE FORE FRONT OF DISTABLISING RWANDA SINCE 1997

WHY A CURSE NOT A BLESSING: DRC YET TO BE INDEPENDENT

By John Blanshe Musinguzi

Blessed with natural resources, DRC nationals has never enjoyed their resources. Most of them continue to live under absolute poverty- where one is poor, his son will be poor and they grandson will too be poor. Civil wars fueled by foreign states have dominated history since independence. From 1997 up-to-date, Uganda and Rwanda have been accused of masterminding civil conflicts in Congo

    Following riots in Leopoldville between 4–7 January 1959, and Stanleyville on 31 October 1959, the Belgians realized they could not maintain control of such a vast country in the face of rising demands for independence. The Belgians and Congolese political leaders held a round table Conference in Brussels beginning on 18 January 1960. At the end of the Conference on 27 January 1960 it was announced that elections would be held in the Congo on 22 May 1960, and full independence granted on 30 June 1960. The Congo was indeed granted its independence on 30 June 1960, adopting the name "Republic of the Congo"

This independence was short lived, many foreign states continue to involve directly in Congo affair. When a state is granted independence, is supposed to be sovereign. DRC did not taste independence as other countries did because of their rich natural resources, until today, the curse of these natural resources continue to be the major source of internal conflicts.

Only three months after independence, foreign troops were deployed to protect mining companies under the guise of keeping law and order.  On 5 July 1960 a military mutiny by Congolese soldiers against their European officers broke out in the capital and rampant looting began. On 11 July 1960 the richest province of the country, Katanga, seceded under Moise Tshombe. The United Nations sent 20,000 peacekeepers to protect Europeans in the country and try to restore order. Western paramilitaries and mercenaries, often hired by mining companies to protect their interests, also began to pour into the country. In this same period Congo's second richest province, Kasai, also announced its independence on 8 August 1960.

USA and USSR crash in Congo and assassination of Patrice Lumumba facing these internal conflict, Lumumba turned to the USSR for assistance. Nikita Khrushchev agreed to help, offering advanced weaponry and technical advisors. The United States viewed the Soviet presence as an attempt to take advantage of the situation and gain a proxy state in sub-Saharan Africa. UN forces were ordered to block any shipments of arms into the country. The United States also looked for a way to replace Lumumba as leader. President Kasavubu had clashed with Prime Minister Lumumba and advocated an alliance with the West rather than the Soviets. The U.S. sent weapons and CIA personnel to aid forces allied with Kasavubu and combat the Soviet presence. On 14 September 1960, with U.S. and CIA support, Colonel Joseph Mobutu overthrew the government and arrested Lumumba.

There was no major internal conflicts supported by foreigners during mobutu’s regime until 1996, when tensions from the neighboring Rwanda war and genocide had spilled over to Zaire. Rwandan Hutu militia forces (Interahamwe), who had fled Rwanda following the ascension of a Tutsi-led government, had been using Hutu refugee’s camps in eastern Zaire as a basis for incursion against Rwanda. These Hutu militia forces soon allied with the Zairian armed forces (FAZ) to launch a campaign against Congolese ethnic Tutsis in eastern Zaire. In turn, these Tutsis formed a militia to defend themselves against attacks. When the Zairian government began to escalate its massacres in November 1996, the Tutsi militias erupted in rebellion against Mobutu.

The Tutsi militia was soon joined by various opposition groups and supported by several countries, including Rwanda and Uganda. This coalition, led by Laurent-Desire Kabila, became known as the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL). The AFDL, now seeking the broader goal of ousting Mobutu, made significant military gains in early 1997. They were soon joined by various Zairian politicians, who had been unsuccessfully opposing the dictatorship of Mobutu for many years, and now saw an opportunity for them in the invasion of Zaire by two of the region's strongest military forces. Following failed peace talks between Mobutu and Kabila in May 1997, Mobutu left the country, and Kabila marched unopposed to Kinshasa on 20 May. Kabila named himself president, consolidated power around himself and the AFDL, and reverted the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of Congo

It did not take long for Ugandan troops to mastermind another rebel group called Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), led by the Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba. They attacked in August 1998, backed by Rwandan and Ugandan troops. Soon afterwards, Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe became involved militarily in the Congo, with Angola and Zimbabwe supporting the government. While the six African governments involved in the war signed a ceasefire accord in Lusaka in July 1999, the Congolese rebels did not and the ceasefire broke down within months. However, Kabila was assassinated in 2001 by one of his bodyguards and was succeeded by his son, Joseph. Upon taking office, Kabila called for multilateral peace talks to end the war. Kabila partly succeeded when a further peace deal was brokered between him, Uganda, and Rwanda leading to the apparent withdrawal of foreign troops.

From 1997 to 2003 when Ugandan troops were in Ituri under the pretext of keeping law and order, they looted minerals and forest resources worth nine US billion dollars. DRC took the case to the ICJ(international court of justice) and in 2005 case ruling, Uganda was found guilty of killing and torturing civilians, destroying village and plundering natural resources during the five year occupation of north eastern democratic of Congo. Such a ruling reveals why Ugandan soldiers have been directly or indirectly involved in internal conflicts in DRC

“This was a war in which there was little engagement between the belligerents, and even allies would fight over turf for the control of resources…a war of resources is a war of partition and plunder that is waged against a territory and its civilian population, in which men are perceived as competitors or potential enemies and women are sexually violated” Professor Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja

In April 2012, ethnic Tutsi soldiers mutinied against the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Mutineers formed a rebel group called the March 23 Movement (M23), composed of former members of the rebel National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP). On 20 November 2012, M23 took control of Goma, a provincial capital with a population of one million people. Uganda and Rwanda have been widely accused of supporting this rebel group.

With serious threat from M23, DRC called for military aid from SADCA, Tanzania, South Africa Namibia and Malawi responded positively. With this intervention, M23 rebels have been defeated. They surrendered on 11^th November, 2013. They entered Uganda and they are being harbored by government. 

For a country to be independent, it must be sovereign and Congo has not experienced sovereignty for more than half a century of independence. Probably, the feature may mirror the history so defeat of M  23 can’t be seen as the beginning of a prosperous future.

John Blanshe Musinguzi is a Journalism and Communication Student at Makerere University

Johnblanshe77m@gmail.com