The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa. Rene Lemarchand
is my enemy” provides the essential logic behind the making and unmaking of alliances during the 1997 and 1998 wars.59 This applies to interstate as well as domestic alliances. In each case, the pattern is one in which friends and enemies reverse roles in response to their changing perceptions of the other's motives. What Rwanda and Uganda saw as a betrayal, Angola perceived as a legitimate move. Uganda's support of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) made it a matter of realpolitik for Khartoum to join hands with Kinshasa. In sending 2,000 troops to battle against Jean-Pierre Bemba's Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC), Chad felt obligated to heed Khartoum's prodding (until the cost in human losses proved too onerous) in recognition of Sudan's past support to Idriss Déby.
Of the many alliances of convenience formed during the first and second Congo wars, none seemed more durable than the one between Rwanda and Uganda. Both viewed Mobutu with equal distaste, and both saw treasonable behavior in Kabila's volte-face. Yet by late 1999, the alliance had all but disintegrated. The bitter infighting that erupted in Kisangani in 1999, 2000, and 2001 over access to the rich mineral deposits of Bafwasende and other localities did more than spell the end of a friendly relationship. It brought the former allies to the brink of a full-scale war.
Much the same switching of partnerships can be seen at the domestic level. As long as he owed fealty to his Rwandan patrons, Kabila thought nothing of covering up the murder of Hutu refugees; nor did he shrink from blocking the work of the UN forensic investigation team in 1997, even demanding the sacking of its president, Roberto Garreton, “after he produced a preliminary sixteen-page report that identified forty sites where Kabila's AFDL was suspected of having committed atrocities.”60 A year later, however, those refugee leaders who managed to survive the carnage had become Kabila's best friends in his fight against Rwandan “rebels.”
The mixed fortunes of the RCD are another case in point. Despite or because of its murky origins—having been conceived, created, nurtured, and supported by Kigali to defend its interests in eastern Congo—the RCD today is a weak version of its former self. In addition to its core constituency, made up of Banyamulenge,61 it was able at first to recruit a number of influential politicians of different ethnic and provincial origins. Many have since left the movement. The old-guard Mobutists, Lunda Bululu, Lambert Mende, and Alexis Thambwe have joined other parties; Arthur Zaidi Ngoma has founded his own political formation (Camp de la Patrie), and so has Mbusa Nyamwezi (Forces du Renouveau); Wamba dia Wamba—whose early defection led to the first of many RCD clones, the so-called RCD-Kisangani, as distinct from the RCD-Goma—has resumed his academic career after a calamitous series of setbacks. What is left of the party is something of an empty shell, with its formal head, Azarias Ruberwa, in Kinshasa, desperately trying to stem the tide of dissidence.
Of the many defections suffered by the RDC, perhaps the least expected was initiated by a leading Banyamulenge personality, Manasse Ruhimbika. His short-lived Forces Républicaines Fédéralistes (FRF) made plain the lack of internal cohesion among the Banyamulenge and the growing resentment harbored by many, including Ruhimbika, over Rwanda's dominance of the RCD. The FRF break-away was only the harbinger of a far more serious split, which by 2002 had turned into a full-scale rebellion against the RCD. Led by a former RCD commander, Patrick Masunzu, the insurrection quickly spread through the Itombwe plateau, the traditional homeland of the Banyamulenge, and for a while reportedly coalesced with the FDLR and Mai-Mai elements. Masunzu's forces fought pitched battles against RCD troops, resulting in heavy losses on both sides, and some 40,000 displaced.62 Reflecting on the lessons of the insurrection, one observer commented, “Banyamulege opinion is now profoundly divided. Some still back the RCD; many feel it has abandoned their interests.”63 This is as true today as it was in 2003.
Thus, if fragmentation is indeed the most salient characteristic of Congolese politics, this is in part due to the persistence of highly divisive issues, having to do with disagreements over the extent and legitimacy of the Rwandan connection, the sharing of resources among allies, the choice of tactical alliances, and so forth. But this is only one aspect of a more complicated reality.
PATTERNS OF FRAGMENTATION
The political vacuum created by the sudden collapse of the Mobutist state must be seen as a key factor in the rapid fragmentation of the political arena. On the debris of the state, overnight a host of civil society organizations and militias mushroomed, of which the Mai-Mai militias are the most notorious for their propensity to fragment and proliferate. Pinning them down long enough to analyze their contours is not easy. Nonetheless, the political dynamic behind the surge of armed factions seems reasonably clear.64
Unlike what can observed in the case of the RCD, where fragmentation starts at the top, the efflorescence of Mai-Mai factions is a locally rooted phenomenon. It stems in part from the Mobutist legacy of playing one ethnic community off against another—sometimes referred to as the “géopolitique” argument—and in part from the persistence over time—through youth groups, civil society organizations, and church groups65 —of recruitment strategies based on ethnoregional ties. Describing the state of the play in South Kivu in 2000, Ruhimbika notes that “there are five major Mai-Mai axes which reflect local ethnic configurations”: the Fizi axis (Dunia), the Uvira axis (Bidalira), the Kizuka high plateau area (Mulemera), the Ruzizi axis (controlled by Hutu militias), and the Lubumba axis (also controlled by Bidalira).66 Although the ethno-regional dimension is a common characteristic of most Mai-Mai factions, their members, as Ruhimbika's description suggests, come from different horizons: some, like “the old general Louis Bidalira,” are veterans of the 1964 Simba rebellion in eastern Congo; others are Hutu refugees from Burundi, as in the Ruzizi valley; and others are recycled interahamwe or their offspring. Viewed from a broader perspective, however, the Mai-Mai can best be seen as the political manifestation of the social exclusion affecting a growing number of marginalized youth. As Vlassenroot and Van Acker perceptively note, “the formation of the Mai-Mai must be understood as a social process which creates its own rationality, it is dictated by their rejection of the institutional order, and shaped by an environment which offers ample opportunities for creating and exploiting illicit trade networks and invites warlord types of activities.”67
In their early phase of development, the Mai-Mai were not so much motivated by greed as by the need to protect their communities against the threats posed by newcomers; first the Hutu refugees in 1994 and then, the Tutsi after the AFDL insurrection. Beginning in early 1997, after the assassination of a leading Mai-Mai personality, the main thrust of their activities was directed against the Rwandan occupying forces and their local allies. By the late 1990s, however, access to mineral wealth loomed increasingly large on their agenda. In a pattern that has repeated itself again and again, the quest for gold and diamonds has gone hand in hand with the procurement of weapons. The picture drawn by Vlassenroot and Van Acker in 2001 is still relevant today: “Since the militia leaders control the bulk of economic activities in the mineral-rich areas, the Mai-Mai, along with the interahamwe and FDD, have created their own war economy and are riding a wave of prosperity, which in turn brought about a decline in security in the mining districts.”68 The shift from “protection” to “greed” has been accompanied by a proliferation of armed factions, including Mai-Mai, in what looks increasingly like a free-for-all competition for loot.
An extreme but not untypical case is that of Ituri: since 2003, no fewer than eight armed factions have been involved in the scramble for gold and diamonds. Closer scrutiny suggests that greed was not the only motive behind this situation of intense competitiveness. In the words of one non-governmental organization (NGO) report, “the conflict which was over land at the beginning, has taken on multiple dimensions. Ethnicity is not a sufficient point of reference to understand what is going on in Ituri. Perpetrators of violence are at once and the same time ethnically based politico-military groups (UPC, PUSIC, FNI and FRPI), heterogeneous armed groups (FAPC and FPDC) and states (Uganda, Rwanda and RDC). The facts also demonstrate that the motives for confrontation are not always dictated by ethnic hatred, but by other considerations having to do with efforts at political positioning, the quest for material gain, the struggle for local, national or sub-regional leadership.”69
The story of how the original RCD broke into warring factions reveals much the same plurality of motives,