The crisis that unfolded in the Great Lakes region of Africa is perhaps one of the most complex and perplexing events that the post-Cold War world has seen. Involving almost a dozen nations from Rwanda to Zimbabwe, the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) threatens to be the African equivalent of the World War I, laying waste to one of the continent’s most volatile, large and mineral-rich states.

Just as the Balkans are seen as some of the most explosive places in Europe right now, the Great Lakes region is one of the most violent areas in Africa since independence in the sixties.

In this article, an attempt will be made to analyse the roots and characteristics of the conflict in the DRC, Africa’s current and most complex major conflict. The focus will be on problems experienced since 1990, covering the outbreak of the first rebellion (1993-1997) in Zaire and including the toppling of Mobutu, and the second rebellion (since 1997) also in Zaire, now renamed the DRC, when an internal war with international intervention erupted. However, these two rebellions cannot be understood without taking cognisance of the colonial-based policies of the Belgians, the Zairian Citizenship Act of 1981 and the Zairian national conference of 1991 where land rights and citizenship were linked, creating the climate for the outbreak of the first rebellion in 1993.

The present-day problems in this region — mainly in the Kivu province of the eastern DRC — may be traced back to the history of boundary demarcations in this part of the world, as well as the Belgian policies of political control over tribal systems.

The DRC owes its present boundaries to the imperial aspirations of one person, King Leopold II of Belgium, who obtained much of this vast territory in 1885. This was sanctioned during Bismarck’s Berlin Conference (1884-85) on the colonial partition of Africa. It was then declared the Congo Free State under the personal government of Leopold. He obtained most of this territory through treaties entered into on his behalf by the explorer-merchant Henry Morton Stanley who had signed these treaties with indigenous leaders in the region. At the time, the King’s ambition was to occupy and possess the whole of the territory between Boma (the original capital of the Free State) situated at the Congo River mouth on the Atlantic coast in the west, the Rift Valley lakes of Tanganyika in the south-east, Kivu in the east and the Nile River in the north-east.¹ At that stage, the Katanga/Shaba province in the south-east was outside the Free State. In the north-east, the dream to progress to the left bank of the Nile River was thwarted by the British who occupied Uganda and the Sudan, extending to regions to the west of the Nile.

Within the Kivu area, a substantial number of Tutsis and Hutus were found whose original allegiances were to the kingdoms of Rwanda and Burundi to the east of Kivu that had come under German control since 1888.²

The same situations applied in both Rwanda and Burundi.³ To the east of Lake Kivu, the cattle-owning Tutsi aristocracy, who were a numerical minority in a stratified society, ruled (through their mwami kings) over the majority of Hutu agriculturalists as their serfs, as well as over the Twa pygmies at the bottom of the hierarchy.⁴ Even during these monarchical days, many Tutsis (e.g. the Banyamulenge) settled to the west of Lake Kivu where the DRC’s Kivu province is currently situated.

Colonial boundaries — in this case Leopoldian and German — had therefore split Tutsis and Hutus into at least three colonies, two German and one Belgian.

In 1908, the Belgian government took over the Congo Free State from King Leopold II. The boundaries were left unaltered. By then, Kasai and Katanga had been added. But in 1922, after Germany’s possessions were taken away following the defeat in World War I, Rwanda and Burundi were handed over to the Belgians to administer on behalf of the League of Nations, and later the United Nations. Belgian control lasted till 1960-1962, when these three territories became independent.

Before that, the Belgian Congo was divided into six provinces, one of which was Kivu, with the principal town of Costermansville (now Bukavu) as capital.⁵ Within the provinces, the colonial authorities ruled indirectly through African chiefs who were incorporated as low-level officials of the colonial administration.⁶

In Rwanda, the Belgians supported the Tutsis as traditional rulers against the Hutus, while in Kivu, Tutsis and Hutus were both treated as non-indigenous and land rights were therefore not conferred to them as the Belgians did for other indigenous inhabitants. In Rwanda and Burundi the Hutu/Tutsi conflict was exacerbated in 1959 — three years before independence — when the Belgians apparently switched their support to the Hutus as they (as a majority) were the most likely to win the elections the next year.⁷ In fact, this is exactly what happened when the Parmehutu Party won the elections.

Soon after independence, Tutsi/Hutu conflicts in Rwanda erupted (the ‘traditional’ balance of power was now overturned by democratic procedures) that had a spillover effect as refugees came to settle in Kivu (also part of old Tutsi land) in the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s. They did not have land rights either. The Banyamulenge enter the equation here.

According to Mahmood Mamdani and Jordan,⁸ if the roots of the conflict in the Congo is to be understood, one has to dig back into the Belgian colonial system of indirect rule. The system of indirect rule divided the country into two distinct legal systems, one civic and the other ethnic. The enforcer of civic power was the central state (and provinces) through civil law, while native authorities which supervised customary law, enforced ethnic power. In civic law, individuals were given rights, but it was only applicable to metropolitan populations who were seen to be racially different.

While natives, especially those in the rural areas, were ruled by a different regime that enforced custom, no single customary law was introduced for all natives. Each ethnic group had different sets of customary laws that were enforced by different native authorities. The difference in these two systems was that, while civic power was racialised (the law favoured whites compared to blacks), the native authority was ethnicised. Further, the colonial state also made a distinction between those who were indigenous and those who were not (e.g. settlers from Rwanda or Burundi), while it also enforced ethnic separation among the indigenous through the recognition of tribal law.

Following independence in the Congo in 1960, however, the legal system was reformed, civic power was deracialised while native authority remained ethnicised. Moreover, the importance of this arrangement is that the Congo has been held together not so much by civic power in Kinshasa, Kisangani and Bukavu in the period of post-colonialism, but by the different native authorities that controlled most of the population by enforcing custom.

The result of this ‘double citizenship’ is that, while civic citizenship gives one membership of the state and is based on rights, ethnic citizenship gives membership of a native authority and hence allows one to have access to social and economic rights such as land. But these rights are only accessed by virtue of membership of an indigenous ethnic group.

While everyone has been a citizen of the Congo since 1960, not everyone has ethnic citizenship or land rights. Only those who are considered to be indigenous have a native authority and consequently ethnic citizenship. Since immigrants (e.g. Banyamulenge, or rather Tutsis living in Kivu for 300 years) do not have a native authority of their own, they are considered non-indigenous and are exempted from ethnic citizenship. In the 1990s, many Tutsi and Hutu refugees again settled in this area, also without obtaining land rights. Consequently, these aliens were denied customary access to land because they had no native authority in colonial days.

In relation to Kivu province, native authorities exist in three tiers. The chief of the second tier is the one vested with the power to control the distribution of land. Hence, this is the chief that the Banyamulenge were denied and were never given, since they are considered immigrants (non-indigenous). The Citizenship Law of 1981 accepted the Banyamulenge as civic citizens only.

The name ‘Banyamulenge’ does not refer to an ethnic group, but to those from Mulenge. The name is used for all immigrants moving into the area called Mulenge, including those who recently moved there as refugees after the problems of the 1960s and 1970s, and the 1990-1994 genocide in Rwanda. Thus, in native eyes, Banyamulenge is a collective classification of all non-indigenous, mainly Tutsi-speaking, inhabitants of Kivu. Thus, the question for most (older) ethnic groups in Kivu province is why their land should be given to immigrants and refugees for occupation.

This has been the central issue in Kivu province. This is important because the losers in the political struggle in Rwanda and Burundi usually regroup to try and make a comeback in this province. It introduced two forms of tension in Kivu, internal within Kivu society and external between Kivu and Rwanda. The internal conflict is the one addressed above, in terms of land rights, and conflict between new arrivals (new refugees) and old arrivals (old refugees and immigrants).

The external tension between Kivu and Rwanda lies in the fact that the group that streams into Kivu is normally hostile to the government in Rwanda. Hence, it is imperative that the Rwandan government keeps them in check. This tension has increased with the growth in the number of refugees and exiles in the province. For instance, following the collapse of the Hutu government in 1994 (led by Habyarimana), the Interahamwe or Hutu militia streamed into Kivu, supplied militarily by the French. They controlled the refugee camps and used them as place to train militias that were used to make sporadic attacks into Rwanda, since 1994 under Tutsi control.

Solomon⁹ sees the citizenship question as originating in the 1981 Citizenship Law that denied the Banyamulenge any Zairian citizenship — a group of ethnic Tutsis who have resided in the Congo for many generations. However, following the passing of this law, the Banyamulenge were consequently not allowed to own land and they could thus be evicted from the land that they had occupied historically. As a result, Kivu province where the Banyamulenge live, has been one of high tension between the local Hunde, Tembo, Nyanga and Nande (who had native authorities) and the Banyamulenge. This resulted in tribal clashes in 1993.¹⁰

In May 1995, new legislation was passed in Zaire forbidding ethnic Tutsis from appropriating homes and land. This was followed in December by an announcement by the Army Chief of Staff, General Aundu, that the Hunde, Nyanga and Tembo had the right to expel Tutsis from the land. This intensified the locally-based ethnic conflict. It was not only the locals that the Banyamulenge had to contend with, but also the Interahamwe (new arrivals) and the Zairian Army that enforced the law. This consequently resulted in the slaughter of 100 Tutsis in May 1996 at Mokoto church. In September, 35 Banyamulenge were killed by Zairian soldiers and between September and October 1996, about 2 000 Banyamulenge were killed by the Interahamwe and the Zairian army.

The final stimulus for the Banyamulenge revolt occurred on 7 October 1996 when the Deputy Director of South Kivu province declared that the 300 000 Banyamulenge were to leave Zaire — deported to Rwanda — within a week or they would be hunted down as rebels. The first form of retaliation by the Banyamulenge was an attack on Lemera Hospital in Bukavu, on the 10 October. This constant harassing of the Banyamulenge forced them to join with Kabila’s Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL) that led the first rebellion against the Mobutu regime.¹¹ As this alliance made headway to victory, the Mobutu regime tried to make political concessions to the Tutsis by declaring that Zaire would recognise the right to citizenship and nationality of all people within its borders from December 1996. By then it was already too late. The Banyamulenge had pinned their hope on Kabila, whom they expected to deliver.¹²

Following the West’s calls for democratic reforms, Mobutu called a national conference in 1991 to set out a blueprint for national renewal. The Banyarwanda in North Kivu and the Banyamulenge from South Kivu prospered over the years, and economic envy spurred the delegates from North Kivu (those with native authorities) at the national conference to press the central government in Kinshasa to enforce a 1981 law that deprived the Banyarwanda and the Banyamulenge of citizenship and land privileges. Mobutu Sese Seko, under increasing international pressure, offered this as ‘internal reforms’ and was more than happy to comply. As a result, the Banyarwanda and Banyamulenge found themselves increasingly at the mercy of unsympathetic and jealous local tribes. At first, ethnic Hutus and Tutsis fought against native hostility together. But following the outbreak of civil war in Rwanda later in the year, the two ethnic groups turned against each other. What ensued was a three-way killing match between older North Kivu tribes, the Hutu and the Tutsi of North and South Kivu.¹⁴ Differently put, Rwanda’s domestic struggles were also fought on Zairian soil. For Mobutu, it meant more problems.

The events unfolding in North Kivu paled in comparison to the situation unravelling just across the border in Rwanda. The situation in Rwanda, however, was to have grave consequences for the Banyarwanda and the Banyamulenge in Zaire. In 1994, the downing of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane (a Hutu) by unknown terrorists sparked a genocidal outburst on a level unseen since the end of World War II. In just a few short months, the Rwandan Army and Interahamwe militiamen massacred more than 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.¹⁵

By the end of 1994, the tables had turned. Tutsi rebels now formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and succeeded in overthrowing the (majority) Hutu regime in Kigali. More than two million Hutus, all of them fearing revenge killings and some of them killers in the recent genocide, fled to eastern Zaire where many joined forces with the Interahamwe who were there before. The effect of this mass migration on the unfolding three-way conflict in North and South Kivu and Zaire will be addressed later. But the consequences were also dire for Rwanda.¹⁶

As the Hutu-based Interahamwe fled Rwanda in 1994, blending in with the flood of mostly innocent Hutus, they took with them large amounts of cash and weapons. With the money, the Rwandan Interahamwe went on a spending spree on international arms markets, rearming for the day when it would be possible to overthrow the fragile Tutsi/RPF regime in Rwanda led by Paul Kagame. By late 1995 and early 1996, the former Interahamwe militiamen in the camps in eastern Zaire were well enough equipped to begin their attacks. As the attacks intensified, the Rwandan Army was forced to react severely. The Kivu conflicts therefore also became a Rwandan conflict. Since the crackdown was mostly concentrated against ethnic Hutus, the consequences for the fragile peace in Rwanda were grave.¹⁷

Neighbouring Burundi was in an equally untenable position. The minority Tutsi regime in Bujumbura was plagued not only by ethnic Hutu guerrillas operating from bases in Zaire (also in Kivu), but also by an international arms embargo imposed after the Tutsi-led coup that instated President Boyoya in power. For over a year, the remnants of the Interahamwe in the refugee camps in Zaire had been working with Burundian guerrillas in an attempt to overthrow the Tutsi minority government in that country. For Rwanda’s de facto leader, Vice President Paul Kagame, this had serious consequences. If the Tutsi government in Bujumbura fell, Rwandan Hutu rebels would acquire another base from which to launch raids into Rwanda itself. The overthrow of the government would also lead to a likely exodus of Burundi’s 500 000 Tutsis to Rwanda, exacerbating an already tense situation in Rwanda. It was therefore in Rwanda’s self-interest to back the Tutsi regime in Bujumbura.¹⁸

Uganda’s position is much clearer. Following years of internal discord, Uganda had prospered under the leadership of President Yoweri Museveni for the last ten years. But his regime had made enemies. Uganda’s support of the secessionists in southern Sudan earned him the enmity of Sudan’s Islamic government. In retaliation for Uganda’s support of the southern rebel movement, Sudan sponsored anti-Ugandan rebels, consisting of Mobutu supporters and disaffected Ugandan minorities. From their bases in north-eastern Zaire, the rebels embarked on a series of cross-border raids into Uganda. In addition to dealing with the guerrilla threat, Uganda had a definite national interest in returning the Great Lakes region to stability. Uganda had experienced phenomenal economic growth in the past decade, and the Museveni government was increasingly concerned that instability in the region would hamper the country’s continuing economic prosperity. It is on these grounds, strictly national interest ones, that Uganda decided to intervene to overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko in 1993.¹⁹

From 1994, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni actively assisted the minority Tutsi to seize power in Rwanda. It was then that Hutu militia and Interahamwe fled to North Kivu. Through Museveni’s assistance, Rwanda and Burundi were now Tutsi-controlled. The Tutsi were also important roleplayers in Kivu where they became allies of Kabila who might have argued: "My enemy’s enemies are my friends." To be sure, this is exactly how the Tutsi viewed him.

At this point Laurent Kabila entered the theatre of war.

With the arrival of Hutu refugees from Rwanda, beginning in mid-1994 in North Kivu, matters continued to worsen for the Banyarwanda there. With the militant and well-armed Interahamwe in the picture, an ethnic cleansing ensued, leaving thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, dead. The surviving Banyarwanda then fled across the border into Rwanda, where the Tutsi RPF government under the leadership of Paul Kagame had just seized power.²⁰

For the Banyamulenge in South Kivu, it was evident that the same fate that befell their cousins in the north would one day befall them. As the same pattern of harassment that preceded the ethnic cleansing in the north began in South Kivu in mid-1996, the Banyamulenge knew that the time had come to save themselves from the same fate. Unfortunately for the Banyarwanda, the situation had reached its crisis point just as Rwanda was in the midst of its 1990-94 civil war. Rwanda had been in no position to help. But in 1996, with peace prevailing across the border, the Banyamulenge knew it would now be possible to count on Rwanda for aid. So, as the tempo of harassment increased, the Banyamulenge called upon the Kagame regime in Kigali for help.²¹

It was against this backdrop that Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi took the decision in late 1996 and early 1997 to intervene in Zaire as explained above. While the Banyamulenge are technically Zairian, the leadership of the revolt knew that they would be perceived as foreigners when they took up arms against the Mobutu regime. It was for this reason that the anti-Mobutu leadership shopped around for a titular head of the rebel movement who would be recognisable to the Zairian populace. The man they selected was Laurent Kabila.

Laurent Kabila was born in Shaba province, home to Zaire’s vast store of strategic and valuable minerals. After being active in revolutionary politics in the early 1960s (where he was backed by Communists such as Ché Guevara), Kabila had largely disappeared from Zaire’s political landscape. Thus, from the moment that fighting broke out in August of 1996, Kabila was portrayed to the world as the head of a popular Zairian uprising. The ruse was largely successful, and as the rebel movement gained momentum, Kabila was able to enlist support among Zaire’s numerous tribes.²²

From the moment that the rebel forces in the east of Zaire moved west, success after success fell into their lap. The Zairian army, long neglected under Mobutu, disintegrated in the rebel’s path. One of the rebels’ first objectives was the clearing of refugee camps. This was accomplished in a matter of days. Accompanied by reports of mass murder, Hutu refugees in the camps in eastern Zaire were forcibly herded back across the border into Rwanda and Burundi. In one fell swoop, Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda rid themselves of their prime objectives in supporting the Banyamulenge and Kabila. The leaders of the three countries, however, realised Kabila’s chance of victory. Kagame, Boyoya and Museveni also saw a chance to rid themselves of a man — Mobutu — who had been instrumental in their recent difficulties. The three nations thus pressed on, and continued their support of the rebel movement that Kabila was building.²³

Kisangani, Zaire’s third largest city (in the central DRC), fell to Kabila’s rebels on 15 March 1997. The Zairian army had melted away in the path of the rebels, and the fall of Kisangani ended all hope of a Zairian counteroffensive and military resistance. As far as Mobutu was concerned, the road to Kinshasa was open. With his string of victories, including the capture of Zaire’s second largest city, Lubumbashi (in the south-eastern copper belt) in April, Kabila began to carry himself like a head of state. He received foreign visitors, and invited human rights groups to tour conquered, or ‘liberated’ territory. Mobutu, realising that his days as Zaire’s despotic ruler were numbered, opened negotiations with Kabila in South Africa.²⁴

Before the toppling of Mobutu, Kabila’s AFDL was a powerful Tutsi-based and anti-Mobutu alliance. For over a year, Kabila kept a Rwandan Tutsi — Commander James Kabarehe — as chief of staff. But Kabila did not play the game fairly, he was an opportunist who concluded the right alliance at the right time. He started to exclude the Banyamulenge (and Tutsi) from power and to encourage racism against them. In fact, Kabila tried to gain the support of the Congolese population by playing on their national feelings and their hate of the Banyamulenge. For instance, he used strong propaganda to incite to kill them. "Kabila’s racist rhetoric ... led to the mob murders of Congolese citizens who simply looked different."²⁵ Once more, the Banyamulenge decided to rebel, pushed by a feeling of insecurity. "They have now rebelled against Kabila for reneging on a deal which reportedly promised them Kivu in return for support."²⁶ On 3 August 1998, a new war started in the DRC. This is also called the ‘second rebellion’, aimed against Kabila, and fought by his former allies in Kivu, and elsewhere, such as in Mbuji-Maji (in Kasai) and Kisangani in the north-east.

Kabila’s honeymoon with his allies was brief. There were, however, some successes. Inflation, which stood as 900 per cent when Kabila took office, fell to five per cent. And Kabila made serious attempts to build a professional army. But before he could make any attempt to reform the DRC, he made a serious blunder. In return for Rwandan support, the Rwandan government had asked that Rwanda should be allowed to retrain the Zairian army in an attempt to end cross-border raids that were damaging Rwanda’s fragile peace and stunting an economic recovery. As Kabila fell behind on his timetable, and refused a return to democracy, Kagame realised that Rwanda had merely supported another Mobutu. The Rwandans encouraged segments of the new Zairian army to revolt. In retaliation, Kabila began arming Hutu resistance fighters against Rwanda.

At first sight, the second armed conflict seemed to be another rebellion of the Banyamulenge, only logistically supported by the outside. This view was confirmed by the denials of Rwanda and Uganda of being militarily involved in the rebellion. But quite soon every single actor understood that Rwanda and Uganda were, in fact, the masters of the game. "Not only Kigali and Kampala are militarily engaged alongside the Congolese rebels, but the Rwandan and Ugandan officers are the real directors of the operations."²⁷ This report affirmed that the most important chief of the military operations was James Kabarehe, who had close relations with Museveni and Kagame. More discretely, Burundi also sent troops into the DRC to support the rebellion or to intervene against the basis of its opponents. The efforts furnished by these countries were really high, and their intervention could be depicted as a kind of invasion of the DRC.

Uganda and Burundi quickly lined up behind Rwanda in an effort to oust Kabila. Museveni had developed a growing antipathy to Kabila, and relations between the two men, and thus their respective states, soured quickly. Showing himself capable of fostering ethnic hatred to achieve his goals, Kabila has proceeded to persecute the Tutsis of eastern Zaire increasingly.

But unlike Mobutu, Kabila is not alone. Angola has come out as a backer. The MPLA government in Luanda has sent troops to western Zaire where they are doing battle with Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA that, in turn, has come out in support of the anti-Kabila cause. But after Savimbi’s UNITA forces gained ground against the Angolan forces while they were fighting for Kabila, they withdrew by early 1999 in order to escalate the civil war within Angola. UNITA also seemed to have gained ground here. Namibian involvement in the Congo is said to be light, more in keeping with normal support for the Kabila regime. This leaves mainly Zimbabwe as the major foreign force in the DRC.

But Zimbabwean intervention, estimated at between 6 000 and 10 000 troops, is founded on more concrete reasons. Zimbabwe has managed to wrangle important mineral-extracting concessions from the Kabila government. In return for supporting the man no one seems to like any more, Zimbabwe is seeing dollar signs. Zimbabwean troops are merely the price.

President Robert Mugabe also seems to have engaged himself in a prestige battle with former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa and current President Thabo Mbeki. As chairperson of the Southern African Development Community’s security organ (now suspended), Mugabe is thought to be in a pitched battle to wrench superiority in the region away from Mandela and Mbeki, and entrench himself firmly on the international stage.²⁸

But rebel forces soon splintered as Uganda’s national security interests began to collide with Rwanda’s concerns about Tutsis and their enemies, the Interahamwe.

Soon after the second rebellion broke out, with Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe siding with Kabila, and Uganda and Rwanda siding with the rebels, the international community began to mediate a peace agreement. Talks took place mainly in Lusaka.

At least three rebel groups are fighting in the region, not always against Kabila and his allies but against one another as well: the ex-FAR, consisting mainly of former Rwandan soldiers (presumably Hutus) are fighting against Rwanda. This group therefore does not really fight Kabila. The Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) led by Jean-Pierre Bemba, is based in the northern Equator province and is backed by Uganda, which wants to pile more pressure on Kabila to step down or secure its border. Finally, the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) is involved. It is the largest group, but is now split between the faction led by Ernest dia Wamba, based in Kisangani and also backed by Uganda (for the same reason as above), and Emile Ilunga, the new leader who is based in Goma in Kivu, but backed by Rwanda whose main concern is the interests of Tutsis.²⁹

The internationally-backed cease-fire agreement, sponsored by Zambia and South Africa, was signed in July 1999 by all the states involved, but on the side of the rebels, only by the ex-FAR and Bemba’s MLC. The two RCD groups did not sign as they could not agree on who represented the RCD.

The Ugandan-backed Kisangani group (dia Wamba) argued that Uganda cannot withdraw troops (despite having signed the cease-fire agreement) unless the Uganda/DRC borders are secure. The Rwandan-backed Goma group (Ilunga) signalled that its main problems were the security of Rwanda and the Tutsis, and unless the Interahamwe — fighting the Tutsis together with Kabila’s forces in Mbuji-Mayi — disarmed first, it would not sign the agreement.³⁰

The cease-fire agreement is a complex document providing for the cessation of hostilities, the release of hostages, the setting up of a Joint Military Commission, force disengagements, the release of prisoners of war, disarmament, the commencing of national dialogue in the DRC, the setting up of government institutions, the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping mission and the withdrawal of foreign forces.³¹

The often contradictory positions adopted by the rebels and their backers — Uganda and Rwanda — are symptomatic of the complexities of this region.

The reasons for this situation is that the cease-fire agreement is comprehensive on peace procedures, but addresses very few, if any, of the root causes of the conflict.

The most important of these causes, is the boundary issue between Kivu and Rwanda. This may perhaps be discussed under the item ‘national dialogue’, but the ex-FAR, the MLC and the dia Wamba grouping, as well as Kabila, may veto this point from the start. It is also uncertain how Rwanda and the Ilunga group will respond to this, although they may favour the boundary debate. On the other hand, the issue of land rights is surely to be discussed during the national dialogue, but then it will have to be fast-tracked on the cease-fire agenda. A solution to this problem could go a far way in solving the Banyamulenge grievances.

The cease-fire, however comprehensive, may fail (yet again), unless the land issues are solved at least, and in the longer term, the boundary issue as well.

ENDNOTES

In conclusion, the crisis in the DRC should also serve as a timely reminder that the scramble for Africa was unleashed in the Congo by King Leopold. The consequences hereof were absurd boundaries. And unless Africans grasp the opportunity to revisit those boundaries deemed the most problematic, many crises similar to those in the eastern DRC, will continue to destabilise many large and multi-ethnic African states. Is it not time to decolonise the boundaries as well, and call for a second ‘Berlin Conference’, but this time on African soil and managed by Africans?

Willie Breytenbach is Professor of Political Science and teaches an Honours module on Political conflicts in Africa at the University of Stellenbosch. Students were asked to write an essay on the causes of the war in the DRC. Breytenbach integrated the essays of Chilemba (Malawian), Brown (American) and Plantive (French).

J Stengers, The Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo, in L H Gann & P Duignan (eds.), Colonialism in Africa 1870-1960, Volume I, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1969, pp. 261-227.



R Cornevin, The Germans in Africa before 1918, in ibid., pp. 405-410.



C Coquery-Vidrovitch, Africa: Endurance and change south of the Sahara, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1988, p. 62.



L Mair, Primitive government, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1962, pp. 135-137.



L D Stamp, Africa: A study in tropical development, John Wiley, New York, 1953, p. 373.



G Nzongola-Ntalaja, The second independence movement in the Congo-Kinshasa, in P Anyang’ Nyongo (ed.), Popular struggles for democracy in Africa, Zed Books, London, p. 117.



C Newbury, Rwanda: Recent debates over governance and rural development, in G Hyden & M Bratton (eds.), Governance and politics in Africa, Lynne Rienner, Boulder, p. 196.



M Mamdani & A Jordan, Preliminary thoughts on the Congo crisis, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town. 1998; and M Mamdani, Naive South Africa must not adopt missionary position, Weekly Mail & Guardian, 23-29 May 1997.



H Solomon, Some reflections on the crisis in Zaire, ISS Papers, 15, Institute for Security Studies, Halfway House, February 1997.



Ibid., p. 1.



Ibid.; see also, endnote 15.



Ibid., p. 3.



P Rosenblum, Endgame in Zaire, Current History, 96(610), 1997, p. 202.



G Prunier, The Great Lakes crisis, Current History, 96(610), 1997, p. 195.



J Vansina, The politics of history and the crisis in the Great Lakes, Africa Today, 41(1), 1998, p. 38.



Prunier, op. cit., p. 195.



Ibid., p. 196.



Ibid.



A Trench & C Paton, Inside the Congo conflict, Sunday Times, Johannesburg, 23 August 1998.



Prunier, op. cit., p. 196.



Ibid., p. 195.



Ibid., pp. 196-197.



Vansina, op. cit., p. 39.



Rosenblum, op. cit., p. 193



African Research Bulletin, 35(10), 1998, col. 13293.



African Research Bulletin, 35(8), 1998, col. 13221.



Le Monde, 9 October 1998 (own translation).



Trench & Paton, op. cit., p. 4.



M Wakabi, Talks are in doubt as rebels divide, Business Day, 23 June 1999.



C- Pickard-Cambridge, Congo rebel issues ultimatum after signing ceasefire, Business Day, 2 August 1999.



Hartley, Peace timetable, Sunday Times, 11 July 1999.