The Hard Truths We Must Swallow: Rwanda is Wreaking Havoc in Congo.. and why the international community keeps quiet
Many articles and
reports have been published on the Rwandese involvement in the Congolese war.
Only last year the United Nations investigators revealed that Rwandese troops
crossed into Congo to fight side by side with a notorious rebel group, the M23,
which has murdered civilians and gang-raped women, wreaking destruction on the
eastern part of that country.
Alice Gatebuke, who
is a Rwandan genocide and war survivor, Cornell University graduate, and a
human rights activist, wrote in her article "The Hard Truths we must
swallow: Rwanda is wreaking Havoc in Congo" the following:
"The
Rwandan Genocide was 19 years ago.....It is precisely this fear of another
genocide carried out by the perpetrators of the genocide of 1994 that motivated
the current Rwandan government’s first invasion of Congo in 1996. It is this
fear that has sustained the Rwandan government’s justification for repeated
intervention in the Congo over the last 16 years [..]
Since
the first invasion, more than five million people have died in DR Congo, making
it the deadliest conflict since the Second World War. And many of those deaths
lie at the hands of the Rwandan government. These are hard truths we must
swallow.[... ]
After
sixteen years of invasion and intervention through proxy groups, it is still
difficult for people in the international community to accept that the Rwandan
government is guilty of anything but justified intervention in Congo [...] We,
along with the rest of the world, must no longer refuse to swallow difficult
and painful truths, and dedicate consistent focus and action towards resolving
the deadliest conflict since the Second World War in Congo. "
Her full article can be found here: http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/88649Certainly security (as well as retaliation) was at the heart of the initial invasion. However, economic interests have played an important role as well.
The New York Times writes: "Congo may be one of the world’s biggest tragedies, a country blessed with just about every natural resource imaginable — diamonds, copper, gold, oil, water, fertile land — but plagued by a series of interlocking wars that have killed millions of people. A U.N. report from 2002 accused Kagame’s army of plundering minerals from Congo and exporting them through Rwanda, at a staggering profit, supposedly with the help of one of the most infamous arms traders, Viktor Bout."
Certainly a sense of
guilt by the international community over the Rwandan genocide, especially the
United States of America, can be one explanation for the lack of actions
against this small country landlocked in the heart of Africa. (The US had just
experienced the disastrous Somalia mission - also known as Black Hawk
Down - a year prior to the Rwandan crises, and were against any intervention on
the continent when the genocide was brought to their attention).
"The
United States has a long history, of course, of putting aside concerns over
human rights and democratic principles and supporting strongmen who can protect
its strategic interests, like keeping the oil flowing or Communist sympathizers
or Muslim extremists in check. But what makes the Kagame situation different
from the one in Egypt, say, where the army has mowed down crowds, or in Saudi
Arabia, where misogynistic princes rule, is that there is no obvious strategic
American interest in Rwanda. It is a tiny country, in the middle of Africa,
with few natural resources and no Islamist terrorists. So why has the West —
and the United States in particular — been so eager to embrace Kagame, despite
his authoritarian tendencies? One diplomat who works in Rwanda told me that
Kagame has become a rare symbol of progress on a continent that has an
abundance of failed states and a record of paralyzing corruption. Kagame was
burnishing the image of the entire billion-dollar aid industry. “You put your
money in, and you get results out,” said the diplomat, who insisted he could
not talk candidly if he was identified. Yes, Kagame was “utterly ruthless,” the
diplomat said, but there was a mutual interest in supporting him, because
Kagame was proving that aid to Africa was not a hopeless waste and that poor
and broken countries could be fixed with the right leadership. “We needed a
success story, and he was it.”
The entire New York Times article can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/magazine/paul-kagame-rwanda.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
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