Compared to the tragedy of Darfur, the bloodletting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in recent years has been of an altogether different order of magnitude. Some five million people have died in ethnic fighting in the region since the 1992 Hutu-led genocide in neighboring Rwanda against ethnic Tutsis.
The murderous Interahamwe militias that led the slaughter of more than 600,000 Tutsis in Rwanda as well as fellow Hutus who sought to defend their Tutsi neighbors enjoyed a brief moment of triumph before they were defeated by resurgent Tutsis and driven into the then Zaire. In this region there are both Hutu and Tutsi communities as well as four other distinct ethnic groups. DRC Tutsis are the minority. The present Tutsi insurgency led by renegade Gen. Laurent Nkunda is motivated in part by rising ethnic Tutsi concern that the local Hutus are planning renewed attacks.
There is little doubt that the Tutsi government of Rwanda is aiding Nkunda’s well-armed and well-organized insurgency. It is also clear that the DRC troops sent by the government of President Joseph Kabila are incapable of restoring order and indeed it seems may have been guilty of plunder and rape in the threatened city of Goma. Finally it is painfully evident that the 17,000-strong UN peacekeeping force, the largest deployed anywhere in the globe, has insufficient resources to control the resurgent Interahamwe gangs, let alone confront Nkunda’s rebels.
The arrival of the British and French foreign ministers yesterday in the region is supposed to assist brokering a peace. The British led by David Miliband have no axe to grind in the region and might possibly be seen as honest brokers. The French team, however, under Bernard Kouchner is likely to be highly suspect to the Tutsis, since Paris is widely believed to have backed the original Hutu insurgency. Perhaps the thinking is that France still has leverage with the Hutus community. Their presence will certainly be viewed with suspicion by Tutsis.
The key plan is to get the two presidents of DRC and Rwanda meeting face to face to iron out some sort of peace accord. Unfortunately the two EU foreign ministers have also arrived with the idea that European troops should perhaps be deployed, either as part of or to back up the current UN presence. The EU, true to form, has been unable to decide on military intervention and equally true to form, the British have suggested that they are prepared to commit troops. Given the current overstretch of UK armed forces and the failure of many EU countries to honor their military commitments to Afghanistan, such fresh saber rattling seems absurd. Far better to focus on a negotiated resolution of the issues that continue to set Hutu and Tutsi at each other’s throats. Europe ignored the 1992 Rwanda genocide to its shame. Overreacting now is no compensation. This blood bath has to be ended by talks and by giving the protagonists and the many hundreds of thousands of innocents caught in their anger, economic not further military opportunities. Europe can afford this investment.
