II. Background of the Conflict

Flickr image by Julien Harneis

After the Rwandan genocide in 1994, the Interahamwe, along with more than a million non-military Hutus, fled to the Congo for refuge. Claiming that the Hutus across the border posed a threat to Rwandan security, Tutsi President Paul Kagame sent troops into the Congo in 1996, and the Rwandan army proceeded to massacre thousands of Hutus, civilians included. Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda all sent additional troops to the Congo in 1997 to aid Laurent Kabila, a rebel leader attempting to depose Mobutu Sese Seko, the Congo’s (then Zaire) dictator. Civilians were forced off their land due to the continued fighting and into the mining areas, where digging for minerals became their new livelihood.(2)

The armed groups succeeded in overthrowing Mobutu, and Laurent Kabila assumed power. In 1998, Kabila expelled Rwandan and Ugandan forces from the Congo due to an assassination attempt and the slaughtering of Hutu refugees by the Rwandan army. Rwanda and Uganda responded by plotting against Kabila while maintaining control of the eastern part of the country, leaving Uganda in the northern territory and Rwanda in charge of the southeast. This territorial power, which the countries justified in the interest of their own “security,” allowed the countries to strip the mineral mines and send the goods back to their own countries, depriving the Congo of much-needed revenue from its own resources.(2)

After the assassination of Laurent Kabila in 2001 by a member of his own presidential guard (4) his son, Joseph Kabila, assumed power. A peace agreement was made between Kabila and President Kagame of Rwanda, where Kabila pledged to arrest the Interahamwe militia while Rwanda was to withdraw its own troops.(4) However, rebel groups prevented the peace agreement from being fulfilled by continuing to cause destruction and chaos, leading Rwanda and Uganda to make further incursions in the Congo.(2) In 2006, Kabila won the first democratic election in over 40 years but violence remains prevalent today throughout the country, with numerous armed groups fighting for control over the mineral mines.

References:

2. Kern, Kathleen      
2001 The Human Cost of Cheap Cell Phones. In A Game As Old As Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption. S. Hiatt, ed. Pp. 93-112. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

4. Mthembu-Salter, Gregory
Recent History (The Democratic Republic of the Congo), Europa World Plus. Routledge. http://www.europaworld.com/entry/cd.hi, accessed October 27, 2010

PWPP In Context

Violence in the Congo

I. Introduction- Violence in the Congo

II. Background of the Conflict

III. Conflict Minerals

IV. Coverage of Congo by PWPP Media Partners