By: David Rilley-Harris, Curator, DITSONG: National Museum of Military History (DNMMH)

For seven months, from late 1996 until mid-1997, a new kind of war ignited in Central Africa. The First Congo War was centred on Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo [DRC]). After the war, instability with rebel groups operating on the DRC-Rwanda border was inadequately resolved allowing the war to flare up again. The Second Congo War was far more devastating lasting nearly five years from August 1998 until July 2003. Up to six million people died. With vague comparisons drawn between these two wars and the world wars, the conflict became known as the Great African War. The United Nations (UN) had been founded because of the world wars with a focus on preventing a third world war. As such, the United Nations was deployed in the DRC to prevent a third Congo war. While a third war has still not occurred, the DRC has changed the UN more than the UN has changed the DRC. After decades of limiting harm to civilians and preventing flare-ups, the belligerent groups continued to fail to establish lasting peace. Meanwhile, the UN faced growing funding challenges as the conflict devolved into a perpetual state of low intensity war centred in the DRC Kivu provinces along the Rwandan border. This was a problem that the UN had never faced. Attempts to allow the peacekeeping process to be co-opted by other organisations were supported by alterations to UN peacekeeping tradition allowing for the occasional peacekeeper offensive to take place. These responses blunted rebel attacks on civilians for another decade of limited conflict which now threatens to unravel into a Third Congo War.

The First Congo War (1996-1997)

The 1994 Rwandan Genocide, which unfolded just across the DRC’s eastern border, set the stage for the First Congo War. Under the pretext of punishing Tutsi “oppressors”, Hutu extremists carried out a mass slaughter, primarily targeting Tutsis while also killing many Hutu Rwandans. More than half a million Rwandans were killed in approximately one hundred days of massacre – averaging several thousand deaths per day. Two million Rwandan refugees and militia groups fled into eastern Zaire (DRC), further destabilizing Mobutu Sese Seko’s decades-long rule. The rebellion which broke out in 1996 became the First Congo War and it was partly led by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) militia with support from the Rwandan government and various Zairian rebel groups. The conflict was undoubtedly linked to the substantial mineral wealth of the Kivu provinces, where the rebellion began. Mobutu’s stranglehold on Zaire’s governance was broken by the First Congo War but the liberation narrative was clouded by reports of wanton attacks on Kivu civilians and refugees in the region, including executions. The RPF, a Tutsi-led rebel group, faced resistance from Hutu rebel groups in Zaire. The Hutu narrative of preventing a counter-genocide was itself clouded by Hutu war crimes including rapes and the recruitment of child soldiers.

The First Congo War had occurred in the first few years after the end of the Cold War while world powers were mostly inclined to limit their international interventions to humanitarian assistance. The war concluded with Zaire’s opposition leader, Laurent-Desire Kabila taking power with support from Rwanda. At the time, Rwanda’s current president, Paul Kagame, was serving as its vice-president. This alliance was very short-lived with Kabila concerned that Rwanda was taking too much control in the DRC government. He removed Tutsi members of the DRC government and gave support to Hutu rebel groups in Kivu. Rwanda invaded with the stated goal of creating a buffer zone along its border with the DRC.

The Second Congo War (1998-2003)

 The second war almost immediately saw various nations becoming involved in the fighting, each with their own interests which were revolving largely around the substantial mineral wealth in the Kivu region. The DRC found support from Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, while Rwanda was joined by Uganda and Burundi. A growing number of rebel factions and foreign mercenaries also took sides. Chad and, allegedly Sudan, joined the DRC. In 2001, Laurent-Desire Kabila was assassinated and replaced with his son, Joseph Kabila, who is still in power. Paul Kagame became Rwanda’s president in 2000. The two leaders who are still ruling each country, assumed leadership while millions were dying in the Great African War. By 2002, the Rwandan axis began to weaken, creating openings for peace negotiations. The first of these were mediated by South Africa leading to the Sun City Agreement and the Pretoria Accord.

National armies and rebel groups committed wide-ranging war crimes throughout the conflict. Both the Rwandan and DRC alliances targeted civilians through murder, systematic rape, and the recruitment of child soldiers. Rwandan axis elements forced local populations to help fund their war effort by forcing them to mine diamonds, extract gold, and harvest timber. The various rebel groups involved meant that there was limited command and discipline, which left civilians vulnerable to the worst of human nature. Much of the murder and torture was not in service to the war efforts but was indiscriminate. Buried among the chaos was an attack on the Pygmy population which started in late 2002 and ended at the beginning of 2003 – an event becoming recognised as an opportunistic genocide.

The intensity of the Second Congo War drew in the international community. In 1999, the United Nations launched its peacekeeping mission (MONUSCO [UN Organisation Stabilization Mission in the DRC]) under more difficult circumstances than the peacekeepers had ever encountered. MONUSCO remains active to this day. United States and European involvement increased and overstepped purely humanitarian concerns as their involvement was also influenced by the mineral wealth of the Kivu region. Despite the enormity of response by international Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), the extent of the chaos and atrocities left them overwhelmed.

With the shock of the Great African War came a more charged attention on the need for international interventions from NGOs and the United Nations. The realisation that a war born in Africa could quickly spiral into international conflict was a wake-up call for the superpowers who have entered a new kind of Cold War with Kivu still being a hotspot. The region is stuck in apparent perpetual cruelty, where the local populations are forced to choose between being victims or perpetrators absorbed into rebel groups. Their greatest haven in the Kivu region has been the North Kivu capital, Goma, which has recently been overrun by rebel forces for a second time. Once again, reports of war crimes are being reported.