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Features
The US ‘War on Terror’ Exported to Rwanda: A Threat to Peace in DRC
Bahati Ntama Jacques and Beth Tuckey
2008-02-19, Issue 346
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/46217
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Bahati Ntama Jacques and Beth Tuckey argue Bush's support for Rwanda through the prism of the Global War on Terror and US access to natural resources will in the long run be disastrous to peace in the DRC.
There is a common flaw in US foreign policy. In giving aid to foreign nations, the United States prioritizes its own foreign policy goals over any standards of good governance. Because this system of support ignores the realities on the ground, it ultimately backfires, undermining US long term interests and fueling instability, conflict, and violations of core human rights standards. Nowhere is this more true than in Africa. Today, President Bush supports corrupt, illegitimate regimes that will either cooperate in the Global War on Terror, provide US companies access to much sought-after natural resources, or both. If history is any indication, this infusion of wealth and military training for such self-interested gains is likely to be disastrous for the people of Africa.
A particularly good example of this is Rwanda – a country that has abused its neighboring people in the Democratic Republic of Congo with support from the United States government. President Paul Kagame will host President Bush this week. Will the leader of the most powerful country in the world have the courage to discuss Rwanda’s negative role in peace and economic development in DRC? Will he castigate Rwandan President Kagame for not providing the political space for Hutus to return to Rwanda? Likely, no. He will announce US support for peace in Congo while simultaneously pushing forward a foreign policy that favors only America’s narrow interests.
From 1996-2003, the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo suffered a great deal from two wars that pitted Rwanda and its allies against the Congo. The Congolese loss was other people’s gain. According to Global Policy Forum’s Tito Dragon in DR Congo: Dirt Above Ground, Precious Metal Below, “it was the attempt to control coltan mines that was the principal, if not the only, motivation behind the US-backed 1998 occupation of part of DRC territory by Rwanda and Uganda.” In fact, in 2004, after a three-year investigation, a UN Panel of Experts implicated three major US companies for fueling war in DRC by collaborating with rebel groups trafficking coltan. United States assistance to Rwanda continues today largely due to Kagame’s willingness to be engaged in the US War on Terror; and again, the people of DRC lose.
Though he publicly denies any direct involvement, most officials agree that President Kagame funds renegade General Laurent Nkunda’s militia in DRC – a militia whose primary purpose appears to be keeping Hutu rebels away from the Rwandan border. A UN report accuses Nkunda’s Tutsi faction of some of the worst human rights abuses of any rebel group currently operating in the eastern region. Though Kagame has undoubtedly brought strong economic development to the small great lakes nation, he has failed to adequately deal with the legacy of the 1994 genocide – the strained relationship between Hutus and Tutsis.
Bush knows that Rwanda’s involvement in the armed conflict in DRC delays peace in eastern Congo, but he continues to authorize military aid to Rwanda. In 2007, the United States armed and trained Rwandan soldiers with $7.2 million from the US defense program Africa Contingent Operations Training Assistance (ACOTA) and $260,000 from the International Military and Education (IMET) program. At the same time, the US is involved in facilitating peace talks between Rwanda and DRC and the various rebel groups operating in eastern Congo. Not only does arming Rwanda contradict the peace process, but it also delays the recovery of Rwanda from its 1994 genocide.
During the Cold War, the US provided military aid to African countries to counter communism. Many of those countries – Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, and DRC – have now become hotspots of violence and economic failure in Africa. It is no surprise that lending arms and financial support to corrupt dictators and human rights abusers contributes to destabilization, but still the US government has yet to learn its lesson. Today, the rationale for providing military aid to countries like Rwanda is to counter terrorism; likely, the methods and outcomes will be largely the same as they were in the 1980’s.
The Department of Defense argues that by training and equipping African military forces, it will bring greater stability and legitimacy to African governments. The case for professionalizing militaries was also made during the Cold War and it was a policy that ultimately failed. It should not be used again today to justify the self-interests of the United States.
This week, President Bush has the opportunity to encourage African governments to engage peacefully and democratically with their people and with each other, but only if the Administration’s actions are seen as legitimate by African nations. Most countries have voiced a vehement ‘no’ to the creation and implementation of a new US military command for Africa (AFRICOM) and other US military activities on the continent. For the sake of countries like DRC, Mr. Bush should begin with a drawing back of his own defense policy in Africa.
*Bahati Ntama Jacques is the Policy Analyst at Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN) in Washington, DC. He is Congolese.
**Beth Tuckey is the Associate Director of Program Development and Policy at Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN) in Washington, DC.
***Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Readers' Comments
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Carol Roper
The US is nobodies friend but its own. After WW2, the US has fought "against" communism in Korea, Vietnam, South American countries at great expense to the local populations, setting them up against each other. In 2001, communism defeated, they were given a new enemy: "terrorism". This is happily used to ruin Afghanistan, Iraq and now is the turn for Africa. Beyond all this? The insatiable appetite for resources to feed the over- consuming US population. Scary to see how African leaders fall for it.
Ben Laauwen
Rwanda and Burundi, the fight between the Hutu and Tsutsi, have always been their own unique legacy of the preferences exercised by their former colonial masters and the consequences of that preference for the lighter and more European looking Tsutsi over the Bantu Hutu. I remember once first hearing of this was in the fifties when we, in Southern Africa heard of the 7'Tsutsi been shortened at the knees by the Hutu, I do not know if it was a myth, but that is my first recollection of hearing about the Hutu and Tsutsi, unless my memory serves me wrong, the two were once one country. One watched the unfolding saga of what is now termed by those who were directly responsible for the disaster the "genocide in Rwanda". One was wondering why the calls for action by France and the then commander in the region for intervention by the United Nations was blocked by the US and its allies calling this a cynical move by France. The US Ambassador, who, just female, as the the Ambassador in Iraq before the first Gulf War, (both women who had sinced passed away) also asked for assistance. None was forthcoming, as one watched this nightmare unfold, one began to see the purpose to the madness. This was a carefully orchestrated move to include DRC in the Master plan that now, includes Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda, a recolonization of the North Eastern and Central African region. Mombasa and the the cost of Tanzania and let us not forget Djibouti would then allow control of the waterways and ocean at the Horn of Africa, the recolonization of Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia would provide a foothold in the Gulf of Guinea. When one hears the Security Council is now acting as the League of Nations did before WWII, supporting so called members of the international community, "civilized world" euphemisms for former and current Aryan Power flirts and 21st Century fascists. They are now, with a weak and ineffective African Union, to lay claim to our natural resources and rights.
Tsutsis never were or are part of DRC, they now have a country that was created and supported by the so called "civilized world" the "market" that was just opened by Kagame, is being set up to be the the clearing house of wall that is now, supposedly, since we Africans seem incapable of preventing what our fathers, mothers and elders have gifted to us, the recolonization of Africa. The destruction of the rail links and the disruption of the trade network between those countries has caused the panic, since all that we hear about assisting Africa has nothing to do with Africa and Africans but the pillaging and rape of our continent. We need to confront the Kagame, Museveni, Nkunda, the gentleman in Ethiopia and what now is appearing to be the inclusion of Kenya and Tanzania, we need to demand that those who claim to represent and lead our countries be held accountable by those who have had the luxury of an education, especially legal education. We need Africans to speak up for Africa. Why are we having alleged hollywood movie stars, and irish singers and many ngos and the rest speaking for us? What happened to all of us who were educated after decolonization? Why are we stuck in the West, driving taxis, doing jobs that just keep us alive when we could have those of us on the continent agitate for the return of the skilled workers, Africans abroad? Why are we saddled with so many foreign "aid workers" who really are members of foreign intelligent agencies taking care of our most vulnerable populations? Something is seriously wrong with US, AFRICANS.
We need to take a good look at ourselves, sons and daughters of the soil and ask ourselves are we worthy of the name African? After all, we can see how, with the Fortress Europe and the closing of all the avenues of immigration in the West, and the fish food that our fellow brothers and sisters are becoming attempting to flee the nightmare that life has become in most of our countries, that we have nowhere to run, Africa is OURS, there seems to be a problem with both us and those who would rule us of this truth, this reality, Africa belongs to us, sons and daughters of the soil. There is nowhere else to run, so it would behoove us to start looking at the reality we have allowed, and start implementing African solutions for African problems. Not bush, sarkozy, brown or any other white person, but African solutions to African problems. Time is running out, they have already devoured and exhausted all they stole from the indigenous peoples of the lands they claim as theirs, are we going to allow them back into Africa?
dora brown