After confessing to my lack of understanding re the recent explosion of violence in eastern Congo (DRC), i've been reading through article threads on the Mail & Guardian and elsewhere, getting the situation sorted out historically and otherwise in my under-fired cerebral cortex. i recall a retired government bureaucrat in Dar es-Salaam telling me "there is no tragedy like an African tragedy," and what's happening in Congo now unfortunately seems to confirm this. From what i've been able to digest, here are the main issues being grappled with, all very intertwined so the order i'm presenting them in is irrelevant.
* Kabile's government (DRC) has been harboring Hutus (the FDLR) who fled after the massacres in Rwanda and continued to attack Tutsis in eastern Congo. Protecting his people from them has been one of the rationales given by Nkunda for pursuing this sweep of the region. A lot of Africans seem to view this conflict as the ultimate call for addressing the rampant racism that continues to plague the continent.
* Foreign countries are intent of stripping the resources from this area, signing agreements in Kinshasa without giving the inhabitants a voice and supporting violence against them for refusing to have their territory sold to the highest bidder. China is a main player on this stage. This is Nkunda's other rationale, and he says he's willing to march all the way to Kinshasa if that's what it takes to stop the resource rape.
* The UN needs to broker a cease fire in order to get the refugees out, and thought they had done so but no dice. Peacekeeping troops come from a variety of countries and are not operating under a unified command, so they can't stop the fighting any more than they can protect the civilians caught in it. Nkunda now says he won't deal with the UN until they set up a joint meeting with Kabile.
* President Kagame of Rwanda claims the UN's mission in DRC has been supporting Kabile's support of the FDLR, and there is some speculation that Rwanda is aiding Nkunda in an act of tribal solidarity. The consensus among African commentators is that racism is a major element driving the conflict and needs to be tackled on the broadest level possible within the entire continent.
* The African Union, which has essentially blown off the conflicts in Somalia, Darfur and Zimbabwe, is not seen as having any chance of being effective in this even more complex conflict. This is particularly true with respect to its younger partner/offshoot, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) which is discredited with having done nothing to force Mugabe out of power. Since some SADC members, e.g. Angola, have an apparent interest in seeing Kabile stay in power, the credibility of this organization - which the world community would love to see solve this whole business so they don't have to - is next to nil in the eyes of just about every african writing about it.
* The EU is prepared to send forces into the region, yet without a coordinated mission, what they can accomplish in terms of securing a long-term peace is unclear. There are some who see the entire mess, going back to the uprising in Rwanda, as the responsibility of francophone europe; ergo, opinions as to whether the fox can be trusted and effective in really cleaning out the henhouse are extremely varied and contentious.
There's no question that nearly all of the problems found in sub-saharan africa converge in the DRC: lots of horses, lots of carts, i'm not sure that the world can rise to the occasion when it comes to ironing them all out... at least in the near-term, it's clear that's impossible. The question of respecting national sovereignty seems to be used here as an excuse for non-aggressive intervention, just as it always is when it comes to Africans raping and killing each other with all those non-interventionists' arms. Staying out of your neighbor's business is a value highly espoused in the US and, in my experience, most of the rest of the world as well, perhaps excluding arabs. With all the fanfare internationally about Savior Obama coming to set the world right (liberal rapture is truly without comparison in its naivety), there is a chance that this sovereignty-intervention question will start to be addressed. Start - and that's a start. In the meantime, more tragedy in equatorial Africa - prophesy or proverb? Take your pick.
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