Kinshasa, DR Congo – The Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda have broken off diplomatic ties after an escalation in fighting in eastern Congo near the border with its neighbour.
Relations between the two countries are steeped in history but also mired in more than 30 years of conflict following the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
– Migration –
During the Belgian colonial era, thousands of Rwandan farmers moved into the fertile hills of Congo’s Kivu region, sowing the seeds for Rwandophone communities variously known as the “Banyarwanda,” “Banyamulenge” or “Banyabwisha”.
Further crises in Rwanda and Burundi spurred more waves of migrants. As the ethnic Rwandan communities came under pressure over their nationality or legitimacy to be in the area, self-defence groups formed.
– Genocide in Rwanda –
The genocide in Rwanda of some 800,000 people between April and July 1994, mostly members of the Tutsi minority as well as moderate Hutus, became a turning point.
More than a million Rwandan Hutus fled into Congo, many of them troops or militia fighters who had taken part in the bloodletting, after Rwanda’s post-genocide Tutsi majority government led by current President Paul Kagame came to power.
Kigali accused armed groups of launching attacks on its territory and viewed refugee camps near its border as a threat.
– Two regional wars –
In 1996, the rule of Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who had been in power since 1965 and supported the former Rwanda Hutu regime, was in its final throes.
After clashes between the army and the Banyamulenge, Uganda and Rwanda supported a rebel campaign against the army of Mobutu, who was overthrown the following year by a coalition led by opposition leader Laurent-Desire Kabila.
But relations between Kabila and his former allies swiftly broke down. Kabila was fatally shot in his office in 2001.
In 1998, a new Rwandan-backed rebellion broke out in Kivu, eventually sucking in other countries around the region and dozens of armed groups.
DRC accused Rwanda of “aggression” while Kigali said its intervention was for “national security” reasons.
The outbreak of conflict prompted the breakdown of diplomatic ties between the DRC and Rwanda which would take more than a decade to re-establish.
The fighting was essentially over control of the region’s mineral wealth, which in 2000 even prompted a violent confrontation between Rwanda and Uganda over the mining town of Kisangani.
In 2002, Rwanda and the DRC signed a peace agreement, but relations have been marked ever since by suspicion and mutual accusations of crossborder meddling through rebel groups.
– CNDP –
In 2004, a rebellion broke out in South Kivu province and spread to North Kivu, led by two former army officers. The Kinshasa government accused Rwanda of backing them, a charge it denied.
Two years later, one of the rebel leaders, Laurent Nkunda, launched his own militia, the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), which again the DRC said was backed by Kigali.
But in 2009, in a remarkable but brief about-turn in relations, Rwandan troops entered the DRC with Kinshasa’s blessing to conduct an operation against a Rwandan Hutu rebel group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
Nkunda was arrested during the operation.
– M23 –
In 2012, a new rebel group emerged among former Congolese Tutsi rebels of the CNDP who had been incorporated into the DRC army under a peace deal signed on March 23, 2009.
They used the date as the inspiration for their name — “the March 23 Movement,” or M23. According to a UN report, the M23 was backed by Rwanda.
After capturing several towns in North Kivu, including the key eastern city of Goma for several days, the M23 was defeated in 2013 by a joint UN and Congolese army offensive.
The group became aggrieved at what it said was Kinshasa’s failure to implement a deal allowing former rebels to be incorporated into the military. It made a comeback in late 2021.
Its resurgence sparked a fresh crisis between Rwanda and DRC. A UN expert report said in July that up to 4,000 Rwandan soldiers were fighting alongside the M23 and that Rwanda had “de facto control” of the group’s operations.
© Agence France-Presse
