[Socialism Today, No 14, December 1996, p. 2-3]
The crisis simmering in Zaire for two years has finally come to a head.
In 1994, with the victory of the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front in neighbouring Rwanda, the ex-Rwandan army and Interahamwe militias, who were responsible for the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis, fled to Zaire under French protection. With them went well over a million Hutus, who were installed in huge camps maintained and supplied by international aid agencies. Within them the armed militias established what The Times has rightly called a reign of terror. How many of the refugees left Rwanda voluntarily or how many stayed in Zaire of their own accord, cannot be known. What is certain is that those who tried to flee were swiftly dealt with by the Interahamwe.
The sudden arrival of the Hutus destabilised the whole region. The Interahamwe used the camps as a base to launch forays into Rwanda but they also became involved in conflicts over land with the Zairean Tutsis and other communities.
The bourgeois press has dealt with the current crisis from two angles. By explaining that the problems were of ‚ethnic‘ origin; and by considerably exaggerating the humanitarian aspect. The picture given is of an Africa divided into hopelessly warring tribes, and of masses of refugees that the compassionate West has to help.
The reality is more complex. There is very little ‚ethnic‘ difference between Hutus and Tutsis. They speak the same language and have the same religion, and were never seen as two separate entities before the Belgian colonial policy of divide and rule. In independent Rwanda, anti-Tutsi feeling was consciously stirred up by the Hutu ruling group to maintain their power, privileges and wealth. Among the first victims of the 1994 genocide were those Hutus who were opposed to this. In Zaire, ‚ethnic‘ conflicts usually cover disputes over land or are used by the regime to divide the population.
It was the persecution of the Banyamulenge Tutsis, always suspected by Kinshasa of being pro-Rwandan, which sparked off the present revolt. But it is becoming clearer that this revolt is much broader, that it involves other communities and that it is led by longstanding opponents of the Mobutu dictatorship. These people are not ethnically motivated and many are not Tutsis.
After many hesitations the dominant imperialist powers, using the UN and more ‚respectable‘ secondary powers as a fig-leaf, have decided to intervene.
After many hesitations the dominant imperialist powers, using the UN and more ‚respectable‘ secondary powers as a fig-leaf, have decided to intervene. Hesitation, in the first place, because it is much easier to go in than to get out, but also because there are real differences between the imperialist powers. There is latent conflict between France, which has maintained its influence in francophone Africa through supporting Mobutu and other dictators, and the USA which is in the process of building up a chain of allies including Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda and, since 1994, Rwanda. Concretely the Americans want to break up the Hutu camps and funnel the refugees back to Rwanda while the French want to maintain the camps and defend the integrity of Zaire under Mobutu. That is why France has argued from day one for an intervention – not to help the refugees but to oppose the rebels.
Mobutu was put in power by imperialism in the 1960s as a reliable anti-Communist dictator. In the early 1990s, faced with demands for democracy, his regime appeared unstable but he outmanoeuvred his disparate bourgeois opponents and in 1994 again showed Zaire’s usefulness to (French) imperialism as a base for the intervention in Rwanda. Though reportedly dying, he is again being presented by France as the guarantor of ‚order‘ in Zaire.
There is no doubt that Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi have to varying degrees supported the rebels in Kivu, out of a desire to end the destabilising effect on their countries of the Hutu camps. Their support to the rebels may go no further than that, particularly given their links with Washington. But the objective of the rebels is broader. They want to get rid of Mobutu. They have already put the Zairean army to flight and appear to have inflicted a major defeat on the Interahamwe. Imperialist intervention is much more likely to turn against those who are fighting Mobutu therefore, than offer practical aid to the refugees, or those now returning to Rwanda.
Socialists should oppose any imperialist intervention, and support the right of the Zairean people to get rid of Mobutu. At the moment it is not clear what the programme of the rebel movement is, and exactly what they would put in place of Mobutu. It is probable that this struggle will be long, but it already offers a ray of hope for the Zairean people after thirty years of dictatorship and suffering. Only by the Zairean workers and peasants taking control of their country and rebuilding its shattered economy, can Zaire put these days behind it and show an example to the rest of Africa. The alternative is more wars and massacres, and possibly the complete break up of the country.
David Cameron
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