Current Zaire Crisis Is Extension of Rwandan War
NEW YORK (UMNS) -- Rwanda plays a far greater role in the eastern Zaire crisis than current news reports suggest, according to a United Methodist from that region.
The Rev. Ngoy D. Mulunda-Nyanga labels the situation "an exportation of the Rwandan conflict within the Zairian borders."
Mulunda-Nyanga, executive secretary of international affairs for the All Africa Conference of Churches, spoke about the Zaire crisis here Nov. 14 during a discussion sponsored by the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries and National Council of Churches.
He was joined by Mulegwa Zihindula, who runs a literacy project in the Bukavu area, which was taken by a group of Tutsi "rebels," the Banyamulenge, at the end of October.
Zihindula agreed that the current fighting is really a continuation of the Rwandan civil war. "This whole story about the Banyamulenge is a myth," he declared, adding that it was "a fact" that Rwandan soldiers are fighting in Zaire.
The history of the conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes in Rwanda dates back to colonial times when German and then Belgium rulers elevated the Tutsis over the Hutus. In 1959, a revolution uprooted the Tutsi monarchy and installed a Hutu government.
In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, an army composed mostly of Tutsi exiles, invaded from Uganda and started a war. Sporadic fighting and negotiations followed, with a ceasefire declared in August, 1993. But fighting started anew on April 6, 1994, after the leaders of Rwanda and Burundi, both Hutus, died in a suspicious plane crash.
Hutu extremists mounted a genocide campaign to rid Rwanda of the Tutsi. Before the Rwandan Patriotic Front gained control and pushed the Hutus from power, an estimated 800,000 had been massacred. Hundreds of thousands of Rwandans fled their country in fear, creating an instant refugee crisis.
Among the nearly 1 million Hutu refugees who have lived in camps in Zaire's eastern corridor are former members of the militia responsible for the genocide. And, despite recent efforts toward repatriation, Rwanda doesn't want any of them back, according to Mulunda-Nyanga.
"The Rwandan government is using the magnitude of the genocide to hide their agenda," he said. "The agenda of the war is to displace the refugees [away from the border]. Rwanda is not ready to receive the refugees."
The Banyamulenge were used as an excuse to start the war, he claimed.
Zihindula reported that 600 intellectuals, including a Catholic archbishop, were targeted and killed by the Tutsis when they invaded Bukavu. The archbishop and others, aware that Rwanda still laid claim to the Kivu province in Zaire, had started "The Movement for the Defense of Kivu."
Kivu is attractive, he said, because it is the largest source of gold in Zaire, which is the world's third largest producer of gold.
Nov. 18, 1996
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New York, and Washington.
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