A leak too far
The UN report into the Congo war from 1996-2003 was leaked early and its early draft blamed Rwanda for what it called “Genocide” against the Hutu refugees and local Congolese Hutu’s. It was a sudden turn from an organisation that that had just been accused of negligence and letting 124 women be raped on their watch. So this morning, we awoke to a BBC report that had received a leaked draft of the report, the most striking aspect of the report was that the Rwanda government was accused of a Genocide against Hutu during its time in Congo.
The timing of the leak was crucial, it must have been connected to the recent events that happened 2 days ago. The UN was facing massive criticism for failing to save the women who were raped. So the report that was due to be released next month was leaked with spelling mistakes an all, it was a rough draft. Some say it was leaked to prevent the Rwanda government from asking to have sensitive parts removed from the report. The UN did not condemn the leak of the draft but only said there would be changes made. Of all the statements in the report, one stood out above all, that certain acts “could be classed as genocide.
This harks back to 1994 when the UN security council prevaricated for months as they avoided intervention. Like now, phrases like “acts of genocide” or “acts comparable to genocide” were used in an attempt to deny the severity of the situation. That fateful decision has always been a stain on the conscience of the international community and the UN in particular. The relationship between the UN and the Rwanda government that stopped the genocide have since been chilly to say the least. Matters came to a head when the UN backed government forces who also comprised of Hutu interahamwe forces again renegade Congolese General Laurent Nkunda.
The attack was rebuffed despite UN military support in logistics and air support, this led to a treaty of cooperation between Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. Their former government allies in the FDLR or Interahamwe troops were then hunted in a joint operation between the nations. The Congolese government called for a downscaling of UN troops who number 17,000, the largest in the world and have had little stabilising effect on the region of Eastern Congo. Internal reports from the UN showed that UN soldiers had taken part in war crimes such as rape, murder, extortion and racketeering and furthermore had armed murderous rebel groups.
The report of 124 women being raped under the watchful eyes of UN peacekeepers put the organisation and the mission under the spotlight. It drew condemnation from Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN and Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State. Human Rights Watch had been compiling a report on the war in Congo from 1997 to 2003 and this appears to have been the source of the leak from the UN. Carla Terkisian, their lead researcher on Congo was denied a work visa in February and the organisation has held a sustained campaign of pressure on the Rwandan government.
The biggest headline in the story is the “Double-Genocide” theory that ethnic Hutu were killed by the RDF during the Congo war. It begs the question of how this evidence never made the light of day before. How could the Rwandan government have hidden a genocide from the world for 16 years. It is more likely the recent wave of negative publicity against the Rwanda Government has given the more opportunistic elements a window of opportunity. The war in Congo was the most complex in history, 11 nations, countless militias and splinter groups, shifting alliances that changed day by day.
The war was driven by the voracious appetites of western mining companies and their client’s - electronics companies. The origins of the war started when the former Hutu government fled into Congo en masse, their militias used some 2.5 million Rwandan refugees as human shields as they continued to attack Rwanda’s North-western border. The attacks were repelled until Rwanda invaded Congo in November 1996, some 2 million Hutu refugees returned in the space of 2 days following the invasion. The full story of what happened next is a matter of debate, but it is not as simplistic as the headlines say.
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