The Role of the West in the Intensification of Conflicts in the Africa’s Great Lakes

widespread state sponsored or state condoned human rights violations. I would, however, like to dwell on some of the more fundamental causes that are hardly ever subjected to analysis by so-called experts on the region.⁴¹

2.3.1 The Role of the West in the Intensification of Conflicts in the Africa’s Great Lakes

The use of the term ethnicity has gained much currency in scholarship over "tribalism", a term coined arguably to describe the African specificity, which is being discarded because of its pejorative connotation. Ethnicity is the active sense of identification with some ethnic unit, whether or not this group has any institutional structure of its own, or whether it has any real existence in the pre-colonial epoch. Ethnicity is a fundamental social fact of life. Yet one needs to distinguish between its moral and strategic versions. When conceptualized as internal, these cognitive valuations engender moral ethnicity.⁴²

Nowhere is ethnicity as the defining mode of conflict more tragically evident than in the Great Lakes region of Africa.⁴³ Yet, as we now realize, ethnicity as a descriptor of violence is a poor guide to unravel the complexities of internal armed conflict situations, their interconnectedness in time and space, and the manner in which they enter the consciousness of both actors and outsiders.⁴⁴

The analysis of the historical background to the problem of ethnic antagonism, which has been the major factor behind violent conflicts in the Africa’s Great Lakes Region, has much to do with colonialism. The existence of primordial forms of ethnic groups among pre-colonial African societies in the Great Lakes is an indisputable fact; but ethnic antagonism and ethnic conflicts of the sort and on the scale prevailing in the region today is a colonial creation.⁴⁵ However, this fact has not always been welcome by many, and some analysts have simply dismissed any analyses that attribute the current Africa’s miseries to the legacy of colonialism.⁴⁶ Be it as it may, while it is true as acknowledged elsewhere in this work that the recurrent and persistent conflicts in Africa and in

41 Kagame, P (2006, May 17-24), ‘Conflicts in the Great Lakes Region’ in The African Executive,

availableat<http://www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/articles.php?article=693&magazine=70 17/10/2006>.

Last visited, September 8, 2009.

42 Jua, N., & Nkwi, P. (2001). ’Leveling the playing field. Combating racism, ethnicity, and Different forms of Discrimination in Africa.’ Yaoundé, Cameroon: International Center for Applied Social Sciences, Research, and Training.

43 See UN Secretary General’s Report, supra note 8

44 Discussed in Kumar, supra note 15, p.15

45 Mpangala, supra note 11, p.9. See also Doom, supra note 16, p.98

46 Tshitereke, supra note 18, p.83

the Great Lakes in particular is caused by multiple factors, attempts to dissect Africa’s current predicaments must revisit the complexity of the past.

Thus, one of the fundamental historical questions in the Africa’s Great Lakes conflict revolves around whether ethnic conflicts, at least of the current scale, existed prior to colonial rule in the Region. The Africa’s Great Lakes region historiography provides us with a negative answer to this question.⁴⁷ In Rwanda and Burundi, history indicates that society is made up of three social ethnic groups.⁴⁸ The Twa who relate to the pigmies, were the first inhabitants and form a smallest component of the population in both countries. Then came the Hutus who belong to the Bantu group from Chad and Cameroon, and finally the Tutsi, who descended from Ethiopia.⁴⁹

It is important to note here that even if this region was not a land of peace and bucolic harmony before the coming of colonialism,⁵⁰ there is no trace in its pre-colonial history of a systematic ethnic violence as such. There was therefore no particular confrontational relation, and the three groups lived side-by-side, shared the same culture and customs, spoke the same language, had same clan names and lived together with no land distinctively being the home of any particular so called ethnic group. But colonialism invented the ethnicity factor out of the only difference which was visible to them, namely that of division of labour, where the Hutus are crop cultivators, while the Tutsis are pastoralists and artisans.⁵¹

Initially, colonial anthropologists associated the concept of ethnicity or tribalism⁵² with a primitive and barbarous mystique peculiar to the African, thus requiring “a colonial civilizing mission.”⁵³ However, through the indirect rule, or rather the divide and rule system of colonial administration, the colonialists realized the divisive nature of ethnic identity, and being essentially opportunistic, they opted to take advantage of it for their own interests.⁵⁴

47, See Kamukama, supra note 39, p.4.

48 Ibid

49Ibid.

50It is obvious that as in any other societies, there were some hostilities, but these much more frequent among competing dynasties of the same category than between the Hutus and the Tutsi as ethnic groups.

51Mpangala, supra note 11, p.27.

52Tribalism was viewed by colonial anthropologists as being associated with the lowest level of development of societies in their early stage, and the ethnicity was the next in the level of development; See generally Moore, S. (1994).

Anthropology and Africa: Changing Perspectives on a Changing Scene. Va. Charlottesville/London:

University Press.

53 Mpangala, supra note 11, p.5.

54 See also this view in Kamukama, supra note 39, p.20.

In order to fulfil its motive of producing raw materials and providing markets for European industrial products, the colonial state integrated African societies in the Great Lakes Region into their colonial administration systems, colonial economy and colonial ideology.⁵⁵ In this process,

“racism” and “civilizing mission” became a common ideology used as an instrument to justify colonialism. Its direct application meant categorization of social relations into superior, less superior and inferior races for the Whites, Asians and Blacks respectively.⁵⁶

In order to understand the impact of colonialism on ethnic identity and ethnic conflicts in the Great Lakes region, two aspects have to be taken into account. One is the colonial ideology of racism, and the second is the establishment of political boundaries, which were arbitrarily drawn in the Berlin Conference in total disregard of the social, political and cultural interests of ethnic communities in the region.⁵⁷

Racism is an ideological notion or dogma that makes one racial group condemned by nature to congenital inferiority and another group is destined to congenital superiority.⁵⁸ While European colonialists in the Africa’s Great Lakes used the racist ideology to justify colonial domination, oppression and exploitation as elsewhere in the continent, the same racist ideology was used to divide Africans in the region into antagonistic ethnic groups on the basis of superior and inferior categories.⁵⁹ Members of each ethnic group in the region were allocated to different roles within the framework of the colonial systems in their considered order of superiority and qualities. In Rwanda and Burundi where the Belgians took over colonial administration from the Germans,⁶⁰ the system of indirect rule was inherited with necessary modifications. These modifications necessitated various changes aimed at transforming Rwanda and Burundi into “modern” societies, and they also necessitated the introduction of various reform measures. These included a formal institutionalization of ethnicity by dividing society into three groups, which were called ethnic groups.⁶¹ Everyone was then issued with an identity card, stating his or her ethnicity.⁶² It was upon production of an identity card that the colonial authorities could determine the allocation of various opportunities in society, including schools, civil services, and the like, depending on the ethnic group to which one belonged. The system promoted members of Tutsi ethnic group as an elite and

55Ibid.

56Mpangala, supra note 11, p.44; See further, generally, Koskenniemi, M. (2001), The Gentile Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

57 See Doom, supra note 16, p.191

58 Mpangala, supra note 11, p.5

59 Ibid, p.6

60The takeover came as the result the defeat of the Germans during the First World War in 1918.

61The Hutus group represented 84% of the population, the Tutsi about 15% and the Twa about 1%.

62 See this in Kamukama, supra note 39, p.6

educated ruling class. The colonial administration reserved ruling positions as exclusive for the Tutsi through a biased system of education, which regarded the Tutsi as being more superior race of Hamitic origin,⁶³ and their subjects Hutus an inferior ethnic group of Bantu origin. The racial distinction was based on height and light skin-colour differences and may have been an attempt to identify and give preferences to those perceived as having a “more European” look. The shorter, darker Hutus were classified as Bantu, a term used analogous to the serfs of medieval European feudalism.⁶⁴ The lighter-skinned Tutsi were earmarked for leadership positions because the Belgians ascribed to them a greater intelligence and ability for leadership, while the Hutus were denied any privileges and relegated to peasant status. This was a beginning of a formalized social stratification on ethnic basis, changing the once flexible class boundary between these two social groups into a sharp and an insurmountable ethnic barrier.

In the DRC, the role of colonialism in making ethnicity the focal point of identity was not different.

When the Belgium colonial administration assumed control over the Belgian Congo, cultural organizations based on ethnic identity were permitted, making ethnic membership the form of identification.⁶⁵ Additionally, ethnic identity and ethnic conflicts in the DRC is mainly a continuation of the same in neighbouring states, which as we have seen above, is a colonial creation. These racial distinctions later became the cornerstone for ethnic conflicts that ensued in the whole area of the Africa’s Great Lakes.

The second aspect is the link between the artificial nature of political borders in the Africa’s Great Lakes region as elsewhere in Africa and ethnic conflicts. The link is made on the basis of the premise that these imposed borders, which disregarded ethnic groups and natural resources distribution, inevitably led to internal ethnic conflicts, territorial disputes accompanied by separatist groups and persistent disputes over natural resources.⁶⁶ In this respect, we would like to differ with controversial arguments by some scholars that colonial bureaucrats drew up territorial boundaries in Africa along cultural tribal units, and imagined them as socio-political units for action.⁶⁷ These

63 This ideology was first invented by the Catholic White fathers. See Kamukama, Ibid, p.6

64 Sarkin, J (2001), ‘Towards Finding a Solution for the Problem Created by the Politics of Identity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); Designing Constitutional Framework for Peaceful Cooperation.’p.70 available at

<http://www.scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=fi&lr=&q=cache:6L1EpD3zmCUJ:www.kas.org.za/Publications/Seminar Reports/PoliticsofIdentityandExclusion/sarkin.pdf+politics+of+identity+in+the+DRC+Congo>, last visited, September 8, 2009.

65 Ibid, p.68

66 Cone, C & Solomon, H (2004).‘The state and conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo’ South African Journal of Military Studies, vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 51-75.

67 See Doom, supra note 16, p.100

artificial borders divided people who were under the same political organization before colonialism.

For instance, the Hutus and Tutsi of Urwanda and Urundi, who intermingled as one society before the coming of colonialism, were separated; some came under the current Rwanda and Burundi, while others were left as minorities within Uganda and the Belgian Congo or Zaïre.⁶⁸ So, as was rightly argued by Paul Kagame, the artificial boundaries created by former colonial masters had the effect of bringing together many different people within nations that were not prepared for the cultural and ethnic diversity (especially when a new regime was going to foster ethnic conflict) , and separating language, religious and ethnic communities.⁶⁹

In short, in order to protect, defend and prolong their interests, some of the Western actors in the region have fuelled the conflicts and variously obstructed the peace processes for a long time. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries scramble, the brutality (of genocidal proportions) was committed in the plunder of ivory and rubber. In the current scramble, the loot is diamonds, gold, coltan, copper, cobalt, timber, wildlife reserves and fiscal resources.⁷⁰ Indeed, the current role of the West in the intensification of conflicts in the Africa’s Great Lakes region can be summarized into three corners of inter-imperialist rivalries between the Western powers in the region. In one corner stands the US with its quest for global dominance and insatiable appetite for the strategic minerals of the region to mainly feed its military-industrial complex, including electronic, aeronautics, nuclear medicine, and missile technology etc. It should be noted that since the 1960s, Washington has had geo-political interests in the Great lakes region, and helped to install in power and strongly supported the autocratic regime of Mobutu Sese Seko between 1965 to 1990s.⁷¹ The US is also strategically bent to bringing to an end the old colonial spheres of influence as presently defined by British, French and Belgian interests. In the other corner lies the traditional Franco- Belgian interest seeking to maintain their foothold albeit in a conflict and collaboration mode with the Belgium unable to, but France intent on expanding its sphere of influence into traditional British areas. In the third corner, stands the rest of the EU and Britain in particular, seeking to dislodge the privileged position of

68 See Griggs, R (1994), ‘Geostrategies in the Great Lakes Conflict and Spatial Designs for Peace’ available at

<http://www.google.fi/search?hl=fi&q=colonial+political+boundaries+and+ethnic+conflicts+in+the+Great+Lakes+regi on+&meta> last visited, September 8, 2009.

69 See Kagame, supra note 41.

70 Baregu, M. (2002) ‘The Clones of Mr. Kurtz: Violence, War and Plunder in the DRC’ African Journal of Political Science (2002), vol.7 No.2, pp. 11-38.

71 See this fact clearly discussed in the Report entitled, SIDA (2004) A Strategic Conflict Analysis for the Great Lakes Region, Division for Eastern and Western Africa, Article No.SIDA3689, Stockholm, available at<

http://www.sida.se/?d=118&a=3140&language=en_US> last visited, September 8, 2009.

France in particular in collaboration with the US. This struggle is what has been variously termed the second scramble for Africa.⁷²

These realities rendered many conflicts and civil wars in the Africa’s Great Lakes Region intractable.