The recent outbreak of conflict in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has elicited numerous calls for reconciliation both within Africa and in the West. The consensus seems to be that peace must be reestablished urgently. Such a convergence of opinion seems rare for an African conflict; however, the DRC clashes have acquired a special significance due to their long and violent history.

The breakdown of peacekeeping efforts in the eastern DRC is particularly troubling given the country’s heralded return to democracy following the much-anticipated 2006 national and regional elections. The elections were depicted as a pivotal moment by many observers, closing the page to what was, with over five million deaths, the world’s deadliest war since World War II.

However, as recent events have demonstrated, peace in the region remains fragile. In addition to the already tense dynamics between different armed factions in the North and South Kivu regions, the area has been destabilized by distrust between Congolese President Joseph Kabila and his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame.

Relations between Rwanda and the DRC have been long affected by a crisis of belonging among ethnic Rwandans in the eastern DRC. Since early colonial times, the Kivu Provinces have served as the refuge of choice for the losers of Rwanda’s brutal power politics. Every new large migration into the DRC has raised the question of who among the country’s many ethnic Rwandans should count as Congolese.

The alienation of ethnic Rwandans in the DRC laid the seeds for a conception of ethnic citizenship inconsistent with the modern theory of civic citizenship. Successive Rwandan governments have formulated a sort of Zionist policy around the notion of ethnic citizenship in order to claim responsibility for the wellbeing of the Banyarwanda community living in the eastern DRC. These clashing notions of belonging are at the root of Rwanda’s destabilizing role in the DRC today. Any lasting solution to the conflict must therefore emphasize the essentially local aspect of the Kivu crisis without ignoring the international factors necessary to transition the region out of its unstable state.

Who Belongs?

When the DRC gained its independence from Belgium in 1960, residents who had belonged to an indigenous ethnic group officially recognized by the colonial administration became Congolese. However, the law remained ambiguous on the official status of ethnic Rwandans in the Kivu region. Whereas some ethnic Rwandan groups, such as the Hutu Banyaruchuru and Tutsi Banyamulenge, had either always or at some point benefited from “indigenous” status, others did not. As a result, the civic citizenship of the Banyarwanda, the general term for people of Rwandan origin, has been vulnerable to political manipulation.

In 1972, dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, upon the recommendation of his Tutsi chief of staff, sought to end the confusion over the citizenship law by granting citizenship to all Banyarwanda residing in the DRC at the time of independence. This law proved controversial and triggered widespread nativist sentiment. Indigenous Congolese groups feared that the Banyarwanda were using their influence over Mobutu to organize a power grab. Moreover, by granting citizenship to all those present on Congolese territory at the time of independence, the decree erased the distinction between the groups considered to be indigenous, later settlers, and refugees from 1959.

Social scientist Stephen Jackson has found that as early as 1973, some local authorities sought to deny national identity cards to the Banyarwanda despite the law granting them citizenship. This practice, which continued in later years, meant that although many Banyarwanda were officially citizens, they never truly “lived” this citizenship. This discrepancy between civic and lived citizenship fostered a Banyarwanda identity based on the sentiment of exclusion from Congolese society. Furthermore, continued mistrust between Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda and Burundi reinforced ethnic division among the Banyarwanda in the DRC.

Genocide and the Destabilization of the DRC

The first formulations of ethnic nationalism in Rwanda coincided with the 1994 genocide. The moments immediately preceding the genocide were marked by heightened ethnic awareness. This movement was most evident among a group of extremist Hutu leaders in the administration of Hutu President Juvйnal Habyarimana. These leaders developed the rhetoric of Hutu nationalist consciousness that relied on both a sense of victimization from Tutsi domination during colonial times, as well as fears of a Tutsi rebellion formed in Uganda, led by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). It is precisely at this time that ethnic tensions in North Kivu erupted into violence, allowing Habyarimana to intervene on behalf of the Congolese Hutus.

In 1993, a land conflict in North Kivu led Hutus in the area to demand a chief from their own ethnic group, a privilege reserved to indigenous groups. When the local indigenous authorities refused, the conflict evolved into a confrontation between the Banyarwanda and the recognized indigenous groups. According to a 1997 report by renowned Great Lakes region expert Mahmood Mamdani, the coalition of poor and rich Hutus demanding their own chief was heavily influenced by Maghrivi, a Hutu organization financed and advised by the Habyarimana administration. “Habyarimana, it seems,” explains Mamdani, “had by then come to consider himself the President of all [Hutus], globally.”

When Congolese dictator Mobutu, an ally of Habyarimana, sent the army to intervene, the soldiers supported the Hutu locals. This collusion of the state and the Hutu in North Kivu awakened fears among indigenous groups that the state would help the Hutu take over their land possessions. These suspicions provoked a rebellion that would soon find support in South Kivu as well as in Rwanda.

When Habyarimana was assassinated in June 1994, violence erupted in Rwanda as extremist Hutus orchestrated the genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. In response, the RPF escalated its military efforts in Rwanda, eventually ousting the extremist Hutus. The instability in Rwanda—along with simultaneous events in neighboring Burundi—led to an influx of two million refugees into the eastern DRC.

Among these refugees were a number of extremist Hutu soldiers who remained armed with the complicity of the Mobutu government in Kinshasa. These soldiers organized raids, terrorizing local populations, especially Tutsis. Local populations reacted by forming their own militias nicknamed the Mai-Mai.