(Photo by MONUSCO via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED)
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The 54 countries within the African continent, home to over 1.2 billion people, are often generalized in the international news cycle as conflict-ridden and tragedy-prone. This stereotype is harmful for several reasons; oversimplifying an entire continent filled with complex history results in poor and misinformed understandings of current events. One of these countries, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has frequently been in the news cycle due to the complex conflict unfolding within its borders. This coverage should specifically avoid stereotyping an already overly stereotyped region of the world.
Conflict in the eastern Kivu region of the DRC has been ongoing for the past several decades, with numerous clashes dating even before the nation’s independence in 1960. With over 120 currently armed groups active in the region and the world’s largest United Nations (UN) international peacekeeping force operating in the country, the nation’s elaborate history meets a complex present in ways that could make current events in the DRC hard to grasp for international observers.
Breaking down the Kivu conflict through the lens of the March 23 Movement (M23) can help avoid some common pitfalls seen in the coverage of African affairs. By doing so, the number of actors and civilians involved becomes clearer. The M23 rebels are a group of ethnic-Tutsi fighters questionably backed by neighbouring Rwanda; their history of operations in the DRC significantly affects current-day events.
A Brief Timeline of the DRC from Colonization to Present-Day
In the broader European Scramble for Africa of the 1880s, the territory that is now the DRC was “given” to the Belgian King Leopold II as a personal possession. His brutal reign and exploitative rubber industry killed upwards of 5-10 million Congolese people. After changing hands from the king to the Belgian state overall in 1905, the Congo continued to experience hardship until decolonization, where a movement spearheaded by future prime minister Patrice Lumumba won the nation’s independence in 1960. Lumumba’s promising leadership came to an end in 1961 when he was overthrown and executed in a military coup led by army general Joseph-Desiré Mobutu.
Backed by the United States, Mobutu became president in a second coup in 1965. Renaming the country “Zaire” in 1971, Mobutu’s 20-year rule was characterized by nepotism, poverty, and the personal theft of billions of dollars in public funds. With the First Congo War beginning soon after in 1994, the Second Congo War shortly after from 1998 to 2003, and the current Kivu conflict beginning in 2004, the DRC has been devastated by a dizzying variety of internal and external forces for over 100 years.
The Legacy of Genocide – From The Congo Wars to the Kivu Conflict
The Tutsis are a minority ethnic group who, due in large part to enduring colonial legacies, have grievances with Congolese authorities due to political fallout resulting from the Rwandan Genocide. During Belgian rule, Tutsis were systematically privileged in elite positions by colonial authorities over the Hutu in Rwanda. During and after colonialism, grudges against Tutsis continued to grow as a direct result of these “divide-and-rule” strategies. In 1994, an extremist portion of the ethnic Hutus, known as the Interahamwe, orchestrated a large-scale genocide of Tutsis and other moderate Hutu groups.
The Interahamwe claims to this day that the genocide against Tutsis was in response to the assassination of Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana on April 4, 1994. Yet, the large-scale massacre of 800,000 individuals over several weeks reflects a far more complicated political institution inherited from the colonial administration. Although the Hutu and Tutsi have shared similar cultural values and continue to speak the same language, Belgian policy drove a wedge between the two that only continues to develop in the wake of the Rwandan Genocide.
Though the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Tutsi-led coalition led by Paul Kagame, effectively ended the genocide and drove the Interahamwe out of the country, this genocide remains an open wound that haunts the nation to this day. As Paul Kagame and the RPF rose to power in Rwanda, many ex-Interahamwe groups fled to neighbouring DRC. Many Hutu individuals directly responsible for the genocide found refuge in the Kivu provinces during the First Congo War, a country-wide uprising against the Mobutu regime. This presence of Hutu extremists in the DRC led the RPF and other neighbouring countries like Uganda and Burundi to intervene in the war to pursue accountability from the Interahamwe and their sympathizers.
As Mobutu was removed from office and rebel leader Laurent-Desiré Kabila came to power, tensions and insecurity in the nation continued, which led him to repel all foreign military left in the country, including Rwandan forces. Around the same time, many ex-Interahamwe Hutu began reforming into organizations like the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) with the support of President Kabila. Kabila’s actions led the Rwandan coalition to believe DRC’s central administration actively blocked its goal of justice for the Rwandan genocide.
Some pro-Rwandan groups thought that the DRC was uncooperative with their goals, leading them to disobey their orders to leave. Instead, they redoubled their efforts to pursue justice in the Congo. In the process of obtaining accountability, they supported new militant organizations such as the Tutsi-led Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) in the eastern Kivu provinces. As the RCD clashed with the FDLR and other government forces, this conflict on the border between the DRC and Rwanda further descended into a major part of the Second Congo War. Although the First and Second Congo Wars have been referred to as “Africa’s World Wars” due to the sheer number of other countries and factors involved, this central friction between Rwanda and the DRC is a shared component throughout both conflicts that has extended into the Kivu conflict.
The Fight Continues — The March 23 Movement
In April 2012, a group of Tutsi soldiers within the Congolese armed forces broke from their ranks, forming their group known as the March 23 Movement and launching offensives against the state. The name ‘M23’ is derived from the date of a 2009 peace accord in which the RCD agreed to integrate into the Congolese armed forces in exchange for the disarmament of Hutu groups. Pointing to continued discrimination at the hands of the Congolese government in the Kivu provinces and a failure to uphold their end of the peace process, the M23 captured several cities from state forces and UN peacekeepers, engaging in a conflict that displaced an estimated 900,000 civilians.
In 2013, the M23 signed a ceasefire; grievances between Hutu and Tutsi groups appeared resolved. However, the low-level conflict surrounding these tensions continued growing from 2015 onwards. In 2022, these concerns fully resurfaced as the M23 began to launch new operations in North Kivu. Following a period of exile in Uganda, armed groups associated with M23 started their march inwards, capturing significant territory and making far greater impacts on local populations than in 2012. According to a report by the International Organization for Migration, over 1.4 million people have been displaced in the region as of February 2024.
The Rwandan (and Western) Connection to the M23
While the enduring legacies of the Rwandan genocide motivate Rwanda’s continued interest in the DRC, the M23’s present-day actions have called into question how legitimate their involvement remains. The M23 has been on the receiving end of numerous allegations of human rights abuses from international organizations.
Although there was a degree of Rwandan support for M23 in 2013, it was not public knowledge, with Rwandan President Paul Kagame consistently denying any association with the group. As of 2021, however, a UN Security Council report identified clear links between contemporary M23 operations and Rwanda. Despite this, Kagame continues to deny links to rebel activity in the Kivus, arguing that Rwandan intervention is moral and “just” based on the lingering presence of Hutu extremists in the region.
Even if pursuing former-Interahamwe groups is legitimate, it does not excuse Rwanda’s responsibility for contributing to the current humanitarian crisis in DRC. By using the Rwandan genocide to justify violence in the area, the M23’s current-day actions seem more about revenge than justice. Many Western nations have criticized the M23’s activity, calling on Kagame to prevent further violence. However, this disapproval has been mainly superficial, as Rwanda has continued to enjoy significant Western investment and political support. This support has angered many Congolese, with protests against the West becoming more common in the face of other nations’ perceived role in ongoing instability.
Beyond Geopolitics and Generalization — The Human Impacts of the M23 Offensive
Coverage of African affairs is found continually at the bottom of our TV screens. Even when these issues make the front pages, they usually are framed using stereotypes. By frequently generalizing the entire continent and casting it as though it were devastated by violence and “tribal” conflict, these oversimplifications ignore the diverse issues many African countries face.
Modern coverage also removes the agency and humanity of the over 1 billion people that inhabit the continent. Even if ethnic tensions do drive the current Congo-Rwanda conflict, they are by no means the only factor that should be emphasized as the cause. Just as deserving of mention, if not more so, are the variety of interests in natural resources like cobalt, lithium, tungsten, gold, and other minerals contained within DRC’s territories. These raw materials, often referred to as conflict minerals, are frequently extracted by foreign mining corporations, giving many nations a political motivation to either not act on or actively support further unrest in the region for economic gain.
Furthermore, ethnicity alone does not account for how the Hutu-Tutsi divide was politicized throughout history. The designation between the two is partly manufactured and flawed. No matter how legitimate the paranoia about Hutu extremism has been, it has been further cultivated and abused by Paul Kagame’s administration for anti-democratic purposes and political gain.
Most individuals in the Kivus are not motivated by fighting and deep-seated vengeance. Congolese photojournalist Moses Sawasawa highlights that the average Congolese person in the eastern city of Goma, whether taking a moment of relief in a refugee camp or organizing for federal elections, is simply doing their best to get by.
While unrest in the Kivus is tragic and deserving of attention, the region accounts for around one-tenth of the DRC’s total population. In other words, it does not fully represent the whole DRC nor any conflict happening elsewhere in the country. If our news consumption about certain countries, let alone an entire continent, is constantly framed in terms of violence, what does that say about us?
Building Better Narratives About Conflict in Africa
Even if this is an overly simplified rendition of a vast history, a basic grasp of how things got to this point is necessary to organize toward change. By understanding the different actors involved and the stereotypes so often used to cover them, we can build a stronger narrative that calls attention to large-scale crimes and organize protest movements that elevate the voices of the people involved.
Edited by Melanie Miles
