Intolerant and Intolerable Complexities

The Democratic Republic of Congo has joined with Rwanda, permitting thousands of Rwandan troops to enter Congo in the hunt for Rwandan Hutu rebels. Rwanda would still like to bring some of the Hutu leaders of the Tutsi massacre in Rwanda to justice. Apart from the fact that the Armed Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda are preying on, raping and murdering Tutsi Congolese.

This is an about-face for the government of Congo, to make common cause with Rwanda, since a previous invasion of their country gave rise to a tide of bloodshed and civil war. A cataclysmic upheaval that resulted in the deaths of over five million people, through the fighting, through disease and starvation. But Congo is desperate to bring stability to the country, to eradicate the Hutu militias.

Now, in eastern Congo over a million people are refugees, forced from their homes in the last two years. Battles between the army, militia allies and Rwandan and Congolese rebels forced refugees to flee for their lives. The Congolese army hasn't been any too kind to them either; tasked with defending them, engaging instead in their own rape and murder sprees.

The United Nations has a peacekeeping force in Congo, known as MONUC. MONUC claims that the Congolese army blocks the UN's patrols, prevents humanitarian agencies from entering rebel territory and that the new fighting would cause additional civilian deaths and dire deprivations in the overcrowded and vulnerable refugee camps.

The Tutsi rebel leader, General Laurent Nkunda, allied with the Rwandan government, claims he is effectively battling to rid Congo of the Hutu-led rebels who attack Tutsis in Congo, killing, raping and spreading anti-Tutsi propaganda among the Hutu Congolese.

But eastern Congolese dread and hate the Rwandans, accusing them of looting the territory's mineral riches. Rwanda, in fact, would dearly love to take over that rich bit of geography to endow itself with the natural resources, to wrest them from the weak Congolese government.

The government of Congo is taking a risk, permitting Rwanda's army to enter the country for a combined military effort to hunt down the Hutu rebels and put an end to the dreadful strife in the country, setting Hutu against Tutsi and vice versa.

The Rwandan genocide is history, but history strives, through the intractable tribal enmities unwilling to fade into anguished memory, to repeat itself.