Future of Eastern DR Congo

Great Debates
1

I never thought it would happen. In the past, I blamed Rwandan President Paul Kagame for supporting the recklessly violent Laurent Nkunda (both are Tutsi) in persecuting a violent war in Eastern DR Congo.

But now that is over, I guess the “Nkunda violent wild card” was too much for Kagame to stand. Nkunda was arrested in Rwanda when crossing the border from DR Congo after a joint DR Congo/Rwanda offensive. Kagame is now siding with (and trusting) Joseph Kabila’s government of DR Congo to track down and hunt various Rwandan Hutu rebels (some are even former Genocidaires from 1994) in DR Congo.

What does this mean for DR Congo? What for the region?

a second thought
Can Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda pull off something similar in catching Joseph Kony and his left over remittances of the Lord’s Resistance Army (awful people, they capture children and force them to kill family members, after doing this the children will have no ties to the wider community. The goal is to give the kids little hope for a normal life that could be salvaged outside of the LRA) in the DR Congo?

Uganda has always tired to destroy the LRA, but every time they fight, the LRA scatters into the jungle and regroups inside of neighboring DR Congo. Recently Museveni has engaged in numerous talks with Kony, in efforts to stop the violence in the north of the country. However, the LRA has been getting more erratic and fragmented with the execution of it’s second command last year (who reportedly was crying and screaming when he was shot) and have been carrying out many bloody attacks recently (“The Christmas massacre”). I believe a joint Sudan/Uganda/DR Congo force could do this, but we might have to wait until South Sudan separates (from Arab Northern Sudan) before they can even try to secure their own borders.

What do you think? Could this be a reality for Uganda? Am I just constructing the impossible?

…and no comments like this, and allowed! :slight_smile:

2

I’m interested because I lived in what was then Leopoldville right after Independence. It was chaos then, it is chaos now. I doubt military action is a long term solution, though I can see why it would be necessary short term. What do you think needs to happen to allow the Eastern regions to make real progress?

3

I have often wonderd if it would’ve been better to let the various parts of Congo go their own way.

But Africa is resistant to any border changes even when they probably should be. Outside of Eritrea we’ve had no border changes. Perhaps if Somaliland can be recognized we could get moving.

Congo is huge, I could see it being more than one state.

4

The War Nerd has a bit of a different take on General Laurent Nkunda

5

As my sociology prof pointed out, no borders change in Africa because if one changes, then there’s no reason that all of them won’t change. In other words, they support the status quo, even when it’s slightly silly, because the alternative is chaos.

ETA: thanks for the linkfest. I shall enjoy perusing them and educating myself.