Congo (Democratic Republic of the)

Crisis in the Congo

The cease fire in North Kivu province between Gen. Nkunda’s anti-government forces and the government has recently been re-established. The treaty broke down earlier in the week when rebels stormed a government nature sanctuary. After several engagments between rebel and government forces, government forces are in retreat towards the provincial capital at Goma. The retreating government forces have been reported as looting, killing and raping those that are in their path. In response to this unstable situation, some 200,000 people have fled to the forests in the past two months to avoid both rebel and government forces. These Internally Displaced People (IDP) are victims of an enormous human catastrophe on the ground there.

The reason that I am analyzing this event as a matter of identity, is that the cause of the problem lay with the identities that influence the fighters. Gen. Nkunda is a rebel leader who organizes Tutsi fighters, the men he leads have clear memories of the genocide the Hutu’s led in 1994. His aim in fighting the central government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is to protect the Tutsi community there from Hutu rebels who fled into the D.R. Congo after the genocide. It is his fighting force that is destabilizing the region, however, the existence of multiple rebel groups, based around ethnic loyalties is a further complicating factor, this includes rebel Hutu groups.

Identity

http://allafrica.com/stories/200810301069.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7701269.stm

October 31, 2008 at 05:34 am