While we spend our time arguing about small matters in Europe, in Africa, far from the view of the television cameras and diplomats, one of the deadliest conflicts since World War II is dragging on: the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in particular in Northern Kivu, which has resulted in nearly 8 million deaths since 1998.
The fate of Africa is being decided there, and by extension, that of Europe. If, as is likely, this conflict drags on, it is the entire continent of Africa which will be permanently plunged into chaos. If it ends, the most populous Francophone country of the world can, with its Nigerian neighbor, bring together the entire continent in a virtuous circle.
In a country of 75 million people, 4 times the size of France, with the availability of all raw materials, including 30% of the world’s diamond reserves and in its Kivu province 70% of the world’s coltan, (a mix of columbite and tantalite, tantalum its metallic element is a valuable substance and its main use is in tantalum capacitors in mobile phones, and in all missiles and satellites’ engines), poverty afflicts over 90% of the population and civil wars follow one after the other.
After the Katanga province, rich with all sorts of resources, claimed in vain its independence as early as 1960, peace has never really returned: in 1994, the massacres in Rwanda, have resulted in the arrival of Hutu militias in Kivu, in the region bordering Rwanda and Uganda, and the fall of President Mobutu in 1997, dictator since the early days of the country. In November 1999, there was an agreement between the DRC, Uganda and Rwanda with the Security Council establishing the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, MONUC, now MONUSCO, which currently comprises 22,000 total uniformed personnel, mobilizing 20% of total UN’s resources for peace-keeping operations. It did not stop anything: in North Kivu, dozens of rebel groups with different ethnic, national and political origins, some covertly supported by Uganda and Rwanda, tear each other apart. In particular, since April 2012, the rebels Tutsis reintegrated into the regular army in 2009 after an illusory peace agreement launched a new and particularly violent movement, called the M23. Its crushing now in progress following MONUSCO intervention, with a more offensive mandate and the deployment of the intervention brigade, and in particular the liberation of the city of Goma, will not be enough to restore peace; more than three dozen other militias, who control the exploitation and sale of mining resources, thrive in the region; they are Hutu, Tutsi, Maï-Maï , and others; they are sometimes called Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, Uganda National Liberation Army. In it are Al-Shabaab Islamist mercenaries and thousands of child soldiers. Against a background of general indifference, they are guilty of massive incidents of violence including murder, rape and maiming.
Proposals for a blanket amnesty by Congolese President Joseph Kabila for all the insurgents who lay down their arms will not be enough because the militias are fed by all kinds of trafficking from the immense wealth in the Kivu region, so essential to the world; and there is now the threat of war between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. New deaths in the millions are on the horizon.
To avoid this, all armed groups should disarm, so that a rebuilt Congolese State can take back the control of the exploitation and sale of mining resources; so that peace can be truly achieved between the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda and that a real democratic process can emerge in all countries in the region. We still have a long way to go.
Europe cannot be satisfied with a UN military action, which gives everyone an excuse to give it up completely, because there our future is being played out. And that as reflected every day in what is being played out at our borders, the fate of the most southerly patch of African soil and that of the most Nordic of European capitals are crucially related.