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ABSTRACT
As opposed to the three decades following independence, interstate wars have become frequent in the African great lakes region since 1990. This article analyses the unravelling of these wars and looks at their causes and consequences. The conceptual framework to analyse the clear but convoluted line linking these conflicts is that of path dependence and critical junctures. Each stage is defined in these terms. The article shows that path dependence is the main explanatory factor, but that critical junctures have played out at crucial moments, including when the initial stage was set in Uganda. It concludes that a very longue durée path dependence can be found in Rwanda, where most threads of the conflicts converge. However, it also finds that extreme state weakness in Zaire/DR Congo has been and still is a major contributory factor to the cross-border violence. The article finally argues that the conceptual framework is not only useful as an analytical tool, but may also assist efforts in conflict prevention and management.
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the help of René Lemarchand, Gérard Prunier and Harry Verhoeven who have commented on an earlier draft. The usual disclaimer applies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Erdmann, Gero and Stroh, ‘Can Historical Institutionalism’, 6.
2. Collier and Collier, Shaping the political arena.
3. Abbot, ‘On the concept of turning point’.
4. Erdmann, Gero and Stroh, ‘Can Historical Institutionalism’, 12.
5. Capoccia and Kelemen, ‘The Study of Critical Junctures’, 341.
6. Ibid., 348. Italics in the original text.
7. Ibid., 355.
8. Mahoney, ‘Path dependence’, 513.
9. Ibid., 527.
10. Mahoney, Legacies of liberalism, 7.
11. Other more historical critical junctures, such as the rebellions and secessions in Congo and the 1972 genocide in Burundi, will not be addressed here for lack of space.
12. Guichaoua, Le problème des réfugiés, 17.
13. Gérard Prunier, who was in Kampala immediately after the NRA take-over, believes the figure was much higher and that Rwandan combatants could well have numbered 40% of the NRA. According to some of his Ugandan sources, ‘the Rwandans were everywhere’ (personal communication).
14. Kimonyo, Transforming Rwanda, 44–46.
15. On the creation of the RPF, see Roessler and Verhoeven, Why Comrades, 108–119; Kimonyo, Tranforming Rwanda, 80–84.
16. On the run-up to the invasion, see Reyntjens, L’Afrique des grands lacs, 145–156.
17. In a declaration to the diplomatic community in Kampala on 16 October 1990, Museveni stated: ‘If there is one issue on which opinion in Uganda is unanimous, it is the view that Banyarwanda should go back to their country’.
18. Prunier, ‘Eléments’, 130.
19. Mobutu also had an interest in keeping the refugee crisis festering because of his links with the former Rwandan regime and in order to bolster his international indispensability.
20. On this distinction between empirical and legal statehood, see Jackson and Rosberg, ‘Why Africa’s Weak States Persist’.
21. Soares de Oliveira and Verhoeven, ‘Taming Intervention’, 14.
22. Roessler and Verhoeven, Why Comrades, 170–176.
23. Prunier, Africa’s World War, 13.
24. Ibid., 22.
25. Lemarchand, The Dynamics, 12–16.
26. Ibid., 34.
27. This is by no means exceptional. Tamm notes that in most cases, state sponsors are involved in the initial creation – or at least proper emergence‒ of rebel groups (Tamm, ‘Rebel leaders’, 602). Earlier Clark (‘Introduction’) argued that the main rebel groups in Zaire/DRC were largely the creation of outside interveners: the AFDL mainly by Rwanda with Ugandan blessing, one faction of the RCD by Rwanda, another faction of the RCD and the Mouvement de libération du Congo (MLC) by Uganda.
28. Pomfret, John, ‘Defense Minister Says Arms, Troops Supplied for Anti-Mobutu Drive’, The Washington Post, 9 July 1997.
29. United Nations, High Commissioner for Human Rights 2010, para 31.
30. Longman, ‘The Complex Reasons’.
31. On this second war, dubbed ‘Africa’s world war’, see Clark, The African Stakes, Prunier, Africa’s World War, Reyntjens, The Great African War, Stearns, Dancing, Roessler and Verhoeven, Why Comrades.
32. Turner, ‘Angola’s Role’; Roessler and Verhoeven, Why Comrades, 389–395.
33. Van Acker and Vlassenroot, ‘Les “mai-mai”’.
34. Tamm, ‘Rebel Leaders’.
35. Afoaku, ‘Congo’s Rebels’.
36. United Nations, Security Council 2003.
37. Ibid., para 2 of the unpublished Section V of the report.
38. United Nations, Security Council 2005, para 185.
39. United Nations, Security Council 2008, para 61–68.
40. Dowden, Richard, ‘Britain should cease its one-sided support for Rwanda’, The Independent (London), 15 December 2008.
41. Human Rights Watch, ‘DR Congo: Rwanda Should Stop Aiding War Crimes Suspect. Congolese Renegade General Bosco Ntaganda Receives Recruits and Weapons from Rwanda’, 4 June 2012; United Nations, Security Council 2012a.
42. McGreal, Chris, ‘Rwanda’s Paul Kagame Warned He May Be Charged With Aiding War Crimes’, The Guardian, 25 July 2012.
43. ‘Final Communiqué of the 32nd summit of SADC Heads of State and Government’, Maputo, 18 August 2012, para 13.1.
44. Human Rights Watch, ‘DR Congo: M23 Rebels Committing War Crimes. Rwandan Officials Should Immediately Halt All Support or Face Sanctions’, 11 September 2012; United Nations, Security Council 2012.
45. Pflanz, Mike, ‘DR Congo: M23 rebels close to defeat after US and Britain urge Rwanda to stay off’, The Daily Telegraph, 31 October 2013; Olivier, Darren, ‘How M23 was rolled back’, African Defence Review, 30 October 2013.
46. The East African, 30 August-5 September 1999.
47. McKnight, ‘The Rise and Fall’.
48. Tamm, ‘Status competition”.
49. Extracts of the letter can be found in ‘Exclusive: Rwanda Writes Protest Letter to Uganda over Arrests; Gen Nyamwasa “Recruitment”’, Chimpreports, 21 December 2017.
50. Rudatsimburwa, Albert, ‘By parading Rwanda’s dead for political points, Uganda crosses the line’, The New Times (Kigali), 28 May 2019.
51. Mwenda, Andrew, ‘Uganda and Rwanda on a slippery slope’, The Independent (Kampala), 3 June 2019.
52. Refugees International, Asylum Betrayed; United Nations, Security Council 2016; Human Rights Watch, Burundi: Abductions, Killings Spread Fear. UN Security Council Should Press for Deployment of International Police Presence, 25 February 2016.
53. United Nations, Security Council 2018, 9–10.
54. For their part, the hardliners of the old regime too were reluctant to embark on a process of democratisation as this would put an end to their privileges.
55. Although a French judicial inquiry on the matter did not lead to indictments of Rwandan officials suspected of having committed the crime, the decision not to prosecute lists many indications of the RPF’s involvement. However, the investigating judges found that the accumulation of evidence ‘did not constitute grave and concordant charges allowing to defer the suspects to the assize court’ (Cour d’Appel de Paris, Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris, Ordonnance de non-lieu, 21 December 2018).
56. Kagame, Un abrégé, 137. A former holder of high office told this author that this saying is regularly recited in conversations between President Kagame and top military officers.
57. Vansina, Antecedents, 61.
58. Roessler and Verhoeven, Why Comrades, 110.
59. Reyntjens, ‘Understanding’.
60. Purdeková, Reyntjens and Wilén, Nina, ‘Militarisation of governance’.
61. Riot, Bancel and Rutayisire, ‘Un art guerrier’.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Filip Reyntjens
Filip Reyntjens is Emeritus Professor of Law and Politics, Institute of Development Policy (IOB) at the University of Antwerp. He has worked for over forty years on the African great lakes region, on which he has published several books and numerous articles in scholarly journals.