The Stagecraft of Making it Look Like an Accident

by Jocelyn Kelly

categories: Rwandan Genocide, War Crimes & Crimes Against Humanity

Published April 10, 2009 @ 05:35PM PT

Some thoughts on the remembering the anniversary of the Rwandan genocide

When many people write about the conflict in the DRC (and I am guilty of this myself), they describe it as the "spillover" of the Rwandan genocide. Just to see what would happen, I typed "spillover Rwandan genocide" into Google. I got 37,800 hits.

The more I think about it, the more the phrase becomes the equivalent of a literary shrug: "Sometimes genocides leak - what are you going to do about a little spillage?" The CIA World Factbook on Rwanda actually calls the war in DRC the "nagging Hutu extremist insurgency across the border." The violence in Rwanda ended over a decade ago. Yet we still think it has a life-after death quality to continue leaking across borders.

Twelve years, five million conflict-related deaths, and one damning United Nations report later, I think we have to surrender the security blanket of "nagging" accidental violence. For one thing, accidents aren't led by generals who wear Chanel sunglasses.

With his penchant for theatrics and designer eyewear, General Laurent Nkunda has been a favorite subject of media reports. He has hung out with Ben Affleck. He likes taking his silver-tipped scepter and his lamb called "Betty" (she signifies peace) to media interviews. He claims his group, the CNDP, is protecting the Tutsis in DRC from the evil men who led the Rwandan genocide. To do this, apparently you have to massacre Congolese civilians, especially children, repeatedly over long periods of time and at random. His forces were so well organized they were easily able to outgun and out-maneuver the Congolese National Military and repeatedly embarrass UN peacekeeping troops. Regional governments clicked their tongues and shrugged, saying they could do little about the CNDP or any of the dozens of other rebel groups in the region.

Then, a December 2008 inquiry by the United Nations extensively documented how both the Congolese and Rwandan governments have used rebel groups, including Nkunda's, as chess pieces in the struggle for resources in the mineral-rich east. It was as if the cardboard stage fell forward and the governments were left standing there with puppets on their hands.

The report described how Rwandan authorities supplied General Nkunda's forces with military equipment, access to Rwandan banks and use of Rwandan territory as a staging area for attacks. They also supplied the mortar fire and artillery the CNDP used to rout the Congolese military in a 2007 advance on a key town.

In a masterful piece of theater, Rwanda arrested Nkunda in January 2009 (after large donor governments started withdrawing aid as a result of the UN report's findings). He was allowed to walk across the border from DRC to Rwanda so he could be arrested by a sympathetic government.

Accidental violence doesn't thrive and grow for over a decade. It does not carry millions of dollars worth of arms. It does not manifest deliberate strategies of war and kill millions of civilians. And, as far as I know, it does not profit from complex mining operations. The UN report in January took away our ability to blame the atrocities on accident. The violence hasn't been spilled, it has been pipelined. The good news is that this gives a point of intervention - an opportunity to shame both regional and international governments into addressing both the violence and the mining practices that fuel it.

Western states still feel the guilt of being bystanders for the Rwandan genocide. A poster in my office says "Never again, again, again..." While remembering the past we have to take a hard look at what is happening right now. My resolution on this week of remembrance is to take the word "spillover" out of my vocabulary when talking about the violence in the DRC.