Quand plus de 100 millions de Zairo-Congolais s'accordent pour exterminer le petit million de Tutsis, ils appellent cela la guerre contre le Rwanda. Ridicule guerre du Grand Congo! Il n'ya jamais eu de guerre contre le Rwanda mais l'idee criminelle d'exterminer les Tutsi. Bien entendu le Congolais ordinaire n'y comprend rien, il est le pion des ideologues de L"extremisme hutue" (ex: le hutu Anzuluni Bembe)qui ont pris le Congo en otage avec des Journaux aux philosophies douteuses..."

Introduction

The post-colonial period has been a difficult period for many African countries when it comes to “citizenship questions”. The major cause of this situation is the “1885 Berlin conference” dividing Africa between European powers (France, Germany, Portugal, England, Italy…). This division in states did not give importance to traditional African societies and their organizations: the boundaries were drawn according to colonialist interest. Some communities found their members split between two different states. Though for that time, the situation did not mean a lot, in post- colonial Africa, most trouble will be occasioned by the “citizenship question” about these “trans-borders” communities and their political rights. (1)

In Africa, it is known that political questions are deeply involved with tribal questions. In the political struggle between various tribes, trans-borders communities are easily excluded on the motif that they are foreigners. Kenya-Somalia, Ivory Coast- Mali-Burkinafaso, Congo-Rwanda-Burundi, … all these countries have now serious problems resulting from the Berlin division of Africa and trans-borders communities who are rejected and denied political right. They are assimilated with illegal immigrants, foreigners or refugees. Sometimes, the tensions are translated in terms of religious confrontation (ex in Ivory coast, Muslims against Christians) or in terms of race (Bantu against Nilotics DRCongo). The DRCongo shares its Eastern border with four countries (Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda) that have Tutsi and Hutu communities.

With the rise in the 1980s of political struggle and economical interest, the DRCongo, at the impulsion bad intended politicians has been targeting its Tutsi-Hutu communities as foreigners. But in the 1990s, with the rise of “extremism hutu” (an ideology that support the extermination of all Tutsi and which has led to Rwandan genocide, to extermination of all Tutsi living in Burundian countryside, to Congolese mass killing of Tutsi… ), DRCongo has been focusing only on the citizenship of the Congolese Tutsi minority called Banyamulenge. Against this defenseless minority, there are Congolese medias, there are million of extremist hutu’s media pages, there are the so-called “mayi-mayi” who are falsely presented as “traditional fighters” but who in reality are the remnants of Rwandan killers who carried out the 1994 genocide…

When in 1996, the DRCongo tried to drive out all Tutsis, broke out a civil war where were involved more than 6 foreign armies. Some defending the rights of the Tutsi minority; others, fighting to boost out all Tutsi and eventually carry on with the 1994 move in Rwanda and Burundi.

This easy question of nationality is complicated by xenophobia and racism. No legal text or historical book is enough to bring mass of Congolese to reason. For the majority, Tutsi have no right whatsoever in Congo; among the minority who support that this debate and its consequence are senseless, are foreign journalists and some Congolese who cannot express their opinion in Congolese public.

This report will comprise three main chapters: the first one will focus on A brief history on Tutsi in DRCongo; the second chapter will concentrate on documents and argument against Congolese Tutsi’s Identity and the last one will be about The debate on the “Tutsi question” in DRCongo. A brief conclusion with our own view will end the whole. 1

Chap 1. A brief history on Tutsi’s citizenship in DRCongo.

The question is of whether or not people of Rwandan origin, or Banyarwanda (Hutu, Tutsi and Twa), can claim Zairean citizenship on basis of being native to Zaire as of August 1885, when this country came into existence as the Congo Free State. If so, they would, as other indigenous people all over Africa, lay claim to ancestral lands in eastern Zaire. In the second place, the conflict has to do with the consequences for Zaire of the Hutu-Tutsi conflict in both Rwanda and Burundi. (2)

Rwanda and Burundi are two of the major pre-colonial kingdoms to have survived Western conquest and occupation as more or less viable political entities, with the monarchies being destroyed between 1959 and 1961 in Rwanda and between 1965 and 1968 in Burundi. The population of both countries is made up of three social groups traditionally distinguished on the basis of occupation: the Hutu (roughly 85%), the Tutsi (14%) and the Twa (1%), colonialist statistics that have to be taken with caution after all cycling massacres of Tutsi!. The Twa are a pygmoid people, who also have important settlements west of the great lakes in the equatorial forest of Central Africa, including the nearby Zaire's Ituri Forest. Contrary to colonially created myths, the Tutsi-Hutu conflict is not a centuries old struggle between "Hamitic" pastoralists (Tutsi) and Bantu agriculturists (Hutu). For “the Tutsi are not "Hamites." They are, writes Zongola, a Bantu people who share a common Bantu culture with the Hutu, with whom they speak a common Bantu language, Kinyarwanda or Kirundi, depending on the country.”

Immigration and settlement in eastern Zaire (3) by the Banyarwanda occurred at different moments, and for a variety of reasons. As in other parts of the world, the entire Great Lakes region did constitute a commercial frontier for relatively powerful states like ancient Rwanda. And there is historical evidence that Rwandan agricultural colonies were established in the islands of Lake Kivu, now part of Zaire, in the 18th century. In addition to this, a group of ethnic Tutsi has settled before 17th century in the hills they have named "Mulenge" between Lakes Kivu and Tanganyika, or between Bukavu and Uvira in the South Kivu province of Zaire. Accordingly, they call themselves Banyamulenge.

This oral tradition is hotly contested by other indigenous Zairean groups. (recently all kind of thesis have been developed by extremist to dismiss Tutsi history!)

However true the dismissal of the Banyamulenge's oral history might be, it would be difficult to deny that some Rwandan settlements may have found themselves west of the colonial boundary as drawn in 1885. Moreover, the Banyarwanda who lived on Idjwi Island, the largest of Lake Kivu islands, became Belgian subjects in 1910, as did other Kinyarwanda speaking colonies in North Kivu, when Germany ceded the lands they occupied to Belgium, in a boundary adjustment between the two imperial powers.

The legal distinction between them and other Congolese became academic after Belgium took over Rwanda and Burundi in 1920 as League of Nations mandatory power and, in 1945, as United Nations trusteeship authority. For all practical purposes, Belgium governed Zaire, Rwanda and Burundi as a single colonial entity known as "Le Congo Belge et le Ruanda-Urundi", with a single army, the Force Publique, a single governor general in Kinshasa and two lieutenant governors general in Lubumbashi and Bujumbura, respectively.

Belgium moved thousands of Banyarwanda peasants to the eastern Zaire districts of Masisi, Rutshuru and Walikale in North Kivu between 1937 and 1955, and recruited thousands more for work in mining, transport and agricultural enterprises in Shaba, Maniema and South Kivu provinces throughout the colonial period. Most of these Banyarwanda voted in the first municipal elections of 1957-58, and in the general or independence elections of 1960. A new influx of Banyarwanda arrived in 1959-61, mostly Tutsi political refugees fleeing their homeland as a result of the Rwandan Revolution.

In January 1972, Zairean citizenship was granted to all natives of Rwanda and Burundi who had settled in Zaire before 1950. In June 1981, invalidating the 1972 law, a decree defining Zairean nationality or citizenship on basis of membership in an ethnic group known to exist within the borders of Zaire as defined in August 1885 was passed. By this token, only those Banyarwanda who had actually solicited and obtained naturalization in Zaire could be declared citizens. All those who were citizens by virtue of being descendants of pre-1885 settlements, of the 1910 boundary change, and of the pre-1950 migratory movements were automatically deprived of their Zairean citizenship.

Stripped of their citizenship, Banyarwanda peasants are also denied land rights, as the land they occupy and use has been claimed as ancestral land by the indigenous groups among whom they live. The land question is at the heart of the conflict between them and other Zaireans in both North and South Kivu. Before the genocide in Rwanda, thousands of people died in interethnic violence in 1992-93 in North Kivu. Instead of finding ways of resolving the conflict in a responsible manner, Zairean authorities added fuel to fire with xenophobia appeals, while soldiers and military officers became implicated in arms trafficking on both sides.

In September 1996, South Kivu Deputy Governor Lwasi Ngabo Lwabanji stated in a radio broadcast that if the Tutsi Banyamulenge did not leave Zaire within a week, they would be interned in camps and exterminated. This officially led or sanctioned xenophobia campaigns against all Tutsi was, according to McGreal, "remarkably similar to the extremist Hutu messages broadcast during the Rwandan genocide" (Mail and Guardian, Nov. 1-7,1996).

Then the Banyamulenge, backed by Rwanda and Uganda to prevent a new genocide, stood up for their right and this was the beginning of a civil war in DRCongo which still is ruining the country while the question of Tutsi is not solved.

Chap 2. The legal documents on Congolese Tutsi’s Identity. (4)

In 1999, to bring an end on the civil war in DRC, the Congolese government (and its allies) and the Congolese rebels (and their allies) movement signed in Zambia the “Lusaka Agreement” and one of the provision relating to citizenship is That "Parties [to the conflict] reaffirm that all ethnic groups and nationalities whose people and territory constituted what became Congo (now DRC) at independence must enjoy equal rights and protection under the law as citizens".

The above provision obviously tends to solve the contradictions brought in by three decrees:

1/ Ordinance No. 72-002 5 January 1972

All persons of Rwandese origin who established their residence in the Kivu province before 1 January 1950 and who had continued to reside in Zaire were collectively granted Zairean nationality as of 30 June 1961. The 1972 decree bestowed citizenship upon all who had arrived as refugees in the 1959-60 period as a result of the political turmoil in Rwanda.

2/ 29 June 1981 Decree

Only those who could establish that one of their ancestors was a member of one of the tribes established in the territory of the Zaire Republic by 1st August 1885 were classified as Zairean citizens. Nationality would be acquired on an individual basis only and any other mode of acquisition of Zairean nationality was null and void. In effect, people of Rwandese origin in Zaire were rendered stateless persons

This decree sought to nullify the 1972 legislation.

3/ the resolution passed on 28 April 1995 the High Council of the Transitional Parliament.

A "Mission d'Identification de Zairois au Kivu" was launched to determine who was of Zairean nationality.

This strange and anachronistic Resolution followed a visit to Kivu by the Vangu commission of inquiry, which had been established to look into these questions. The most surprising aspect of the Resolution was that it treated the Banyamulenge as recent refugees. The Resolution included the banning of Tutsis from all administrative and other posts.

The Resolution was signed by the Speaker of the Parliament, Anzuluni Bembe Isilonyonyi, who claims to come from Uvira and have Babembe ancestry but who in reality was of Burundian Hutu roots: by doing so, he was institutionalising the “extremism hutu ideology”(5) in Zairean politics.

Chap3. The debate on the “Tutsi question” in DRCongo

A/ The origin of the anti-Tutsi feeling.

When trying to understand historically and logically the roots of this anti-Tutsi feeling in local populations, academics put it this way: (6)

The Banyamulenge lived in relative peace and harmony with their neighbours for most of this century. It was not until the Mulele rebellion in Kivu in 1964 that Banyamulenge found themselves in opposition to other local people. The Mulelists, espousing a variant of communist philosophy in which property, land and cattle were to be shared among local people, drew support from other ethnic groups in South Kivu. The Banyamulenge, however, did not share their neighbour's enthusiasm for these goals and helped the then Congolese National Army to crush the movement in South Kivu. This episode instilled a deep and lingering resentment against the Banyamulenge within other ethnic groups in the area.

Though this analysis is not wrong, it just highlights in a scientific way a smaller aspect of the problem. In fact hatred and anti-Tutsi feeling started with the campaign of independence where colonialists and catholic church taught the need of revolution against the Tutsi’s monarchy and the Tutsi’s superiority that they had supported previously. The 1950s saw the rising of Tutsi hatred and the destruction of Tutsi’s image and history in Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern Congo. When Rwandan Tutsi fled to Congo in the 1960, then local communities and authorities started discrimination on the motif that all Tutsi were refugees and therefore deserved no political right.

Accordingly, “The Banyarwanda first faced discrimination and persecution in 1963 when provincial authorities excluded them from civil service posts. Tensions eased in 1972 when a law granted Zairean nationality to the Banyarwanda. In 1981, the Zairean parliament repealed this act, stripping the Banyarwanda of citizenship. The Banyarwanda have faced systematic discrimination ever since. The arrival of Hutu refugees in 1994 increased antagonism between the Banyarwanda and non-Banyarwanda. Supported by the Zairean army, the 1994interahamwe began an ethnic cleansing operation against the Banyarwanda Tutsis” (7)

B/ Why Tutsi Banyamulenge are entitled to Congolese citizenship

Different historians give different dates for the migrations of Tutsi pastoralists from the historic kingdom of Rwanda to what is now Zaire. All of the estimates, however, date the migrations between the 16th and 19th centuries . The atlas of the Republic of Zaire produced by Jeune Afrique in 1978 provides a map showing the routes of the major historical population movements into and within what was now Zaire, and dates the movement of pastoralist from Rwanda into Kivu between the 17th and 18th centuries. This was part of the migration which also brought Rwandan Tutsis to Masisi and Rutshuru zones in what is now North Kivu. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Zaire states that `ever since 1797, under the rule of Yuhi IV Gahindiro, Rwandan Tutsis have emigrated to the Congo, settling in Kakamba, in the plain of Ruzizi and in the higher regions (Mulenge Hills), because of the climate and to feed their cattle.'

These Tutsis established their first settlement at Mulenge and became known as Banyamulenge (people of Mulenge). They settled in Uvira, Mwenga and Fizi zones, where they are to be found to this day (although there are now Banyamulenge living further south, in Shaba, and in major towns around the country). Establishing their own settlements they lived side-by-side with indigenous Bantu ethnic groups - the Babembe, Bafulero, Banyindu, Barega, Barundi and Bashi. They speak a variant of Kinyarwanda (the language of Rwanda), recognized as a separate dialect by linguistic authorities . Today estimates of their number range from 250,000 to 400,000 people, roughly comparable with other ethnic groups in the area (the Barega have been estimated at 400,000, the Babembe at 252,000 and the Bafulero at 275,000).

C/ Why Tutsi banyamulenge can not claim Citizenship in DRC.

There is no reason why Tutsi, Banyamulenge or not, cannot be a citizen of Drcongo. The principle is not the problem. The regional problem between Tutsi and Hutu and the struggle for political power is the background of the whole thing. The complicated colonial heritage of “majority-minority”, “autochthonous-invaders”, “Bantu-Hamites” dualities is hard to manage after years of massacre of Tutsis by their fellow Hutu neighbours that culminated to 1994 apocalypse and to civil war in DRCongo.

When an opinion goes in the four following logic:

a/ “Prior to the Belgian colonisation of central Africa in the late 19th century, North Kivu was part of the Kingdom of Rwanda. The imperialists drew their borders without regard to existing ethnic boundaries so the Banyarwanda were incorporated into the Belgian Congo, becoming Zairean nationals at independence in 1960. The Banyarwanda include both traditional castes in Rwandan society, Tutsi and Hutu.

The Banyamulenge are descendants of Rwandan Tutsi pastoralists who migrated to South Kivu between the 16th and 18th centuries, establishing their first settlement at Mulenge.” (8)

b/ “Despite their having migrated to Zaire nearly 200 years ago, the Zaire government denied them Zairian citizenship in the early 1980s. This threat of expulson by the Zaire government was reinforced by Hutu chauvinists in the refugee camps in Zaire who began spreading anti-Tutsi propaganda and in some cases trying to take control of Tutsi-held lands in Eastern Zaire for themselves. Hutu guerrillas managed to drive most Zairian Tutsis out of the Masisi and Rutshuru regions using terrorist tactics.” (9)

c/ “Banyamulenge, a 400,000-strong Tutsi community that had lived in the area south of Lake Kivu since the end of the 18th century. The Banyamulenge had become Zairian citizens in 1910 when European powers arbitrarily changed the Zaire-Rwanda border, but the Zairian parliament in 1995 had voted to revoke their citizenship.”(10)

d/ “ Widespread sentiments against the Tutsi population, who have been living for many generations in South Kivu and are known as the Banyamulenge, as well as an unresolved dispute over their Zairian citizenship complicated the situation” (11)

Congolese views are clear, unequivocal and a-dialectic. The summary of the response which meets the Kinshasa views goes in the sense of the article:

“Les banyamulenge ou tutsi du Congo: un concept ou un véritable groupe ethnique du Kivu” (12) which though is a personal view, translates the Congolese national opinion:

“Aucun document n’a pu révéler au cours de nos recherches bibliographiques à l’Université McGill de Montréal que les Banyamulenge formaient un groupe ethnique du Congo, venu du Rwanda depuis plus d’un siècle comme c’est connu aujoud’hui dans certains milieux. L’usage du vocable Banyamulenge pour désigner les soi-disant Tutsis du Congo a commencé avec le génocide rwandais en 1994. Mais ce terme qui signifie "les gens des montagnes" est d’usage courant dans le langage populaire au Kivu comme moquerie envers les Rwandais, Hutu et Tutsi, et même envers certains groupes autochtones du Kivu qui fréquentent les montagnes, et n’a rien de particulier avec l’ethnie Tutsi”.

the Meaning of the above article in summary is that any Tutsi is nothing else than un Rwandan or Burundian and that, the pretention to Congolese citizenship is just a Tutsi's usurpation!

D/ The Congolese media on the Tutsi question. (13)

On 8 August 1998, during the conflict opposing the DR Congo authorities and army, on one side; Rwandan soldiers and Banyamulenge (Congolese ethnic Tutsis) on the other, Radio Candip, the RTNC (state broadcaster) station in Bunia, (near the border with Uganda) openly called for the killing of Tutsis.

"...it should be stressed that people must bring a machete, a spear, an arrow, a hoe, spades, rakes, nails, truncheons... barbed wire, stones... and the like, in order, dear listeners, to kill the Rwandan Tutsis, who are currently in Ituri District [north-eastern DR Congo]... So what should they do against the Rwandan Tutsis? They must attack them... Wherever you see a Rwandan Tutsi, regard him as your enemy. We shall do everything possible to free ourselves from the grip of the Tutsis... Open your eyes wide. Those of you who live along the road, jump on the people with long noses, who are tall and slim and want to dominate us..."

Ten days later the same station, then under rebel control, broadcast the following message: "... The liberation will never bring hatred among the liberators and the liberated people. The only thing to practise should be the greatest recommendation given to us by Jesus, that is love of others."!

The campaign of hatred against Tutsis was also waged in newspapers: on 19 August 1998 L´Avenir, a Kinshasa newspaper wrote: “this time around the Congolese should not miss this opportunity to eradicate all of the Banyam ya Mulenga phenomena once and for all and bring Tutsi pride to its knees. Tomorrow, it will be too late."

Few article are, time to time, written with a positive approach to solve the Tutsi question. But the main reaction is to denigrate Tutsi and abandon them to all band of killers. When it comes to peaceful solution Kinshasa media and intellectual are inaudible; but when it comes to Tutsi hate fire, then talents of insult and lies are indescribable. The journal “L’AVENIR” and thousands of Congolese news paper and web pages in the west have not stopped their Tutsi-phobia. Even Congolese comedian and musician have been since, in various way, contributing to the hate media in an environment where Tutsi’s life has no price.

In Rwanda, genocide started by media; in DRC the same method and same language were used. International community will apologise in years to come that minority Congolese Tutsi could not make their SOS voice heard!

Conclusion

The DRCongo as a nation is composed by hundred of tribal communities which, despite different traditions and culture, do share the unique Congolese identity. Being Tutsi and living near Rwanda and Burundi has nothing to do with Congolese nationals! Minority being a concept acceptable in a complex state society (14) like the DR Congo’s society, there is no explanation why Congolese Tutsi are persecuted.

The 1981 and 1995 laws were arbitrary and discriminatory and therefore unlawful under international conventions to which the DRC is a party.

The identity of Congolese Tutsi is a highly politicised question. The opposition Tutsi-Hutu in Rwanda-Burundi and cyclical killings that send thousands of people in exile is a real catastrophe to the whole region. The civil war in DRCongo and the intervention of Rwanda-Burundi and Uganda on the rebellion side does not help the Tutsi question: “there is a strong perception of occupation and threat of annexation by Rwanda using the citizenship issue as a cover prevails in the DRC. The result is a strong anti-Tutsi and Hutu sentiment among the Congolese which complicates the resolution of the citizenship issue” (15) But the sole question of Congolese Tutsi identity is a false problem that politicians and extremist hutu media turn in a “Bantou-Nilotic” opposition.. They pretend that Tutsi are a race from Egypt, Ethiopia, Somalia or even Israel intending to enslave all Bantu trough a Hima-Tutsi empire. These rubbish have been expanded at a point that the real question is forgotten.

One simple fact can solve the whole matter: the question of Tutsi living in DRCongo ( whether autochtonous, pre-colonial migrant, colonial migrant or post-colonial refugees) is older than 30 years now. In 30 years the dialectic of social structure can change a lot and domestic law are done to adapt to new situation! Trying to go back to old colonial text to deny Tutsi citizenship is an aberration. What could happen if America refused citizenship to all migrant no matter how many generations have been living there? What could happen if Europe did not adapt its immigration law to new situations?

It is obvious that “the Banya Mulenge are of Rwandan descent, but their forebears had migrated to South Kivu between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. This is, of course, a matter of domestic jurisdiction… stripping ethnic groups of their nationality on account of their kinship with an ethnic group in a neighbouring country cannot be reconciled with the African doctrine of inviolate borders. Inviolate borders imply inviolate citizenship for all ethnic groups living within these borders.” (15)

Today’s world is heading toward globalisation and an open politically, economically and culturally world: are countries like the DRCongo ready for globalisation if a simple problem of social movement can not be dealt with fairly?

Anyhow, all populations came one day from somewhere: is it a crime if Banyamulenge have roots in ancient pre-colonial Rwanda? This debate is a waste of time to allow militias to carry on with their killing of Tutsi Banyamulenge and others, an ideology cautioned by the Kinshasa government !

Bibliograpghy

(1) ) April, Gordon & …, (2001), understanding contemporary Africa, Lynne Rienner publishers, London

(2) Aderman, Howard& Suhrke, 2000, The Rwanda crisis from Uganda to Zaire, the path of a genocide, London, transaction publishers, p51-59

(3)http://www.africaaction.org/docs96/zair9612.nzo.htm

(4) - http://www.fewer.org/greatlakes/ - http://www.sas.upenn.edu/

(5) Mukagasana, Yolande, (1999), N’aie pas peur de savoir, France, J’ai Lu, p 348

(6)http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Hornet/irin_10796.html

(7) http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1996/

(8) http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1996/253/253p19.htm

(9) http://www.usip.org/oc/events/smock.html

(10) http://www.facts.com/wnd/hutu.htm

(11) http://www.pcusa.org/pcusa/wmd/ep/country/demrhis.htm

(12)http://www.congonline.com/Forum1/Forum00/Tshikuka02.htm (13) http://www.rnw.nl/realradio/dossiers/html/

(14) Nimmi, Hutnik (1991), Ethnic minority identity, New York, Clarendon Press, p21

(15) http://www.fewer.org/greatlakes/

(16) http://www.pvnewyork.org/archive/c_drc3.htm