The crisis in Kivu Province, as it stood in 1997, was closely linked with a crisis of citizenship among the Kinyarwanda-speaking population. Changing laws on citizenship, combined with influxes of refugees from neighbouring Rwanda, had led to a split between Hutus and Tutsis within Kivu. During the Rwandan genocide of 1993-4, militarisation spilled over into Kivu, exacerbating already complex issues of identity, power and land ownership.
This document, drafted for the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA), reports on the findings of a mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo in September 1997. The aim of the mission was to discuss the Kivu situation with different categories of people, to elicit views on a research agenda relating to the crisis, and to draw up an action programme for CODESRIA. The report recommends that the two main factors in the Kivu crisis – citizenship and the Rwanda impact – should be examined separately within an overall research agenda supported by CODESRIA at the local level.
Since independence, the Kinyarwanda-speaking minority of Kivu have suffered a lack of clarity regarding their citizenship. Their status remained unsettled in independence negotiations, and was subsequently confused by alterations to the law governing citizenship. The genocide in Rwanda caused further tensions between Hutus and Tutsis within the minority. The crisis was shaped by the following key developments:
- After independence, most Kinyarwanda- speaking groups were denied ‘ethnic’ citizenship and were not entitled to land rights like the ‘indigenous’ Congolese. Instead they acquired land on the market.
- Frustrated locally, they ran for office at provincial and national levels, stirring up resentment among ‘indigenous’ local groups.
- The 1981 Citizenship Law, stipulating that Congolese citizens must demonstrate a connection to the population residing there in 1885, excluded them from running for office. Thus they increasingly tried to enter the security apparatus.
- The genocide in Rwanda saw two million, mainly Hutu refugees flee into Kivu. The link between militarisation and genocide in Rwanda spread across the border, pitting Tutsi against Hutu, whether Congolese or Rwandan.
- Armed politics became the only credible means of gaining and holding power, marginalising civil society-based politics.
As the author’s main objective is to construct a research agenda to examine the Kivu crisis further, the document does not give clear policy pointers. Clearly, the instability of national government has proved detrimental to solving the crisis. But on a local level, the report suggests that the following issues need to be addressed:
- Citizenship for the Kinyarwanda-speaking minority.
- Land distribution and ownership.
- The impact of the Rwandan genocide, notably the Hutu-Tutsi division and militarisation.
- Local civil-society peace initiatives such as the Goma-based Peace Campaign have created a fragile civic culture of consultation and persuasion that could be built upon.