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HRW World Report 2001: The Democratic Republic of Congo | FREE Join the HRW Mailing List |
Background to the Hema-Lendu Conflict in Uganda-Controlled Congo Human Rights Watch, January 2001 |
During this period leaders of the RCD-ML, locked in a struggle for power, have been in Kampala at the request of Ugandan authorities, trying to settle their differences. The Congolese politicians failed to come to an agreement until last week when the RCD-ML factions supposedly reconciled and agreed also to combine with the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) into a new front against the Congolese government. Jean-Pierre Bemba of the MLC was supposedly to head the new group, the Congo Liberation Front (FLC). But Professor Wamba dia Wamba, head of the RCD-ML, balked at this agreement which he said was "imposed" by Uganda. In Bunia, Wamba and his group are seen as more allied to Lendu and other groups opposed to the Hema. The other RCD-ML faction reportedly celebrated the merger, seeing it as confirming the status of their leaders, one of whom is a prominent Hema. In a January 19 statement, Bemba blamed "undisciplined" rebels supporting the Lendu for the violence. He asserted that his troops, presumably meaning the RCD-ML forces supposedly now under his authority, would soon restore order. Suliman Baldo, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch who returned from the region last month, warned of the gravity of the situation in Bunia. "What makes these attacks so dangerous," said Baldo, "is the way the two groups are now identifying with the Hutu-Tutsi categories that figured in the Rwandan genocide. The Lendu are now thinking of themselves as kin to the Hutu, while the Hema are identifying with the Tutsi. The two groups have competed for control of the land for a long time, but these identifications and the connection they have to genocide threaten to transform the struggle into something far more devastating." The Lendu, who number some 700,000 in the area, live primarily from their crops while the Hema, about 150,000 people, rely on both cattle raising and cultivation for their livelihood. The two ethnic groups share a similar language and have regularly practiced interethnic-marriage. Human Rights Watch called upon both the United Nations and donor countries with influence in Kampala to do everything possible to persuade President Museveni to restore discipline among his troops and to assure accountability for any killings and other abuses against civilians in northeastern Congo.
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