The Thirty Years' War in Africa is reignited

The two countries faced each other directly in 1996 and 1998, while since 2012 they have allegedly done so indirectly through the Congolese rebels of the M23 (March 23 Movement), supported and sustained by Rwandan President Paul Kagame and the regular army of the DRC, led by Félix Tsisekedi. 

The fighting is taking place in the Kivu region, especially in the extensive area of its capital Goma, from which foreign residents, especially North Americans and British, are hastily leaving at the behest of their respective embassies.

Military confrontations intensified sharply after the failure of the mediation entrusted by the United Nations to Angola, and the cancellation last December of a direct meeting between the presidents of Rwanda and Congo. 

Since then, half a million people have fled the region, joining the seven million displaced persons and refugees in this area of the African Great Lakes, making the humanitarian crisis in this area the biggest in the world, even bigger than the one caused by the wars in the Middle East.

In this respect, if Turkey has emerged as an important player in the negotiations on the future of Syria after the overthrow of the Al-Assad regime, it now also aspires to be so in this worsening crisis in East Africa, offering its mediation after the failure of Angola. 

The origin of the dispute can be found in the Rwandan genocide itself, and especially in the fugitives from that massacre, who took refuge largely in the eastern part of what was then Zaire, ruled at the time with an iron fist by the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. 

In 1996, two years after the Rwandan massacre, Paul Kagame led the foreign support of Congolese rebel leader Laurent Kabila for the overthrow of Mobutu. 

Kagame then argued that his “sole purpose” was to pursue the Hutu leaders responsible for causing 800,000 deaths and an exodus of two million refugees to neighboring Congo. 

Hostilities continued after the fall of Mobutu, among other reasons because the immense country that is the Congo (2.3 million km2, with 11,000 kilometers of borders with no less than nine states) has always been subject to internal tensions between its numerous ethnic groups. 

At the same time, it has served as a sanctuary for rebel groups fighting against the powers that be in neighbouring countries. All of this, seasoned with the presence and influence of large foreign companies exploiting the immense wealth of the Congolese subsoil.

As a result, this country, probably the continent's richest in potential along with South Africa, has not yet been able to truly build its nation-state since the proclamation of its independence from Belgium in 1960. 

After the overthrow of Mobutu, the countries that had supported Laurent Kabila soon withdrew their backing, and even went on to support, arm and finance the numerous rebel groups fighting over entire regions of the Congo. 

Rwanda and Uganda even joined forces to lead a large-scale rebellion against Kabila. This was what became known as the African World War (1998-2003), formally concluded with the Pretoria Agreements. 

Since then, periodic outbreaks of violence have occurred with varying degrees of intensity, the tragedy of the refugees and displaced persons has only increased, and, in short, the struggles for the country's vast natural resources continue to intensify, in addition to other conflicts relating to land ownership, security sector reform and the ongoing ethnic-political conflict between Rwanda, Uganda and Congo. 

And, as if that were not enough, there are the regional and global tensions, with the corresponding influences of the United Kingdom and China, to which we must add that of the gigantic business and industrial corporations, which condition, when they do not directly dictate, the policies of the states involved. 

The continent, which is already subject to tension from jihadist terrorist groups in the north and center, has one of the most complex conflicts of its existence entrenched in its tropical heart, involving a multitude of actors and interests that make a permanent solution very difficult. 

On the contrary, the projection of the worsening of its tensions would have important geopolitical consequences, not only for all of Africa but also for the rest of the world, and especially for the neighboring European continent.