to the presence of RPF troops in North Kivu, could not have been clearer: much of the area included in eastern Congo was part and parcel of the precolonial kingdom.
By all accounts, however, Bizimungu's claims simply do not stand up to the historical record. This observation, however, is not to deny that raids were conducted by Rwabugiri in North Kivu, but it is patently at odds with the facts to claim that such raids were instrumental in cementing the political control of the monarchy. Even where tributary relationships were temporarily established with local authorities, the writ of the Rwanda monarchy was precarious at best.43 Nor did the presence of Kinyarwanda speakers in eastern Congo, “Hutu and Tutsi,” mean that they came under the effective control of the monarchy; in many instances, it meant precisely the opposite. The point is convincingly argued by David Newbury. The Kinyarwanda speakers, he argues, were “refugees, fleeing the expansion of the Nyiginya dynastic state at a time of intense competition among diverse political units in Rwanda. Thus, rather than being subjects of the royal court, these migrants were its opponents; their presence in Itombwe (South Kivu), in fact, represented the lack of state power in that region, not its presence.”44 Precolonial boundaries were anything but fixed. Even within Rwanda, relations between the Rwanda court and the Hutu communities in the north and the west were remarkably fluid. Many such communities remained virtually independent until brought into the fold of the monarchy by colonial troops. So far from restricting the scope of authority of the ruling dynasty, colonial rule had the opposite effect within Rwanda. As David Newbury points out, “The effect of European boundary agreements was to expand, not contract, the reach of the Rwanda state; in fact, with the help of European power, Nyiginya dynastic structures were extended to many areas that formerly had successfully resisted Rwandan expansion.”45 The historical evidence, in short, lends little credibility to Bizimungu's claims. They are entirely consistent, however, with the Rwanda government's definition of its security interests in eastern Congo. Though at odds with historical facts, the president's illusions had a clear political objective. Bizimungu was not satisfied with maintaining a military presence in eastern Congo to ward off the threats of crossborder raids. He felt that the military presence also had to be legitimized by history. Only by restoring the territorial integrity of precolonial Rwanda could the sovereignty of the new Rwanda be fully established.
MYTH #4: THE BANYAMULENGE: ETHNOGENESIS AS MYTHMAKING
The Banyamulenge are not pure invention. The term initially referred to “the people of Mulenge.” These were a small group of predominantly Tutsi pastoralists whose traditional habitat was in Mulenge, a locality situated on the high-lying Itombwe plateau, south of Uvira (South Kivu).46 The ancestors of the people of Mulenge were renegades from Rwanda. Having fallen foul of the ruling Niginya dynasty, they moved to the Itombwe area in the late nineteenth century. Others followed in search of greener pastures, some from Rwanda, others from Burundi.
Although they formed a culturally and linguistically distinct community, their name never appears in colonial records. Their political significance became apparent in the years following the independence of the Congo, when they found themselves embroiled in the so-called Muleliste rebellion of 1964 to 1965 in eastern Congo. Unlike many Tutsi who had fled Rwanda during the revolution of 1959, the Banyamulenge, upon realizing that their cattle was being slaughtered to feed the rebel army, refused to cast their lot with the Mulelistes. Instead, they joined the ranks of the National Congolese Army (NCA), a fact that further contributed to distinguish them as a separate community.
The “myth” of the Banyamulenge has two sides, both at odds with the historical record and both intended to serve a specific political objective. To begin with, there is what might be called the “foreigner in native clothes” version. For many “native” Congolese, the Banyamulenge are indeed Rwandan Tutsi in disguise. Their precolonial roots are vehemently denied, and so also are their claims to citizenship rights. They are seen as the Trojan horse of the Rwanda regime. Rwanda is where they belong.
The opposite version aims at reinforcing the claims of “indigeneity” of all Tutsi residing in North and South Kivu. From a small, highly localized Banyamulenge community, numbering no more than fifty thousand people, the term has come to designate perhaps as many as 130,000 ethnic Tutsi, irrespective of their place of residence or historical roots. Lumped together under the same ethnic rubric are those Tutsi who lived in North and South Kivu long before the advent of colonial rule, those who migrated to the area during the colonial period, and the tens of thousands of refugees who crossed into eastern Congo in the early 1960s during and immediately after the Rwanda revolution. There are no parallels in the continent for such an instant and extensive ethnogenesis.
Although this chapter is hardly the place for a detailed discussion of the singularly tragic history of the Banyamulenge, their tale is a notable one of hopes betrayed, alliances undone, and vicious factional struggles. Suffice it to say that their initially very close relationship with Kagame's Rwanda was predicated on the assumption that Rwanda would in time offer protection against the mounting threats to their security posed by self-styled “native” Congolese. Rwanda, in turn, quickly grasped the strategic advantage to be gained from this pool of potential allies. There is little question that the Banyamulenge played a significant auxiliary role during the destruction of the Hutu refugee camps in North and South Kivu in November 1996. This operation was conducted with extreme brutality by units of the RPA, assisted by hundreds if not thousands of ethnic Tutsi from eastern Congo, those very elements who today call themselves Banyamulenge. The high point in the convergence of interests between the Rwandans and the Banyamulenge came in 1998, with the creation in Kigali of the RCD. Despite or because of its subservience to Rwanda, many leading Banyamulenge joined the movement. The RCD, however, has been wracked by intramural disputes, the most serious being the dissidence of a large number of Banyamulenge troops in early 2002, led by a certain Musunzu. Only after a bloody repression by units of the Rwandan army was the rebellion finally quelled. But this has only reinforced the conviction of a growing number of Banyamulenge that they have been “instrumentalized”—their standard phrase—by Rwanda. As peace talks loom on the horizon, a growing number of Banyamulenge are trying to distance themselves from their former Rwandan patron, if only to evade the retribution that could be forthcoming if and when the Rwandan army withdraws from eastern Congo.
Partnerships dissolve, yet the myth persists. For most Banyamulenge, the label validates their claims to being authentically Congolese, and it refutes accusations that they might have acted as Rwanda's “fifth column” in the Congo. By the same token, the term settles once and for all the nationality question: an issue that during the Mobutu years lay at the heart of Tutsi grievances against Kinshasa. No longer is citizenship conditioned by length of residence. All Tutsi are now Banyamulenge and hence authentic Congolese citizens.
Is this a case of political tribalism, as John Lonsdale would put it, “flowing down from high-political intrigue”? Or is it an example of “moral ethnicity creating communities from within through domestic controversy over civic virtue”? It is possibly both. In North and South Kivu, as elsewhere in the region, history's myths are in violent conflict with history's realities. Adjusting one to the other is what much of the violence in the Great Lakes is all about.
Conclusion
Reflecting on the fortunes of the Hamitic hypothesis, Edith Sanders noted thirty years ago: “The word [Hamitic] still exists, endowed with a mystical meaning; it endures through time and history, and like a chameleon changes its color to reflect the changing light. As the word became flesh it engendered many problems of scholarship.”47 How one wishes the problems had remained restricted to the field of scholarship!
Amid all the bloodshed caused by the extension of civil war to the whole of the Congo, the myth has proven remarkably resilient. Bantu and Hamitic identities have now crystallized on a wider scale than ever before. The language used on all sides is clearly inspired by racist stereotypes. Hundreds, possibly thousands of ethnic Tutsi or Tutsi-looking Africans are reported to have been massacred in Kinshasa and other localities in the name of a threatened Bantu identity.
