The Congo Wars
* In the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide, over one million refugees destabilized the already weak, chaotic, and desperately poor nation of the Congo. Some of the refugees actually carried out the Rwandan genocide and were fugitives fleeing punishment.
* The chaos overthrew the government of longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Eventually the First and Second Congo Wars involved nine African nations, Angola, Burundi, Chad, Congo, Libya, Namibia, Rwanda, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Some intervened for their own political or economic advantage, others seeking to end the violence. There are also over twenty different rebel groups and militias.
* The wars caused three to six million deaths. The lower estimates do admit that five to six million deaths happened, but claim that such deaths would be “normal and expected” in such an extremely poor nation as Congo.
* Why wasn't it included? There are some human rights or activist groups that describe the Congo Wars as genocide. But most observers, from the UN to the US State Department to most human rights groups and activists to most journalists, do not. Most genocides are fairly straight forward. Government A or Group A kills Group B based on hatred of B's ethnicity, religion, or nationality. But the Congo Wars involved seven nations all seeking their own advantage. Within the Congo itself there were also the government, the Rwandan genocidists, and rebel groups from several different tribes. There was no one clear group to blame.
* The Congo Wars were enormously destructive, with huge loss of life. There is no evidence that any of the nine nations of multiple groups fighting for the control of the government and the nation of Congo were out to exterminate any one ethnic group. There were massacres and atrocities, but no systematic genocide. Instead there was the depressingly typical violence against civilians of many wars.
* So why weren't the Congo Wars included under Deaths by Incompetence? Because many officials in governments did make an effort to end the violence. Many used all diplomatic means at their disposal, pressure, consultations, offers of peacekeepers and humanitarian aid, efforts to cut off weapons shipments. Could more have been done? Likely, yes. Especially in the aftermath of September 11 and the US being caught up in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, much of the US's attention was devoted to there. As covered elsewhere, while the decision to invade Afghanistan was perhaps justifiable (and not all agree it was) only the most ideologically blind could agree the unprovoked war on Iraq was right or necessary.
* Was this lack of greater focus on Congo due to racism? Clearly not. GW Bush was an utterly incompetent president, but he never was and is not a racist, as his record shows. Secretaries of State Colin Powell and then Condeleeza Rice (both Black) did what they could for the Congo. Bush's successor Obama is Black, as is one of Obama's advisers, Susan Rice. There are no credible claims of racism for any of the senior advisers under either GW Bush or Obama. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the UN, is also Black, and the majority of UN members states are predominantly nonwhite countries, a large number of them African.
* The Congo Wars were extremely destructive wars much like World War I in that every major power and nation involved failed to anticipate them and then was unable or unwilling to stop them once under way.