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This guest author post is a Q&A with Christopher P. Davey, author of The Banyamulenge Soldier: Genocide between Congo and Rwanda. The book is now available in hardcover, paperback, and open access.

Q: Could you tell us a little bit about what inspired you to write a book focusing on the concept of genocide and Banyamulenge communities?

Before starting my PhD, I read the UN Mapping Report about violence across the Democratic Republic of Congo between 1993 and 2003. I noticed it described Banyamulenge, and other Congolese Tutsi, as both perpetrators and victims. This characterization came without a thorough explanation which was then repeated in other writings about Congo. Coming from a background in genocide studies, I set out to find an explanation for mixing the labels. I wanted to do this by talking to communities themselves both in Congo, across the region, and here in the U.S. It was clear from what I read that genocide was central to the Hutu and Tutsi experience across Congo and Rwanda. Banyamulenge Congolese Tutsi were at the center of these episodes, as acclaimed saviors in Rwanda and then perpetrators in Congo, as well as protectors of their own communities. However, I wanted to get beyond the simple notions of victim and perpetrator in complex cases like this, to understand how people saw these experiences of violence that are still ongoing today.

Q: You interviewed a number of people for the book. Are there any stories that particularly stood out to you?

I interviewed dozens of survivors, soldiers, refugees, and some people who could be identified under all three categories as part of this complicated set of connections between victimhood and perpetration. Rugira was the first soldier I spoke with when I started this work. He was still living in Congo when we spoke and was serving as an officer in the Congolese military, known for its hostility toward Banyamulenge communities. Rugira’s journey has been a long one. First recruited by the Rwandan Patriotic Front out of Congo as a teenager in the 1990s, he went on to participate in almost every major conflict in the region since 1990. His story stood out not only for his depth of experience in this conflict, but for the precarious place he still held in Congo: a relatively privileged officer perceived as a foreigner in his own country. He saw his former Rwandan comrades as an equal threat to his safety and the stability of Congo. Truly, Rugira, like many, was caught between both places, and a wide set of genocidal experiences.

Diane was in her early twenties when we met in the U.S. She is the daughter of a former Banyamulenge soldier, and now resettled across the ocean from her home in Congo. Her most formative childhood memory was that of being caught in a massacre of her community in a refugee camp across the border in Burundi. Under the cover of night, Congolese and Burundian rebels attacked the refugee camp and killed over one hundred Banyamulenge in an act of anti-Tutsi violence. Diane continues to carry the trauma of that event and the loss of family members. She, however, is part of a community organization that seeks meaning and repair in dealing with the past. I witnessed Diane and many of her peers in successive memorial meetings mourning loss, celebrating life, and building a future, wrestling with the problems of peace, conflict and what justice means to the community.

Q: What was the process of interviewing like?

Interviews for this research were a challenge on multiple fronts. Doing field work in Congo and across the region can be perilous, but uplifting. Through several trips to the region I built a network of contacts and conducted interviews with community member support. I attended church services, funerals, weddings, memorials, and hid in quiet bars and sat in on lake fronts with interviewees. My interviews took time in building trust and understanding what people wanted to tell me, more so at times than what I wanted to ask them. The Western notion of researcher neutrality was slowly chipped away as I became aware of the impacts of my research and engagement with Banyamulenge communities. I assessed my own privilege and found ways to support efforts for seeking justice and peace. I developed a fieldwork praxis that became increasingly community-focused but still got into critical conversations about uses of violence and how each of us build peace and shape conflicts. Collaborating with Banyamulenge and other Congolese researchers has been an educational result of this process.

Q: Why was it so important to you to feature quotes and personal stories throughout the book?

One of the main ideas in the book is that the stories we tell about ourselves shape who we are. I found this no less the case for Banyamulenge communities across the region and in the U.S. From a methods perspective I used narrative analysis and ethnography to find, understand, and figure out how I should be retelling these stories. This has meant being able to retell these stories from the places where people are living with trauma and their lives during an ongoing conflict, whether in Congo, across the region, or in the U.S. While my voice interprets these stories in the book, I quoted soldiers, and other community members at length to ensure their voices resonated, as they invariably challenged my perspectives, called for justice, self-defense, and peace. This was especially important as many soldiers had engaged in acts of perpetration of mass violence and were also victims of it too. The articulation of these overlapping experiences needed to be heard side by side.

Q: What do you hope readers will take away from The Banyamulenge Soldier?

I hope readers will want to learn more about Congo, and the genocides that make up other national stories and colonial legacies! I want readers to see the challenges in Congo today as interwoven with Rwanda, and relevant to our lives as we leverage precious minerals from Congo for new technologies. Most pressingly in the turbulent times we live, I wish for readers to consider how communities under threat of destruction navigate such inter-generational challenges. Finally, I want readers to see the agency held by Congolese to shape their own futures.