Abstract
Zimbabwe's military intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1998 and 2002 has not been analysed in detail. Scholars have either taken the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) regime at its word or been too distracted by Zimbabwe's domestic turmoil to cast a critical gaze on what must rank as one of Africa's most disastrous military interventions. This article addresses this lacuna by discussing three aspects of the intervention: Zimbabwe's motives; the military's performance in the Congo; and ZANU-PF's efforts to obscure the reality of the intervention from the Zimbabwean public. While Zimbabwe's motives were more nuanced than many scholars acknowledge, the military's performance in the conflict was an unmitigated failure borne of poor training and leadership, corruption, weak allies and poor strategic choices. At home the intervention wrought a generation of veterans infected with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), a bankrupt exchequer and a military thoroughly depleted by an unnecessary war.
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