Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 16 - 22 November 2000 Issue No.508
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Hope eternally on hold

By Gamal Nkrumah

Will the Democratic Republic of Congo ever break free from the cycle of violence and wanton destruction? Congo's collapse into chaos ensued three years ago with the fatal illness of former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Now the Congo is at a major crossroads, and in a gesture that would seem to symbolise that fact, the deceased dictator's son, Nzanga Mobutu, returned to his fatherland last week as special guest of the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD). Officially, Mobutu is in the DRC to "see the situation on the ground first-hand." He declined to specify whether or not he will join the RCD.

Fighters in Congo change sides frequently, especially when they get their hands on the lucrative Congolese diamond fields.

"Kabila has launched a major offensive on all our positions in Katanga, Kasai and Equateur provinces," said Jean-Pierre Ondekane, commander of RCD, earlier this month. The worsening military situation has left the rebels in a precarious position. This does not mean the rebels are a spent force, and are threatening wild retaliation? Both sides have committed grave atrocities. Roberto Garreton, the independent UN special human rights investigator for Congo, has charged the Congolese government with "brutally and systematically" torturing prisoners and outlawing any freedom of expression or political association. Garreton meanwhile accused the RCD of inflicting "great damage" on the civilian population by massacring large numbers of civilians and instituting a reign of terror in the eastern part of the country. "The war has destroyed the country," Garreton concluded. "More than half the population has been affected by it. All public money are being diverted into the war effort."

The Congo has in a sense come full circle. The RCD took up arms in 1998 to oust Congolese President Laurant Kabila after the ethnic Tutsi-dominated army of neighbouring Rwanda led a seven-month war that overthrew the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seku. They catapulted Kabila into power in May 1997, but then fell out with him. Neighbouring Uganda soon joined the fray, first aligning themselves with the Rwandans, then turning against the Rwandans for control of the eastern city of Kisangani, Congo's third largest. Ferocious RCD infighting delayed the signing of a peace accord concluded last year in the Zambian capital Lusaka, which was approved by the rival opposition Congo Liberation Movement (MLC).

Armed political groups have mushroomed all over the Congo, ostensibly to usher in a new political order. As a result, the country still faces profound social, political and economic difficulties. Per capita income growth has plummeted to minus five per cent; the debt owed per person now stands at $268. Public health spending, a annual $1.6 per person, is the lowest in Africa.

Against this grim backdrop, the leaders of the Congolese opposition forces failed to come to an agreement and have split into two factions -- one supported by Uganda, the other by Rwanda. Meetings between Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his Rwandan counterpart President Paul Kagame repeatedly failed to heal the political rift, but at least the meetings have silenced the guns.

In fact, the leaders of the Congolese armed opposition seem to be driven more by personal ambition and frustration than a serious plan for reconstruction. No ideological differences divides them. Kabila was quick to introduce the tribal factor into the Congolese civil war, insisting that the real motive of the Rwandan Tutsi troops was to "colonise" the Congo and exploit its vast mineral wealth. Tensions in the eastern half of Congo, which has a similar ethnic mix to that which exists in Rwanda, Burundi and southern Uganda, came to boiling point when remnants of the ethnic Hutu-dominated army that carried out the Rwandan 1994 genocide of ethnic Tutsi roamed the countryside, instituting a reign of terror and destruction. The pro-Kabila Mayi Mayi militia is composed in the main of former Rwandan Hutu troops who fled their country after the current Tutsi-led army overran Rwanda and toppled the government responsible for the 1994 genocide. The Mayi Mayi has also been infiltrated by allied Hutu militias from Burundi.

In Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, leaders from the ethnic Tutsi minority and inter-related tribal groups wield power and control the three countries' respective military establishments. Kabila says that the leaders of these three countries would like to see a similar political set-up instituted in the DRC. In desperation, Kabila requested help from his friends and political allies in Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe and their armies have successfully staved off the dreaded "Tutsi take-over" that Kabila so feared.

Intensified fighting has escalated, despite the peace agreement signed in Lusaka last year. Kabila has refused to authorise the deployment of a 5,500-strong United Nations force that was supposed to help maintain a ceasefire and oversee the withdrawal of troops from neighbouring African countries embroiled in the Congolese conflict.

Moreover, Kabila displays what his detractors describe as an annoying defensiveness in his attitudes to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Kabila rejects Ketumile Masire the former Botswana president as organiser of all party talks on the future of Congo. And for once the OAU is squarely backing its man. Kabila's opposition to Masire is in turn denounced and rejected by the OAU and Southern African Development Community (SADC) which groups South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and other key players in Congolese affairs.

Many of the DRC's neighbours feel that Kabila's defiance cannot continue. Last Wednesday, the leaders of nine African nations with vital interests in political developments in the DRC met in the Libyan capital Tripoli for a two-day summit. The African leaders participating in the Tripoli summit decided to establish an African peacekeeping force in the DRC. Participants asked Libyan leader Muamar Gaddhafi to arrange the assembly of the African peacekeeping force. Gaddhafi had a boost when several African potentates and power-brokers from the region who weild tremendous influence in Congo backed his plan. Among them are some of the erstwhile African Great Lakes foes of Kabila. Leaders of the African countries involved in Congolese conflict pledged to withdraw their troops to cease-fire positions they had held at the time of the Lusaka peace accord. The troops would then withdraw an additional 15 km behind those positions.

The Tripoli summit is not the first, and neither will be the last, on the Congolese crisis. On 15 October, South African President Thabo Mbeki chaired a presidential summit in Mozambique to try an salvage a peace deal in the Congo to revive the Lusaka peace process. The meeting brought together the leaders of Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Congo, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique. Mbeki, like Gaddhafi, to get the main players to agree to move the peace process forward. The Libyan and South African strategy revolves around getting RCD backers and Kabila's African allies to commit themselves to some kind of agreement that would facilitate the implementation of the Lusaka peace accords.

The African leaders left the Tripoli summit in high spirits.

"This agreement will restore peace and stability to the great Lakes region," said Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni after the summit. Yet behind the flattering diplomatic niceties lies a mood of profound disappointment. The African peacekeeping force's priority will be to disarm Hutu militias in eastern Congo "who committed grisly crimes in their country and then fled to Congo," Museveni explained.

The bruised and battered civilians of Congo, who have endured a singularly brutal civil war, deserve a break. Security and political risks remain the most important consideration for foreign investors in Africa, far outweighing incentives such as cheap labour, tax breaks, economic deregulation and privatisation. Wars are the most serious impediment to attracting large inflows of foreign capital into Africa today. Western observers in particular remain sceptical about the outcome of the Tripoli summit. "There is no determination by [the warring] sides to bring peace," warned Aldo Ajelli, the European Union envoy to Congo.

The Congolese protagonists are not short of such admonition. It remains to be seen whether they will heed it.

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