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On 16 January 2001, president Laurent-Désiré Kabila of the Democratic Republic of
Congo was assassinated by one of his bodyguards. Was it just the action of one
individual taking revenge? Or was it another step in the Central African power
game, in which DR Congo is, more than ever, the keystone in the first African World
War? Jan Van Criekinge reports.
Congo after Kabila: who holds the power?
Jan Van Criekinge
Since October 1996, the war, in what was then still called Zaire under the
dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko, was not just a regional conflict, neither an
ethnic struggle. From the beginning of the uprising of the loose AFDL coalition,
led by the unknown Laurent-Désiré Kabila, a veteran rebel fighter and gold
smuggler from the days of the struggle after independence from Belgium in the early
sixties, the real power behind it came from Rwanda and Uganda.
In the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the political power balance in the
Great Lakes Region changed dramatically. General Paul Kagame, the strongman of
the new Patriotic Front regime in Rwanda after the genocide, and his supporter from
the very beginning, the ambitious Ugandese president Yoweri Museveni, wanted to
get rid off the weakened regime of Mobutu in Zaire. At that time Kagame depended
upon credibility and financial aid from the Western powers who felt guilty for
failing to prevent the killing of nearly 700,000 people in Rwanda.
A new military campaign
Millions of Rwandan refugees found a place to hide in the refugee camps near the
Rwandan and Ugandan border in the Kivu provinces. Among these refugees were
also armed people belonging to the so-called Interhamwe militias, who were
responsible for committing the 1994 genocide. The Mobutu regime was unable, or
did not want to, disarm these militias who remain a threat for the population in the
border region. For Kagame this security problem was the ideal motive to start a
new military campaign into his large, but completely weakened, neighbouring
country.
Kabila was the perfect man to do this dirty job. Finally, after his long march
through the tropical rainforests, in which he made massive use of child soldiers (so
called kadogos) and accessed Angolese military logistics, Kabila was able to take
power in Kinshasa on 17 May 1997 without much resistance from the collapsing
Zairean armed forces once Mobutu fled to Morocco. The removal of the Mobutu
government brought heightened expectations of a change in the politics of the whole
region of Central and Southern Africa. But very soon it became clear that one
dictatorship had been replaced by another, though the rhetoric was now much more
revolutionary.
A sinister security policy
Kabila could only stay in power with the military support of his Rwandan and
Ugandan masters who had used him as an instrument in their sinister security
policy. Relations soon deteriorated with the very active Congolese civil society, who
always had struggled against dictatorship in a nonviolent way. Kabila would only
accept military-based autocratic structures for his new republic, now called
Democratic Republic of Congo. Any hope for democratisation was completely
absent, as even political parties were outlawed, a military justice system introduced,
and freedom of speech limited.
The outbreak of the new war in the Eastern Congolese provinces in August 1998 was
the result Kabila was able to show his masters in Kigali and Kampala. The friction
between Kagame and Kabila were played out in open war. As the Rwandese elite
troops were in the capital Kinshasa the Kabila regime was only saved from
disappearing thanks to the involvement of other African states. First of all the
Angolan president José Eduardo Dos Santos sent his elite troops into Congo to fight
on the side of Kabila, followed by a similar solidarity action by Namibias Sam
Nujoma. Also the Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, facing a growing crisis in
his own country, was supporting Kabila with more than 12,000 soldiers and Russian
MIG planes. Many foreign soldiers were killed in action in the Congolese bush
fighting against different armed rebel groups who were supported by Uganda and
Rwanda. The legacy of militarism engulfed the whole region. Consequently, there is
now a cruel war in Central Africa involving more than seven African governments
and affecting more than 60 million people.
The Lusaka Protocol
International press reports referred to this warfare as Africas First World War. The
impact of the war included greater instability, millions of refugees and internally
displaced persons, and the plunder of minerals and other raw materials. The day-to-
day opposition to warfare and demands from the ordinary people for peace lead to
the signing of the Lusaka Protocol in the Zambian capital, by all parties involved, in
July 1999. This should have laid the framework for a cease-fire between the armies of
Congo, Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe on the one hand, and on the other the
governments of Rwanda, Uganda and the three main liberation movements, the
RCD-Goma, the RCD-ML and the MLC. Following this elaborate protocol, a Security
Council Resolution decreed that the United Nations would deploy a peacekeeping
force in DR Congo to ensure the implementation of the Lusaka agreement and to
track down all the armed groups. Not one party ever took the first step in
implementing the Lusaka agreement. Perhaps because so many could profit from the
ongoing war and the plunder of Congos wealth.
Once the agreement was signed, the armed parties involved, as well as the unarmed
opposition, were supposed to enter into an open dialogue about the future of the
Central African nation. But it was Kabilas firm resistance to dialogue that made him
and his small circle of loyal Katangese friends an obstacle in the way to peace. Even
his good Angolan friend Dos Santos was secretly seeking contact with the rebels and
with Uganda. Internationally the Kabila regime was completely isolated. Only
relations with Cuba, Libya, China and North Korea remained good.
When will peace come?
Was it the powerful king maker of Central Africa, the Angolan president, who was
behind the assassination of Mzee (the Old One) Kabila? Or some of Mzees
enemies from the East? And what roles were played behind the scenes in
Washington, Paris and Brussels, the old colonial and neo-colonial masters? Many
questions remain, but it is very remarkable that LD Kabilas son, Joseph Kabila (29),
had only been in power as the new Congolese president a few days before he
travelled to Washington, Paris and Brussels. For the great majority of the Congolese
people the only important thing is: when will we be at peace again?
Jan Van Criekinge is Co-convenor of the WRIs Africa Working Group (email
jan.vancriekinge@compaqnet.be).
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