Congo endgame?

By Gamal Nkrumah
Finding a middle course in the Congolese crisis has proven extremely difficult in the past. The crisis almost takes the barbarous quality of a medieval religious war -- vicious attacks, vengeful reprisals and the inevitable social and economic ruin. The stakes are high and everyone wants a way out of the unpleasant mess. Unsurprisingly, the assassination of late Congolese President Laurent Kabila and the swearing-in of his son Joseph has sparked a flurry of diplomatic activity in Africa and abroad. The biggest media splash came when Congolese President Joseph Kabila met his Rwandan counterpart -- and his father's ally-turned-foe -- Paul Kagame at the annual "national prayer breakfast" in Washington last week.
The venue of the Kabila-Kagame meeting gave a hint of the direction events may take in the months to come. Both Kabila and Kagame insinuated that only Washington has the capacity to guarantee that a peace agreement can be made to hold. Kagame's overtures were conditional, however. The Rwandan leader wants Angolan, Namibian and Zimbabwean troops supporting Kabila to leave Congo before he withdraws his own troops from the country. Kagame also wants the ethnic Hutu militia Interahamwe, responsible for the 1994 massacre of ethnic Tutsi civilians in Rwanda, to be rounded up and brought to justice.
After the meeting, Kagame was cautiously optimistic but non-committal. He understands all too well that Kabila must placate his people. Reasserting Congolese national pride and territorial integrity makes good domestic Congolese politics. "What I've not understood fully yet is what formula [Kabila] wants to use to achieve [peace]," Kagame told the New York Times.
In any case, Kabila junior has already proven to be quite different from his father. Joseph Kabila's reserved and careworn demeanour sharply contrasts with the mischievous and carefree manner of his late father. The slain Kabila had no scruples when it came to tearing up agreements with foreign firms, cancelling a $1 billion contract signed with American Mineral Fields International (AMFI), based in former US President Bill Clinton's hometown of Hope Arkansas, and another with the Barrick Gold Corp, the world's second largest gold producer after South Africa's Anglo-American. AMFI invested heavily in mines and processing plants in Kolwezi and Kipushi, in Katanga -- Kabila's home province.
Could Laurent Kabila's penchant for stabbing his close associates in the back have cost him his life? The late president had no qualms about dishing out concessions to his friends, but he often abandoned them. In sharp contrast, the new Congolese president appears to share Kagame's businesslike, solemn disposition. In short, he is a man Westerners can do business with. But it is still unclear if Joseph Kabila shares Kagame's dogged determination as well.
What is clear is that Congo's unassuming president is preparing to embrace what the French term le capitalisme dur. It is hardly surprising, then, that his trip to Paris, Brussels, Washington and New York included many private sessions with top European and American businessmen. "Joseph Kabila meets the Masters of the World," jeered the Congolese opposition paper La Reférence.
Young Kabila is steeling himself for the challenge of a complex economic and political game. When asked in Washington about his father's string of alliances, including his association with Angola and Zimbabwe over which Congolese public opinion is divided, Kabila told America's National Public Radio (l) that peace is his top priority. More to the point, he pledged on NPR's NewsHour to deregulate the Congolese economy, sell off and privatise state-run companies, and introduce new liberal investment codes.
Ominously, Kabila had a long meeting with Maurice Tempelsman, head of the US-based Corporate Council on Africa, who has had a long history of dubious involvement in Congolese affairs, including arms and diamond dealing and the brutal assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the country's first prime minister and celebrated leader of the anti-colonial struggle. (In an ironic twist of fate, Kabila's murder on 17 January coincided with the 40th anniversary of Lumumba's assassination.)
Western powers, particularly the US, want to make sure the newly-installed President Kabila is going to stay the course. The $60 billion missile defence system that the Bush administration intends to establish will require rare minerals only found in commercial quantities in southern and eastern Congo. Western investors lustily eye the Congo's rich deposits of zinc, lead, tungsten, vanadium, germanium and uranium.
While the United States is more concerned with doing business with the new Congolese leader, France is still obsessed with discovering who killed his father. The French daily Le Monde published an article in which one of the alleged assassins confessed to hatching a plot code-named "Operation Mbongo Zero" -- in the Kiswahili language, Mbongo means buffalo, a discourteous reference to the late president's obesity. The alleged assassin, referred to as "Abdul", said that some 75 of the deceased president's bodyguards were also implicated in the plot, all of them hand-picked youngsters from the southern and eastern parts of the country. This is irrelevant to Washington, even if the US will have a big say in how the peace process in the Congo should proceed.
It is still not clear if Kabila will meet Kagame's conditions, especially those regarding the Interahamwe. "What is known clearly is that Kabila senior was supporting the Interahamwe with arms and training. We have information that these groups are still receiving arms and ammunition from the Congolese government," said Col Charles Kayongo, Rwandan presidential defence adviser. Kagame has called for the immediate resumption of peace talks among all of the various Congolese political factions, government and armed opposition.
But others suggest that the war will not soon be over. "One of the reasons for the war is the control of resources, especially the exclusive control of the diamond market," said Prof Ernest Wamba Dia Wamba, leader of the Congolese Rally for Democracy / Liberation Movement (RCD/ML), one of three armed opposition groups fighting the Congolese government.
"Mobutu has been removed, but Mobutu's politics... with plunder, corruption and dirty tricks and murder of political opponents continue, also in the rebel movements," Wamba explained. Economic inequalities, Wamba said, are at the root of the Congolese conflict.
Wamba complained of the extensive looting of natural resources by Congo's eastern neighbours. "In the case of Rwanda it is state policy. In the case of Uganda it is individuals," Wamba told the Danish publication Aktuelt.
Meanwhile, African leaders continue to attempt to end the crisis: There will be yet another meeting in Lusaka next week; former South African President Mandela visited Kinshasa for talks with Kabila on Monday; Angolan President dos Santos and his Zambian and Namibian counterparts met in Luanda last Saturday; and Namibian President Nujoma and Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo met last Friday in Abuja. Namibia has 2,000 troops in Congo and Nigeria has pledged to send peace-keepers there.
The confusing spectacle of outside players is matched by the panoply of domestic actors, including the Union for Democratic Social Progress (UDPS) led by Etienne Tshisekedi. Tshisekedi, who remained an opponent of Mobutu even after being named his prime minister, and who returned to formal opposition when Kabila came to power, believes that the Lusaka peace accord should be respected. "The UN must deploy peace-keeping troops to secure the country and then all foreign troops must withdraw. The [Lusaka] Accord provides a balance because it also paves the way for dialogue and, therefore, for democracy."
Democracy will not be easy for the new president, however. Joseph Kabila's biggest challenge is to convince the people to go along with him. Kabila, whose mother is an ethnic Tutsi of eastern Congo, is more acceptable to the Tutsi-run governments and armies of Congo's eastern neighbours than his late father. One of a new breed of pragmatic African leaders who use compromise to advance their interests, Kabila will need to combine a good dose of political dexterity with a keen sense of strategy.
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