4
WINNING A VIRTUAL WAR (SEPTEMBER 1996–MAY 1997)
Rwanda in Zaire: from refugee crisis to international war
Laurent-Désiré Kabila and the birth of the AFDL.
Shortly after the start of the concerted Banyamulenge-RPA attack on South Kivu a new Zairian rebel political movement was announced, the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaire (AFDL). The agreement creating this new movement was supposed to have been signed in Lemera in South Kivu1 on October 18, 1996. The signatories were the representatives of four hitherto little-known rebel groups: Deogratias Bugera (ADP),2 Laurent-Desire Kabila (Parti de la Révolution Populaire [PRP]), Anselme Masasu Nindaga (Mouvement Révolutionnaire pour la Libération du Zaïre), and André Kisase Ngandu (Conseil National de Resistance pour la Démocratie).3 Bugera was a North Kivu Tutsi who worked as an architect in Goma. Masasu Nindaga was a little known half-Mushi, half-Tutsi political activist from Bukavu.4 The first thing to notice about the makeup of this weak “alliance” is that the Banyamulenge who were to be the spearhead of the early military operations did not have any representative among the high command. This was later to cause serious problems when the Banyamulenge developed a sense of alienation from the rest of the AFDL, feeling that they were being used. Neither the ADP nor the Mouvement Révolutionnaire pour la Libération du Zaïre had any military forces, and both were largely paper organizations with very few militants. Kisase Ngandu was definitely more serious, both in military and in political terms. In fact he was the only one among the four who could boast a real fighting force (about four hundred men) and a network of sympathizers extending from Bunia to Goma. The fourth signatory, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, must be examined in more detail because he had been a minor but nevertheless definite player in the troubled days that followed the independence of the Congo.5
Laurent-Désiré Kabila was born in November 1939 in the small regional center of Jadotville (Likasi) in northeastern Katanga. He was a Muluba,6 and he soon became involved in intra-Baluba politics during the civil strife of the early 1960s. He followed the Baluba movement of Jason Sendwe in 1959 that battled the Confédération des Associations Tribales du Katanga (CONAKAT),7 although his own father was a CONAKAT sympathizer who was executed by fellow Baluba in November 1960. This seems to have been one of the factors that pushed the young Kabila away from tribal politics and toward the more generous abstract generalizations of Marxism-Leninism.8 Kabila joined the rebels of the Conseil National de Libération in Stanleyville in 1964 and was sent to the South Kivu–northeastern Katanga area.9 He later came back to Stanleyville, then in full anarchy, but had to leave in a hurry just as the Belgian paratroopers were about to land. The white mercenary forces operating at the service of Mobutu’s army soon joined them and unleashed a reign of terror. It was this rather inauspicious moment that the famous Latin American revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara picked to come to the rescue of the “African Revolution.”10 Guevara had left Cuba in April 1965, traveling to the eastern Congo by way of Prague, Cairo, Dares-Salaam, and Kigoma. The small band of Cuban revolutionaries was supported by Tanzania because Julius Nyerere hated Moise Tshombe, whom he considered to be a neocolonialist stooge.11 But Tanzanian logistics were amateurish at best and the military situation almost desperate. Kabila, who was supposed to be Guevara’s link with the Conseil National de Libération remnants abroad,12 hardly showed up at all. When he finally came to the combat zone he brought along crates of whisky and a retinue of sleazy mulatto women, eliciting icy comments from the rather puritanical Argentinean.13 Guevara nevertheless tried to make a go of it but was extremely disappointed both by the military capacities and by the level of political consciousness of his comrades-in-arms. When Tshombe was dismissed by Kasa Vubu in October 1965, Nyerere let the Cubans know that their presence in the Congo was not welcome anymore and Che had to withdraw.14
After creating the PRP Kabila for a time thought of continuing a classical guerrilla struggle against the Mobutu regime. Most of his fighters were Babembe and he had a few weapons. But as was usual with him, he remained more the politician than the military man; the guerrillas’ true field commander during the 1970s and 1980s was Calixte Mayawila. Nevertheless, in spite of spending more time in Dar-es-Salaam and in Europe than in hewa bora,15 Kabila remained in full political control of his front, to the point of developing a Mao-like personality cult around his distant image.16 In 1975 he kidnapped four zoologists working with the chimpanzee specialist Jane Goodall in Tanzania and only freed them against a $500,000 ransom. This was the start of a transformation in the guerrillas’ operations which progressively turned more and more toward a business venture: “Gradually the Zairian Army set up a commercial alliance with the PRP. Calling the area a ‘high security risk zone’ justified the demand for a huge amount of aid from Kinshasa so as to be able to fight the ‘outlaws.’ This situation was skilfully exploited by Kabila as the trade in gold and ivory from the PRP-controlled areas was increasingly directed at the Zairian Army officers. In the end the situation became quite ludicrous: the Army officers declared the zone to be extremely risky but no one really wanted to leave when appointed elsewhere.”17
Kabila even engaged in ordinary swindles, such as the time in 1978 when he sent his comrades crates of “weapons” from the coast with only two layers of Kalashnikovs on top and nails to fill the rest of the box.18 The “weapons” had been paid for in gold. In November 1984 and in June 1985 the PRP tried twice to attack Moba but was beaten back both times. Calixte Mayawila then not only surrendered to the FAZ but even led them against his former friends. Kabila gave up and moved to Tanzania for good, setting up several businesses in Dar-es-Salaam.19 Some of his commanders (Sylvestre Lwetsha, Willy Dunyia) stayed around the Fizi-Baraka area and kept a very low-intensity armed movement going. Kabila traveled around the region for his business. But he always laced his business with politics, just in case. He was right never to give up pretending because the pretence eventually paid off in real terms. In September 1996 he met the Ugandan journalist Adonya Ayebare in Kampala and told him that he was “drawing a new business plan.”20 This was quite true: he had just become the new local cover for the Rwandese attack on Zaire, in charge of making a foreign invasion look like a national rebellion.
Erik Kennes wrote, “It is still unclear how Kabila got ‘recycled’ into the 1996–1997 war” and suggested that it was Museveni who introduced him to Kagame as a once and future Congolese rebel. My own research shows a slightly different pattern. When Kagame made the decision to attack Zaire, probably sometime during the first half of 1996, both he and Museveni started to look for “suitable Congolese” to act as local cover and both started to push their choices. Bugera and Masasu Nindaga, being Tutsi, were Kagame’s choices. Kisase Ngandu, who had worked with the Ugandan External Service Organization for several years, was Kampala’s choice. Nyerere got worried about this division between the two allies, and because he very much wanted his long term anti-Mobutu plan to come to fruition he suggested Kabila as an added element to the future AFDL mix. This was both because Kabila was neutral between Museveni and Kagame and because he was under practically complete control of the Tanzanian secret services, which considered him harmless and easy to manipulate.21 In any case, he soon became, if not the real leader of the AFDL (his position was simply that of spokesman), at least its most visible personality.
The bogey of the multinational intervention force.
On October 11, 1996, Monsignor Munzihirwa publicly denounced “the repeated attacks of Rwanda on Eastern Zaire” and “Kigali’s lying discourse about the refugees.”22 The same day the U.S. NGO Refugee International called on the international community to “immediately act in concert to stop Zaire from executing ethnic cleansing” and to “assist the Banyamulenge displaced, most of whom will seek refuge in Rwanda.”23 The battle lines were drawn.
Given the importance of steadying the threatening situation in Burundi, the first target of the RPA-Bany
amulenge forces was the Burundian refugee camps. On October 17 they attacked several of those near Uvira, killing thirty-one and sending forty thousand into flight.24 By Saturday, October 19, there were over 100,000 refugees fleeing in all directions, and by Monday their numbers had reached 250,000. There were only three thousand assailants, but the refugees knew that the FAZ did not have any desire to fight for “foreigners” and that their own CNDD-FDD had limited military means. In the midst of such mayhem the U.S. State Department declaration that it would “support UNHCR’s efforts for a safe return of the refugees”25 sounded either like a weak bleating (if taken at the security level) or a warning that Washington was in fact strategically aware of what was going on. Then suddenly, on October 22, mysterious “armed men” attacked the Kibumba and Katale camps in North Kivu.26 By the 25th several of the camps had come under heavy artillery fire, both from mortars inside Zaire and from heavier guns firing from Rwandese territory. The United Nations began to worry, declaring in its regional bulletin, “The ultimate objective of the Banyamulenge is unclear as the conflict ostensibly began as an exercise in self-defence. The possibility of some kind of master plan linking attacks in North Kivu and the South Kivu conflict is hard to discount entirely.”27
Kigali’s foreign minister, Anastase Gasana, went on the air to declare, “The Zairian crisis is a purely internal affair and in no way involves Rwanda,”28 while somewhat contradictorily President Pasteur Bizimungu was asking for “a second Berlin Conference.”29 On October 28 Kinshasa appointed two DSP generals as governors of Goma and Bukavu. But it was too late. Bukavu was taken by storm on the 29th and Munzihirwa was killed in cold blood by some of the Banyamulenge attackers.30 On October 30 French President Chirac called for African leaders to meet and discuss the situation in Zaire.31 General Kagame immediately pooh-poohed the idea, but that night his forces started shelling Goma with long-range artillery firing from Rwandese territory. In New York the UN General Assembly seemed paralyzed because, as the AFP representative remarked, “There are enormous inhibitions among Council members due to a feeling of guilt towards Rwanda. Very few delegates are ready to criticise Kigali, at least openly.”32 Kigali knew it and took full advantage of the situation. On November 1 the RPA attacked Goma, both on land and from the lake,33 all the while denying that it was doing anything. Two days later Rwandese Radio declared, “The foreign media continue to implicate Rwanda in the eastern Zaire crisis… . But we must stress that the current conflict . . . involves Zairians fighting against Zairians.”34
Meanwhile, more refugee camps had come under intense attack; in the south the panic was general and the refugees were fleeing where they could, either northward up the lake’s western shore or westward toward Shabunda. The Banyamulenge had corralled thousands of Burundian refugees and were herding them toward the border, where the Burundian army was waiting for them. They were screened, and a number were shot immediately. The others were pushed farther east under army surveillance. At the same time some of the FDD guerrillas who had been cut off from their main body fought their way into Burundi, hoping to go clear across the country and come out on the other side, taking refuge in Tanzania. The sweep was fierce and little quarter was given. In the first three days of November the International Committee of the Red Cross buried more than four hundred dead in and around Goma, most of them women and children.35 The victims were a mixture of local inhabitants who had been killed by the retreating FAZ during bouts of looting and refugees who had been killed by the attacking mob of Mayi Mayi warriors, RPA regulars, and former Masisi refugee Tutsi militia.36 Two headlines from the French daily Le Monde sum up the political contradiction the French camp was in at the time: “France is ready to take part in a humanitarian intervention in Zaire” and “Kinshasa is in a near state of siege while politicians wait for President Mobutu as if for their savior.”37
The 115,000 refugees from Kahindo camp, 195,000 from Kibumba, and an unspecified number from among the 210,000 in Katale had taken refuge in the giant Mugunga camp after coming under heavy attack. By November 8 Mugunga had reached a total population of over 800,000.38 There was no certainty as to what the attackers, now in control of Goma, would do with Mugunga, where the last forces of the ex-FAR were swamped by civilian refugees. The U.S. government did not sound very keen to get involved, declaring, “We want to co-operate with our partners in solving the crisis in Eastern Zaire. But we must make sure that these plans are sound, logical and that they would work.”39 This was partly a result of the Somalia syndrome and also partly due to the fact that other segments of the U.S. government were physically supporting the operation without making that fact public. As the crisis unfolded it became obvious that decision making in Washington was taking place at several levels simultaneously and that they were not always in agreement with each other.40 But the general tone of the U.S. approach to the crisis was of support for the Kigali regime and its actions; U.S. Gen. George Joulwan, head of NATO, even described General Kagame as “a visionary.”41
After the taking of Bukavu, whose last defenders had been FDD Burundian guerrillas, the mixture of RPA and Congolese rebel troops pushed southward.42 They were soon joined by a group of about sixty African American mercenaries. According to English-speaking Zairians who had occasion to talk with them, they had been privately recruited in the United States and flown to Uganda, from where they had been taken by road to Kigali and later to Bukavu. The way their passage from the United States had been facilitated by Customs and police suggested undeniably that they were on some kind of unofficial government mission.43 They were soon battling the FDD at Mwenga and Kiliba.44
There was increasing international concern about the refugees because it was not clear whether they were caught in the middle of a battle or were themselves the target of that battle. There was ambiguity on both sides because, as Kisase Ngandu declared, “The Hutu are fighting for Mobutu. We cannot counter-attack because the refugees are in the way. Get them out of the way of our forces, that is all we want.”45 By “the Hutu” he obviously meant the ex-FAR, even if “the refugees” were of course also Hutu. And he added, “We will let the refugees return to Rwanda, what we want is to liberate Kinshasa.” The expression “humanitarian corridors” began to appear. Mobutu had accepted a “neutral” force proposed by Canada, and on November 7 State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns declared that the United States would provide “logistical support.” On the same day Amnesty International tried to bring a bit of clarity back into the debate by issuing a communiqué reminding everybody that people should not be moved against their will; “humanitarian corridors” should not become “one-way valves to funnel people back to the country they have fled”; and members of armed militias should not be considered refugees. It was increasingly obvious that the refugees had become political pawns. France and the pro-Mobutu West African francophone states pretended to back a multinational intervention force (MNF) to save the refugees; what they really wanted was to save Mobutu. On the opposite side the United States was dragging its feet on the MNF question (and Rwanda was openly opposing it) because it was increasingly collaborating in trying to bring Mobutu down, while not caring too much about what would happen to the refugees, or even, in the case of Rwanda, wanting them back under control, dead or alive.46 Similarly among foreign NGOs and political parties, pro-Hutu groups saw the refugees as innocent lambs about to be slaughtered, while the pro-Tutsi groups saw them as largely killers who were getting their comeuppance.47
On November 8 fighting started around Mugunga, and UN Secretary-General Boutros Ghali called for the rapid creation of a multinational intervention force, fearing the possibility of “genocide by starvation.”48 In spite of frantic diplomatic activity from Paris, negotiations were still bogged down. The British press made “the West” in general responsible for the delay,49 while the French press clearly accused the United States.50 President Mobutu had moved from Switzerland to his villa of Roquebrune-Cap Martin on the Riviera on November 4, leaving the Kinshasa p
olitical class in a state of expectant confusion. Prime Minister Léon Kengo wa Dondo had agreed to the multinational force, Information Minister Boguo Makeli had rejected it, the opposition parties UDPS and PDSC had refused to take a position but said that humanitarian aid should be distributed in Rwanda and Burundi, not in Zaire.
Meanwhile, in Kivu the AFDL was systematically trying to adopt the posture of a new government authority, Kabila declaring, “Mr Chrétien [Canadian Prime Minister] ignores me and this is a grave mistake because we are now the real power.”51 Nevertheless lucid observers such as Colette Braeckman could reasonably ask,
The four parties which together have created the AFDL never took part in the CNS democratic transition process. Instead they look rather like “leftover 1960s” guerrillas . . . who had even in the past collaborated economically with the Zairian Army. Are they now supposed to represent the core democratic opposition to the Mobutu regime?52
On November 11 the AFDL expelled the entire international press corps from Goma; the final big push against Mugunga was being prepared and it did not want foreign journalists to witness what promised to be messy. In a perfect display of diplomatic hypocrisy White House Spokesman Michael McCurry declared on November 12, “There is a real reluctance here to go headfirst into a situation we do not fully understand.” The next day President Clinton even said that yes, the United States would commit troops to a Zaire intervention force.53 But this was just playing for time while the Rwandese army was preparing for the final assault.
Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe Page 20