Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe

by Gerard Prunier

  The situation of the Banyamulenge, still holed up above Uvira on their bastion of the Itombwe plateau, was unusual, to say the least. Used as proxies by the RPF regime since 1996, they had grown progressively disenchanted with their Tutsi cousins from Rwanda. The February 1998 mutiny14 was the first sign of their growing estrangement from Kigali. Things did not improve as the various rebel factions kept splitting into ever smaller segments, since there were Banyamulenge fighters in all of them and they progressively ended up fighting each other. In late 1999 the Munyamulenge leader Müller Ruhimbika created the Forces Républicaines Fédéralistes to defend Banyamulenge interests without being manipulated by Kigali.15 This was not an easy task because individual Banyamulenge continued to do things that did not endear them to their autochthon fellow countrymen.16 But then, how could they trust their neighbors? In mid-July 2000 a gaggle of CNDD Burundian guerrillas operating together with Padiri’s Mayi Mayi had climbed up the Itombwe plateau and indiscriminately attacked everybody, killing twenty-two, wounding forty, and burning three hundred houses.17 Between the Mayi Mayi rock and the hard place of Kigali’s RCD “protection,” the Banyamulenge felt that they were caught in a double bind. The Forces Républicaines Fédéralistes literature reflects a constant anguish, which did not get much of a sympathetic hearing locally.

  Westwards: the river wars

  While the eastern witch’s cauldron kept simmering, the more organized fronts (the MLC in the northwest and the RCD-G in the center, with their respective Ugandan and Rwandese allies) went into a short recess after Lusaka, just long enough for the actors to test the international diplomatic waters. They soon found them to be conveniently lukewarm, since a combination of Kabila’s obduracy and Western toleration for the rebels and their friends made a UN military deployment rather unlikely in the short run. For the rebels the main opportunity was provided by the central front. In fact, given the nature of the terrain and the importance of the waterways as means of communication,18 both the MLC and the RCD-G were engaged in a river race for the capital, Bemba on the Ubangi and the Rwandese along the Tshuapa. Seen from Kinshasa, the central front seemed to be the major threat, especially as the Rwando-RCD forces had managed to trap over three thousand FAC, Zimbabwean, and Namibian soldiers at Ikela Airport. Mugabe was furious and wanted to relieve his men. So in late November the FAC and Zimbabwean Defense Forces mounted a major offensive from Boende, eventually taking Bokungu after a heavy battle. The fighting then moved upstream toward Ikela, with the government forces managing to approach the town but not to reconquer it, in spite of using combat helicopters and river-borne heavy artillery. They eventually struck a bargain with the Rwandese, who allowed the besieged airport garrison to be airlifted out.

  Meanwhile Kinshasa engaged in a series of poorly prepared offensives on the northern front around Imese, Libanda, and Lisala. They lost at least 300 killed and 255 taken as prisoners, which Bemba immediately paraded in front of the foreign press as proof of Kabila’s duplicity.19 Then he went on to build on his first success: within days UPDF reinforcements, American mercenaries, and MLC troops, over three thousand men in all, poured through Libenge and moved on from there to take Dongo. Bemba kept pushing and probing, attacking Likwelo in February. The MLC was recruiting heavily in the Central African Republic, which caused Kinshasa to complain.20 At a meeting in Victoria Falls on April 21 all the parties to the war very seriously “reaffirmed their commitment to a cease-fire and the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the DRC.”21 Then they went on with the fighting.

  The pressure could be felt in the capital. In late April President Kabila began to regain some breathing space when the North Koreans commissioned the new elite 6th Brigade of fifteen thousand men they had just finished training.22 He immediately set upon preparing a large offensive in Equateur. On the other side Bemba was getting a lot of UNITA artillery that the Angolan movement had evacuated after the fall of Andulo and Bailundo to MPLA troops a few months earlier. Since fighting had broken out again in Kisangani between Rwandese and Ugandan “allies” in May, Kabila felt that the time was now favorable, and a large contingent of troops started sailing upstream. Congolese gunboats seized any river traffic they found, even if the boats carried the Brazzaville or Central African Republic flag, and fuel was soon in short supply in Bangui while river commerce became paralyzed. Prudently, Central African Republic President Félix-Ange Patassé declared, “Kabila is my brother but Bemba is my son.”23

  To buy time Kabila claimed that he was acting in self-defense in Equateur and that the MLC should withdraw to its July 10, 1999, positions.24 Then, a week later, his forces went on the offensive, hoping to take Libenge and roll back the MLC, perhaps as far as Gbadolite. Six thousand refugees crossed into the Republic of Congo while the government troops pushed upstream, retaking Dongo and Imese at the end of the month. But the MLC and UPDF forces had deliberately withdrawn to Libenge to prepare a counterattack, and they sprang the trap on August 8: the heavy barges lumbering upriver were attacked with deadly accurate mortar fire while the columns moving along the river bank were ambushed. Over nine hundred troops were killed in one afternoon, including over twenty Zimbabwean “advisers” who were onboard the ships.25

  Because they had not been consulted about the offensive, Kabila’s allies were less than pleased. Angolan army chief João de Matos flew to Kampala with a military delegation, spending three days there in late September,26 trying to clarify the Ugandan strategy, particularly their degree of collaboration with UNITA. Practically at the same time Jean-Yves Ollivier, the French influence agent, flew Bemba to Paris in his private jet to meet Angolan Foreign Minister João de Miranda, exactly for the same purpose. Bemba tried to lie about his UNITA connection and so failed to convince his Angolan counterpart, who would have preferred him to come clean.27 On September 25 Kabila rushed to Luanda, begging not to be abandoned. From there he dashed to Harare (September 28), and from Harare to Windhoek (September 29), with the same desperate demand.

  Heavy fighting was still in progress on the Ubangi, Kabila’s troops were losing, and his allies were getting tired. At the beginning of October the Zimbabweans had to bring back 75 percent of their aviation from the DRC. The deepening economic crisis in Harare restricted spare parts purchases and the Zimbabwean Ministry of Defense did not want to see its planes run the risk of remaining grounded in the Congo.28 The FAC had finally been beaten at Konongo and had had to withdraw; by then there were 120,000 Congolese refugees across the river in the Republic of Congo. The MLC took Lulonga, sixty kilometers north of Mbandaka, and started to advance on Boende from Basankusu. Beyond Mbandaka, key to the river war, the ultimate target was evidently the capital. But Bemba and his men were to be frustrated of their prize at the last moment due to unexpected military and diplomatic developments.

  Rwanda drives south into Katanga

  By the spring of 2000 it was evident that Lusaka had become a mantra to be repeated only by despairing UN personnel.29 After nearly two years of war, the rebels had renewed hopes of winning a military victory,30 and while Bemba was staking all his cards on taking Mbandaka and sailing on to Kinshasa, Kigali, disappointed by the hard fighting down the Tshuapa, was looking for another possibility. After all, why take power at the center and have to bother with the setting up of another bogus government, which might again decide to turn independent? What mattered more and more as the war went on were the economic interests. And those were in Kasai and Katanga, not in Kinshasa.

  In early August Kigali announced that it was ready to unilaterally withdraw two hundred kilometers back from the front lines. With the consummate diplomatic ineptitude typical of the Kabila regime, FAC forces immediately attacked in South Kivu, in alliance with ALIR Rwandese rebels.31 Most of September was then spent skirmishing around Pepa, and in October Kigali announced it had lost both Pepa and Moba after the FAC landed troops and used gunboats on Lake Tanganyika. Kin Kiey Mulumba declared, sounding pained, “They have attacked us, it’s a real war.”32 By Novemb
er 1 the RCD-G, backed by large RPA regular forces, had retaken Pepa and was pushing south. Zimbabwe, which was getting increasingly distressed at Kabila’s clumsiness, declared that it had no intention of taking part in the fighting. Realizing too late the danger of losing Lubumbashi, Kabila rushed reinforcements to northern Katanga. On December 3 the Rwandese forces took Pweto, declaring with indignation, “We had to undertake this operation in response to the general offensive of Mr Kabila and his allies.”33 The fall of Pweto and the collapse of FAC forces on the Katanga front was to have enormous consequences, since it is one of the causes eventually leading to Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s assassination. But in the short term thousands of refugees, a mixed crowd of vanquished soldiers and civilians, fled into Zambia. In spite of Harare’s denials, there were almost three hundred Zimbabwean troops among the refugees.”34

  On December 14 Kigali said again that it had only been responding to the government’s attack and that it “still supported the Lusaka Peace Agreement.”35 Zimbabwe was caught on the hop and had to rush another thousand troops to Katanga or run the risk of seeing Lubumbashi fall. Harare used some of its still flying CASA STOL transport planes to bring the reinforcements practically right up to the front lines, on the shores of Lake Mwelu. The RPA was also bringing supplies and equipment. As Patrick Mazimpaka was to proudly tell me a few weeks later, “There is now nothing standing between us and the taking of Lubumbashi.”36 Emile Ilunga confided to the UN, “[I am] just waiting for the fall of Lubumbashi so that I can become the first RCD Governor of Katanga.”37 Fate—that is, the United States of America—decided otherwise. Clinton was gone, and when Kabila died the international perception of his son started quickly evolving.

  Paul Kagame came back from his January 2001 Washington visit knowing that the situation was in complete flux. Some of the old Rwanda supporters in the U.S. administration, such as John Prendergast and Susan Rice, were either marginalized or out. Partial violations of Lusaka had been one thing, but throwing Lusaka entirely out of the window would have been something else, which the new secretary of state, Colin Powell, was not prepared to tolerate. Messages to that effect began to flow to Kigali. The armies froze.

  The shaky home fronts

  The Congo: an elusive search for national dialogue while the economy collapses

  Today in our country everything is justified in reference to the rebellion. When somebody is arrested it is because of Rwanda, when public money is stolen, it is because of Rwanda. Special advisors who answer to no authority go on missions, terrorize people, arrest civil servants, all because of the rebellion… . But for the last five months politically the rebellion has only existed in virtual form.

  This assessment of the Congolese political situation by a Kinshasa magazine38 was barely exaggerated. Even if it represented an ultimate threat for him, the rebellion was also the perfect excuse for Laurent-Désiré Kabila not to democratize his regime. The veteran opposition politician Joseph Olenghankoy summarized the president’s attitude when he declared on foreign radio, “Mr Kabila considers us to be fishes locked up in his aquarium for which he alone can provide the needed oxygen.”39 As if to help him make his point President Kabila cut off his oxygen on March 31, when Olenghankoy was arrested as he was trying to organize a national day of protest (the demonstration failed).

  The Lusaka Agreement provided for a “national dialogue” on October 15, 1999, forty-five days after the signing. Elements of civil society started to congregate hopefully and organized meetings and conferences, taking the president at his word. But on October 4, as this flurry of activity was about to coalesce into the organization of the first preparatory national conference, the government outlawed it. Seven members of Olenghankoy’s FONUS and several journalists were arrested.40 Kabila wanted “democratization,” but on his terms. On February 16 he announced the creation of a Constitutional Assembly—without the rebels, without the political opposition, and outside the Lusaka framework. Consultations on this piece of creative politics started on February 29. But it was a stormy process from the start. The first delegates attending the proposed preparatory assembly declared, “This smacks of Mobutu Sese Seko… . We demand an immediate halt to amateurism and adventurism at the head of the state.”41 Panicked at this crime of lése-majesté, Congolese TV, which was covering the proceedings, went off the air rather than keep broadcasting such subversive talk. The international community complained of this violation of the Lusaka process, which led Foreign Minister Yerodia Ndombasi to brazenly turn the tables, declaring that he rejected Masire’s plan for national dialogue,42 “which violates the Lusaka Agreement.”43

  On July 3, 2000, the National Assembly finally convened. It was made up of 240 members chosen from a list of five thousand candidates drawn up by the government, with Kabila personally adding sixty hand-picked MPs, including his lady friend, Tshala Mwana, and the famous musician Tabu Ley. As could be expected the rebels rejected the proclamation of the National Assembly, which they rightly deemed to be both unrepresentative and in contradiction with the provisions of Lusaka. Popular wits called the new Assembly “the Employment Agency” because most of its members had been unemployed at the time of its creation. But popular voices had more serious things to worry about than the questionable legitimacy of Parliament. The economy was collapsing.

  Congolese Economic Production

  Commodity

  Nov. 1998

  Nov. 1993

  % change

  Copper (rons)

  36,086

  23,804

  -34

  Cobalr (rons)

  3,688

  1,800

  -15

  Diamonds (’000 carats)

  24,463

  18,520

  -24

  Gold (kilos)

  135

  7

  -94

  Coffee (rons)

  33,716

  16,038

  -52

  Uncut wood (cubic meters)

  79,656

  27,226

  -66

  Palm oil (cubic meters)

  15,910

  5,664

  -64

  Source: Economist Inrelligence Unit, Congo Country Report 1st Quarter 2000. The Banque Cenrrale du Congo (Condensé d’Informnations Statistiques, February 2000) gives somewhat different figures for some producrs, but the general trend is the same.

  The economic rate of “growth” fell from +0.7 percent in 1998 to −10.3 percent in 1999 and −11.4 percent in 2000. The value of exports, which was still $1.422 billion in 1998, fell to $749 million in 1999 and $685 million in 2000.44 Inflation rose from 147 percent in 1998 to 333 percent in 1999, pushing the Congolese franc down from 9.5 to 12 to the U.S. dollar on the black market. It was devalued ($1 = FC 9) in January 2000 and again ($1 = FC 23.5) in June, causing the black market rate to jump from FC 30 and then to FC 52. In the rebel areas the Congolese franc was still trading at 12 or 15 to the dollar because of a more limited supply and because dollars were more easily available due to illegal exports. This caused the smuggling of francs from the government to the rebel areas, mostly through Brazzaville. Civil servants were caught with bags full of money as they were about to cross the river; even ministers were involved. The basic problem was the de-dollarization of trade, particularly for diamonds, which had caused massive smuggling of exports and a drying up both of foreign exchange and of tax receipts.45

  Under such circumstances the government itself had become a kind of sharp operator, ready to make any deal to scrape up a few pennies, often with unforeseen consequences. In July 2000 Kabila arrested two expatriates working for the Bralima brewery under the (true) accusation of currency trafficking. Their foreign employer paid a $500,000 ransom to get them released. But then, to make up for its loss, Bralima started to stockpile its Congolese francs to “cool off” the black market. When franc rates had gone down enough in late September, the brewery suddenly turned all its reserves into dollars, causing the black market rate
to jump from less than 70 to over 100 in a few days.46

  Even when it did not resort to extortion the government just seemed to live on financial improvisation, dealing with ever more questionable partners,47 such as the Thai businessman Rakesh Saxena, under investigation in Bangkok for an $88 million swindle,48 and the Israeli Rami Golan, a former diamond “fixer” for Mobutu.49 Billy Rautenbach, the once crucial wunderkind of Zimbabwe and boss of Gécamines, had not lived up to his promises even if his friend and mentor John Arnold Bredenkamp had managed to inject over $50 million into the Kinshasa financial system through his Harare-based Noczim petroleum company.50 After some stormy exchanges between Rautenbach and Kabila, the young Zimbabwean was fired in March 2000 and replaced by George Forrest, a Katanga-born Belgian who immediately set upon reorganizing Gécamines “in order to restore its international credibility.” It was a timely change because by December Rautenbach was embroiled in a series of lawsuits.51 Always looking for a financial panacea, in July 2000 Kabila signed a monopoly agreement with the Israeli diamond company IDI, a young and untried outfit but one that was promising a minimum floor price for purchases over the next eighteen months.52