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

by Gerard Prunier

  Whereas his father had remained a prisoner in a cold war time capsule, Joseph Kabila understood the nature of modern politics: never mind reality, image is all. He gave orders to his personal office to reimburse three million Congolais francs that had been budgeted for a “support march,” deriding the proposed “spontaneous demonstration” as “an obsolete practice belonging to the bygone era of the personality cult.”22 In another well-advertised show of public virtue he rebuked veteran Congolese spin doctor Dominique Sakombi Inongo, who had offered him his usual medicine of heavily personalized publicity spots.

  His opponents began to panic and to grasp at straws. Jean-Pierre Bemba huffily declared that Joseph Kabila “is not a president but just the chief of an army which controls only 40% of the Congo.” And in an apparent complete non sequitur he “revealed” that the young man was not Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s son but that “of the Rwandese Tutsi Kanombe who was killed in Moba.”23 We must stop for a moment to clarify these rumors, which were fed by the complicated and secretive life Laurent-Désiré Kabila had led between his dropping out of the political limelight in the mid-1960s and his political “resurrection” thirty years later. The explanation for the uncertainty of Joseph Kabila’s origins can be found in Erik Kennes’s splendidly researched biography of the late president.24 One of L. D. Kabila’s companions in the PRP guerrilla group was a certain Adrien Kanambe or Kanambi, a Tutsi from Rutshuru. Kanambe died in June 1985, during the second of the two PRP attacks on Moba, not in combat but apparently shot on Kabila’s orders. He had several children, including one, Selemani, who was Joseph’s age and his playmate. After Kanambe’s execution, the mother of the little Selemani died in a shipwreck on Lake Tanganyika and the boy was raised by another of Kanambe’s wives, a Mubembe woman by the name of Vumilia. It is she who later “married” Laurent-Désiré, who then “adopted” the late Kanambe’s son. Selemani and Joseph, by then both “Kabila’s children,” got mixed up in the public imagination.25 But it is ironic that the previous “democratic questioning” of a succession based on simple biological filiation was now giving way to challenges about that very filiation in order to refute the legitimacy of the power transfer. It showed that even the adversaries of the process had entered its peculiar dynastic logic.26

  Meanwhile, ignoring such challenges, the young president kept moving ahead with his regime change agenda. On February 22 the free trading of foreign exchange was reauthorized27 and new, clear regulations were issued concerning the diamond counters, which had to be registered for a reasonable fee ($200,000 per counter per year, plus a $3,000 licensing fee per purchasing agent). They would be charged 1 percent of their export volume to get centralized quality expertise, and they would pay a 4 percent export tax. Minimum yearly turnover was set at $48 million per counter to eliminate the small fry.28 Implicit in these measures was the termination of dubious contracts such as IDI’s.

  Elsewhere in the newly opened business world, Cohydro, the national Congolese oil company, signed a $125 million contract with the South African oil company Thebe Petroleum, thereby ending the de facto monopoly enjoyed since 1998 by the Angolan state company, Sonangol.29 This caused some gritting of teeth in Luanda, but by then the Angolans were resigned to the new dispensation being implemented. Since late February the mining investors had smelled money and begun to descend upon Kinshasa. Alfred Sefu, CEO of Gécamines, met with a World Bank mission on March 6 and coolly asked for $150 million.30 He did not really expect to get it, but what would have been laughable at the time of the late president had suddenly become conceivable. John Bredenkamp was leading the pack of (largely white) Zimbabwean and South African businessmen who now besieged the Kinshasa government offices, causing a Congolese minister to joke, “This is an Afrikaner Renaissance.”31 Brussels decided to second to the Congolese government Alphonse Verplaetse, a former governor of the Belgian Central Bank and a friend of Jean-Claude Masangu, with the mission of reforming the commercial code.32 On the side, he could also advise his friend on monetary policy, a fact that was going to go a long way in relaxing the attitudes of international financial institutions toward Kinshasa.

  To accompany this economic aggiornamento Joseph needed hands-on control of the civil service, and this he proceeded to achieve by signing three key decrees on March 12, appointing a whole bevy of “new men.” First and most important, Didier Kazadi Nyembwe became the head of Agence Nationale de Renseignements (ANR). To keep four competing secret services under control, a tough and reliable man was needed for the job.33 At his side was the new security adviser, a very different man, Jean Mbuyu, who had created the Centre for Human Rights in Lubumbashi. As head of his personal staff Joseph appointed Théophile Mbemba Fundu, a Muyeke from eastern Katanga and a long-time Mobutu opponent whom his father had installed as mayor of Kinshasa, a politically dangerous job he had fulfilled honorably. Fundu’s righthand man was Evariste Boshab Mbudj, a Mutetela with a doctorate in law from the University of Louvain who had been an academic in France. As a diplomatic adviser the president picked Dieudonné Vangu Mambweni wa Busana, a Mukongo key dignitary of the Kimbanguist Church; he was also a fanatically anti-Tutsi politician who held very extreme opinions. The last two men were described as “Mobutists” because they had served under the Guide. This was quite exaggerated: Vangu was picked mostly for his useful Kimbanguist credentials,34 because in 1997 he had been an ally of Roberto Garreton in his attempt to inquire into the fate of the “lost” Hutu refugees and, perhaps more slyly, because his presence helped indirectly to exonerate Joseph from his supposed Tutsi ancestry; Mbudj was just a good legal expert. New “president’s men” also took over the Press Bureau, the Transport Office, a discreet Financial Bureau, and a roving ambassador’s job.

  No less important and covered by some of the decrees were the new military nominations. Some were not so new, such as Sylvestre Lwetcha, since September 1999 chief of staff of the FAC. Lwetcha had no education and was quite incapable of really discharging his duties, but he was a former 1960s Simba and later PRP guerrilla; he had done all he could to help the Mayi Mayi in the east and was very popular with the rank and file. It was his new second-in-command, Dieudonné Kayemba, who actually ran the FAC, while veteran Faustin Munene took care of the sensitive position of recruitment and training. Trusted Pierre-Célestin Kifwa became a special adviser on military affairs.

  All in all, “P’tit Joseph” had now fairly well secured his immediate administrative surroundings. He could now reach further out, which he did on April 5, when he sacked his whole cabinet. The atmosphere was thick with tension for a week. The Nokos knew what was coming and were belatedly trying to make contact with the Mobutist opposition in Brazzaville. The notorious French mercenary Paul Barril suddenly turned up in Kinshasa, invited by Yerodia Ndombasi. He was immediately arrested and deported.35 The day the new cabinet was announced (April 14) the army closed the Congo River crossing to Brazzaville as the Nokos half-heartedly thought of trying a coup.36 But it was too late, they had all been kicked out of the government. Gaëtan Kakudji, Yerodia Ndombasi, Victor Mpoyo, Sakombi Inango, Didier Mumengi, Mawampanga Mwana Nanga—all had disappeared. The only two kept in the new cabinet were Léonard She Okitundu (Foreign Affairs) and Jeannot Mwenze Kongolo (Interior). The rest were either technocrats, like Finance Minister Freddy Matungulu Mbuyambu, a former IMF man, or political activists coming from the civil society, like Labor Minister Marie-Ange Lukiana Mufuankolo. The median age of the ministers was thirty-eight, and the national press dubbed it “a government of strangers.”37 For the new president, this was a perfect cabinet, unencumbered by the weight of the past.

  Joseph still largely remained a mystery to his fellow countrymen,38 but they had begun to get used to him. Foreigners were more responsive, at times too responsive, to a man who seemed to play the political game on their terms, which caused a respected international weekly to ask bluntly, “Is the world soft on Kabila?”39 The question could reasonably be asked because there were two sides to the man. On t
he one hand, there was the “modern” politician who, in the course of one month, canceled the IDI monopoly, welcomed back his moderate opponent Arthur Z’Ahidi Ngoma, and charmed $110 million out of the European Union. On the other hand, there was the stealthy Machiavellian who could discreetly arrest over one hundred people, many of them innocent, to terrorize real or alleged “conspirators” linked with his father’s murder.40 The accumulated clichés about his youth, his silences, and his supposed “timidity” did not convince everyone. President Jacques Chirac seemed to have understood him well when he told his ambassador in Kinshasa, “Please stop writing that Joseph Kabila is timid. The fellow is a hundred times better at his job than his father. He knows exactly what he wants and he will go far.”41 But before going further he still had one hurdle to clear: explaining how his father had been killed.

  An international commission of inquiry was created on February 9 and reported its conclusions on May 23. The report was a hodgepodge of unproven statements which tried to artificially connect a Kivutian plot, a “Lebanese” plot, and various dark manipulations by security service members, all being coordinated through a Rwando-Ugandan overall conspiracy. The whole thing was so preposterous that even the commission members did not seem too convinced of what they were saying. Rwanda’s Foreign Minister André Bumaya simply declared, “Collaboration between Kigali and Kampala would have been in any case impossible given the relations between the two countries which are now very strained.”42 President Museveni wearily denied having anything to do with the whole affair. And Joseph Kabila said nothing. He then let a calculated interval elapse, not too long (he would have been accused of a cover-up) but sufficient to let other events overtake the murder in his fellow countrymen’s minds. Then, on March 10, 2002, shortly before the mass trial of 115 “plotters” was to begin, Colonel Kapend’s wife and baby were arrested and threatened with dire consequences.43 Many other innocent family members of the accused were also arrested and detained in rough conditions. The result was that the trial took place in a very quiet atmosphere. When thirty of the accused were condemned to death and another fifty-nine to long prison sentences, there was hardly a ripple, apart from human rights organizations. Kabila’s allies did not react, and the whole international community, by then thoroughly smitten with Joseph, declined to comment. None of the accused was executed, and in well-connected political circles there was the brief rumor of a discreet deal. Then there was silence.44 The new regime was now firmly installed, and those who had tried to stop it were unlikely to see the light of day for a long time.

  Diplomacy slowly deconstructs the continental conflict

  The actors start jockeying for position

  What was the situation of the continental war in early 2001? First of all, one of weariness. The various actors had entered the conflict out of often unrelated interests, and most of these had started to disassemble. Angola had saved Laurent-Désiré Kabila at the last minute because it feared that the Rwandese adventurers who were trying to overthrow him could at any time broaden their tactical deal with Savimbi into a strategic alliance. In 1998 Savimbi had been a major threat who seemed capable of attacking Luanda. But by 2001 he was a spent force, trying with great difficulty to survive. Zimbabwe had jumped in to protect its investments and to block South Africa’s political ascent on the continent. By 2001 it had failed on both counts, and its regime was struggling to survive in the face of mounting opposition, both at home and internationally. Windhoek had joined only because of SADC big boy pressure, and by 2001, faced with the growing indifference of one ally and the exhaustion of the other, it wanted out. As for the “aggressors,” they remained involved, but only slightly. Burundi had always been a marginal force, more concerned with securing the Congolese side of its domestic security situation than with a real war of conquest. By 2001 its domestic situation was worse than ever and being in the Congo seemed to be of only marginal interest for improving it. As for Rwanda and Uganda, their mutual bitterness was so intense after the three Kisangani “wars” that it was hard to decide whom they hated most, each other or their supposed common enemy. In addition, President Museveni’s grandiose dreams of trans-African statesmanship had come to naught, and he was under continuous donor pressure to reduce his military budget in order to keep Uganda’s valuable Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) status. Unlike Kagame in Rwanda, he was not under strong demographic or political pressure inside his own country, and the looting of the Congo had been more a factor of personal enrichment for some of the members of his regime than a useful tool of economic imperialism. As a result Kampala’s heart was not strongly in the game even if some of the top UPDF officers remained eager to stay for purely financial reasons.45 This left Rwanda as the only country both able and willing to go on. The reasons were multiple: security, economic benefits, relieving demographic pressure, keeping an oversize army happy,46 surfing on foreign guilt about the genocide, and following the spirit of the RPF’s Spartan political culture, which over the past twenty years had repeatedly considered war to be the solution to all problems. But even if the causes of involvement in the DRC had considerably receded, all the players remained wary of each other and watched their rivals for signs of disengagement before making their own moves.

  Kagame was the first to react, declaring that he was ready to evacuate Pweto, “which is beyond our line of deployment but was taken in response to a military offensive launched by Laurent-Désiré Kabila.”47 Three days later he qualified his statement, saying that Rwanda would not leave the DRC until “the full disarmament of the Interahamwe militias.”48 Since the Mayi Mayi almost immediately attacked Shabunda he declined to attend the next Lusaka meeting, accusing Kinshasa of being responsible for the offensive. Always the optimist, Department of Peacekeeping Operations boss Jean-Marie Guehenno announced that he saw “a window of opportunity” and that only twenty-five hundred MONUC troops were now needed.49 RCD-G leader Azarias Ruberwa declared, “War is a form of pressure aimed at forcing the DRC government to negotiate.” The Mayi Mayi retorted that they were ready to collaborate in the disarming of the Interahamwe, adding, “We want to stress that we are independent from Kinshasa and that no durable solution can be found without us.”50 Joseph Kabila then came back to the controversial question of the Hutu refugee massacres of 1996–1997, declaring to the Belgian journalist Colette Braeckman, “Everything has been done to block the UN inquiry on this.51 If they want to come back, they will be welcome… . Can you explain to me how, in the eyes of the international community, the whole of the Congolese people has been turned into Interahamwe?”52 But the diplomatic situation had changed and even the United States was now taking a much stronger line, talking of “firmness towards Kagame,” of “grave human rights violations committed by Rwanda and Rwanda-backed troops in the DRC which fall within the mandate of the ICTR.”53 Ugandan Foreign Affairs Minister Eriya Kategaya flew to Kinshasa on April 3 and met with Kabila.54 Soon after, MONUC started its first serious troop deployment, with Moroccan troops arriving in Kisangani, where they were cheered by the local population after the RCD-G tried to block their arrival.55 Museveni was by then visibly nervous and making contradictory statements. On April 29 he announced a unilateral UPDF withdrawal, saying at the same time that he was opting out of the Lusaka peace process,56 and then changing his mind on May 8. Bemba hailed Museveni’s decision but added, “I give an ultimatum to Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Rwanda to also pull out or else I withdraw from the Lusaka Peace Process.”57 The French ambassador in New York J. D. Levitte then led a twelve-person UN mission to the DRC, South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Angola, Burundi, and Uganda. He declared that thirty-five hundred MONUC troops would be enough to monitor the process58 and was immediately contradicted by Kabila, who said that this figure was “a joke” and that twenty thousand men were needed.59 A new meeting was planned in Lusaka for February 2002, where a general troop pullout would be discussed. During his African tour, U.S. Secretary of State Powell declared in Johannesburg, “
The U.S. will not support any solution for the Congo crisis which would not respect its territorial integrity.”60

  Meanwhile, the main actors were reorganizing behind the scenes. Since they had to adapt to the new circumstances they were increasingly offering a main “peaceful” front while trying to pursue their various goals through proxy Congolese militias. UPDF Brig. James Kazini had given artillery reinforcements to Bemba to help him fight Mbusa Nyamwisi’s RCD-ML, and Kigali had instructed its RCD-G friends to deny UPDF the use of Bangoka Airport in Kisangani for its planned troop withdrawal from the northeast.61 The Ugandans who left Bafwasende had to do so on foot.62 The Namibians, who now felt free to go with the flow, started to leave. But the Zimbabweans declared that they would wait for a stronger MONUC deployment before going.63 As for the RCD-G, it announced that it was “studying” the demilitarization of Kisangani.64 But by then all the actors had reached the same conclusion: open armed participation in the war was counterproductive, and evacuation was only a question of schedule and modalities. In any case, what would happen later was another matter.

  Negotiations, national dialogue, and disarmament in competition.

  Of these three elements Laurent-Désiré Kabila had hollowed out the first, tried to highjack the second, and stubbornly resisted the third. Now the various actors started to haggle over these three dimensions, each one supposedly a precondition of the others. On August 8 Joseph Kabila signed a decree creating a National Dialogue Preparatory Commission, and a four day pre-dialogue meeting took place in Gaborone on August 20, agreeing that the real thing should begin within six months. Léonard She Okitundu declared, perhaps a bit prematurely, “The war is now over.”65 The UN appointed Amos Namanga Ngongi, a Cameroonian, to replace Kamel Morjane. Facilitator Masire agreed that the next venue for the talks should be Addis Ababa, where the same delegates who had come to Gaborone would meet again. This caused an immediate uproar from the four hundred or so “political parties” that had been left in limbo since the 1990 Conférence Nationale Souveraine. They were loudly clamoring to have a place in the new political structure they now saw emerging.66 Zimbabwe then declared that its own troop withdrawal would depend on the outcome of the planned dialogue, and She Okitundu, who had so far insisted on foreign troop departure before the National Dialogue took place, suddenly reversed his stance.67 UN pressure was by then considerable, and Secretary-General Kofi Annan personally visited the DRC in early September. To impress Rwanda and the RCD-G with the fact that the times had changed, he made a point of going all the way to Kisangani, where he quipped, “A peace process is like a bicycle: once you stop, you fall off.”68 The main sticking point remained the ambitiously named Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation, Reintegration, and Resettlement (DDRRR) program. To understand the complexity of the process, the fact that there were no homogeneous “negative forces” in the Congo must be kept in mind. Even the limited Burundian rebel presence was divided between the FNL and the CNDD-FDD. As for the Rwandese, they comprised three main groups: