Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe
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193. Ogata was the first official voice to point out what was going on when she declared to the UN Security Council on September 9 that she had to suspend operations in Zaire as “the most basic conditions for protecting Rwandan refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have ceased to exist.” The Turbulent Decade, 247. But she stopped sort of explaining what was forcing her to desist.
194. Het Laatse Nieuws, February 22–23, 1997. Moreels had reportedly seen U.S. satellite pictures of the massacres but had not been allowed to keep them and make them public.
195. Except for France. But because France had such a political responsibility in making the genocide possible, its “humanitarian” complaints during the slaughter of the refugees sounded partisan.
196. Thus UNHCR Field Coordinator Filippo Grandi declared in Goma, “There is nothing to prove the existence of organised massacres . . . . The international community should not play around with words as serious as genocide.” IRIN Bulletin, no. 111 (February 28, 1997). The next day UNHCR Spokeswoman Pamela O’Toole said, “We receive every day more and more shocking reports of massacres,” USIA dispatch, Geneva, April 29, 1997. Massacres and genocide are the key words. We will return to this question of an emotionally and politically loaded vocabulary in chapter 10.
197. Nations Unies, Commission des Droits de l’Homme, Rapport sur la situation des droits de l’homme au Zaïre présenté par Mr Roberto Garreton, Rapporteur Spécial, January 1997.
198. Un General Assembly, Allegations of Massacres and Other Human Rights Violations Occurring in Eastern Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) since September 1996, July 1997.
199. The State of the World’s Refugees 1997–1998.
200. Interview with Sakado Ogata, Geneva, March 2000. Her words were: “My personal conclusion is that there have very likely been more than 300,000 dead.” Slightly mitigating this figure was the fact that around 40,000 refugees came back from the Congo to Rwanda during 1999–2000. UNHCR figure; AFP dispatch, Goma, February 13, 2001. So, for want of a clearer figure, we can conclude on a minimum of 213,000 dead and a maximum of 260,000 to 280,000. In a well-researched article Emizet Kisangani arrives by other methods at a figure of 233,000: “The Massacre of Refugees in the Congo: A Case of UN Peacekeeping Failure and International Law,” Journal of Modern African Studies 38, no. 2 (2000): 163–202.
Chapter 5
1. For a remarkable description of daily life in the Congo during this whole period, see Lieve Joris, La danse du léopard (Arles: Actes Sud, 2002);
2. Africa Confidential 38, no. 14 (June 4, 1997).
3. He had been an assessor in a Philadelphia court for several years.
4. In fact, he had been Lacan’s driver and had married the famous psychoanalyst’s secretary. Libération, April 13, 2001.
5. Interview in Le Soir, October 31 –November 2, 1997.
6. This is the expression used by Justine M’Poyo Kasa Vubu in the book she wrote about her experience as civil service minister and later ambassador to Belgium for Kabila’s government: Douze mois chez Kabila (1997–1998) (Brussels: Le Cri, 1998).
7. Dr Fabrice Michalon from MDM who had been arrested for “spying” on May 4, 1998, only to be released without explanation or excuses on July 11.
8. Dr. Michalon’s interview in Le Figaro, July 23, 1998.
9. The only cabinet member from Equateur was Paul Bandoma (Ngbaka), the minister of agriculture. But he was there more as a UDPS member than as an Equatorian.
10. For some examples, see B. C. Wilungula, Fizi 1967–1986: Le maquis Kabila (Brussels: CEDAF, 1997).
11. It does not mean that there would have been no ethnic rivalries within the regime if it had not been for the president’s manipulations. But he not only made things worse, he also soon lost control over them because of their independent dynamics and his own lack of experience in Zairian ethnopolitics over the past ten to fifteen years.
12. Minister of Finance Mawampanga had been accused of currency trafficking in July, briefly detained, then freed and reinstated at his post after a humiliating ritual of public accusation.
13. Gaëtan Kakudji, a cousin of Kabila who had become one of his most trusted advisers, was made governor of Katanga and had then arrogated to himself the right to oversee Gécamines.
14. There was significant fighting throughout September when the Rwandese had tried to resettle a number of Tutsi driven away from Masisi in 1993 back to their land. They met stiff opposition from local Mayi Mayi militias. IRIN Bulletin, nos. 242 and 243 of September 5 and 9, 1997.
15. Marie-France Cros, “Les Tigres Katangais menacent l’AFDL,” La Libre Belgique, September 27, 1997.
16. Which did not prevent both Emile Ilunga and Deogratias Symba from later joining the anti-Kabila rebellion of August 1998, their dislike of the Rwandese notwithstanding.
17. Radio Télévision Nationale Congolaise, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts (henceforth BBC/SWB), February 16, 1998.
18. “The old one,” a respectful way of greeting a person in Swahili. Kabila was beginning to encourage this way of being addressed by his close associates.
19. Kakudji, acting as his master’s voice, declared, “The Alliance is the only Movement and the opposition parties should join it.” Le Monde, July 6–7, 1997.
20. A Lunda former truck driver of vaguely Lumumbist persuasion, he later became minister of youth and sport.
21. Author’s interview with Eriya Kategaya, Ugandan minister of foreign affairs, Kampala, March 1998.
22. Interview in Le Soir, September 23, 1997.
23. IRIN Bulletin, no. 195 (June 17, 1997).
24. Interview in Libération, August 6, 1997.
25. IRIN Bulletin, no. 219 (July 29, 1997); Le Monde, July 27–28, 1997.
26. See G. de Villers and J. C. Willame, eds., Congo: Chronique politique d’une entre-deux-guerres (octobre 1996–juillet 1998) (Brussels: CEDAF, 1998), 95.
27. He had tried to organize his own celebration of that anniversary. Kabila clearly intended to claim a monopoly on Lumumba’s image for himself and did not appreciate any trespassing on “his” political territory, including from Lumumba’s own family.
28. Amnesty International, DRC: Civil Liberties Denied, February 1998.
29. About sixteen delinquents shot publicly in Lubumbashi, see, for example, “21 Criminals Shot at Camp Tshatshi,” IRIN Bulletin, no. 342 (January 28, 1998); “Ex-Zaïre: Éxécution collective,” Libération, March 4, 1998. Although brutal, this violent repression was relatively popular among the ordinary population, who hoped that it would bring down the common crime rate. It did not.
30. De Villers and Willame, Congo, 208–209. Gizenga and Parti Lumumbiste d’Action Unifié ran a distant third with 8 percent of the vote at the presidential level and only 4 percent at the legislative level.
31. IRIN Bulletin, no. 450 (July 2, 1998).
32. This “realistic” position was true of Western governments, not of the NGOs. For a clear indictment of the new regime’s record during the “transition,” see Human Rights Watch, Uncertain Course: Transition and Human Rights Violations in the Congo, December 1997.
33. Author’s interview with Aubert Mukendi, Paris, June 2000.
34. It was George Nzongola-Ntalaja who first drew my attention to these points, in Stockholm, May 1998.
35. Expression used in a public lecture by Professor Elikia M’Bokolo, Le Mans, May 1998.
36. Monitor, April 6, 1997.
37. New Vision, May 7, 1997.
38. J. C. Willame, “La victoire de seigneurs de la guerre,” La Revue Nouvelle, nos. 7–8 (July–August 1997): 19. Papain is a complex enzyme obtained from the unripe fruit or the latex of the paw paw tree (carica papaya), which is used by the food industry.
39. Le Potentiel, September 17, 1997, quoted in Wamu Oyatambwe, De Mobutu à Kabila (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999), 95. The amount mentioned was $19.7 million, which could only be a fraction of what the AFDL actually owed to its allies.
40
. Philip Gourevitch, “Continental Shift: A Letter from the Congo,” New Yorker, August 4, 1997.
41. This point will be discussed again in the section “Struggling for the Moral High Ground” in chapter 10. But even if one finds it hard to agree with the Rwandese general, there is a sneaking suspicion that, for the French at least and for their friends in Africa, the refugee massacres were a godsend that allowed them to disentangle themselves from the accusations of complicity in the genocide. And for the others, finding fault with the victims provided a form of moral excuse by mixing their own past guilt with somebody else’s more recent one.
42. Since Nyerere’s death his place has been taken by Nelson Mandela. But to understand the moral and political weight Nyerere had in Africa one can refer to C. Legum and G. Mmari, Mwalimu: The Influence of Nyerere (London: James Currey, 1995).
43. IRIN Bulletin, no. 177 (May 20, 1997).
44. C. Braeckman, L’enjeu congolais (Paris: Fayard, 1999), 134.
45. In an interview with John Pomfret, “Rwandans Led Revolt in Congo,” Washington Post, July 9, 1997.
46. Le Monde, July 17, 1997. Then, in a BBC interview (July 16), Kagame adviser Claude Dusaidi innocently said that Pomfret had “misunderstood” his boss, who had simply “trained” the AFDL, not led it.
47. IRIN Bulletin, no. 208 (July 9, 1997).
48. USIA dispatch, Geneva, May 12, 1997.
49. Interview with eyewitness Aristide Chahahibwa Bambaga, Kampala, January 2000. Chahahibwa Bambaga was an uncle of Masasu Nindaga and was then a refugee in Uganda. He went missing in May 2001.
50. I will come back to this point in the section dealing with the east and the army situation.
51. For a summary, see V. Parqué and F. Reyntjens, “Crimes contre l’humanité dans l’ex-Zaïre: Une réalité?” in F. Reytjens and F. Marysse, eds., L’Afrique des Grands Lacs (1997–1998) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998), 295–302.
52. Guy Mérineau, “Scxènes de massacres dans l’ex-Zaïre,” Le Monde, July 13–14, 1997.
53. Le Monde, July 15–16, 1997.
54. This was the title used in the communiqué, a first and last effort at reviving the vocabulary of a bygone era in what was presented as a “new revolution.”
55. For a conventionally conspiratorial view, see W. Madsen, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa (1993–1999) (Lewiston, ME: Ewin Mellen Press, 1999), chapters 1 and 7. For an educated debunking, see M. Ottaway, Africa’s New Leaders: Democracy or State Reconstruction? (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999).
56. IRIN Bulletin, no. 227 (August 12, 1997).
57. IRIN Bulletin, no. 238 (August 29, 1997). On August 30 five thousand people demonstrated “spontaneously” against him in the streets of Kinshasa.
58. IRIN Bulletin, no. 244 (September 9, 1997).
59. IRIN Bulletin, no. 246 (September 11, 1997).
60. IRIN Bulletin, no. 247 (September 12, 1997).
61. The commission was submitted to “spontaneous” demonstrations which were orchestrated by Masasu Nindaga. As we will see he later fell out with Kabila, and during his trial he explained that the president had given him $15,000 per group that he could bring to demonstrate. Joris, La danse du léopard, 334.
62. Washington Post, September 22, 1997.
63. Economist, September 27, 1997.
64. Washington Post, October 5, 1997.
65. La Lettre du Continent, October 16, 1997. This was picked up by U.S. Ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson, who declared at a hearing of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, “Kabila is eager to re-start the inquiry… . There have been many abuses by all sides.” USIA dispatch, Washington, DC, November 6, 1997.
66. Le Soir, November 4, 1997.
67. IRIN Bulletin, no. 307 (December 5, 1997).
68. IRIN Bulletin, no. 314 (December 16, 1997).
69. Radio France Internationale, in BBC/SWB, March 6, 1998.
70. The publication of the Human Rights Watch report What Kabila Is Hiding in October 1997 decisively undermined the argument of those who still insisted that Kabila’s good faith had been abused.
71. IRIN Bulletin, no. 383 (March 26, 1998).
72. Author’s interview with John Prendergast, special adviser, U.S. State Department, Washington, DC, October 1998.
73. Le Monde, April 12–13, 1998.
74. IRIN Bulletin, no. 449 (July 1, 1998).
75. This brief description of the Zairian economic downfall is based on World Bank statistics, on the quick overview given in the article “Business at War,” Africa Confidential 38, no. 9 (April 25, 1997), and on the paper “Reconstruction and Foreign Aid” prepared for the UN Congo Expert Group Meeting of May 1–3, 1998, by Dr. M’Baya Kankwenda.
76. A bill is deemed “dead” when its real purchasing power falls below U.S. $0.02.
77. There were theoretically 580,000 civil servants even if in fact many existed only so that ministry accountants could draw their “ghost” pay. But even those who did actually exist seldom did any work because although many were still willing to work, they had no means at their disposal to do so. Monthly salaries for civil servants ranged (in 1992) from $91 for a ministry permanent secretary, down to $59 for the head of a service and $9 for an unskilled clerk. Civil service average pay was $14/month, but this remained theoretical as salaries were often delayed for months on end.
78. This was already an unrealistic estimate because there was no way tax collection could be improved in just a year to enable the new Congo to contribute its share of over one billion dollars.
79. There was a lot of resentment against the Rwandese military presence, even though people admitted that their efficiency had reduced criminality. But they had arrogant manners, and the Congolese population particularly resented their extensive use of the whip in public and their unpleasant habit of spitting into people’s mouths in order to humiliate them. Interviews with many different Congolese from the Kivus, from Kisangani, and from Kinshasa, New York, Paris, Kampala, Bunia, October 1997 to November 2000.
80. As usual with Kabila, the issue was mostly psychopolitics. Ms M’Poyo Kasa Vubu remembers how, when she broached with the president the subject of Claes, whose detention was also ruining relations with Belgium, he shouted at her, “We will not be dictated by these people.” Kasa Vubu, Douze mois chez Kabila, 133. When she asked him what the charges against Claes were, he could not remember.
81. Faced with bankruptcy, the Intercontinental preferred to close down for a while.
82. Interview with Aubert Mukendi, Paris, December 2000.
83. The feeling was also that widespread poverty combined with the absence of even the most modest beginnings of outside economic aid contributed to killing any idealism the AFDL could have brought along; see J. C. Willame’s section on “La gestion de l’Etat: Défaite de la corruption?” in L’odyssée Kabila (Paris: Karthala, 1999), 119–124.
84. Africa Confidential 38, no. 16 (August 1, 1997). This was of course partly due to completely stopping the printing of new money. But this improvement in the rate of exchange was also due to the fact that there were fewer and fewer manufactured products to be bought on the market and that the demand for dollars was declining rather than that the intrinsic value of the NZ was improving.
85. Le Monde, December 4, 1997.
86. Kasa Vubu, Douze mois chez Kabila, 66.
87. This included $36 million from Gécamines, $12 million from MIBA, and $9.9 million in oil revenue, leaving almost nothing from nonmineral exports.
88. Mining Minister Kibassa Maliba and Finance Minister Tala Ngai had introduced a new licensing system for the diamond purchasing counters where taxes had to be paid in advance. La Lettre Afrique Energies, February 11, 1998.
89. For an overview of the interrelationship between diplomacy and aid, see C. Collins, “Congo-ex-Zaire: Through the Looking Glass,” Review of African Political Economy, April 1998, 114–123.
90. IRIN Bulletin, no. 328 (January 8, 1998)
.
91. La Lettre Afrique Energies, January 14, 1998.
92. La Lettre Afrique Energies, May 13, 1998.
93. J. Maton and A. Van Bauwell, “L’économie congolaise 1997–2000: Le désenchantement et les échecs possibles,” in F. Reyntjens and S. Marysse, eds., L’Afrique des Grands Lacs: Annuaire 1997–1998 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998), 204. By early 1999 the tax proportion of GNP had risen to 11 percent.
94. The “automatic alliance system” was already at work: Sassou Nguesso having had close relations with Mobutu was seen as pro-Habyarimana, which brought the Tutsi RPF close to Lissouba.