By Norm Dixon
Anti-government rebels in eastern Zaire have taken control of large areas of the provinces of South Kivu and North Kivu. Contrary to the mainstream media's simplistic description of the revolt as a "tribal conflict", it is becoming apparent that the rebels represent a broader coalition of forces which aim to overthrow the corrupt western-backed regime of President Mobutu Sese Seko.
"We are not aiming at secession from Zaire", Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire coordinator Laurent Kabila told reporters on November 4. "Our aim is to take Kinshasa ... liberated areas are for the time being autonomous areas", he said. Kabila is a long-time guerilla leader who has spent most of his 56 years trying to oust the dictator.
Kabila was a follower of Patrice Lumumba, the country's radical prime minister who was assassinated in 1961 by the armed forces, egged on by the CIA. When Mobutu seized power in 1965, also with CIA backing, Kabila and his People's Revolutionary Party took refuge in the mountains near Lake Tanganyika. Kabila's forces were joined by the legendary Cuban leader Che Guevara and a number of Cuban volunteers, and a guerilla war was waged. Since then Kabila has attempted to rally opposition to the Mobutu regime.
Pressed by journalists about his ethnic background, Kabila confirmed he was not a member of the Banyarwanda or Banyamulenge peoples, whose persecution by Zairean troops and exiled Rwandan Hutu-chauvinist interahamwe militias, triggered the uprising. This caused much consternation as it has become mandatory in western press reports to describe the rebels as "Tutsis" or "Tutsi-dominated", glossing over the fact that these "Tutsis" have lived within the area that is today Zaire since the 16th century.
An editorial in the November 4 Australian, whether the product of pig ignorance or something more sinister, went so far as to say that "Rwandan Tutsi rebels living in Zaire" were behind the revolt. A South African Press Association dispatch on November 5 blithely reported the fighters were led by "Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Kabila".
While the revolt began amongst the 400,000 Banyamulenge people of South Kivu in response to the Mobutu regime's ethnic cleansing, it was joined by many other Zaireans, regardless of ethnic origin. Previously passive in the face of Zairean army-interahamwe persecution, the North Kivu Banyarwanda people (made up of both Tutsi and Hutu, the castes of traditional Rwandan society) rebelled, culminating in the fall of Goma on November 3. Also joining the revolt were the Bangalima, a militant group of seven or so non-Banyarwanda peoples in north-east Zaire fed-up with the predatoriness of the interahamwe.
Addressing thousands of cheering people in the south-eastern town of Uvira, Kabila called on the "rest of the Zairean population to rise up against the repressive system that has plunged the people of this country into misery ... This is your movement. It is a movement against tyranny and corruption. It is a movement for freedom and human life. We must remove Mobutu and throw him into the dustbin of history."
There are reports that a rebel movement in the southern province of Shaba is again stirring. Shortly after independence in 1960, a secessionist revolt in Shaba was crushed.
Kabila denied the rebels' successes were due to support from neighbouring Rwanda: "We are not supported by Rwanda or anyone externally. Zairean soldiers have lost territory and continue to lose it because they are totally demoralised, depressed and therefore cannot fight."
The Zairean regime has claimed that the fall of eastern Zaire followed an invasion by up to 10,000 troops from Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. While Rwanda has categorically denied that its troops are fighting side-by-side with the rebels, it admits its troops twice entered Zaire briefly to stop shelling of Rwandan towns. Rwandan troops entered Bakavu, in the south, on October 28 and Goma, in the north, on November 1, then withdrew as soon as the mortars were silenced. On both occasions Zairean troops and their interahamwe allies fled, leaving eastern Zaire's two most strategic towns in the hands of the rebels.
In response to the plight of the hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees who have been displaced by the fighting, Kabila on November 2 announced a unilateral three-week cease-fire to allow them to return to Rwanda and Burundi. He urged western relief agencies to return to rebel-held areas to care for the refugees. Every major international charity abruptly left eastern Zaire as the rebels' victory seemed certain. "We will give them security so that they can land and use the airport at Kilimba, close to Uvira, as well as in Goma", the rebel leader told the BBC.
The cease-fire announcement came as increasingly shrill calls were made for military intervention to create "humanitarian corridors" to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach the mainly Hutu Rwandan refugees moving towards west and north-east Zaire.
The French government, a long-time backer of both the Mobutu dictatorship and the genocidal Hutu-chauvinist regime in Rwanda which was overthrown by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in 1994, has spearheaded the calls. France, which has troops based in at least eight African countries and military agreements with 15 more, is preparing to form the backbone of this force. French military advisers remain in Zaire.
The rebels are understandably wary of the French government's motives. France's hostility to the Rwandan government, and the eastern Zaire rebels, stems from its "special relationship" with its former colonies, which it dominates economically and politically. France fears that the independence of the RPF in Rwanda and the triumphant rebels will undermine this dominance. The success of these two movements, Paris believes, may inspire revolts in Zaire and its other neo-colonies.
The rebels, and the Rwandan government, fear a repeat of the 1994 French intervention which allowed fleeing interahamwe butchers — responsible for the massacre of more than 500,000 Rwandans in just three months — to escape from the forces of the RPF. French troops oversaw the creation of vast, permanent refugee camps in eastern Zaire. Paris, Kinshasa, the UN and many of the world's aid agencies allowed these camps to be controlled with violence by armed interahamwe and leaders of the genocidal former regime, in collusion with the Zaire dictatorship.
Bearing a disturbing resemblance to western policy in Cambodia, a blind eye was turned to the camps' role as staging posts for the overthrow of the RPF government. Hundreds of thousands of refugees were held hostage and made virtual human shields. There have been widespread reports of refugees wanting to return home being executed by the interahamwe. "War taxes" were imposed on camp residents employed by aid agencies. Aid supplies intended for camp residents were diverted by the militias to the black market.
The existence of these camps, and the protection afforded the perpetrators of the genocide, led directly to the latest crisis. When the Zairean regime unleashed the interahamwe in an ethnic-cleansing operation against the Banyamulenge people, it ignited a revolution. The rapid successes of the rebels now threatens the interahamwe's bases and has undermined their iron-fisted rule over the refugees.
Since 1994, Rwanda has urged the refugees to return home. They have assured the mainly Hutu refugees that they would not face retribution. While western governments, international financial institutions and relief agencies promised large amounts aid for the reconstruction of Rwanda — vital if refugees were to be convinced to resettle — little has materialised. Instead, they have poured at least US$1 million a day into keeping the camps in eastern Zaire functioning. Relief agencies with a vested interest in the permanence of the camps have poured in millions more. French intervention would be aimed at salvaging these camps and their brutal overlords.
As an alternative to a French-dominated armed force, a regional summit of the leaders of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Ethiopia and Eritrea on November 5 proposed that the UN deploy a "neutral force" to aid the refugees. The leaders stressed the aim of the operation would be to encourage voluntary repatriation of refugees and the dismantling of the camps. The leaders called for the "intimidators" among the refugees to be separated out.