ZAIRE (part 1 of 2)

Z A I R E
Actors and antagonists in Zaire: a reminder

Part 1/2

1. WITHIN ZAIRE

A. On the Kinshasa side

MOBUTU AND THE ZAIRE STATE
Mobutu was born on 14 October 1930, at Lisala, in the province of Equator. Under the colonial regime, he joined the Non- Commissioned Officer's School and was made a Sergeant in 1954. In July 1960 he was promoted to Colonel and became one of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff. When the political clash between President Kasavubu and the Prime Minister, Moïse Tshombe degenerated into a crisis, Mobutu seized power in November 1965. He declared a state of emergency and systematically usurped all powers to himself. In 1970, the Movement for Revolution (MPR) was declared the central state organism with Mobutu as president. According to the new Constitution of 1974, state and party became one and the same, and the MPR was personalized in its president, who served as President of the Republic with unlimited powers. All Zaire's citizens became party members at birth.
Then difficulties began to accumulate: the price of copper was halved; the oil crisis affected Zaire like other countries; and the "Zaireanisation" of the economy was obviously slowed down. On two occasions, in 1977 and 1978, Mobutu had to call on the help of foreign countries to counter the invasions by Shaba exiles. In the eighties, technocrats like the Prime Minister Kengo wa Dondo, tried to salvage the situation with the "bitter medicine" of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but to no avail.
In January 1990, Mobutu instituted a countrywide consultation on the "functioning of state institutions", and on 24 April he announced the end of the Party/State and the MPR, and the restoration of the separation of powers. Politicians rushed to create or to resurrect their own parties.
The Sovereign National Conference (CNS) began its work in April 1992 under the presidency of Archbishop Monsengwo, and dissolved itself a year later. It produced a therapeutic outpouring of all that was wrong with the country, and laid down a juridical basis for a democratic political system. But putting it into practice proved to be impossible for the time being, because of the basic weakness of a fragmented opposition, and the strategy of intentional obstruction, which was encouraged by the President. The latest agenda for a transition to the Third Republic, foresees the summer of 1997 as the latest date for elections.
President Mobutu is seriously ill. While he was being treated in Switzerland for cancer, rebellion broke out in the east of the country.

POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE OPPOSITION
Once they were permitted (October 1990), political parties proliferated. More than 300 parties were created! Today it is said that more than 450 parties are registered in Zaire, but many of them have only a handful of members. The parties can be divided into real opposition parties, and those, which are only extensions of the MPR, set up wholly by the authorities to create a diversion. One can also make a distinction between the "Unitary" and the "Federalists"; or the parties, which existed before 1965, and the newcomers. In the National Sovereign Conference, two clearly-defined tendencies emerged: on the one side there was the MPR and its allies, i.e. the Presidential Movement (MP); and on the other side there was the UDPS and its supporters, united under the banner of the Sacred Opposition Union. Between these two poles, a center developed with parties leaning more to one side or to the other.
In the beginning, the Sacred Union included 130 parties, of which the most important were the UDPS (Union for Democracy and Social Progress), UFERI (Union of Federalists and Independent Republicans), and the PDSC (Christian Social Democratic Party). Within the Union, political affiliations are rather fluid, members changing regularly from one party to another or even leaving the Union and returning to it. Until 1994, the group was sufficiently united, in spite of Mobutu's efforts. In April 1994 there was a break between the radical elements, followers of Tshisekedi, and the moderates, among them the PDSC, which created the Union for the Republic and Democracy (URD) and supported the compromise government of Kengo wa Dondo. The UFERI even rejoined the Mobutu camp.

After the dissolution of the "State/Party", there followed a period of political turmoil, with a seesaw of successive governments, which often lasted only a few months. From 25 April 1990, the Prime Ministers were: Lunda Bululu, Mulumba Lukoji, Etienne Tshisekedi, Mungul-Diaka, Ngunz a Karl i Bond, Tshisekedi, Faustin Birindwa, and in 1994, Léon Kengo wa Dondo.

WHO'S WHO ?

===> Léon Kengo wa Dondo: The current Prime Minister was born in 1935 at Libenge, in the Equator province. He is the son of a Polish colonist and his mother is of Rwandan Tutsi origin. He was Ambassador in Brussels from 1980 to 1982, and Prime Minister at the end of 1982. In the transition period, he distanced himself from Mobutu and founded the UDI (Union of Independent Democrats) party. He was again appointed Prime Minister in 1994.
===> Etienne Tshisekedi: He hails from the Luba of the diamond region of Kasaï. He is president of the UDPS and an important personage in the radical opposition to President Mobutu. During the transition period, he was twice chosen as Prime Minister, but in the opinion of many people, he put himself off-side, by his intransigent attitude to Mobutu. He still insists that he should be Prime Minister.
===> Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya: He is Archbishop of Kisangani. As president of the Episcopal Conference, he was very critical of the government. Successively he was president of the National Sovereign Conference and of the transitional parliament. He resigned in January 1996. He declares that he no longer wants to hold political office, except perhaps to help as an adviser.

THE ZAIRE ARMY
The regular army, the Zaire Armed Forces, has very little training. It is badly armed and regularly deprived of pay. To survive, the soldiers have to resort to extortion and traffic in all kinds of products.
By contrast, the Special Divisions are well equipped and well paid. President Mobutu created them as service units for action and military intelligence. These Special Divisions include the Civil Guard and the Special Presidential Division (DSP, the Praetorian Guard of the President). They have their own commanders and are considered to be solely at the service of the President and the ruling classes.
Faced with the rebellion in Kivu, the completely unmotivated Zaire army has never gone into battle. In retreat it has been guilty of systematic looting.
The former Rwandan army and the extremist Hutu militia, the Interahamwe, who were present in the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire, have provided the only effective resistance to the rebels.
Kinshasa has recruited a certain number of mercenaries (300?) and announced a lightning "counter offensive". But many observers doubt whether the Zaire army is capable of regrouping.

WHO'S WHO ?
===> General Nzimbi Ngbale, a member of Mobutu's family, is commander of the DSP.
===> General André Action Diakité Jackson: Mobutu's most guarded right hand man, who was well connected in every province and very critical to Mobutu's continued existence. He served as intelligence director of the DSP from July 1989 to July 1991.
===> General Baramoto Kpama: commander of the Civil Guard, a paramilitary unit that is relatively well equipped. Like Mobutu, he is from the Ngbandi tribe in the North of Equator province. In November 1996, he was appointed Chief-of-Staff of the army.
===> General Eluki Monga Aundu: also coming from the Equator province, he was Chief-of-Staff from February 1993 to November 1996.
===> General Mahele Lioko Bokungu: also from Equator province, he was Chief-of-Staff from 1991 to 1993. He was appointed supreme commander of the army when the rebellion broke out in the east of the country. He demanded that all the special divisions be also under his command.

B. On the side of the Rebels

THE BANYARWANDA IN ZAIRE
At the beginning of the rebellion, there was much talk of a "Banyamulenge Rebellion". According to a study under the direction of Professors Reyntjens and Marysse published as "Conflits au Kivu: antécédents et enjeux" (Conflict in Kivu: antecedents and factors at stake), published in Antwerp, December 1996, the term is inadequate. It means "the people of Mulenge" and applies only to the Rwandan Tutsi of the Uvira and South Kivu regions. According to those authors, the arrival of the first Tutsi Banyarwanda should have taken place between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. Most of the Banyarwanda, Tutsi and Hutu (but the majority were Tutsi) would have arrived in Zaire, especially in North Kivu, during the Belgian colonial period, and some also after the independence of Zaire. The estimated number of all Banyarwanda in Zaire in 1994, varied between 1.5 and 2 million; the number of Banyamulenge was given as between 20,000 and 60,000 (though some spoke of 400,000).
The Zaire nationality of those Banyarwanda created a problem. The law of the Republic changed many times. In 1964, Zaire nationality was accorded to all persons whose forbears were established in Zaire before 1908. In 1972, it was also granted to "persons originally from Rwanda-Urundi who were established in the province of Kivu before 1 January 1950"; but this law was repealed in 1981, probably resulting from political, economic and land ownership problems in that region.
Since 1993, ethnic violence between the "natives" (Hunde, Nyanga, Nande) and the Banyarwanda, rocked North-Kivu, particularly in the Masisi area. The arrival of more than a million Rwandan refugees gradually destabilized the whole of Kivu. In South-Kivu the conflict began in 1995. The Banyarwanda were victims of acts of violence perpetrated by soldiers, Zaire authorities and the local population. The Banyamulenge demanded that their Zairian nationality should be recognized, and their civil and political rights be respected. There was an outbreak of violence against the Tutsi of Uvira at the beginning of September 1996. But they were prepared for the armed struggle, apparently with the help of the Rwandan government. They had no intention of allowing themselves to be driven from the country like the Tutsi in the North. In October the rebellion in Kivu began.

KABILA AND THE ALLIANCE
At the beginning of the rebellion on 18 October 1996, the Alliance of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo- Zaire (AFDL) was formed, with Kabila as its leader.
Laurent Kabila, a Muluba of Shaba, formerly a follower of Pierre Mulela, played an important part in the sixties, in the uprising by the Leftist Nationalists in the East of Zaire (then the Congo). After the defeat of the Mulela movement, Kabila founded his own party, the People's Revolution Party, whose military wing, The People's Armed Forces, for years ruled an enclave of "liberated territory" in the mountains at the South of Uvira.
The AFDL is similar to some rather obscure organizations such as The People's Revolution Party (PRP) of Kabila himself; The People's Democratic Alliance (ADP) whose leader is Deo Bugera, a Tutsi of Rutshuru. (The ADP, which includes the so-called Banyamulenge, is certainly the dominant faction in the Alliance); The Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Zaire of Nindaga Masusu, a Mushi; and an organization called, The National Resistance Council for Democracy.
Laurent Kabila was considered as a man of straw among the Banyarwanda Tutsi, if not of Rwanda itself, but he has lately acquired some importance. The Alliance, which is remarkably well organized, also in its international relations, tries to attract to itself, all other movements of opposition to Mobutu.
Some Zairian parties opposed to Mobutu, appear to be diffident of this rebellion, because it is generally regarded as an attack by Rwanda. The principal opposition party, the UDPS, favors negotiations. In Shaba, the UFERI has distanced itself from Mobutu. A traditional chief, the emperor of the Lunda, urged that there should be negotiations with Kabila whom he called "a Zairian who is fighting against a dictator".

C. The Refugees

An unspeakable tragedy.
For weeks and months, international organizations discussed in vain, the sending of an intervention force to protect and to evacuate refugees and displaced persons.
After the staggering spectacle of the return of hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees to their own country, there was a battle about the presumed number of refugees remaining in Zaire as a pretext for non-intervention.
At the beginning of 1997, the European Commissioner, Emma Bonino, visited Tingi-Tingi camp between Bukavu and Kisangani where she saw "those refugees who could not exist". She continued: "It is a fact that we had 1.2 million Rwandan refugees in Zaire. Another fact: a maximum of 700,000 persons returned to Rwanda in November (the HCR considered this number acceptable though rather optimistic). Thus, a good half a million people were lost. Two months later, 200,000 of them re-appeared in the camps at Tingi-Tingi, Amisi and Shabunda in a nightmarish condition. 200,000 have disappeared. Either they have perished or they are surviving somewhere in the forest. We can only hope that the latter is the case".