CONGO AS SEEN BY LONDON-BASED AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL - LE CONGO TEL QUE VU PAR AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL BASE A LONDRES
Vol 46 Number 8, 15th April 2005:
Missing a basic law
Arguments over the new constitution are delaying the elections and infuriating the opposition
The political rows over the constitution and the consequent delays are threatening the electoral timetable and the transitional government's stability. In theory, elections are to be held in June but they will have to be postponed until the constitutional arguments are settled, which could take several months. Delaying the vote is such an incendiary issue that the Chairman of the Commission Electorale Indépendante (CEI) Abbé Apollinaire Malu-Malu, is reluctant to announce it.
Vol 46 Number 5, 4th March 2005:
IMF reprieve
An International Monetary Fund mission to Kinshasa in mid-February led by Cyrille Briançon is to give the government a pass-mark and recommend that the final tranche of its poverty reduction and growth facility of about US$40 million be handed over. This is despite the government's failure to meet several IMF targets.
Vol 46 Number 3, 4th February 2005:
Peace is pricey
Kinshasa's political chiefs will lose their incomes if they lose the elections
Logistical obstacles and political arguments surround the transitional government's decision to postpone national elections, due in June and now put off by at least six months. Commercial interests play their part as well, while senior people in Kinshasa accuse each other of corruption. Such accusations are part of the pre-election manoeuvres, as each faction, especially the armed groups represented in the transitional coalition government, defends its economic base.
Vol 46 Number 2, 21st January 2005:
Impossible vote
The announcement that the elections are to be postponed by at least six months has sparked a new wave of political unrest from all sides. Few would argue with Father Apollinaire Malu Malu, Chairman of Congo's Commission Electorale Indépendante, who said on 6 January that it was impossible to meet the 30 June deadline because the voting booths and electoral lists would not be ready and because there is no draft constitution or electoral law.
Vol 45 Number 25, 17th December 2004:
On edge
The fighting in North Kivu threatens both next year's promised elections and Congo's fragile peace. President Joseph Kabila's cheerleaders in Kinshasa blame Rwandan aggression for the latest clashes, and claim to have captured Rwandan soldiers. Kigali denies any involvement, insisting it is purely a Congolese battle. Tensions have heightened since last month when Rwanda's President Paul Kagame warned that he would order his troops across the border to attack the Rwandan Hutu rebels of the Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR).
Vol 45 Number 24, 3rd December 2004:
Coming to blows
Somebody fired katyusha rockets into Rwerere village in Rwanda's northern Gisenyi province, on 15 November. Three people were hurt. A similar attack followed in Ruhengeri province. President Paul Kagame threatened to send his forces across the Congo border to seek out the Hutu rebels he believes are sheltering there. On 23 November, Rwanda warned the United States and British Ambassadors in Kigali and Bill Swing, the American chief of the United Nations mission in Congo, that this move was imminent.
Vol 45 Number 22, 5th November 2004:
Battle for the palace
The presidential candidates are campaigning although the election timetable is unworkable
Campaigning for the presidential election due next July has started early. President Joseph Kabila set the ball rolling on 16 October with a groundbreaking visit to Kisangani, almost a year and half after he proclaimed an end to the civil war. Many Congolese and outsiders question whether the elections will hold; they will almost certainly be delayed.
Vol 45 Number 21, 22nd October 2002:
Post-war clean up
After several UN investigations, Congo's parliament looks at wartime economic exploitation
At the end of November, several months late, a report is due from the National Assembly's Commission on contracts signed during Congo's recent wars (AC Vol 45 No 17). Senior managers of the public and private enterprises named in United Nations' reports on the looting of Congo and its role in the continuation of the war will face hearings by the Commission d'Enquête chargée de l'examen de la validité des conventions à caractère économique et financier conclues pendant les guerres de 1996-97 et de 1998. The findings, and the evidence, will be keenly watched by Congolese and by those who might hope to help or to invest in the country.
Vol 45 Number 21, 22nd October 2002:
Front-line investigators
The National Assembly's Commission on war contracts consists of 17 members of parliament: four each from Société Civile and Opposition Politique, two each from the Parti pour la Réconciliation et le Développement, Mouvement de Libération du Congo and Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie, and one each from the RCD-National, RCD-Mouvement de Libération and Mai-Mai . . .
Vol 45 Number 21, 22nd October 2002:
Pig in a poke
Attempts to strengthen Congo's new integrated national army have met an unexpected obstacle. Five weeks' 'training the trainers' in Belgium was planned for 285 Congolese officers. But 16 (four female) promptly decamped from Elsenborn Barracks. Belgian Defence Minister André Flahaut ordered the rest on to planes home.
Vol 45 Number 20, 8th October 2004:
Undiplomatic row
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa sacked Vice-President Nevers Mumba on 4 October for igniting a serious diplomatic row. Mumba had accused individuals in Congo-Kinshasa of funding the Zambian opposition.
Vol 45 Number 19, 24th September 2004:
Kofi asks for more
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan wants to increase the strength of Monuc, the UN Mission in Congo, from 10,800 to 23,000 men. He also wants troops for Sudan, and maybe Iraq. European governments have not reacted, although on 3 September France put up a draft resolution which would increase Monuc's numbers and stiffen its powers.
Vol 45 Number 17, 27th August 2004
Transition on hold, again
A massacre in Burundi threatens the power-sharing government in Kinshasa and peace in the region
Congo-Kinshasa's transition to normality ground to a halt on 23 August, when the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie-Goma 'temporarily' withdrew from the transitional government in Kinshasa. The RCD-Goma's Vice-President in that government, Azarias Ruberwa, cited bad faith by President Joseph Kabila's Parti du Peuple pour la Reconstruction et le Développement and the gruesome massacre of 163 refugees, most of them Congolese Tutsi, in a camp in Burundi on 13 August.
Vol 45 Number 14, 9th July 2004:
Military might
This week's military agreement between Rwanda and South Africa may be touted as African Union cooperation and regional peace-building. But some in Pretoria fear that if Kigali continues to meddle in Congo-Kinshasa, South Africa will be blamed for helping to arm an interventionist Rwandan army.
Elsewhere in Africa, there is concern that South Africa's military dominance is weighing too heavily, while Uganda is wary of such a powerful alliance for its small but energetic neighbour.
Vol 45 Number 12, 11th June 2004:
The Kivus jolt Kinshasa, again
The revolt in remote Bukavu threatens the peace and Kabila's transitional regime
The capture of Bukavu by General Laurent Nkunda's rebels on 2 June sent tremors across the country. It was a huge blow to the power-sharing government in Kinshasa and the attempt to build a new national army from former government soldiers and different rebel factions. Almost everyone except Eastern Congo's rebels looks weaker as a result. At first, Congolese workers and students demonstrated against the impotence of government and United Nations' peacekeepers in the face of rebel fire. Quickly the protests turned to riots in Kinshasa, Kisangani, Kindu and Lubumbashi. UN offices were attacked and robbed, about 30 vehicles were burnt and UN peacekeepers shot dead at least three looters in Kinshasa.
President Joseph Kabila's year-old transitional government lost even more popular support and the opposition took advantage. In Kinshasa on 3 June, tens of thousands of demonstrators brandished the old flag of Zaïre, sang the Mobutist national anthem and chanted the late President Mobutu Sese Seko's name.
Vol 45 Number 12, 11th June 2004:
Send for Tintin
A Belgian judge has issued an international arrest warrant for a senior member of President Joseph Kabila's team, Jean-Charles Okoto. He is in charge of organisation and recruitment for the ruling Parti du Peuple pour la Reconstruction et le Développement.
Vol 45 Number 12, 11th June 2004:
Chez Ntemba spreads its wings
Lubumbashi-born K.W. Kayembe, perhaps Africa's most successful nightclub entrepreneur, is to open a new venue, in Manor House, North London. Kayembe established his first Chez Ntemba ('preferred corner' in Kiswahili) nightclub in Lubumbashi in 1980 and has set up 17 more across Southern and East Africa.
Vol 45 Number 11, 28th May 2004:
Yes, guv
It took three months of negotiation for President Joseph Kabila to nominate the eleven provincial governors. The Mission des Nations Unies en République du Congo (Monuc) approved but plenty of politicians grumbled, especially in Katanga, whose mineral wealth (AC Vol 45 No 10) has long inspired secessionist dreams. There, Kabila nominated Kisula Ngoy, a former doctor with mining parastatal Gécamines, describing him as a representative of the Mai-Mai militias.
Vol 45 Number 10, 14th May 2004:
Diamond defamation
Oryx Natural Resources has finally lost the legal battle to clear its name and dropped its libel action against the London daily The Independent, which accused the company of money laundering, diamond smuggling and lying about its links with the Zimbabwean military in an article in November 2002.
Vol 45 Number 9, 30th April 2004:
Future shock
The new integrated army, created to solve political problems, is not much use for military tasks such as peacekeeping. Its First Brigade, whose 190 Belgian and twelve French instructors are to be strengthened at the end of April by others from Germany and Luxembourg, is supposed to take over from MONUC in Ituri.
Vol 45 Number 7, 2nd April 2004:
To plot or not
Politicians in the power-sharing government fall out over coup allegations
Facts are sacred and thin on the ground for Congolese struggling to make sense of what lay behind three hours of shooting in Kinshasa in the early hours of last Sunday. Whatever the truth about the gunfire - claimed to be a coup plot by allies of President Joseph Kabila - the incidents have further wobbled the transitional government, already shaken by rows over nominating new provincial governors and control of the new national army.
Vol 45 Number 6, 19th March 2004:
Ruberwa's rift
A dangerous rift has opened at the top of the transitional government, between President Joseph Kabila and Azarias Ruberwa, one of the four vice-presidents and leader of the largest former rebel group, the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie-Goma
Vol 45 Number 5, 5th March 2004:
Peace dividend
President Mbeki's diplomatic forays into Congo have a sound commercial base
South Africa's dreams of harnessing Congo-Kinshasa's massive hydro-electric resources to power most of Southern Africa are moving towards reality. The first aim for Eskom, SA's state-owned power utility, is to build Inga III, a 3,500-megawatt project to transmit power along the 'Western Corridor'. This brings in the national energy companies of Angola, Botswana and Namibia, as well as Congo itself. A first memorandum of understanding was signed in 2003. A new, apparently final, agreement, backed by an inter-governmental memo, is supposed to be signed this year.
Vol 45 Number 5, 5th March 2004:
Papa Wemba's big band
The King of Rumba Rock's troubles are rebounding on other Congolese musicians. Jeany Ibela-Ibel, President of the Congolese artists' union, complains that European immigration authorities are victimising Congolese musicians and alleges that it is now almost impossible for them to play in Brussels or Paris.
Vol 44 Number 24, 5th December 2003:
Peace or bust
Congolese desperation – not great leaders or Western generosity – is forcing change
Two heavily armed factions within Congo's transitional power-sharing government came to blows on the night of 17 November. Officers of President Joseph Kabila's Agence Nationale de Renseignements (ANR, National Information Agency) arrived at the Grand Hôtel and arrested Colonel Hubert Olangué of the Congo-Brazzaville army. The intelligence men suspected him of 'spying' on behalf of Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, head of the once-rebel Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC) and of association with one of Bemba's allies, the well informed French businessman, bon viveur and sometime advisor to the South African government, Jean-Yves Olivier.
Vol 44 Number 24, 5th December 2003:
After the war economy
Kinshasa has high hopes of the World Bank consultative group meeting in Paris on 17-18 December, where eight Congolese ministers will argue for more aid to consolidate the peace. At the top of the agenda is more money for the Programme Multisectoriel d'Urgence pour la Reconstruction et la Réhabilitation (PMURR). Initial estimates of US$1.7 billion covered territory controlled by President Joseph Kabila's government; now the Kinshasa power-sharing government wants the PMURR to cover former rebel territories in Equateur Province and the east. Planning Minister Alexis Thambwe Mwamba says another $1.3 bn. at least will be needed.
Vol 44 Number 23, 21st November 2003:
Surrender!
Rwandan intelligence scores full marks for orchestrating the surrender of Hutu rebel leader Paul Rwarakabije on 16 November and wrongfooting both the United Nations and President Joseph Kabila's power-sharing government in Kinshasa. Based in Congo-Kinshasa, Rwarakabije had led the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), a movement comprised of Interahamwé militants (responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide), former soldiers with the old Forces Armeés Rwandaises and displaced Rwandan Hutu.
Vol 44 Number 21, 24th October 2003:
Cutting-edge diplomacy
President Joseph Kabila's planned meeting with United States President George Bush on 5 November is a personal triumph for Israeli diamond trader and Congo's ambassador at large Dan Gertler who, along with his business partner Chaim Leibovitz, has been cultivating White House contacts for several months. Kabila has met Bush twice before, but this time he is scheduled to get more than an hour in the Oval Office and will stay in Blair House opposite the White House. US officials say the Congo peace deal is at a delicate stage and Kabila needs encouragement.
Vol 44 Number 20, 10th October 2003:
Le grand retour
President Kabila is thriving in the new coalition but many fear it will be the last chance to reunite the country
Warlords, veteran politicians, technocrats and business people are crowding into Kinshasa, either to shape the future or to make some money. Not since the ill-fated Conférence Nationale Souveraine of the early 1990s has the capital seen so many operators of different persuasions. Diplomats, donors, United Nations officials and many Congolese see this as an opportunity to focus attention on the country's national dilemmas, which are legion, and away from the regional dynamic of the last five years of conflict. Many believe the new power-sharing government (AC Vol 44 No 16) is the last chance to keep the country together, as long as the reassembled multitudes keep swimming in the same direction.
For the first time in its history, Congo has a National Assembly with constitutional powers to restrain the executive. But can its 600 members, and the Senators, count on being paid? So far they have received just US$600 for setting-up costs. Many senators and deputies, especially former exiles and those from the provinces, are literally going without food. Hungry senators are easy to manipulate. In Kinshasa, where families take turns to miss meals, the new term for hunger is delestage (load-shedding).
Vol 44 Number 18, 12th September 2003:
Not welcome
Having arrested the former head of late President Mobutu Sese Seko's feared Garde Civile, General Kpama Baramoto Kata, Belgium can't find a country willing to take him. Baramoto was detained at Brussels airport on 27 July arriving from the United States, carrying a Congolese passport with a transit visa issued by a Portuguese consulate in the USA that did not allow him to enter the Schengen Zone, Europe's 15-state area of free cross-border movement of people.
Vol 44 Number 17, 29th August 2003:
No French leave
After weeks of denials, the French-led Interim Emergency Multinational Force is to stay in Congo's north-east Ituri district past its declared exit date of 1 September to assist United Nations peacekeepers to deploy under a UN Security Council resolution of 26 August.
Vol 44 Number 17, 29th August 2003:
Ties that bind
Having given sanctuary to late President Mobutu Sese Seko, Morocco is maintaining close ties with Joseph Kabila, some of whose intelligence and close protection agents are being trained by Moroccan security.
Vol 44 Number 16, 8th August 2003:
Deals in the West, war in the East
Continuing slaughter in the east reveals the faultlines of the Kinshasa regime
Congo's civil war was five years old on 2 August and the country's politicians claim it is all over (AC Vol 44 No 14). Few believe them. Bloody chaos in the east threatens the fragile political deal signed in the west. In Kinshasa, politicians and generals congratulate each other (nervously glancing over their shoulders) on the power-sharing government formed on 17 July.
Dignitaries such as, Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign affairs and security supremo, and the French and Belgian Defence ministers, Michèle Alliot-Marie and André Flahaut, praise the new order. Mandarins of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank say Kinshasa's economic management is `broadly satisfactory', enough to persuade them to write off some US$10 billion of debt. Yet fighting continues along the eastern axis, from Bukavu north to Ituri, where over 200 people were massacred in the past month.
Vol 44 Number 14, 11th July 2003:
The nearly government
The latest political deal holds out a hope of stabilising the east after five years of horror
The politicians missed the 30 June deadline for a new national government and army. However (under heavy United Nations' pressure) they stitched up a last-minute deal and the presidents are to be sworn in on 17 July. The Belgian, British and French foreign ministers, plus European Union High Representative Javier Solana and Aldo Ajello, EU Special Representative to the Great Lakes, are expected. The armed forces chief is to be sworn in first, on 14 July, the government is to meet for the first time on 19 July and parliament is to hold its first session on 19 July.
Vol 44 Number 13, 27th June 2003:
Nobody's moving
A temporary calm in Ituri does not mean progress towards national peace
Congo-Kinshasa has briefly diverted the attention of the United Nations Security Council from its altercations over Iraq. Spurred into action by the stark contrast in kill rates more than three million people over the past five years in Congo's war and, by rough estimates, around 200,000 by ex-President Saddam Hussein's regime in the same period the 15 UNSC Ambassadors flew into Kinshasa on 7 June to instruct political factions to set up a power-sharing government by 30 June. There is almost no chance that this will happen and so the hopes for pacifying eastern Congo on the back of a new national government and security force look forlorn in the near future. Meanwhile, the Council has authorised a French-led intervention force to go into the north-eastern Ituri Province to break the bloody cycle of violence there (AC Vol 44 Nos 11 & 12).
Vol 44 Number 13, 27th June 2003:
The Ituri militias
Vol 44 Number 12, 13th June 2003:
Battle for Bunia
Quarrelling over posts in a power-sharing government, pitting Kinshasa's proxies against those of Rwanda, reflects a similar struggle in eastern Congo where Kinshasa and Rwanda back rival militias. In both cases, civil society and non-armed opposition are being squeezed out.
Vol 44 Number 11, 30th May 2003:
Un-rapid reaction
Fighting is worsening in the north-eastern Ituri Province but plans for a 2,000-strong rapid reaction force are embroiled in United Nations and European Union bureaucracy. The proposed French-led force with a tough peace-enforcement mandate faces diplomatic opposition from Rwanda, which says the French role would 'not be appropriate'.
Vol 44 Number 9, 2nd May 2003:
Drummed out
Only a burst tyre and a forced landing made Uganda miss its 24 April deadline to pull its troops out of north-eastern Congo-Kinshasa. They set off in four Antonov transport aeroplanes for Entebbe the following day. Locals loudly cheered their farewell parade behind a band through Bunia.
For months, Uganda's army had kept some sort of order in Ituri Province between better off Hema landowners and Lendu peasants, both of them armed and trained by Uganda for its proxy Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie-Mouvement de Libération (RCD-ML).
Vol 44 Number 9, 2nd May 2003:
Wood for the trees
Mystery surrounds the fate of a proposed US$50 million investment in the Shikolobwe concession in Katanga, one of the world's richest deposits of copper, cobalt and uranium. The United States used Shikolobwe uranium for the atomic bomb it dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. Today's investor, Swiss-based commodities conglomerate Glencore, is interested only in the cobalt and already buys much of Congo-Kinshasa's output through its trading arm.
Vol 44 Number 8, 18th April 2003:
Deeper and deeper
President Mbeki is betting his diplomatic credibility on success in brokering peace in Congo and Burundi
South Africa is about to raise the stakes by committing three battalions for peacekeeping duties in Burundi and eastern Congo, having hosted a succession of summits to persuade warring factions to disarm and demobilise. With Johannesburg mining houses greedily eyeing Congo's scandale géologique, Pretoria's interests are not wholly altruistic but its diplomatic efforts reflect President Thabo Mbeki's aim of pacifying Africa's conflict zones.
Central Africa's conflict takes in six countries - Congo-Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville, Central African Republic, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda - before washing down into Angola and Zambia. As long as wars rage across borders and feed new conflicts, serious economic development and investment can be ruled out - a massive obstacle in the centre of the continent to Mbeki's hoped-for African Renaissance. Pretoria has been involved in Great Lakes politics since 1996, when it tried and failed to broker a settlement between Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko and his eventual successor Laurent-Desiré Kabila.
Vol 44 Number 2, 24th January 2003:
Cable controversy
The worsening fighting in the Ituri region of eastern Congo-Kinshasa is undermining the peace accords signed by Rwanda and Uganda with the Kinshasa government, according to diplomatic cables seen by Africa Confidential. The cables, copies of which have been sent to several Western embassies and the United Nations headquarters in New York, accuse both Rwanda and Uganda of fuelling the fighting by delivering new weapons to local militias.
Vol 43 Number 25, 20th December 2002:
Two helpings of peace
Peace deals for both Congo-Kinshasa and Burundi, brokered by South Africa, will be tested early in 2003. The Congo deal, signed in Pretoria on 17 December, proposes a government of national unity, national assembly and senate, with all factions fighting since 1998 integrated into a new national army.
Vol 43 Number 23, 22nd November 2002:
Kabila reacts
President Joseph Kabila has again outplayed his regional rivals, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda's General Paul Kagame, in the diplomatic arena.
Vol 43 Number 21, 25th October 2002:
Soldiers go, plunderers stay
How occupying generals turned into thieves and how private companies helped them
The multi-billion dollar looting of Congo-Kinshasa's resources continues, threatening hopes for peace and economic reconstruction following the withdrawal of Rwandan, Ugandan and Zimbabwean troops. That is the finding of a new United Nations investigation. In the three areas of Congo where Rwandan, Ugandan and Zimbabwean troops were deployed, a self-sustaining war economy has built up, whose fruits finance conflicts and enrich the narrow band of politicians, military officers and business people whom the UN investigators call 'elite networks'. Exploitative businesses have been built up in coordination with the foreign and Congolese military forces, strong enough to survive the departure of the foreign troops. These parasitic businesses drain hundreds of millions of dollars a year from Congo's economy and state coffers.
In areas controlled by the Congolese government, at least US$5 bn. of state mining assets have been transferred to private companies controlled by the foreign elites, with no compensation or benefit for Congo's state Treasury since 1999. The UN Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo estimates the Armée Patriotique Rwandaise has been earning about $320 million a year from commercial operations in eastern Congo (AC Vol 43 No 10). In 33 years in power, Congo's own Mobutu Sese Seko was reckoned to have stolen $5 bn.
The Report, released this week, argues that although the regional conflict which drew seven different armies into Congo has diminished, the overlapping micro-conficts that they helped provoke continue (see Box).
Vol 43 Number 21, 25th October 2002:
Hall of infamy
See this article for a list of individuals who are accused in the United Nations Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Mineral Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Vol 43 Number 21, 25th October 2002:
The British connection
British sanctions policy on Zimbabwe is in disarray after the United Nations Report on the Illegal Exploitation of Mineral Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo identified two British-based businessmen – John Arnold Bredenkamp and Captain Andrew Smith – as key suppliers of military equipment and services to the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF). Britain was the first country to impose sanctions including an embargo on supplies of military equipment and spare parts on President Robert Mugabe's government just prior to Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections in June 2000. But the sanctions have had little effect on the Mugabe government's ability to source military equipment. Neither Bredenkamp nor Smith can face prosecution under British law provided they run their military procurement operations from associated companies outside Britain.
Vol 43 Number 21, 25th October 2002:
Proxy wars and slaughter
The confused killing in eastern Congo involves politics, tribalism and greed
Rwanda and Uganda have pulled out their troops (AC Vol 43 No 19) but the proxy war continues in eastern Congo. On 15 August in Luanda, Uganda agreed with Congo-Kinshasa to withdraw all its troops save those patrolling the Ruwenzori Mountains on the border, where the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF, AC Vol 43 No 16) chases remnants of the rebel Allied Democratic Forces. Some of the fighting is between Hema and Lendu people, who have quarrelled over land since Independence in 1960; in Bunia in August, some 110 people died.
Vol 43 Number 13, 28th June 2002:
Carrots for Kinshasa
The International Monetary Fund and World Bank's US$1.2 billion package is a massive gesture of political support for President Joseph Kabila. Technically it was made possible by a relatively successful IMF staff-monitored programme, which saw the introduction of a floating exchange rate system to break the cycle of hyperinflation and currency depreciation.
Vol 43 Number 10, 17th May 2002:
Behind the partition
Since 52 days of inter-Congolese talks at Sun City ended last month, a new partition is emerging. Some 70 per cent of the territory is covered by the 'framework agreement' between President Joseph Kabila's government and most of its opponents . . .
Vol 43 Number 8, 19th April 2002:
Sundown
Rebel and government delegations are regrouping – not reuniting their country
The Inter-Congolese Dialogue, which began on 25 February in Sun City, South Africa, has missed its deadline. The government of Joseph Kabila, the rebels, the unarmed opposition and civil society representatives were meant to have agreed by 11 April on political arrangements for the transition to democracy and on a new constitution. President Thabo Mbeki gave them an extra week to wind things up. Late on 15 April there were signs of a back-room deal between Kabila and rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba which would exclude other armed and non-armed political groups.
Vol 43 Number 8, 19th April 2002:
Who killed Laurent?
The death penalty hangs over the accused but the trial is alternately tedious and entertaining. At Kinshasa's central prison on 15 March, a military court began trying some 125 suspects charged with plotting the assassination of the late President Laurent-Désiré Kabila (AC Vol 43 No 2). The murder weapon has disappeared, the alleged killer is dead and many defendants claim they have been tortured. The judges get the accused muddled up.
Handcuffed suspects clownishly re-enact events, Congolese rumba plays on loudspeakers during breaks. In the first week, there was a shortage of plastic chairs, and defendants and lawyers stood in the heat for up to six hours a day. Many of those accused have been in gaol without legal advice since Kabila was shot by a bodyguard on 16 January 2001.
Vol 43 Number 4, 22nd February 2002:
High stakes at Sun City
Slow-flowing funds and covert bargains put peace-talks at risk
Peacemaking in the Congo has been a gamble so it's fitting that the next venue for talks is South Africa's casino capital, Sun City. First, though, the man in charge has to get his stake-money in order, and the facilitator, ex-President Ketumile Masire of Botswana, insists on transparency. With the opening day set for 25 February, there is still much to do. Just five days before the opening, Jean-Pierre Bemba has pulled his Mouvement de Libération du Congo out of the talks because he claims many of the parties there will be mere fronts for President Joseph Kabila, and give him an unfair advantage in the negotiations. Bemba's main foreign ally, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, has advised Bemba to go to Sun City despite his misgivings.
Vol 43 Number 2, 25th January 2002:
Under the volcano
Even the latest catastrophe in Goma isn't pushing the combatants into negotiations
The mile-wide river of lava spewing from Mount Nyiragonga last week devastated the rebel capital of Goma but hasn't changed the combatants' entrenched positions in the war. President Joseph Kabila tried to score points by offering to send a rescue mission to Goma headed by Foreign Minister Léonard She Okitundu and Justice Minister Mwenze Kongolo. But Adolphe Onusomba, leader of the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie, which has its headquarters in Goma, rebuffed his offer and told him to funnel any help through the United Nations. Kinshasa officials have been locked out of Goma for over three years and the RCD isn't popular with the locals it rules, either.
Vol 42 Number 24, 7th December 2001:
Santa's leopards
President Joseph Kabila and rebel leaders Jean-Pierre Bemba and Adolphe Onosumba are due to meet in Abuja, Nigeria on 13 December to speed up negotiations to end the war and set up a transitional regime. Presiding host President Olusegun Obasanjo is being encouraged by Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel to push hard for a working arrangement between Congo-Kinshasa's big three.
Vol 42 Number 21, 26th October 2001:
Piecemeal
Nelson Mandela's plan annoys almost eveyone but there's no alternative in sight
We are on the verge of reaching a breakthrough which will bring permanent peace and stability', said Nelson Mandela, former South African President and Burundi's peace mediator, on 16 October (AC Vol 42 No 17). Two days later, 30 South African policemen arrived in Bujumbura on a four-day visit to prepare the deployment of 700 armed men from their own country, whose task is central to Mandela's peace deal.
Vol 42 Number 21, 26th October 2001:
Walk out
The Kinshasa government's abandonment of the Inter-Congolese dialogue on 19 October raises new doubts about its commitment to the Lusaka peace accord. Foreign Minister Léonard She Okitundu and Justice Minister Mwenze Kongolo walked out of the talks in Addis Ababa complaining that the cut in delegations attending the talks (from 330 to 70), the absence of representatives of the MaiMai militias and uncertainties about funding would undermine negotiations.
Vol 42 Number 19, 28th September 2001:
Dialogue in Addis
The many sides in Congo's wars have started talking; young President Kabila may yet prevail
Two big questions face former President Ketumile Masire of Botswana as he prepares to organise Congo-Kinshasa's political conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 15 October: who should attend the conference and who should lead the country while Congolese politicians and activists write a new constitution and hold national elections? New hopes are riding on a summit between Congo's President Joseph Kabila (AC Vol 42 No 14) and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, to be held in Blantyre, Malawi, this week.
Vol 42 Number 18, 14th September 2001:
Clean-up or cover-up
The latest effort to clean up state companies isn't as sweeping as it looks. President Joseph Kabila has suspended the boards of 57 of them, appointed provisional management committees and called for new business plans. This follows a 7 August audit detailing catastrophic management.
Vol 42 Number 14, 13th July 2001:
Friends abroad, foes at home
Aid has restarted but dialogue has stalled and foreign troops stay put
President Joseph Kabila has convinced international donors that he is worth backing. Aid is starting, slowly and conditionally, to flow towards Kinshasa. In March, the European Union announced a package worth 28 million euros (US$23.7 mn.) for rehabilitating the justice system. It also set aside a further E120 mn. ($101.6 mn.) conditional on progress in the promised inter-Congolese dialogue, between government, armed rebels, unarmed opposition and 'civil society'. Belgium, too, said on 30 June that its aid would restart and on 3 July, the World Bank organised a donors' meeting in Paris, with Belgium and Canada sharing the chair. The Congolese representatives heard that $240 mn. could be available over coming months but again, subject to progress towards peace.
Vol 42 Number 14, 13th July 2001:
Multi-party
Those hoping to be in the dialogue include an astonishing 450-odd so-called political parties. Without elections, their strength is unknown. Very few have much backing. Genuine parties include...
Vol 42 Number 9, 4th May 2001:
War economy
The UN report on the pillage of Congo saw just one side of the issue
A report from a United Nations' expert group on the pillage of Congo-Kinshasa's wealth by outsiders is having unexpected consequences. A group of President Joseph Kabila's advisors touring Europe last weekend to drum up financial support for the Kinshasa regime were bolstered by the findings of the report, released on 16 April: it blames rebels fighting the government for the bulk of the pillaging of resources. Kabila's aides insist the report will make it easier to bring in legitimate investors and financiers: there is talk of suing Rwanda and Uganda for reparations for the plunder of resources. Then on 29 April, Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni announced in Kampala that he would be pulling his troops out of Congo forthwith. He added, however, that Uganda would also withdraw from the Lusaka peace process. The UN report accuses Museveni's brother Salim Saleh of involvement in mineral exploitation in the Congo, a charge Museveni vehemently rejects.
Vol 42 Number 8, 20th April 2001:
The man from uncle
'Joseph Kabila has chased away the uncles at last', proclaimed Le Forum des As on 15 April. The Kinshasa daily was reflecting widespread public approval of the President's Easter Saturday reshuffle that removed three of the four barons of the late Laurent Kabila's regime. The departed uncles, all State (senior) Ministers, are Gaëtan Kakudji (Interior, number two to his cousin, Laurent), Abdoulaye Yérodia Ndombasi (Education) and Pierre-Victor Mpoyo (Minister without Portfolio and the man behind the controversial mining contracts with Zimbabwe's Billy Rautenbach.)
Vol 42 Number 7, 6th April 2001:
Plots galore
Strange tales surround Laurent Kabila's murder (AC Vol 42 No 6). The main witness, Emile Mota, then head of economics in Kabila's office, was arrested in Lubumbashi while trying to escape into Zambia. He has been in Makala gaol in Kinshasa since mid-March, on one meal a day, not allowed to wash or to see his wife. A fellow-prisoner is said to be Colonel Eddy Kapend, Kabila's aide-de-camp, supposed killer of Rachidi Rasekera, supposed killer of Kabila. Rachidi's family fled to Brazzaville within hours of President Kabila's murder.
Vol 42 Number 6, 23rd March 2001:
Slow, slow
Western powers like Joseph Kabila but that doesn't mean a quick peace
Peace on the ground is no nearer in Congo-Kinshasa since Laurent-Désiré Kabila's murder on 16 January but the diplomats are smiling more (AC Vol 41 No 4). Son and successor President Joseph Kabila has been favourably received in Western capitals, notably by the 'contact group' of Belgium, Britain, the United States and France. The Western powers are offering Kabila II a trade off: if Kinshasa takes the Lusaka accord seriously - which means talking to United Nations mediator Ketumile Masire and not obstructing the deployment of UN observers - then the West will lean on Rwanda and Uganda to pull their troops back and rein in their sponsored rebel factions. Washington has already started sending 'frank messages' to Kigali and Kampala about their obligations under Lusaka and the diplomatic and other consequences should they flout them. Britain's Foreign Secretary Robin Cook gave Kabila a similar message: 'Comply with Lusaka and we're ready to help you'.
Vol 42 Number 6, 23rd March 2001:
Generals, tontons and kidogos
Two months after his father's death, President Joseph Kabila has reshuffled his government and his staff officers, around the figure of his 'uncle' Gaëtan Kakudji, a cousin of the late Kabila Senior who is now Minister of the Interior. On 8 March, he announced that Lieutenant General Sylvestre Lwetsha (from Kivu and 75 years old) remains Chief of General Staff, head of all the services; he was formerly a MaiMai fighter but now has no influence over the Kivu rebels. His number two, Brigadier Gen. Dieudonné Kayumbe, was trained at Saint-Cyr military academy in France and served in Mobutu Sese Seko's army; he gives up the job of deputy Minister of Reconstruction.
Vol 42 Number 5, 9th March 2001:
Question of survival
The arrest of Colonel Eddy Kapend on 24 February disturbs the uneasy transition of power in Kinshasa. This is the man who shot the man who shot dead President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. His victim, Lieutenant Rashidi Minzele Kasereka, was the President's bodyguard; Kapend, as Chief of Staff, was ultimately responsible for the President's safety. The Colonel kept his job under new President Joseph Kabila, in close association with the Angolan officers who organised the succession.
Vol 42 Number 4, 23rd February 2001:
Hope springs eternal
Young President Kabila has done more than expected for peace
Just when there are glimmerings of hope for an end to the war, new questions have arisen about Western commitment to backing African peace-brokering in the region. Hopes rest firstly on Congo's new President, Joseph Kabila, whose willingness to move negotiations forward prompted regional leaders to resuscitate the Lusaka peace plan at talks in the Zambian capital last week (AC Vol 42 Nos 2 & 3). Secondly, they rest on the readiness of the political and military leaders of the main countries involved in the war - especially Angola, Rwanda and Uganda - to talk through the problems face-to-face.
Vol 42 Number 3, 9th February 2001:
Le Petit looks good
Elegant in his slightly baggy Kinshasa-style suit, President Joseph Kabila (AC Vol 42 No 2) won new friends in Washington, New York and Brussels. 'Le Petit', as some Belgian and French officials patronisingly call him, is not convivial like his late father, Laurent-Désiré; he is a quiet non-smoker who fitted in well at a fundamentalist prayer breakfast in Washington - a rival in sobriety to Rwanda's austere Paul Kagame, whom the American hosts persuaded to shake hands with his fellow-guest. Ex-General Colin Powell, the new Secretary of State, declared himself impressed by the ex-major general's desire for peace, in line with the Lusaka accord of July 1999.
Vol 42 Number 2, 26th January 2001:
Congo-Kinshasa: Kabila est mort, vive Kabila!
The plot to kill the President has created the country's first dynasty and left a door ajar for peace
After a series of unexplained delays, Joseph Kabila was due to be sworn in to succeed his father at the Presidency on 25 January and Congolese officials insist they have launched an investigation to find out who was behind the assassination. Congolese doubt official information, especially after the three-day-long 'non-death' of President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. They are sceptical about the official version claiming that Kabila's was killed by presidential bodyguard Rachidi Kasereka, a Nandi from North Kivu. Shot dead in the palace, Rachidi can't help the investigation. In his home region, at present under Rwandan occupation, many people believe there was a link between the President's murder and the arrest, in Kinshasa on 21 November, of Commandant Anselme Masasu Nindaga, former leader of the Mouvement Révolutionnaire pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AC Vol 42 No 1). This was one of the four organisations which joined up behind Kabila to form the Alliance des Forces pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL), which in 1997 swept to power in Kinshasa.
Masasu Nindaga, from South Kivu, was Kabila's first Chief of Staff but was arrested in November 1997 and accused of plotting a coup with other Tutsi officers; eleven people died resisting arrest. Masasu was found guilty by a court martial and remained in the underground prison at Bulowo, Katanga, until Kabila declared an amnesty in April 2000. This time, according to Asadho, a human-rights organisation, he was taken to Lubumbashi and executed a few days after his arrest.
Vol 42 Number 2, 26th January 2001:
The pro-consuls decide
Kabila's murder will increase foreign meddling in Kinshasa politics
Whoever the long-term successor to Laurent-Désiré Kabila may be, Angola wants to have a say in the choice. As soon as his murder was known, Luanda ordered Angolan reinforcements into Kinshasa from Brazzaville, across the river; Angolan officers oversaw the Congolese Police d'Intervention Rapide and soldiers who kept order before and during the funeral. Now Angola must decide how to use its influence. Angolan ministers wearily refer to their 'security commitments' in the Congos - Brazzaville and Kinshasa - in the same tones that a 19th century pro-consul might use to describe a troublesome colony.
Vol 41 Number 25, 22nd December 2000:
End of empire
The latest would-be peacemaker for Congo-Kinshasa is the President of neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville, Denis Sassou Nguesso.
Vol 41 Number 23, 24th November 2000:
Bonding in Brussels
A new opposition alliance is trying to start talks between government and rebels
President Laurent-Désiré Kabila rejects the idea, enshrined in the Lusaka agreement of July 1999, of all-party talks about his country's constitutional future. He is not expected to be in Brussels on 24 November. Yet most of his political opponents are expected, at a meeting organised by Albert Mpeti, representative in Belgium of the Parti Démocrate Social Chrétien (PDSC).
Vol 41 Number 21, 27th October 2000:
Conditional offers
Fresh peace initiatives for the Democratic Republic of Congo look pointless, as government, rebels and their respective sponsors gear up for more fighting. The last regional summit on Congo, in Maputo, Mozambique, on 16 October, committed all sides to move their forces 15 kilometres back from the present positions they hold.
Vol 41 Number 20, 13th October 2000:
Dropping Kabila
Regional powers led Angola are pressuring Congo's leader to talk peace
Secret discussions between regional leaders in Kampala, Kigali, Luanda and Paris hold the best hope for peace in Congo-Kinshasa. Their common theme is growing impatience with President Laurent-Désiré Kabila and his obstruction of the peace process. Angola is now paying for most military operations in support of Kabila (including the costs of Zimbabwean and Namibian troops).
Vol 41 Number 18, 15th September 2000:
Soldiers of misfortune
Mercenaries and miners will play a key role in President Kabila's latest offensive
President Laurent-Désiré Kabila is increasingly relying on mercenary soldiers and bomber pilots as he prepares for a new round of fighting with the disparate rebel factions across the country. His once enthusiastic allies in Angola, Namibia and most of all, Zimbabwe, are immersed in local problems and losing patience with his gamesmanship with the United Nations and the Southern African Development Community. Kabila's allies have failed to reap much benefit from their military assistance.
Vol 41 Number 17, 1st September 2000:
A losing gamble
Under renewed military pressure President Kabila's regime does not understand the strength of its opponents
President Laurent-Désiré Kabila had hoped that his opponents' quarrels would bring him a quick victory. After the Rwandan forces had defeated their former Ugandan allies at Kisangani in June, Kabila launched heavy attacks against the armed opposition in Equateur province. The result was a military and diplomatic disaster, and made a fiasco of the latest Southern African Development Community summit in Lusaka on 14-15 August.
The meeting brought together the leaders of the SADC states, and of Rwanda and of Uganda, in an attempt to get the peace process back on track. Yet none of Kabila's fellow Presidents, not even his Namibian ally Sam Nujoma, could persuade him to accept Botswana's former President Ketumile Masire as official facilitator of the inter-Congolese dialogue, or to accept United Nations' peacekeepers in government-held areas.
Vol 41 Number 17, 1st September 2000:
Bemba's boys
The Mouvement de Libération du Congo was formed between late 1998 and early 1999 around Jean-Pierre Bemba, a huge man who stands some 1.90 metres tall and weighs perhaps 120 kilogrammes, and once ran an airline and a cellular telephone company. Since his business interests were in Uganda, he refused the protection of General Paul Kagame of Rwanda, and in September 1998 asked President Yoweri Museveni to give him and some 150 Congolese some military training. After the MLC was set up Laurent Kabila appointed Bemba's father, ex-Mobutu Sese Seko minister Jeannot Bemba Saolona, as Economy Minister. He sacked him two months ago.
Vol 41 Number 12, 9th June 2000:
Glittering prizes II
The arrest in Kinshasa of Mines Minister Frédéric Kibassa Maliba and Economy Minister Bemba Saolona raises more doubts about the planned launching of Oryx Diamonds on the London Stock Exchange on 13 June (AC Vol 41 No 11). Maliba and Saolona (whose son, Jean-Pierre Bemba, leads a north-western based rebel movement) have been accused of 'obstructing' an investigation into the undervaluation of diamonds seized at Kinshasa's N'djili Airport. The diamonds were bound for Belgium.
Vol 41 Number 11, 26th May 2000:
Glittering prizes from the war
A new mining consortium in partnership with Congo and Zimbabwe is to be launched on the London Stock Exchange
A new consortium to mine diamonds in war-torn Congo-Kinshasa, Oryx Diamonds, is to be launched on the London Stock Exchange on 13 June, in partnership with the governments of Congo-K and Zimbabwe. The launch will be a major test of market sentiment towards the British government's attempts to get buyers to shun 'blood diamonds' - stones mined in countries in conflict such as Angola, Congo and Sierra Leone. On 22 May, Britain's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Peter Hain, called for a consumer boycott of diamonds coming from war zones. London will be pushing the Group of Eight industrialised countries meeting in Tokyo in July to back an international scheme to outlaw 'blood' or 'conflict' diamonds.
However, many diamond buyers in London and Antwerp say the campaign against conflict diamonds won't stop them buying rough diamonds from any source they choose. The proposed directors of Oryx Diamonds say they have no involvement with conflict diamonds and dispute that their diamond concessions in Congo are in a war zone.
Vol 41 Number 9, 28th April 2000:
A military trap
Harare's domestic crisis makes its military intervention look even shakier
The Congo war is at the heart of President Robert Mugabe's troubles. The economic cost of Zimbabwe's military involvement, with no immediate return, is a load which donors do not wish to lighten. And the human cost, in troops lost and resources diverted, is fertile ground for the political opposition. However, Mugabe is by no means free to drop the whole misconceived adventure. He himself, with a group of intimate supporters, would be the main beneficiary if things turned out as he hoped. Bringing home the troops would itself be risky. Although the figures are secret, it is widely believed that more than 200 Zimbabwean soldiers have been killed or wounded in Congo; if the sacrifice turned out to be in vain, there is a real risk that the returning troops would join up with Mugabe's other critics.
Vol 41 Number 7, 31st March 2000:
Bye bye Billy
The ousting of Zimbabwean magnate Billy Rautenbach as Chief Executive of Congo-Kinshasa's Gécamines and the breaking up of his Congo-based Central Mining Group is part of a bigger business row between Kinshasa and Harare. It's bad news for Rautenbach and his backers in the Zimbabwe government.
Vol 41 Number 4, 18th February 2000:
Hanging on
Kabila's regime proves more durable than expected but he musn't offend his allies
It is not yet time to write off President Laurent-Désiré Kabila, whose government is trying to climb out of the deep economic hole it has dug itself. Crucially, imports seem to be recovering. Monthly container shipments to the main port, Matadi, were down to about 30 per cent of pre-war levels last year but are now back to around half, suggesting that business people expect the government to scrap its disastrous ban on holding foreign currency. If that happens, more of the diamond trade should flow through legal channels and government revenue, already helped by the increase in imports, should pick up further.
Vol 41 Number 4, 18th February 2000:
Shaky movers
The men who lead Laurent-Désiré Kabila's government were mostly in exile till he seized power in 1997 and owe their status to presidential favour rather than local power-base. The main divide is between the dominant North Katangans, the Kasaiens and the rest.
Vol 41 Number 3, 4th February 2000:
UN-convincing
Almost all the participants claimed victory in the United Nations Security Council's special session on Congo-Kinshasa, convened by United States' Ambassador Richard Holbrooke on 24-26 January. US and British diplomats speak of real progress on getting a UN force into Congo.
Vol 40 Number 23, 19th December 1999:
Diamonds for guns
A five-man Libyan 'business delegation' visited Kinshasa last month to express Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi's 'desire to invest in the diamond sector', said local press reports. The Libyans, who met Albert Luhalwe, the DRC's Deputy Finance Minister, and Deputy Central Bank Governor Nestor Diambwana, explained that their purpose was to gain information about the diamond sector as the prelude to possible investment, although they did not explain precisely what they had in mind.
Vol 40 Number 22, 5th November 1999:
Precious little peace
Divided rebels, stay-put foreign troops and carpet-bagging threaten the ceasefire
There is not much sign of peace. The Lusaka peace deal, signed in July and August, has survived, just. Implementation is moving painfully slowly, with only a handful of United Nations' observers in place (AC Vol 40 Nos 14 & 18). The rebels are increasingly divided and the foreign armies seem determined to stay put. Perhaps the most promising signs are the discreet contacts between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe (the leading backer of the forces supporting Congo-Kinshasa President Laurent-Désiré Kabila) and Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni (the leading backer of the rebel forces). These contacts appear to be designed to forestall a major new outbreak of fighting around the diamond capital of Mbuji-Mayi. Few details have emerged about the possible negotiating points in these discussions, although some suggest they may involve Ugandan access to Congolese natural resources.
Vol 40 Number 22, 5th November 1999:
Rhodies to the rescue
Some of Ian Smith's old friends are helping to finance Robert Mugabe's Congo war effort
Zimbabwe's war in the Congo gets costlier by the day. As the bill rises, the failure of President Robert Mugabe's government to budget accurately for its intervention has caused a new rift with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Domestic opposition is growing, too, as Morgan Tsvangirai's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (AC Vol 40 No 18) asks awkward questions about the Zimbabwe Defence Force's contracts and the 'growing militarisation of the economy'.
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