AIROBI, Kenya, Wednesday,
Jan. 17 There was a joke in Congo's capital that President
Laurent Kabila would rather share the country than share power.
There is perhaps too much of Congo to go around in land, in
diamonds, coffee and gold and that is one reason for its unending
strife.
In less than three years under Mr. Kabila's erratic rule, which
ended on Tuesday if reports of his death are true, a nation
the size of Western Europe became the battleground for what
is often called Africa's First World War.
Since August 1998, soldiers from as many as nine African nations
have engaged in Congo, all fighting more for self-interest than
out of any concern for the 50 million people of Congo.
In the process, the heart of Africa has become even more chaotic
than it was under three decades of misrule under Mr. Kabila's
predecessor, Mobutu Sese Seko.
As many as two million people have been displaced by war, many
of them as fighting intensified in recent months. Massacres
are frequent, and malnutrition is chronic. Ethnic conflict has
flared up.
And the war has effectively split Congo in half, with Mr. Kabila
and his allies controlling the west and south, and the rebels
and their allies controlling the north and east. Many experts
believe that Congo is fragmenting further into violent spheres
of interest governed by whatever leaders have the firepower
to stay on top.
"The east of the country has already been transformed into
a patchwork of warlords' fiefdoms," reads a report last month
by the International Crisis Group, a research and advocacy organization.
"The territorial integrity of the Congo is threatened, as will
be the stability of its nine neighbors if the chaos continues."
For a century and a half, the outside world's image of Africa
has been shaped in many ways by Congo. David Livingstone tried
to convert it. Henry Morton Stanley explored it. It inspired
classics like "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad and "A Bend
in the River" by V. S. Naipaul. Outrage against excesses of
the rubber trade under the rule of King Leopold II of Belgium
sparked one of the first modern human rights crusades.
Mr. Mobutu hoped to return to a genuinely African rule. But
in the end, his tenure underscored how many in the first generation
of African leaders failed to improve on the shabby opportunism
of the European colonists who relinquished power in the 1950's
and 1960's.
The trade in diamonds, copper and uranium made him one of the
world's richest men. He built a runway in his home village of
Gbadolite that was long enough for the Concorde to land, something
that happened at least twice, with special charter flights.
But his excess was only part of the reason why Laurent Kabila,
a former guerrilla fighter and nightclub owner, made his way
to power in May 1997 (only months before Mr. Mobutu died exiled
in Morocco). The larger part of Mr. Kabila's rise lay in the
complicated politics of the region and in particular the problems
of Congo's tiny neighbor to the east, Rwanda.
In 1994, militant Hutus carried out a genocide of at least
500,000 Tutsis in Rwanda and after that perhaps one million
Hutus fled to the eastern part of the country, then known as
Zaire, as Tutsi rebels took control of Rwanda.
But the Hutu militias continued their attacks on Rwanda from
Congo. Looking for security on its border and more pliant leadership
in Zaire, Rwanda secretly backed a rebellion of disaffected
Tutsi officers in Mr. Mobutu's army, with the help of Uganda
and Angola.
Mr. Kabila became the leader of the rebellion, and was welcomed
jubilantly as the rebels raced across the nation and captured
Kinshasa.
He changed the nation's name back to Congo, from Zaire, and
promised free elections and democracy.
But Mr. Kabila seemed to realize that he could not rule Congo
as a tool of Rwanda and Uganda, and old allies became enemies.
Rwanda accused him of supporting the Hutu militiamen, and in
August 1998, again with Uganda's help, Rwanda backed a second
rebellion, this time to topple Mr. Kabila.
The second rebellion might have succeeded quickly, but Mr.
Kabila was rescued by soldiers from Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia
and, for a short time, Chad.
Each nation had its own reasons for helping Mr. Kabila. Some
were strategic but they also included a desire to gain a piece
of Congo's diamonds, oil or fertile farmland. Uganda and Rwanda
have now taken their share of diamonds, gold, timber and coffee.
In addition, Sudan has been accused of supplying planes for
Mr. Kabila's bombing runs, and Burundi has admitted to sending
troops to Congo to battle rebels of its own who have bases there.
As the war progressed mostly into a stalemate the complexities
multiplied geometrically.
The original rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy,
split in two, with Rwanda backing one side and Uganda the other.
Then Rwanda and Uganda came to blows inside Congo, most recently
last summer in a barrage of shelling that killed at last 600
people in the city of Kisangani; most were civilians.
A third rebel group, backed by Uganda, sprouted in Mr. Mobutu's
old home, Gbadolite. And throughout it all, an ethnic war in
eastern Congo, largely against Congolese Tutsis, has boiled
on.
In the summer of 1999, all parties to the conflict signed a
peace accord in Zambia. It called for a cease-fire, and eventually
the placement of some 5,500 peacekeepers from the United Nations.
But all sides have continued to fight, and the United Nations
has so far sent only several hundred observers to Congo.
Still, all sides maintain publicly that the Zambia agreement
was the only way forward.
But, as the International Crisis Group's report noted, the
accord has proved "hollow."
"They all need to recoup something for the investment of blood
and treasure they so foolishly squandered in Congo," it said.
