The Zairean rebel leader has come from 20 years of exile obscurity with little clarity about his policies, reports Rehana Rossouw
AS South Africa frantically sweated to put the final touches to Zairean peace talks this week, serious doubts began to emerge about the character of the man who holds all the cards – Laurent Kabila.
Kabila approaches the talks, expected on Saturday, amid United Nations claims that the man vying to be president of Africa’s third- largest nation is presiding over massacres and has organised a “slow extermination” of hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees near the city of Kisangani.
A furious Kabila has demanded an apology from UN secretary general Kofi Annan; none has been forthcoming.
Until last week, the United States – which supported President Mobutu Sese Seko’s rise to power and backed him through most of his 32-year rule – had declined to criticise Kabila. Washington remained in regular contact with the rebel leader during his six-month campaign to conquer Zaire.
US businessmen have met Kabila to discuss concessions for cobalt and copper mining, among other mineral rights now controlled by his Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo/Zaire (AFDL).
But with the refugee crisis growing, Washington sent its UN ambassador, Bill Richardson, to Zaire to talk to Kabila about growing US concerns over his Alliance’s behaviour.
In Zaire, however, Kabila represents change – one that people so desperately seek that they are prepared to overlook his spasmodic record of resistance in his 20 years in exile and his failure to detail how he will deliver on his promises of democracy and a thriving economy.
Since emerging from obscurity six months ago to lead a rebellion that has already seized two-thirds of the vast country, Kabila has proven himself an adept populist – a man who gets roars of approval from massive crowds when he promises to halve the prices of fabric, electricity, water and beer.
But journalists in Zaire have found it near-impossible to dig beneath Kabila’s veneer. He has fobbed off numerous attempts to interview him on his past, his family and more importantly, his politics.
Kabila (58), was born in southern Zaire on a branch of the Congo River in Shaba province. He studied political philosophy at a French university and returned to Zaire to enter politics shortly after his country gained independence from Belgium in 1960.
He became a member of the North Katanga Assembly, supporting Zaire’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. When Lumumba was killed in 1961 in a coup engineered by Mobutu, Kabila fled and began plotting insurrection.
He was in charge of the rebellion in the Ruzizi lowlands, the same place from which he launched his current campaign against Mobutu. It was here that he met Che Guevara, the Bolivian revolutionary, who came to offer his assistance in 1965.
Guevara described Kabila as a “good speaker” and wrote to Fidel Castro confirming there was “organised rebel activity” in the area. However, when Kabila’s liberation council was defeated by government troops, Guevara left, disillusioned with Africa and Kabila, to pursue his revolution in South America.
Two years later Kabila founded a new rebel group, the People’s Revolutionary Party, and began operating near Lake Tanganyika. In the 1970s, the group set up a “liberated” zone in the Fizi mountains in the Kivu Province of Zaire, with collective farms, schools and clinics. They held out against attacks by government forces for nearly two decades.
Mobutu’s troops forced Kabila into exile in 1977. He fled to Tanzania and continued to mount guerrilla attacks into Zaire for the following 10 years. During his exile, Kabila travelled extensively in East Africa, forging strong ties with Yoweri Museveni, who seized power in Uganda in 1985. He was also closely allied with Paul Kagane, who led the Tutsi rebel army which took power in Rwanda in 1994.
After 1988, Kabila dropped from public view, prompting some to declare he was dead. But he emerged in October last year at the head of the current rebellion, which was sparked by Zairean Tutsi anger at a government plan to strip them of their land.
Kabila has been vague when pressed to answer how his rebels plan to rebuild Zaire. His supporters defend this by saying he has delegated authority to his well- educated exile group who have become part of his civilian cabinet.
His aides say he sets broad policy guidelines and leaves them to sort out the details.
But it is just this policy of delegation, observers say, which may have led to death by starvation for thousands of refugees.