Trying to broker a peace treaty in Zaire was not plain sailing, reports Ivor Powell from the deck of SAS Outeniqua
THE score or so of journalists who had been quartered on the fo’castle of the SAS Outeniqua for three days – exotically studded in among the winches and anchor cables and miles of rope – were feeling distinctly out of sorts.
A one-day trip to mark the conclusion of a peace treaty between cancer-ridden Mobutu Sese Seko and rebel Laurent-Desire Kabila was already stretching into its third day.
We had learnt why eating places on ships are called messes. All 22 of us, slept two nights on an open deck, with only a roof about the size of a carport between us and the sky.
Friday, the first day of waiting. Well not really the first. Foreign Affairs and the offices of the president and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki had already been dealing with the peculiarly Zairean way of doing things for months.
President Nelson Mandela arrives on board ship, around two or three in the afternoon.
The clean Americans, led by United States ambassador to the United Nations and butt- kicker at large, Bill Richardson, have also arrived. Organisation of African Unity and UN special representative Mohamed Sahnoun is also there. We all set sail for our rather romantic assignation on the high seas.
Kabila has refused to meet Mobutu in face- to-face talks in either Zaire or any of its neighbouring states. For his part, Mobutu has a doctor’s letter saying he cannot travel further than X kilometres away from specified medical treatment.
Apparently Catch-22 again. But Mbeki comes to the rescue: hold the talks at sea. On a South African naval vessel. In international waters.
All that is missing now is Mobutu. Earlier in the day he had arrived in his private jet at Pointe Noire airport. Now we were waiting for the helicopter to bring him on board.
And waiting. And waiting.
Eventually a contingent pulls up at the gangplank – actually a flight of about 30 moveable stairs. They count studiously. They shake their heads. The Lion of Africa will not be able to climb 30 stairs. And so the clean Americans leave the ship to arrange helicopter transport.
They return looking glum. Mobutu will not be flying in a helicopter. He’s quite willing to go ahead with the talks of course … it’s just the helicopter thing, you understand.
Heads are put together. Richardson and the clean Americans go down the gangplank again.
News gradually filters through of what the alternatives are. Mobutu can be winched up from the dockside. Or he can meet the ship by motor boat and be pulled up from the sea in a special metal cage, usually used, one presumes, for bags of mielie meal and the like.
The next time the clean Americans return they are beginning to look just a teeny bit rumpled. Uh uh. Mobutu has presumably seen in his mind’s eye the front page picture in the world’s newspapers the next day.
There is more head-scratching. Finally, a solution is found. The ailing president will be driven in to the ship’s hold. And, voila, plan D proves acceptable. And Mobutu finally arrives in the early evening.
With a great heaving of ropes and cables and a song in our hearts we are finally on the high seas as darkness falls. The light of the Cabinda oil rigs shine like fairy lights to starboard.
Then, they are shining to port as the news comes through. Kabila can’t make it. Mbeki, who has gone off to fetch him in Luanda, has come back empty-handed. We dock and Mobutu’s cavalcade sweeps off again. And it’s back to the drawing board.
Next day there are very long silences from the other side of the ship, broken only by infrequent “briefings” from hapless Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad.
But, although we don’t know it, things are happening. The US ambassador to Angola has visited President Eduardo Dos Santos in Luanda, with whom Kabila is staying, with an unequivocal message that the US would be defending Kinshasa should the rebels choose to attack.
Contact is finally made. But no go. Kabila won’t come on board unless the Americans are off. Exit the no longer so clean Americans.
But by this stage another Catch-22 is taking shape. Mobutu refuses to board again until Kabila is already on the ship. Kabila, of course won’t board except in international waters.
It is Mandela who finally breaks the deadlock by satellite phone in satellite phone diplomacy.
Get your butt down here by nine o’clock tomorrow or I’m going home, he says, or something to that effect.
That same afternoon, Kabila’s advance guard of security people flies in. And the recalcitrant rebel leader’s own helicopter is not far behind.
And the next day, Mobutu’s not inconsiderable pride assuaged, he rejoins the boat in a somewhat less ostentatious cavalcade. And the games can begin …
And end just over an hour later. It’s all over, bar the preparation of a joint communique that says just about nothing. It amounts to a restatement of two old and completely incompatible sets of demands, though it is spiced up with a few commendations on the willingness of the two principals to compromise and behave in a proper and statesmanlike manner.
Agreement had in fact been reached during the brief negotiation. Mobutu had agreed to step down and hand over immediately to a transitional authority which would than see Zaire to democratic elections.
So there you have it. Except that the very next day Kabila announced his soldiers would be taking Kinshasa by force. And the media reported the rebels were getting closer and closer to the Zairean capital.
So there you have it. Well, not quite. Despite their relentless advances, the rebels didn’t seem to be getting any closer to Kinshasa. And on Tuesday Kabila reassured Mbeki that a ceasefire was in place after all.
Meanwhile, Mobutu has flown off to Gabon for conferences. His aides are saying he might have to proceed to France for medical treatment before returning home to Kinshasa -though he is not fleeing, you understand.
And the next round of South African- brokered talks are pencilled in for some time next week. So there you have it. Or maybe not? Who knows.
Ivor Powell is the deputy political editor for SABC TV News
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