Alex Duval Smith
Some things change – Zaire is now the Democratic Republic of Congo – but despots just change their spots. President Laurent-Dsir Kabila, hailed as heading a new breed of African leaders, increasingly looks like Mobutu Sese Seko, minus the leopard-skin hat.
On May 17 1997, thousands of people welcomed Kabila’s victorious rebel army to Kinshasa. Now, to the five million people of the capital of the Congo, Mobutu’s 32 years of corruption seem like 33.
The guerrilla fighter initially appeared to be living up to the view of the United States Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, as a “strong new leader” and “beacon of hope”.
By ending Mobutu’s practice of printing money when he needed it, Kabila brought inflation down to about 14%. He repaired the sewage system in Kinshasa, promised to save the mountain gorilla, and was praised by the international community for drawing up a three-year plan to revive the economy.
But in the run-up to elections, which he unconvincingly has promised for April 1999, Kabila has banned political parties, jailed human rights campaigners and journalists, and closed down newspapers. His office of ill-gotten gains – set up amid much fanfare to investigate corruption by the Mobutu regime – has all but stopped work after its boss was fired on suspicion of misappropriating funds.
Kabila’s erratic international policy- making and propensity for putting people from his Katanga region in positions of power have left foreign diplomats suspicious. Worst of all, he obstructed the United Nations investigation into massacres of Hutus by the Rwandan Tutsis who backed his rebellion. The UN eventually put the number of dead at 180 000.
He snubbed Washington’s envoy to Africa, Reverend Jesse Jackson, earlier this year and only earned a 15-minute “drop-by” when President Bill Clinton was in Entebbe in April.
Nevertheless, despite signs of authoritarianism and the inescapable reality that he came to power by the gun, no one has yet produced hard evidence that Kabila is eating his country’s wealth at the rate Mobutu did.