Cameron Duodu
Letter from the North
The first time I heard the dictum, “A nation has no permanent friends or permanent enemies – only permanent interests”, I thought it was a cynical concoction by Machiavellian European politicians, who wanted to rationalise why they engaged in wars against “friendly” peoples, at the mere sight of a disused gold or diamond mine.
I have come to know better: African states can be just as amoral. Look at the unnecessary bloodshed that the rulers of Ethiopia and Eritrea are inflicting on their people, at a time when images of 1984 are being summoned to describe the food situation in the region.
Nevertheless, the fighting in Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo between Ugandan and Rwandan forces certainly takes the cake. One has to pinch oneself to truly assimilate the fact that it has been happening.
First of all, Rwanda and Uganda are currently led by men who, according to the United States press at least, are among the more “intelligent” crop of African leaders, and who value principle in the pursuit of international affairs.
Indeed, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda won the hearts of many idealists in Africa when, at his first appearance at the Organisation of African Unity’s (OAU)annual summit, he rounded on his fellow heads of state for turning the OAU into a “trade union”, whose members saw no evil, heard no evil and spoke no evil against other members.
“Where were you when the people of Uganda needed you? Where were you when Idi Amin was slaughtering the people of Uganda?” he is reputed to have asked.
Vice-president Paul Kagame, the real ruler in Rwanda, is similarly eloquent. He has managed to win much sympathy and understanding for the Tutsi people of Rwanda, and to cleverly deflect the argument – which does not lack merit altogether – that the Tutsis’ past treatment of the majority Hutus had created a situation in which the horrendous massacre of 1994 was simply waiting to happen.
So when Museveni and Kagame sent troops openly into Congo in August/September 1998, ostensibly to help the “rebel” forces ranged against President Laurent Kabila, after Kabila had himself overthrown Mobutu Sese Seko in May 1997, their action could not just be dismissed as one of pure self- interest.
Admittedly, the principles involved in the anti-Kabila rebellion and the array of opposing forces it generated were difficult to uncover. If Kabila had not been able to curb either the Lord’s Resistance Army or whatever group was using Congo to make murderous forays into Uganda, or the Hutu interahamwe killers who were regrouping to try and stage another pogrom in Rwanda, maybe it was not because Kabila didn’t want to, but quite simply because he could not do it.
In any case, for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, a cold-headed analyst if ever there was one, to pitch in so strongly on Kabila’s side, against two men who could be expected to be – at the very least – his ideological fellow travellers in Africa and at such great cost to a penurious Zimbabwe exchequer, meant the edges of principle were seriously blurred here.
Then there were the other players, like Angola (pure self-interest – whoever Unita leader Jonas Savimbi is in bed with must be dislodged). But Namibia and the South Africans – what was their interest? A pure and unadulterated muddle, if ever there was one.
Muddle or no muddle, diplomatic efforts went on to bring peace to Congo. In April, Libyan President Moammar Gadaffi brokered an agreement, which was endorsed by Museveni. But apparently, Kagame was not happy with it. Anyway, more talks followed and in July, Zambian soil was able to sprout another of its famous “Lusaka agreements”. As usual, fudge ruled, OK.
But who to sign on behalf of the anti- Kabila “rebels”? The rebels were initially organised into an umbrella body called the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) under the leadership of Ernest Wamba dia Wamba. But since November 1998,there have been two other principal players: Emile Ilunga, who claims to have dislodged Wamba as leader of the RCD, and Jean-Pierre Bemba of the Congolese Liberation Movement. Each of the three claims to be “King Rebel”.
The key to the reason why they each want to sign is this: each and every one of them is a warlord, who does not scruple to play the ethnic card for what it’s worth, for a big piece of the Congolese action.
Whoever gets his signature on the “Lusaka agreement” can consider himself as more or less the “equal” of Kabila. And when a coalition is forced upon them in due course – which they all see as the endgame – that will determine the amount of Congolese resources they can corner for their bank accounts in Switzerland.
That such a disparate array of pirates – each no better than Mobutu – can engage the sympathies of Museveni, Kagame and Mugabe brings tears to the eyes of any African with any ideals left in his bones. That they can commit troops against each other’s military forces to back them is hellish to ponder.
But we have to be pragmatic. The only consideration that must prevail in all the diplomatic work that is being carried out by people like South African Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma must be to try and save the ordinary people of Congo from further bloodshed.
Congo, Sudan, Nigeria and Rwanda/ Burundi are blots on African history in terms of the spilling of the blood of people who could not even have comprehended a 10th of the political idiocies that had led to their deaths. It is surely enough.