[Socialism Today, No 18, May 1997, p. 21-24]
Seven months after the outbreak of the rebellion in Eastern Zaire, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo (Zaire), led by Laurent Kabila, is on the verge of power. David Cameron writes.
The seven-month campaign by Laurent Kabila has taken his Alliance forces to within striking distance of the capital, Kinshasa. Along the way a number of myths have fallen by the wayside. No-one seriously pretends today that Kabila and the Alliance are simply pawns of Rwanda or Uganda or that the rebellion is a ‚Tutsi revolt‘. It is clear that Kabila’s movement has a national character. It has succeeded in canalising the massive popular hatred of the Mobutu dictatorship and it is recruiting widely among youth and sweeping aside the demoralised Zairean army. Mobutu is on his last legs.
For many years this vast country has seemed like a hole in the centre of Africa. Zaire is the second biggest country in Africa with a population of 45 million. It is potentially very wealthy, with reserves of gold, diamonds, cobalt, copper and other minerals and rich agricultural land. But these real and potential riches have never benefited the mass of the population. A 1989 UN survey listed Zaire in 160th place out of 160 countries, in terms of gross domestic product per head of population. But that does not even begin to sum up the damage that over thirty years of Mobutu’s dictatorship have done to Zaire. Mobutu’s regime is a product of imperialism. In 1959 the then Belgian Congo was swept by a mass movement against colonialism. The Belgian government moved quickly, indeed precipitately, to give formal independence in 1960, hoping to hand over power to compliant local stooges. But alongside an array of candidates to run the Congo in the interests of imperialism, there emerged forces, led by Patrice Lumumba, who wanted real independence. They won the Congo’s first democratic elections and Lumumba became prime minister. Despite Western allegations at the time, Lumumba was no communist: he didn’t even live long enough to work out a clear political programme. He was just an honest nationalist who was concerned for the welfare of his people, but such an independent figure was too dangerous for imperialism. The copper-rich province of Katanga immediately seceded under imperialist auspices and Lumumba was soon overthrown and murdered by pro-imperialist elements, with the complicity of the UN. A key player in the overthrow of the elected government was the young US-backed colonel Mobutu, who led his first coup in September 1960.
Lumumba’s supporters regrouped and fought back. From 1963 onwards Pierre Mulele led a rebellion in Kwilu and in 1964-65 the whole of the East of the country was in the hands of Lumumbist rebels, one of whose leaders was Laurent Kabila. The rebellions were defeated at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives through the use of Western mercenaries and finally by direct imperialist intervention. The culmination of this counterrevolution was the second coup in 1965, by which Mobutu swept aside the civilian stooges and took power definitively. Subsequently, there were sporadic revolts, but they were always crushed with Western aid, and Mobutu retained his grip on power. Most of his opponents were either murdered like Mulele or bought off.
For a quarter of a century Mobutu was considered as a bulwark against communism in Central Africa. That is why the Western powers flew to his aid whenever he was threatened, and why the West turned a blind eye to his gross violations of human rights. Under Mobutu, Zaire’s wealth was not even efficiently exploited. Many of the nation’s resources were nationalised, but Mobutu came to consider them as his personal property. The mineral exports of the country were run down and simply used as a source of ready cash for Mobutu and his cronies. The dictator’s personal wealth has been estimated at ten billion dollars, which is roughly the equivalent of the country’s external debt. The economic activity of the country has slowed to a snail’s pace. Over the last 20 years the economy has constantly shrunk – by 40% since 1988. Inflation hit 10,000% per annum in 1994. The relatively rich provinces of Kasai and Shaba (ex-Katanga) turned to using their own currencies.
Along with economic decline has gone social disintegration and the collapse of the country’s basic services and infrastructures. According to the London-based journal African Business, 80% of Zaire’s roads are today unusable, overgrown by vegetation. The same goes for the rail network, with some exceptions such as the lines in Shaba which are exploited by a Belgian-Zairian-South African joint venture. The health system is collapsing: a third of Zairian children die before the age of five. Civil servants go months without pay: parents have to pay their children’s teachers themselves. Even the armed forces are starved of pay and resources, with the exception of the elite units which guard Mobutu and his cronies.
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The end of the Cold War was the beginning of the end for Mobutu. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the other Stalinist states the West had no more need for bulwarks against communism. Apartheid in South Africa was dismantled and the Western-backed insurgencies in Mozambique and Angola were pushed to negotiate with the former pro-Soviet regimes. Guerrilla movements led by leaders with a Marxist background came to power in Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Rwanda, but abandoned their socialist objectives and found it better to co-operate with the IMF and the US super-power. But at the same time at least some of them presented a new image in Africa, of honest and uncorrupt government. In particular, the Ugandan regime of Yoweri Museveni began to be seen as a positive example, including in Zaire.
In this new African order Mobutu had become unnecessary and embarrassing. And perhaps even more important, his old-fashioned gangster-style pillage of Zaire’s riches was an impediment to efficient imperialist exploitation of these riches.
Bowing to the prevailing winds, Mobutu duly initiated in April 1990 a process of ‚democratisation‘ of Zaire. A ’national sovereign conference‘ was established. Opponents of Mobutu’s were encouraged – and paid – to create parties and participate in this talking shop. Opposition leader Étienne Tshisekedi was named prime minister. But Mobutu kept real power. Any signs of real popular opposition were stamped on. In May 1990 students demanding democracy were massacred at Lubumbashi University. On several occasions between 1990 and 1995 demonstrations and uprisings in Kinshasa were bloodily put down. Tshisekedi was dismissed and replaced by Kengo wa Dondo, who began trying to apply IMF policies and privatising Zaire’s natural resources.
Another weapon used by Mobutu to maintain his power was to set Zaire’s different ethnic groups against each other, particularly in the traditionally oppositional regions of the South and East. But the victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in 1994 started to turn this weapon of Mobutu’s into a boomerang which would precipitate his fall. Protected by French troops, a million Hutu refugees crossed from Rwanda into Zaire. With them came thousands of members of the Rwandan Army and the notorious Interahamwe militia, directly responsible for the massacres of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda. These refugees were housed in camps situated in Eastern Zaire. Financed by international agencies, the camps were controlled by the partisans of the old regime, which used them as bases to raid into Rwanda. It is now clear that most of these refugees were being held against their will. When the camps were captured by Alliance forces 600,000 of them went back to Rwanda.
Mobutu set the Hutu extremists against the restive local populations. It was particularly easy to turn them against the Tutsis of Kivu, long-established in Zaire. But when the Tutsi Banyamulenge of South Kivu were attacked they resisted, and set off the rebellion which now threatens Mobutu’s power.
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How did what seemed a spontaneous revolt of a rather small ethnic group turn into a major insurrection led by a known opponent of Mobutu? Where did Kabila come from? What role was played by Rwanda and Uganda, and indeed by the United States?
It is clear that in the initial stages of the rebellion Rwanda played a key role. The motivation is obvious – to support a movement that was opposed to Mobutu and to the Hutu extremists he was sheltering. This was particularly easy where the Banyamulenge were concerned. The Tutsi populations of East Central Africa maintain strong links across the more or less artificial frontiers inherited from colonialism. Many Banyamulenge had fought with the RPF during the Rwandan civil war. It was easy for them to be rearmed and sent back across the frontier, no doubt reinforced by some regular Rebel leader Laurent Kabila Rwandan troops.
As for Kabila, after the defeats of the mid-60s he formed the People’s Revolutionary Party (PRP), a guerrillaist movement which was active till the mid-1980s in Eastern Zaire. Kabila financed himself and his movement from his business activities, which included trafficking in the gold found in abundance in those regions. Latterly Kabila’s forces conducted few actions, but lived from subsistence agriculture in the mountains of South Kivu. Kabila himself was persona grata in several African countries – notably Tanzania, Museveni’s Uganda (also plagued by Zaire-supported Muslim rebels) and, after 1994, in Rwanda. Reports in the French press indicate that in 1995 and 1996 discussions took place between Kabila and the Ugandan and Rwandan governments to prepare a rebellion. This would be logical. Both Rwanda and Uganda wanted Eastern Zaire taken out of Mobutu’s control. If Kabila went even further and actually overthrew the dictator, that would be a bonus. The French press has also been awash with allegations that the whole thing was masterminded from Washington and forms part of a dastardly US plan to supplant France as the dominant power in her African sphere of influence. It is certainly true that the US is seeking to put in place a chain of allies/client states in Africa. But the full-blown conspiracy theory says more about the paranoia of French imperialism on the defensive than about US policy. Nevertheless, at the very least the US government was well aware of what was going on, did nothing to stop it and blocked French attempts to use the plight of the Hutu refuges as an excuse for an imperialist intervention against the Alliance in November 1996. It is clear that the US wanted Mobutu out. Whether they wanted Kabila in, is another question.
Over the past few months, the Alliance has met little resistance from the Zairian army and quite a lot of real enthusiasm from the populations of the towns it has captured. But it remains a force coming from the outside. Before the rebellion the PRP and the other small groups making up the Alliance had no presence in the cities – perhaps in the towns near the traditional guerrilla zones in the East, but not in Kisangani or Lubumbashi, and certainly not in Kinshasa. The Alliance arrives in the captured towns and appoints hastily-trained ‚cadres‘ from outside, often in conjunction with local authorities who have changed sides. In the bigger cities the forces of the legal opposition, particularly Tshisekedi’s UDPS, exist and there is also a strong regionalist party in Shaba (ex-Katanga). Kabila’s policy is clearly to try and impose the Alliance as in effect the only authorised party and to ban all other political activity. This seems to have been difficult in Lubumbashi, and it could be even harder in Kinshasa. Nevertheless, the new administration is generally recognised as efficient and honest, and the Alliance forces do not loot or demand bribes, in sharp contrast to the heritage of Mobutu.
The Alliance’s programme is far from clear. The main declared aim is the overthrow of the dictatorship, to be followed by free elections and the establishment of a democratic system. The economic and social content is extremely vague. Declarations about the acceptance of the market (the term ’social market economy‘ is used) are accompanied by affirmations about control by Zaire over its own wealth.
The ability, and indeed the will, of Kabila and the Alliance to stand up to imperialism is more than questionable, though there may be some elements in the Alliance who will try to. But imperialism, and particularly US imperialism which is now in a dominant position, do not regard the Alliance alone as a sufficiently stable basis for a new regime which can guarantee their right to exploit the wealth of Zaire. They are pushing for a rapprochement between the Alliance and what can be saved of the old regime and its state apparatus, along with the legal opposition.
What they want to avoid at all costs, including if necessary by military intervention, is that the post-Mobutu transition gets out of hand and that the Zairian masses begin to mobilise independently and threaten imperialist interests.
But such a mobilisation offers the only away forward for Zaire. The Zairian workers and peasants will gain nothing from a new regime which takes Zaire’s wealth out Mobutu’s hands only to offer to manage it for imperialism, even if they have the right to approve of such a regime in an election.
What kind of programme do the Zairian masses need today? What is the alternative to opening the country up to the multinationals? The question of a socialist alternative cannot be proposed in an abstract way. The most keenly felt needs in Zaire today are for jobs, for wages to buy basic necessities, for health care, education, housing, transport and communications. And in order to answer those needs, it is not a question of simply taking over a functioning economy and running it in the interests of the masses, but of reconstructing an economy in ruins. The question is: how and by whom?
All international experience shows that there is no way to drag Zaire out of the present morass by opening it up to the free play of market forces, that is, to the dictatorship of the market and of foreign capital. Only a government which is ready to take control of the country’s resources and plan the economy in the interest of the masses can offer a way forward. And the only forces on which such a government could base itself are the workers and peasants. A plan for the economic and social reconstruction of Zaire would have to be drawn up democratically by the workers and peasants, and implemented by them. Of course Zaire would still have to trade and sell its exports on the world capitalist market and would be subject to all sorts of pressures. But by defending its independence from imperialism and putting the interests of its people first, Zaire could show an example to the whole of Africa and appeal to international working-class solidarity.
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