Congo

CONGO NEWSFILE

6 Nations Ready Pact On Congo
Agreement Could Bring Truce to 5-Week War

By Lynne Duke
Washington Post
Tuesday, September 8, 1998; Page A17

VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe, Sept. 7—Negotiators for a half-dozen nations involved in the five-week-old Congo war met for the first time here today and fashioned a draft initiative on preliminary steps toward restoring peace to Africa's third-largest nation.

Details of the agreement were not made public,but Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, mediator of today's talks, said it is to be signed on Tuesday. Reports tonight suggested the agreement could secure an immediate cease-fire among the warring parties, freeze military units in place and set a schedule for further talks.

If the agreement is signed, it would prove a breakthrough in a conflict that has threatened to partition Congo, sparked fears of warfare throughout the region and set former African allies against each other.

Congolese President Laurent Kabila -- in power for only 16 months after leading an insurrection that toppled longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko -- is struggling to survive a five-week-old rebellion by disaffected Congolese ethnic-Tutsi soldiers backed by neighboring Rwanda's Tutsi-minority government and some Ugandan forces. Rwanda and Uganda helped install Kabila but have since fallen out with him over his erratic foreign and domestic policies.

Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia have deployed troops, tanks and air power to support Kabila in recent weeks and helped prevent rebel forces from capturing Kabila's capital, Kinshasa. Nevertheless, the rebels still control about a third of Congo -- chiefly in the east, along the Rwandan and Ugandan borders, where fighting was reported today.

With so many players involved in the Congo conflict, today's talks became a delicate dance involving varied strategic agendas, regional grudges and protocol demands. Central to the discussions was a disagreement over the true nature of the rebellion and its protagonists -- the Congolese Democratic Alliance. Kabila and his allies refuse to recognize the alliance as an independent entity; they view the rebels as puppets of Rwanda and Uganda and describe the war as the invasion of Congo by its eastern neighbors.

Neither Rwanda nor Uganda acknowledges backing the rebels, but numerous diplomats and witnesses attest to their involvement, and sources say Uganda even has tried to negotiate safe passage for Ugandan troops trapped in one of the Congo war zones.

Here in Victoria Falls, meanwhile, an Angolan diplomat said early today that the Congolese rebels "at this stage, are irrelevant. . . . We are addressing aggression. We are addressing invasion." But many analysts believe that Angola's motivation for its involvement in Congo is more fundamental, that it seeks to prevent any regional disorder that might benefit Angola's former rebel movement -- known as UNITA -- which some reports say has fought alongside the anti-Kabila rebels.

Congolese rebel representatives were invited to the talks, held at the Elephant Hills Hotel here, but were not afforded a place at the table. Rebel leaders Arthur Z'Ahidi Ngoma and Bizima Karaha had come with the expectation of taking part in the talks, but upon their arrival they were held incommunicado for several hours in a room with no telephone while Zimbabwean security officers stood outside their door.

Late this evening, Chiluba and Organization of African Unity Chairman Salim Ahmed Salim met with the rebel delegation, but all parties to the talks remained tight-lipped about what was discussed. Asked if the words "consensus" or "cease-fire" had become operative in the talks, Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Stanley Mudenge said: "They are working very hard to achieve both words."

Although several African leaders acknowledge the need for a broadening of the political spectrum in Congo, a nation that Kabila has made a virtual one-party state, it was not clear how far Congolese officials would go in discussing their domestic affairs at the summit. Kabila has pledged to conduct democratic elections next year, but until then he has banned all party political activity by groups other than his ruling alliance.

"We don't discuss Congo's political problems here," said Francois Olenga, a senior Congolese military official in Kabila's delegation, reflecting the staunchly independent bent of the Kabila regime.

But Congo's political problems are many, and they have led, in part, to the current war. Those problems include the status of Congo's minority ethnic Tutsis, known as the Banyamulenge, who fought to install Kabila last year in part because they and their Rwandan Tutsi brethren believed he would offer far more political protection to the small Tutsi minority than did Mobutu. That did not happen, however, and the Tutsis in Kabila's army and government revolted against him.

Summit Fails to Devise Cease-Fire in Congo

By Lynne Duke

Washington Post
Wednesday, September 9, 1998; Page A22

VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe, Sept. 8—The six African presidents gathered here to try to craft a diplomatic solution to the civil war in Congo failed to achieve a cease-fire today, and Congolese rebel leaders vowed to continue their fight to topple President Laurent Kabila.

The summit of regional leaders, summoned by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, concluded with a call for an end to the fighting but no timetable or concrete means to achieve that goal. Lower-level talks are to continue this week, the leaders resolved.

On Monday, Zambian President Frederick Chiluba,moderator of the talks and the only president authorized to speak to the media, had announced a draft agreement designed to lead to an immediate cease-fire. But today, instead of announcing details of a pact, he emerged with a vague call for peace.

"We believe . . . there must be an end to the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo," Chiluba said. "We therefore call for an immediate end to hostilities."

A spokesman for the Congolese rebels, who were not allowed to participate fully in the talks, said his delegation was "going back home now to do one thing only, to intensify our campaign against Kabila." The rebels, who hold major towns in far eastern Congo and parts of the interior, have pledged to oust Kabila's regime.

In the end, this latest attempt at peace produced more heat than light, showing once again the deep intractability of the many diplomatic agendas and conflicts at play -- and the toughness of the game of brinkmanship among those who have taken it upon themselves to shape Congo's fate.

Uganda and Rwanda both support the rebels who launched an anti-Kabila war five weeks ago. Siding with Congo are Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia, who together have sent in the tanks, planes and troops that saved the city of Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, from a four-day rebel assault late last month.

All the major players were assembled at this famed resort. There sat Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, maintaining his persistent public denial of involvement, although several sources say that behind-the-scenes negotiations by the United States and other friendly nations have been underway for the safe passage of Ugandan troops trapped in the Congolese war zone. Museveni calls such a claim "misinformation."

And there sat Kabila, once Museveni's ally but now his grim-faced adversary. Kabila maintains that his country has been invaded by Rwanda and Uganda, although rebel forces trying to oust him also represent a broad cross section of Congolese interests critical of Kabila's autocratic rule. Dismissively, Kabila says there's no such thing as "rebels."

Mugabe, a once-marginal leader seemingly rejuvenated by his new role on the African stage, saw his peace effort fizzle.

The rebels, called the Congolese Democratic Coalition, were sequestered in a separate room, where one of their leaders suffered from malarial dizziness while his coterie fumed about their marginal status at the summit. They wanted a place at the negotiating table, but Kabila and his allies were against it.

So while the heated and stalemated presidential deliberations dragged on, the angry rebels gathered their bags and returned to their headquarters in eastern Congo on their own. In a pre-departure news conference, they proclaimed that they would not be bound by any of the summit's decisions.

In response to the summit's vague call for a cease-fire, more talks are to take place later this week. The six nations' defense ministers -- the very ones running the war -- are to "establish the modalities for effecting an immediate cease-fire and a mechanism for monitoring compliance with cease-fire provisions," their communique said.

Chiluba, speaking for the assembled presidents, did not explain how the withdrawal of foreign forces could take place as long as the two nations backing the rebellion -- Rwanda and Uganda -- remain unwilling to acknowledge their involvement. It was a point around which Chiluba danced, saying, "It would be impossible to effect a cease-fire without identifying the parties to that conflict."

Earlier in the day, a Rwandan diplomat had said, "We agree with the concept of troop withdrawal, but we don't have troops" in the Congo conflict. There is an international consensus, however, that Rwanda's ethnic Tutsi-dominated army sent troops into Congo to support the Congolese Tutsi troops whose mutiny from Kabila's army sparked the current war.

Angola intervened heavily to prop up Kabila during the assault on Kinshasa. Angola's army chief, Gen. Joao de Matos, said two weeks ago that his forces would also help Kabila in the fight to retake the eastern third of Congo that rebels now hold, though it is not clear how long Angola can afford to keep its troops deployed in Congo while a renewed Angolan civil war threatens to break out at any day. Still, Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos was firm on his troops' Congo engagement. "They will remain there until there is an agreement," he said in an interview.

Meanwhile, in a war that seemed to have no end in sight, pockets of rebels holed up west of Kinshasa continued to disrupt the flow of food, water and electricity to the city. The Reuters news service reported jubilation in the center of the sprawling city of more than five million people when lights went on unexpectedly at the start of a night curfew. Congolese authorities said the electricity was restored after completion of repairs to the distribution network damaged by rebels nearly a month ago.

But aid agencies warned of a looming food crisis there and called for international help in opening a corridor to allow supplies to be flown to the city.

New York Times
June 29, 1999

Mixed Results at Congo Cease-Fire Talks By SUZANNE DALEY

[J] OHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Negotiations to end the 11-month-old war in Congo inched forward Monday as foreign and defense ministers of all the nations involved in the conflict met in Zambia to discuss a draft text for a cease-fire.

But the talks, already days behind schedule, broke up within two hours, apparently Congo and one of its allies, Zimbabwe, objected to parts of the document, which been hammered out by lower level officials.

"We can only be optimistic," said an official involved in the negotiations. "It's the first time we have gotten this far."

Others, however, said there remained substantial points of disagreement. The document calls for a cease-fire within 24 hours of signing by all parties, with soldiers staying in the positions they occupy at the time. It would also immediately establish a joint military commission of three senior military commanders from each of the signing nations, military experts from the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity and a neutral chairman appointed as monitor by the OAU.

But Zimbabwe was apparently unhappy with this commission, wanting the United Nations instead. And Congolese officials apparently feel the document places the rebels on equal footing with their government, which they object to.

The negotiations are the first serious effort in months the try to end a war that has ensnared more than a half-dozen African countries, killed thousands of people and forced much of the Congolese population to flee. Part of the difficulty in finding a solution is that each of the warring factions has its own tangled reasons for being there, and the rebels have split into -smaller factions.

Fighting broke out in Congo last July as rebel forces backed by Rwanda and Uganda attacked the government of Laurent Kabila, who had been in power less than 18 months. Kabila had toppled the former ruler in Congo, then known as Zaire, with the help of Rwanda and Uganda. But he then had a falling out with his allies, largely over his unwillingness to crack down on the Hutu "interahamwe" militias. Those militias were responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide and were still hiding out in eastern Congo and making raids into Rwanda.

At first in last July's offensive, the rebels, who are seeking a voice in a government they consider corrupt and useless, seemed to be winning. Then Kabila managed to enlist the aid of Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, which saved the capital, Kinshasa, from falling.

Since then the fighting has been sporadic. Most experts say the rebels control the eastern third of Congo, a mineral-rich country in Central Africa. They are threatening Mbuji Mayi, the southern diamond-mining area that is the source of much of the government's income.

Efforts by Zambia and South Africa to negotiate a solution have failed. But the war is costly, especially for Angola, which has a renewed civil war at home, and for Zimbabwe, which is in dire financial straits. While Zimbabwe's generals and its president, Robert Mugabe, are believed to have invested heavily in Congo and personally have much at stake, Mugabe has been unable to rally any popular support for the conflict at home.

All this has not stopped both countries from sending in fresh troops in the last week. Angola is said to have sent in 1,000 of its best soldiers, and Zimbabwe, 3,000 soldiers. Monday, Congolese officials accused Rwanda of deploying 7,000 fresh troops two weeks ago.

If the ministers do ratify the document, the heads of state from the six warring nations and leaders of the two main rebel factions will be called to a meeting to sign a cease-fire. If they do not ratify it, some experts believe that it could take a long time to get any new momentum for peace talks. Kabila, in particular, is coy about arriving at talks. Last week, his delegation claimed he was having a bout of malaria; when talks went in his favor, the fever cleared up.

The draft agreement the ministers are looking at is vague in crucial areas. It calls for the joint military commission to "initiate and oversee the process of the orderly withdrawal of all foreign troops."

It says the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity will play a role as observers and "may request neutral African countries to contribute toward peacekeeping operations."

But ending the war and establishing a new government in Congo would be a long process. The document calls for a "national dialogue" in Congo to include the rebels, as well as political organizations and "civil society."

That dialogue will aim to create a new national army from government and rebel forces and to work out a system of power-sharing.

Addressing the security concerns of Rwanda and Uganda, a second protocol resolves that all "renegade forces" in the region, including the Hutu militias, be disarmed, sequestered and documented. It urges the United Nations find a way to screen the forces to arrest those responsible for the 1994 genocide against Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda.

New York Times
June 30, 1999

Prospects for Congo Settlement Not Encouraging
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

[J] OHANNESBURG, South Africa -- After days of optimistic pronouncements that a cease-fire was imminent in Congo, a weary South African delegate admitted Tuesday that "Nobody knows how long these talks will last."

South Africa's new foreign minister, Nkosazana Zuma, who enthused at lunch that "there is a bright light at the end of the tunnel," later canceled her public schedule for Wednesday -- when she was supposed to be in Cape Town -- and looked as if she would be hanging out in Lusaka, Zambia's depressed and dusty capital, for a while.

Independent analysts from South Africa and the European Union were unsurprised. Many had been pessimistic from the beginning of the talks.

While the world has been willing to bomb Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic into submission and to lean heavily on India and Pakistan to stop fighting, the pressure on the warring parties in Congo is fraternal, and relatively weak. The United Nations would like the fighting to end, and so would regional powers from Libya to South Africa.

But nations that might contribute peacekeepers -- including South Africa,Nigeria and Egypt -- cannot offer the legions of trained men needed to police a country 200 times the size of Kosovo, and the rest of the world is not volunteering.

Besides, the warring sides have little incentive to quit. While each has failed at total victory -- for the rebels, ousting President Laurent Kabila; for Kabila, driving them back out -- each has nonetheless got the thing it most wanted.

The rebels, surrogates for the Tutsi-led governments of Rwanda and Uganda, have captured a huge buffer zone in which they are free to hunt and kill the Hutu militias that raid Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. Kabila, despite losing a third of his empire, has nonetheless kept control of the diamond and cobalt mines that are reported to fill his offshore accounts in Mauritius.

Tuesday, Eric Silwamba, chief of staff to Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, entreated both sides to put aside their "petty political differences." But the issues they are said to disagree on are actually fundamental. They amount to whether or not to admit that the former Zaire is now two countries with two governments, which now must make peace.

The truth is that, for decades, Congo has really been three countries. A western one from the Atlantic coast to Kisangani, run by the national capital, Kinshasa, its goods moving in and out by barge on the Congo River. The eastern one, with Goma its chief city, sees its goods move overland through Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya. The southern one, with most of the mineral riches and Lubumbashi as its main city, sees goods move south by rail and road through Zambia.

In the middle is the jungle. Its roads are so neglected that trucks often sink in the mud, and the ferries across its rivers are often broken. For 30 years under the former dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, central government control was lax; taxation failed; soldiers got their pay by looting.

Travel is by air; communication by satellite phone. With war stifling trade, it is lucky that the soil supports bananas and cassava and the rivers teem with fish, or the interior would starve.

The rebels easily conquered the eastern third and for months, have been eating slowly into the southern part, heading for the diamond capital, Mbuji Mayi. However, they have recently split into three factions, which could further subdivide the country.

Kabila's chief backers, Zimbabwe and Angola, have thrown blood and treasure into saving his western capital and his southern diamond fields. Zimbabwe's generals and its president, Robert Mugabe, are said to own shares of the mines. Angola is fighting to hurt its internal rebel movement, Unita, which has ties with Uganda and bases in Congo. Both countries want to leave, but Kabila is a stubborn, egotistical client who has stalked, willy-nilly, away from earlier talks and is reported to have faked a bout of malaria to delay joining these.

A draft agreement is being debated, but reports from Lusaka, all quoting anonymous sources, say it has many sticking points. It envisions a cease-fire with all troops freezing in place. It proposes integrating rebel units into the national army, starting "a dialogue," overseen by outside powers, over the future government of Congo, and inviting in an international peace-keeping force charged with disarming and arresting the Hutu militias.

Kabila is said to object to any political talks or integration of the army units that question his rule or that put rebels on an equal footing with him.

His finance minister, Mawapanga Mwana Nanga, said Tuesday that Kabila would sign a cease-fire only if it outlined a Ugandan and Rwandan withdrawal. Of any talks on future government, he said, "Everyone is free to come to Kinshasa and say what they want to say, but it's an internal matter."

Since the rebel leaders suspect they could be arrested and shot if on arrival in Kinshasa and would see their fighting units overrun if Uganda and Rwanda withdraw, they seem unlikely to accept such conditions.

Zimbabwe, which sent in 3,000 fresh troops on the eve of the talks, is said to be suspicious of any peacekeeping force, wondering whether it will be controlled by the United Nations or the more tractable but disorganized Organization for African Unity.

And, as Richard Cornwell, an analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, observed, disarming the Hutu militias, who led the killing of more than 500,000 people in Rwanda in 1994 and are now in the jungle, is hardly light work.

The United States, the United Nations and the European Union are attending the talks, but seem content to sit and watch Chiluba struggle, hoping for the best. A deal was supposed to be signed last Sunday. Now the talk is about "something by Saturday" with crucial elements to be worked out later.

WORLD IN BRIEF
Washington Post
Thursday, July 8, 1999; Page A18
Ministers Agree to Congo Cease-Fire Plan

LUSAKA, Zambia -- African foreign and defense ministers signed a draft cease-fire plan yesterday to end the 11-month-old war in Congo.

Reached after two weeks of intense negotiations, the plan doesn't go into effect until 24 hours after it has been signed by the heads of the six nations involved in the war, heads of the three Congolese rebel groups and other regional and organizational leaders. It was not clear whether rebels fighting in eastern Congo had accepted the plan, but rebel leaders attended the talks and their main backers, Rwanda and Uganda, signed onto the deal, officials said.

July 11, 1999
New York Times
Congo Rivals Sign Cease-Fire Without 2 Rebel Groups

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

LUSAKA, Zambia -- After months of on-again, off-again negotiations, the warring parties in Congo signed a cease-fire here Saturday. But, in a last-minute twist after 13 hours of delay, the two rebel groups fighting to oust the Kinshasa Government were not allowed to sign.

Although Zambia's accomplishment in brokering a peace deal was praised by foreign diplomats and although President Frederick T. J. Chiluba admonished all present to "now regard brothers as brothers," the sudden loss of two signatories made the dangerous fragility of the deal absolutely clear.

One rebel group said it did not feel bound by the deal, which is supposed to lead to an immediate cease-fire, the creation of a merged national army and plans for a discussion on the nation's future government.

The leadership of one of the two rebel groups, the Congolese Rally for Democracy, is split between its founder, Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, and an upstart replacement, Emile Ilunga.

Before proceedings began Saturday, Wamba dia Wamba, in front of 50 reporters, quietly sat in the one large red chair reserved for the Rally, and quietly told them that he wished to sign and that "no one can dictate to me who can sign for the Congolese people."

Wamba dia Wamba, a professor, is a bookish man with a small voice, but his quiet defiance turned what should have been a proud day for Zambia into one of chaos and humiliation.

He wished to be a third rebel signature on a form with only two dotted lines, but Ilunga refused to even enter the Great Hall of the Mulungushi Conference Center here, and argued that the police be called to oust his rival from the chair.

With the presidents of a dozen countries waiting in a back room, and their foreign ministers and a large contingent of ambassadors in confusion outside, the ceremony stalled. Scheduled to begin at 10 A.M., it did not begin until 10:30 P.M. -- and there was not been a single announcement from the conference's hosts as to what was wrong.

"In all my years in Africa, I've never seen anything like this," a Western diplomat said. "At negotiations, you always have contentious points. But you work them out before you invite in all the heads of state. I've never heard of anyone claiming squatter's rights to a seat before."

Finally, in his brief impromptu speech at the signing, President Chiluba said that he would undertake a "verification mission" to decide who was the Rally's real representative, and that only after that would the Rally and the other rebel group, the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo, led by Jean-Pierre Bemba, be allowed to sign.

Olivier Kamitatu, Bemba's representative at the signing, looked unhappy, and said, "We have not signed, so we are not bound."

The groups that did sign include all the other major parties in the conflict: the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its allies Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia. The rebels' two chief backers, Rwanda and Uganda, also signed.

In so doing, the signers pledged themselves to a cease-fire within 24 hours, an "open national dialogue" about the country's future "under the aegis of a neutral facilitator to be agreed upon."

They also agreed not to undermine the territorial integrity of Congo, to ask the United Nations and the Organization for African Unity to deploy peacekeepers and to commit themselves to finding and disarming "militias and armed groups, including the genocidal forces."

In some ways the document reflects a triumphant trend for the continent: finding African solutions to African problems. In others, it betrays the continent's deadly weaknesses -- because no great powers are guaranteeing the peace, the participants are forced to adopt language that virtually begs for help.

The document also suggests a "facilitator" but does not define what powers he or she would have to, for example, prevent an embarrassing breakdown like Saturday's.

But the most obvious sticking point is the disarming of the Hutu militias that killed 500,000 people in Rwanda in 1994. They were not represented at these talks, and have everything to lose by being disarmed. They could be sent back to Rwanda, where some would face trial and the death penalty if convicted of genocide.

"You go up to a genocidal maniac and say, 'Give me your weapon, please,' and he'll say 'Sure, but let me give you the bullets first,' " said Richard Cornwell, a military analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria.

The final draft of the cease-fire document is vague about who has responsibility for disarming the warring parties. They themselves seem to be responsible at first, with the job to be turned over to the United Nations or the Organization for African Unity, if they volunteer peacekeeping troops. But it could quickly degenerate into renewed fighting.

"We don't have time to wait for the U.N. to send people in six months," said Dominique Kanku, from Bemba's rebel faction. "It's not a matter of getting cooperation from the genocidaires. And if they shoot back, we'll have to defend ourselves." But, he added, he was still optimistic.

The United Nations so far has pledged only 500 peace observers. South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and others might offer some troops -- but those would number only in the low thousands.

"Unless the will of all the parties to adhere to it is there, it's no good," said Mark Malan, a peacekeeping operation analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria.

Another problem experts see is the nature of the cease-fire: both sides, who have troops scattered over thousands of square miles, often divided by ethnic group or personal loyalty to a commander, are supposed to stop fighting, hold the territory they have captured, disarm any Hutu militias they run across, and then merge their armies. No one imagines that this will be easy in Kashmir or Korea, or would have been over the Elbe River, between much more disciplined armies.

August 1, 1999
New York Times
Congo Peace Accord Ailing as Rivals Jockey for Position By IAN FISHER

GOMA, Congo -- "Lusaka dead?" asked Bizima Karaha, a spiffy rebel alternating between two cellular phones, then a third served up like soup by a hovering assistant. "What I can say is that the Lusaka accord is suffering."

The accord, drafted earlier this month, is the closest that the huge African nation of Congo has come to peace since its most recent rebellion began a year ago, on Aug. 2, 1998. The deal's complexity is mind-bending, involving six countries charged with putting down no fewer than nine guerrilla outfits that operate inside Congo. The most immediate obstacles are the three home-grown rebel groups fighting to oust the President of Congo, Laurent Kabila. When the accord was drafted in Lusaka, Zambia, the outside powers who have, for various reasons, intervened in this Congo war signed it. Three rebel groups, squabbling not over its substance but who among them should sign, did not.

A second meeting, stretching over six days,tried to resolve the controversy, but ended on Tuesday in Tanzania with no agreement.

Many outside officials worry that this infighting will kill the peace."Our real concern is that if we don't get it in the very near term, the whole process may unravel," said one Western diplomat.

The dissension is perhaps inevitable. From the start, the rebels have been mere allies of convenience, representing half a dozen of the fractious constituencies inside Congo, from exiled intellectuals to former officials under the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko, who held destructive sway over Congo for 30 years before he was ousted from power in 1997 and then died.

Moreover, the rebels operate on a second,more complex level: to represent the interests of neighboring Rwanda and Uganda, which support competing rebel groups with arms and troops.

And it appears that all sides -- the rebels as well as their sponsors -- are maneuvering for their roles in the next act in this violent drama in Central Africa, whether it is peace or yet more war.

On the surface, the failure of the rebels to sign involves one man, Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, a soft-spoken professor who was recently ousted as the leader of the rebel group called the Congolese Rally for Democracy. Wamba dia Wamba has insisted that he still sign, even though he no longer has any troops supporting him.

But the new leaders of the group, known by its French initials, R.C.D., refuse to sign if Wamba dia Wamba does.

Making matters more complicated still, the leader of the third group, Jean-Pierre Bemba, the son of one of Congo's biggest businessmen, will not sign unless Wamba dia Wamba does.

Karaha, a top official in the Rally for Democracy, accuses Wamba dia Wamba of sacrificing peace for millions of people for his own political gain.

At the recent talks in Tanzania, Karaha said, "I personally asked Wamba, I said, 'Professor Wamba, my dear colleague, do you believe deep in your heart that you are the president of the R.C.D., that you can sign the cease-fire and give orders that will be respected?'

"The answer was 'no.' Followed by a 'but -- But I want to sign with one of you guys.' "

Then later in the talks, Karaha said, "He said, 'I want to sign because I want guarantees for my future political career.' We said, 'Whoa, things are now starting to become a little clearer.' "

Wamba dia Wamba, calling Karaha a "liar," denied the conversation ever took place. But he did say that who signs the document is important: the signatories have an amplified voice in how the next step in the Congo -- a national dialogue between Kabila, the rebels and other opposition groups -- is shaped. He is essentially afraid of being cut out of that debate.

"There is no way it can be guaranteed that someone who is not a signatory can become a member of the national dialogue," he said in an interview by satellite telephone.

Diplomats and other observers have no doubt the in-fighting is real. Rwanda, which backs the Rally for Democracy, says that this internal fight alone is blocking the signing.

"It matters who gets power," said Emmanuel Ndahiro, a spokesman for the Rwandan military and a top Government official. "They have an internal disagreement and it has to be resolved."

But many outsiders believe that both Rwanda and Uganda could force the groups to sign, if they chose. Just as Rwanda supports the Rally for Democracy, Uganda is allied with Wamba dia Wamba and Bemba.

"The rebel groups are still dependent on their sponsors," the Western diplomat said, discounting claims from Rwanda and Uganda that they are powerless to influence their clients.

The question thus becomes: If they really want peace, why are Rwanda and Uganda not forcing the rebels to sign?

One theory is that they want to gain points internationally for talking peace while still waging war against Kabila. Even since the accord, the Rally for Democracy has continued to advance on the diamond-producing city of Mbuji-Mayi and Bemba has made gains in the northwest, while Kabila's troops resist.

Another theory is that the failure to sign represents maneuvering on the part of Rwanda and Uganda, against each other, to influence the next Government of Congo.

From the start, Rwanda in particular has made clear its interest in Congo's internal politics. It says it entered the war to keep its borders clear of militant Hutu, who carried out the killings of at least half a million ethnic Tutsi there in 1994, then fled to Congo. Since then, the they have launched raids into Rwanda from Congo, and Rwanda wants some control over the borderlands.

"Rwanda would like to have a way of having control over the new regime that is going to come to Congo," Wamba dia Wamba said. "One way of doing that is either to push through with the war or to be in a position to control the national dialogue that is going to take place."

Without saying why, Karaha suggested that Uganda was to blame because it has not asked Wamba dia Wamba to step aside. The Rally for Democracy, Karaha noted, has no objection to including Uganda's other ally, Bemba, in the peace document.

August 2, 1999
New York Times

Rebel Signs Congo Accord By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LUSAKA, Zambia -- The leader of a Congolese rebel group signed a fragile cease-fire accord here Sunday, inching forward the final settlement of Congo's year-old civil war.

Jean-Pierre Bemba, the leader of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo, signed the pact at a ceremony witnessed by President Frederick Chiluba of Zambia and President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania.

President Laurent Kabila of Congo and the representatives of five nations involved in the conflict signed the accord on July 10, but the two main rebel groups did not sign because of a leadership dispute in the second rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy.

Bemba, who took some diplomats by surprise with his arrival in Lusaka, pledged "to fight for the establishment of real democracy" in Congo. He said he had decided to sign the accord to put his country on a course toward peace, and said he would try to persuade the other rebel group to sign as well.

The dispute within the Congolese Rally for Democracy centers on Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, an ousted leader who had insisted that he be the one to sign the document on July 10. The current leadership, headed by Émile Ilunga, refused to sign if Wamba signed.

The rebels have been backed by Uganda and Rwanda, both of which border on Congo. Rwanda has charged that Kabila failed to prevent cross-border raids by Hutu militia who had been involved in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

The militia helped slaughter 500,000 Rwandan Tutsi and moderate Hutu in the genocide, Rwanda has said.

Kabila, who got backing from Namibia, Zimbabwe and Angola, charged that Uganda and Rwanda were trying to enhance their access to mineral deposits in Congo.

Bemba said he hoped that a 90-day national political dialogue foreseen by the peace accord would give Kabila "a chance to move and leave his presidential seat peacefully."

August 4, 1999
New York Times
Brutal Bands of Rwandans Bar Way to Peace in Congo
By IAN FISHER

GOMA, Congo -- The search for peace in Congo depends on disarming the very men who attacked a young woman named Alima Asami a week ago. Her scalp looks like a baseball coming unseamed, with brown stitches holding together three slices from a machete. Two fingers on her right hand, and one on her left, were hacked off.

"Because I was a woman and had a baby I could not escape," she said, sitting on a hospital bed here.

The men demanded money. Three of them raped her, she said. They killed her little girl, Shakuru, who was 4, along with 22 other people on their way to a market not far from here. Ms. Asami had wanted to buy beans.

She said the attackers, who spoke with Rwandan accents, appeared to be Hutu former soldiers or militiamen, groups of whom killed at least 500,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda in 1994 before fleeing to neighboring countries to carry out raids on their homeland.

Now they have become the key element in the cease-fire plan to end the war in Congo but an unpredictable one that, many experts on Africa say, represents the biggest threat to peace.

"They are the wild card at this point," said Hannelie de Beer, senior researcher at the Institute for Strategic Studies in South Africa.

The peace accord, drafted in mid-July, optimistically calls for the warring parties in Congo to disarm these groups, some of the most violent guerrillas fighting in some of the world's harshest terrain. The United Nations has pledged peacekeepers in the region, but almost no one believes their mandate will include the dangerous job of disarming.

"It will be very difficult to disarm them, if not impossible," Ms. de Beer said. "If you disarm them, what are you going to promise them? How are they going to fit in?"

Among the many problems, Ms. de Beer and other experts say, is that given the groups' status as international outlaws, there is no way to provide incentives in the cease-fire for them to stop their war against the Tutsi-led Government of Rwanda. Rwanda, in fact, wants to bring the leaders back to stand trial.

And perhaps paradoxically, the guerrillas -- known here as the interahamwe -- may be even more potent now than they were a year ago, when the most recent war in Congo broke out. The reason is that the President of Congo, Laurent Kabila, recruited thousands of Hutu guerrillas to help him fend off rebels who rose up against his new Government. He gave the Hutu arms and military training.

"That has undoubtedly strengthened them, in terms of equipment and training," a Western diplomat said.

Rwandan Government officials say that Zimbabwe, one of Kabila's allies in the Congo war, has also provided training and arms, and may be unwilling to disarm them.

"If Zimbabwe is committed, this is going to be a very easy process," said Emmanuel Ndahiro, a top defense official in Rwanda. But he said: "Zimbabwe has already indicated that it is not obliged. If people think signing an agreement is enough, that's a mistake."

Zimbabwe is one of six nations with troops in Congo that signed the cease-fire agreement, along with Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Namibia and Congo itself. The cease-fire agreement -- despite Ndahiro's accusations -- obliges each country to track down members of the interahamwe as well as members of other rebel groups. But the cease-fire has not gone into effect because rebel groups are still deciding whether to sign.

The war in Congo is in part the latest chapter of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Among the most dedicated killers of Tutsis then were the interahamwe (the word is often translated from the Kinyarwanda language as "those who attack together"). Along with Hutu soldiers in the Rwandan Army, they fled across the border into Congo as the 1994 war ended. But they still made attacks into Rwanda.

That prompted the new Tutsi-led Government of Rwanda to oppose a powerful ally of the Hutu, Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator of the nation then known as Zaire. They backed a rebellion against him in 1996.

The cycle of bloodshed and revenge wore on. The rebels in Zaire, led by Kabila, and the Rwandans were accused of massacring Hutus inside Congo. Raids into Rwanda continued.

A year ago, Rwanda covertly supported a second rebellion, this time aimed at overthrowing Kabila, who by then had made his own alliance with the Hutu guerrillas. Rwanda said its intention was not to change the Government, but only to stop the attacks.

"If that is accomplished, our role in Congo will be significantly diminished," Ndahiro said. "We need Congo as a state, not as a situation of anarchy."

Estimates of the number of Hutu guerrillas and former Rwandan Army soldiers in Congo vary widely, ranging from 5,000 to 25,000. Rwanda says several hundred have been trained in Zimbabwe.

Few experts doubt that they have fought around Congo against the rebels trying to overthrow Kabila. Maj. Gen. Augustin Bizimungu, the Hutu defense chief at the time of the mass killings, is reported to be the commander of Hutu troops in the diamond-producing city of Mbuji-Mayi, a key target for the rebels.

Critics of Rwanda say that there can be no real solution to the interahamwe until the Rwandan Government greatly expands power sharing with the Hutu majority. The United States also comes under heavy criticism in the region -- and much suspicion in Congo itself -- for its close friendship with the Rwandan Government.

These critics say that by setting the second rebellion into motion, Rwanda strengthened the interahamwe not just militarily but in popular support and organization.

Many Congolese are convinced that Rwanda wants to annex eastern Congo, and that has created the sense that the Hutu guerrillas "are a resistance force, that they are trying to stop the expansion of this empire," said one aid official with long experience in the region.

"These forces in the field don't represent very much," said the official. "But the question we should be asking ourselves is: has this war allowed these extremist forces to develop a political structure, if not an ideology?"

There is recent evidence that the Hutu guerrillas may be simply too violent to sustain that support -- a development that may help the peace agreement.

Several experts said local Congolese fighters known as the Mayi Mayi -- allies of the Hutu guerrillas because of their shared hatred for Tutsis -- may be now distancing themselves. This would be a problem for the guerrillas because they have depended on the Mayi Mayi to forge good will with local Congolese who provide money and food.

That perception was supported by a man from the city of Bukavu, in eastern Congo, who sought out reporters recently saying that he spoke on behalf of Mayi Mayi groups looking for greater legitimacy.

The man, a local politician who asked to be identified by part of his name, Mukange, said that the guerrillas' philosophy seemed to be, "You meet somebody and you kill them. "The Mayi Mayi didn't want to be like that," he said.

The aid official said he believed that the international community should send more money to eastern Congo instead of disarming the guerrillas. The money could rebuild roads or markets -- projects to pull local people away from war and, thus, the guerrillas.

In the hospital here, just outside the ward where Ms. Asami lay, a man on crutches named Bagenga Sanvula, 22, needed no convincing. Five months ago, a group of 15 guerrillas attacked a car he was driving in with his two brothers, he said. They asked for money.

"We didn't have any," Sanvula said. "They said, 'Since you don't have any money, we are going to kill you.' Then they shot."

His two brothers were killed. He survived with a bullet in his left leg.

"They must go back to Rwanda," Sanvula said, "and let peace happen here."

August 16, 1999
New York Times
Rwandan and Ugandan Troops Fight in Congo
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ISANGANI, Congo -- Ugandan and Rwandan troops traded artillery fire and fought pitched gunbattles for control of this northern Congo city in a feud between the two countries over how to end Congo's civil war.

In downtown Kisangani, tracers arced across the sky late Sunday and the thud of artillery and mortar fire echoed in the streets. The two sides also engaged in heavy fighting at the airport outside town. Uganda and Rwanda each back a rival faction of the main rebel group fighting to oust Congo's president, Laurent Kabila.

As the rivalry has sharpened in recent weeks, Kisangani -- a city of 1 million on the Congo river -- has become divided between troops from both countries and their rebel clients. Now the violence threatens to wreck a July 10 peace deal signed by Kabila and other warring countries aiming to end the Central African nation's yearlong civil war.

Although fighting raged throughout the city Sunday, Rwandan forces appeared to focus their firepower on two hotels occupied by Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, the head of the rebel faction backed by Uganda. Casualties were believed to be heavy on both sides, but exact figures could not be independently confirmed.

Diplomatic efforts were quickly launched in a bid to end the crisis. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Rwandan Vice President Paul Kagame meet today in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, to discuss the crisis.

In addition, the United States dispatched Gayle Smith, President Clinton's national security adviser for African affairs, to Kampala and the Rwandan capital, Kigali, to try to defuse tensions, according to officials from all three countries.

Fighting began late Saturday with sporadic mortar exchanges at the airport. Rwandan commanders accused the Ugandan troops of attacking their positions in a bid to take control of the airport, located 15 miles east of Kisangani.

The battles resumed early Sunday. Into the evening, troops exchanged gunfire from trenches dug hastily across the airport tarmac, as Ugandan troop planes continued to land. Ugandan troops appeared to control the only road to the airport.

Rwandan commander Lt. Col. Patrick Nyavumba said late Sunday he had been ordered by his superiors in Kigali to stop fighting. But Nyavumba said he could not reach his Ugandan counterpart, Brig. Gen. James Kazini, to agree on a cease-fire.

Rwandan officers said that when they contacted Kazini earlier in the day, he denied having started the fighting and said his troops were provoked.

The leadership dispute within the rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy has grown tenser amid efforts to get its signature on the July 10 peace deal signed by Kabila and all the other warring parties in Congo.

South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Zuma flew to Kisangani Wednesday to determine which rebel faction should initial the peace accord. Regional heads of state were still deliberating her findings when fighting broke out Saturday. Wamba, who was ousted as the group's leader in May, insists on signing the agreement. His successor, Emile Ilunga, claims Wamba commands no troops or political following and refuses to initial the accord if Wamba does.

At stake is the seat across the table from Kabila when an expected national dialogue on the future of Congo takes place. Both Uganda and Rwanda signed the peace accord last month, but they have opposed each other in the rebel dispute amid differences over how exactly to end the way.

Uganda appears to be hoping Wamba can help expand its toehold on lucrative timber, tea, coffee, gold and diamond markets in northern Congo. While Uganda favors a quick withdrawal from Congo with its interests protected, Rwanda says it will not pull out until Rwandan Hutu militiamen responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and now fighting alongside Kabila's army are disarmed and handed over for trial.

New York Times
August 18, 1999
Ugandan and Rwandan Leaders Agree to Congo Cease-Fire
By REUTERS

KAMPALA, Uganda -- The leaders of Uganda and Rwanda agreed Tuesday to an immediate cease-fire to end three days of fighting between their troops in Congo.

They agreed to stop all attacks inside the Congolese city of Kisangani at the end of talks between President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Rwanda's powerful Vice President and Defense Minister, Paul Kagame.

"They have agreed an immediate cease-fire between their forces in Kisangani," said Museveni's spokeswoman, Hope Kivengere.

Uganda and Rwanda have been allies throughout a year-old rebel war they are supporting against President Laurent Kabila of Congo. But they now support rival rebel factions and the tensions turned into violence in Kisangani over the weekend. Fierce gun and artillery battles began Saturday night, and at least 50 people were feared killed in street-to-street clashes.

Government officials in both Uganda and Rwanda have, however, played down the impact of the conflict in Kisangani on the broad alliance between the two longtime allies.

"There is no significant difference at the political level," said Ruhakana Rugunda, Uganda's Minister of State in the Presidency.

It was not immediately clear if the troops on the ground would respect the cease-fire, though. Kisangani is the country's third-largest city and is a center of its diamond trade.

Ms. Kivengere said Museveni and Kagame had agreed to a framework for an agreement and were committed to finding a lasting solution to the civil war, which has destabilized the entire region.

The leaders of six African nations who have deployed troops on either side in the war agreed last month to a peace deal at a meeting in the Zambian capital, Lusaka.

But the main rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy, did not sign because of a dispute over who leads it.

Museveni and Kagame, who have been friends for two decades, stressed their support for the Congo peace agreement at the end of their meeting at a safari lodge in southwest Uganda Tuesday.

"Both Governments reaffirmed their commitment to the peaceful resolution of the conflict," they said in a statement, "and the swift implementation of the Lusaka agreement."

Rwanda is backing the main rebel faction, led by Ilunga, while Uganda has thrown its support behind a rival faction led by Ernest Wamba dia Wamba.

They have effectively carved up Kisangani between them, trucking in thousands of troops to defend their positions.

Ugandan officials said Museveni and Kagame had agreed on a position on how to verify the rival leadership claims, but no details of the plan were released.

An informal cease-fire agreed between army commanders on Monday held for just a few hours. Residents who were unable to escape the city said they suffered another night of heavy artillery and mortar fire.

New York Times
August 31, 1999
Congo Rebels Sign Cease-Fire

Fifty-one founding members of the rebel group, Congolese Rally for democracy, took part in the signing ceremony, ending six weeks of wrangling over whose names should appear on the agreement.

Emile Ilunga, head of the largest faction of the Congolese Rally for Democracy, added his signature to the accord, which was passed to the rebel leaders in alphabetical order of their names. His chief rival in the splintered group, Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, was one of the last to sign in the ceremony at a Lusaka hotel.

The peace accord calls for a cease-fire within 24 hours between the rebels, Congolese President Laurent Kabila and the adjacent nations that support one side or the other in the conflict. It also calls for elections in Congo next July.

U.N. officials estimate the future peacekeeping operation could require a minimum of 25,000 soldiers. South Africa has already promised troops. The United States has said that, if asked, it would take part in an ``internationally recognized'' peacekeeping effort.

The United Nations expects to deploy the first 17 military liaison officers in the capitals of Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and possibly Zambia by Saturday to prepare for a U.N. role in implementing the peace accord. Observers from the Organization of African Unity are also expected to be deployed.

Gen. Rachid Lallali of Algeria, nominated as the neutral head of a Joint Military Commission to oversee the cease-fire until international peacekeepers are in place, witnessed the signing.

`Our expectations are very high ... that the agreement will be fully implemented now that all political leaders are supporting it jointly,'' he said.

The Congolese Rally for Democracy, or RCD, had been the only group not to have signed the pact mediated by Zambian President Frederick Chiluba.

Kabila and leaders from the countries that backed him -- Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia -- had signed the peace accord. The leaders of Rwanda and Uganda, which have backed rebels trying to unseat Kabila, also signed.

But fighting continued in Congo as the two rebel groups -- the RCD and the Congolese Liberation Movement -- refused to sign the accord.

The Congolese Liberation Movement finally signed several weeks ago, but the larger of the two groups, the RCD, did not. It was split by a leadership dispute that spilled over into violent battles in the Congolese town of Kisangani in recent weeks.

Bringing the seven warring parties to the peace table has consumed diplomatic efforts throughout Africa for the past year, starting with the first peace conference in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, in August 1998.

Chiluba and mediators from Tanzania and South Africa have shuttled around the continent, trying to round up signatures.

The Congolese war has threatened development and security in central Africa, continuing the chaos that started when Kabila unseated former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997, when the country was still known as Zaire.

Rwanda backed the RCD, charging that Kabila had supported Hutu genocide militias who had fled from Rwanda after participating in the massacre of more than half a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994.

New York Times
November 5, 1999
Cease-Fire at Risk in Congo

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast -- A three-month-old cease-fire in Congo has grown increasingly fragile in recent days, possibly threatening the agreement to end a war that has drawn in half a dozen African nations.

One of the main rebel groups that has sought to topple the government of President Laurent Kabila accused him Thursday of violating the cease-fire by sending airplanes to bomb a town in northwestern Congo, a few days after doing the same in another town in the region. At the same time, the other main rebel movement said it had interpreted recent statements by Kabila's government as a declaration of war.

The bombing claims, made by Jean-Pierre Bemba, the leader of the Uganda-backed Movement for the Liberation of the Congo, could not be independently verified. But they came after government-controlled television in the capital declared Monday that Kabila's army had been rebuilt and was now "prepared" to fulfill its "mission to liberate" the country.

"We will not begin the next century under rebel occupation," Abdoulaye Yerodia, Kabila's foreign minister, said at a news conference a day later. Newspapers in the capital, Kinshasa, interpreted his words as "a resumption of war," as one publication put it.

On Tuesday, the U.S. State Department said it was "deeply concerned by reports of military preparations, including the movement of troops and materiel by forces on both sides." On Thursday, another main rebel organization, the Rwanda-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy, said Yerodia's comments amounted to "a declaration of war."

The various sides in Congo's 15-month-old conflict have repeatedly accused one another of violating the cease-fire since it was signed in August. Few accusations can be verified, chiefly because of the absence of independent observers throughout the country.

Under the peace plan, an international peacekeeping force would eventually be sent to Congo, a nation the size of the United States east of the Mississippi that is currently occupied by troops from five foreign countries, two main rebel organizations and countless militias.

But a small U.N. survey team that arrived in Kinshasa in mid-October, as a precursor to a larger group of observers and a peacekeeping force, has been unable to travel outside the capital. The Kabila government said it would not allow the U.N. team to visit some key cities, including the diamond center of Mbuji-Mayi. What is more, the U.N. officials are dissatisfied with guarantees on safety and travel that they have received from the Kabila government.

"The authorities and the population regard the potential deployment of U.N. troops with great suspicion," said an official with an international aid group in Kinshasa.

The Congo government believes that the United Nations, led by the United States, sides with the rebellion, the official said. Uganda and Rwanda, the main rebel sponsors, are considered to be close allies of Washington in Africa.

When the current war erupted in August 1998, Rwanda and Uganda at first denied that they were supporting the movement against Kabila. A year earlier, the countries had plucked Kabila out of obscurity to launch a successful rebellion that ended the 31-year reign of Mobutu Sese Seko. But Kabila's close ties with his sponsors made him unpopular at home, and he eventually severed them for his own political survival.

Three neighboring countries with their own specific interests in the Congo -- Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia -- rescued Kabila from certain defeat last year and have been supporting his government.

Memories Of U.N. Failures Fuel Doubts For Mission
History Leaves Congo Wary of Peacekeeping

By Karl Vick
Washington Post
Tuesday, November 23, 1999; Page A19

KINSHASA, Congo—In the less-than-sovereign republic of Congo, U.N. blue berets are trying to figure out just how warm their welcome really is.

On the sidewalks of this war-weary capital, the peacekeeping monitors are greeted with nods, smiles and, once, even cheers. Congolese say they are indeed grateful that the United Nations has dispatched observers to monitor the precarious cease-fire deal signed four months ago by the nations that for 15 months have used their vast, mineral-rich country as a combination battleground and export zone.

But those same streets recently echoed with the chants of demonstrators angrily denouncing the United Nations.

In the coming year, an ultimate peacekeeping complement of 20,000 might be mobilized for Congo, a force a variety of officials say is far more likely to be supplied by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) than the United Nations. But U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, a Ghanaian who has upbraided the international community for ignoring Africa, already has recommended that the U.N. observer force be increased to 500.

But for weeks President Laurent Kabila refused to guarantee the security of U.N. advance teams scouting likely monitoring positions, relenting only after a stern visit from Annan's special envoy. Meanwhile, the government mounted a military recruiting drive, announced a curfew, closed the Congo River to night traffic and ratcheted up its rhetoric against "aggressors," a reference to the rebels they have been fighting.

Mixed messages are nothing new in Kinshasa, where freshly hung banners and nightly television spots bid an admittedly confused population to "Fight for Peace." But Congolese say the complex reception accorded the preliminary peacekeeping unit in fact reflects the two minds of the Congolese on the United Nations. It is a national ambivalence born of hard experience.

The last time U.N. peacekeepers came to Congo, in the post-independence chaos of 1960, the international force stayed three years and got caught up in civil war. The huge new nation was a coveted prize during the Cold War, and felt toyed with by the Soviet Union and the United States. The latter even sent a CIA assassin to eliminate the charismatic, left-leaning prime minister. And although political rivals killed Patrice Lumumba first, Congolese are reminded that he was martyred on the U.N.'s watch.

"They were accomplices," said Andre Simba, 38, a political science student at Kinshasa University.

So it is that in the heart of a continent that today complains of being ignored by a world rushing among crises in Kosovo, East Timor and now Chechnya, the Democratic Republic of Congo wants only a useful level of international interest in its problem. Because that problem, Congolese emphasize, is simply making Congo their own again.

"If they focus on our country, we can find a solution," said Zacharie Kazadi, 41, referring to the international community. "But if they come for their own interests, there won't be any solution."

U.N. officials say they could not agree more. "We understand harking back to the 1960s, but it's really not relevant," said Col. James Ellery, the British commander of the U.N. military Observer Mission in Congo. "Whatever happened in the 1960s was post-colonial Cold War. The conditions are completely different now."

Indeed, the belligerents fighting over Congo this time are African. Three years ago, at least five countries helped Kabila, an ineffectual career rebel, to depose dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who with consistent U.S. sponsorship ruled the country he had renamed Zaire for three decades. Last year, when Kabila's primary sponsors soured on him, new alliances took shape as even more of Africa entered the fray.

By the time the so-called Lusaka accord was signed July 10 by Congo and its allies Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia, and the rebels' allies of Rwanda and Uganda, the number of foreign nations with forces fighting in Congo numbered eight. Besides the signatories, Chad, Sudan and Burundi also have troops on the ground. Several--most notably Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Angola--also pursued campaigns against rebel groups that had taken sanctuary in a huge neighbor that after decades of misrule barely managed a central government, never mind a border patrol.

"We don't have an army," said Congo Finance Minister Mawampanga Mwana Nanga, explaining why his government, shortly after signing a peace accord, announced a military recruiting drive. "We have to build an army."

Restoring Congo's territorial integrity was the central tenet of the Lusaka accord, named for the Zambian capital, where it was signed. The agreement calls for all parties to cease fire and prepare to surrender their positions to a peacekeeping force organized by the Organization of African Unity, the primary sponsor of the accord. Along the way, the militias that carried out the 1994 Rwanda genocide are to be disarmed.

The OAU asked for the United Nations' help in monitoring the accord. The Security Council responded by authorizing a 90-member delegation that has set up headquarters in an abandoned villa on Kinshasa's main boulevard, a block away from the high-rise headquarters of the controversial 1960 mission. "The world stands ready," said Ellery, the commander. But how ready is Congo?

Opposition politician Kabambe Mwebwe, of the Congolese Patriotic Front, sighed that "in talking about peace, they're waging a campaign for war." The finance minister waved off the rhetoric. "All that is for internal consumption," said Mawampanga, wheeling through the shady streets of the capital. Without a standing army, and with reports that the Angola rebel group UNITA is being driven north by the government, the public must be stirred to vigilance, he said.

"This city is like Paris," said Mawampanga. "There are more than 1,000 bands here. People like to enjoy life. If you don't mobilize people, they will just lie there." But it is not all talk. Fighting has flared in the country's north, endangering the cease-fire even before monitors can be put in place. Each side accuses the other, but the heaviest clashes have been reported near where military sources say Kabila has been shipping the recent arms purchases that some say account for his government's new boldness.

A former Congolese prime minister cautioned Kabila against relying on the new weapons, however. Likulia Bolongo, who was Mobutu's defense minister for most of the 1996-1997 war, said Kabila needs to remember what brought him to power, which was that the people were tired of Mobutu's rule.

"I bought jet fighters. I bought MiG-23s. I bought armed helicopters. And I lost the war," Bolongo said. "When there's social unrest, it's difficult to win. It's the same feeling today."

Ordinary Congolese agreed. Kinshasa residents repeatedly brought up another clause of the Lusaka accord: the requirement for a "national dialogue" aimed at deciding the shape of Congo's ad hoc government. Presided over by an independent mediator, such a dialogue may prove unkind to Kabila, but because Lusaka included no provision for implementing its outcome, the result is almost certain to leave his government in power.

That likelihood provided the primary incentive for Kabila to sign the peace accord that the U.S. Institute of Peace called "the last exit on the region's highway to hell." In Congo, it also provided at least the opportunity for Congolese to express themselves on the future of their country. "We spent 32 years under dictatorship, in chaos, believing that with Kabila's coming we can enjoy a better life and development in all respects," said student Yves Mayemba. "They gave us promises, and we spend two years with these guys in the dark. "We still don't know where we're going. It's a mystery."

Congo's Neighbors Seek to Exit Conflict
Washington Post
May 24, 2000 p. A19

KIGALI, Rwanda For the first time since fighting erupted in Congo 22 months ago, Africa's most far-reaching conflict is producing promising news.

A cease-fire negotiated six weeks ago has held firm, in stark contrast to an accord signed last August. Governments that have been at each other's throats are exchanging peace envoys. And the countries that rushed into what was supposed to be a civil war now appear anxious to leave.

"We need someone to bail us out of the problem of Congo," said Col. James Kabarebe, deputy chief of staff for the army of Rwanda, which for four years has done so much to call the tune in its neighboring giant.

The problem is who would do the bailing. In Congo, the warring parties expect peace to be assured by the United Nations, just when the delicate notion of peacekeeping in Africa is under assault 2,000 miles to the northwest in Sierra Leone.

The situation in Sierra Leone--U.N. peacekeepers held hostage by rebels, a peace agreement in tatters and African countries imploring Western powers to do more--casts a pall over a U.N. monitoring mission in Congo that has had a promising but glacial start.

"The shadow is huge," said one U.S. official. "And it's really going to require a correct response in Sierra Leone to unlock a deployment in Congo."

At the start of the year, when the United States declared January "Africa Month" at the U.N. Security Council, solving the war in Congo was a priority among African governments--including those of the seven countries directly involved in the conflict--as well as for international organizations. Earlier this month, U.S. Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke led six other Security Council members on a tour of the region.

But by the time the group returned to New York, the United Nations was consumed with the Sierra Leone crisis and distracted by renewed fighting between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

"Our problem," said U.N. Ambassador Peter Van Walsum of the Netherlands, as he presented a report on Congo to the full council, "is how do we sell this information to an international public . . . that feels that Africa is falling apart?"

The proposed Congo mission would be decidedly less ambitious than the Sierra Leone undertaking. The approximately 90 U.N. observers and staff members now in Congo are the vanguard of a force that would eventually total 5,537. Most would be support troops charged with protecting 500 observers monitoring the cease-fire and pullback. The U.N. force would be required to protect itself but not to engage in military action to ensure freedom of movement and protect civilians. The council called on Secretary General Kofi Annan to decide when it is safe enough to send troops.

"Of course, countries are less keen to send troops on the ground here" after Sierra Leone, said a spokesman for the U.N. Mission to Congo. "But it's not a real threat. This is a lesson for us. It's something we will learn from."

Congo and Rwanda offer lessons of their own to the United Nations. The organization sent a massive peacekeeping mission to Congo when civil war erupted in 1960. Of the 19,000 troops sent, 250 were killed. U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold died in a plane crash on his way to effect a peace settlement there.

Thirty years later, massive intervention in Somalia to stem a famine collapsed when warlords targeted U.N. peacekeepers, especially Americans. The lesson was not lost on Hutu extremists plotting to kill ethnic Tutsis in Rwanda months later: They targeted a small force of peacekeepers, and the United Nations promptly fled, allowing the extremists to kill at least 500,000 Rwandans with no international interference.

It was the pursuit of the remnants of the Hutu extremist force after the 1994 Rwandan genocide that prompted Kigali's current government to send its army into Congo, first in 1996, and again in 1998. Rwanda now has as many as 40,000 troops there.

"There's no way any of us can depend on the security of the U.N.," said Emmanuel Ndahiro, a Rwanda army spokesman. "The experience we have is too long."

What the United Nations can do, Rwandans say, is sound the alarm if any side tries to move forward while another pulls back. "The temptation will be very high for [Congo President Laurent] Kabila," said Theogene Rudasingwa, chief of the Rwandan cabinet.

Several countries have signaled a willingness to pull out of Congo. The war is intensely unpopular in Zimbabwe, which sent 10,000 troops to support Kabila and faces a collapsing economy as well as a crisis over farm ownership. Namibia and Angola, also Kabila allies, have agreed to pull back.

Uganda, which entered the war on the side of Rwanda and the Congolese rebels, has been working toward its own resolution since last year, when it signed an accord that let troops from Chad return home after they had crossed into Congo to help Kabila.

Since then, supposed allies Uganda and Rwanda have clashed twice in the jointly held river city of Kisangani. Coupled with intense infighting in two of Congo's three rebel groups, the spat between the allies has complicated the conflict.

But the latest Kisangani battle, earlier this month, also offered a ray of hope. A U.N. monitor stationed in the city promptly reported that Uganda had attacked first. His report nipped in the bud the round of recriminations that had helped fuel the feud since an earlier clash last August.

"It justifies our argument that even a little force like 500 can make a difference," said Rwanda's Rudasingwa. "Let's deploy it and deploy it quickly."

But even a full U.N. deployment would leave huge problems unaddressed. Decades of neglect have left the vast country with almost no infrastructure. And there is barely a semblance of local administration in the half of the country held by the rebels or foreign forces; thousands have died in intertribal fighting that sprang up in the void.

"If both sides withdraw, who maintains normal civil order--or what passes for normal civil order in Congo?" asked a Western diplomat in Kigali.

The answer is supposed to be provided by the "national dialogue" mandated by what is known as the Lusaka accord, which was signed last year by all the governments involved. But the dialogue has been slow in coming.

Also pending is the question of who will deal with the Hutu extremists who remain in Congo. While the front lines have fallen quiet, Rwanda has been steadily fighting a rear guard action in the Congo provinces closest to its border.

Rwanda Routs Uganda in Congo Battle
Washington Post
June 11, 2000

KISANGANI, Congo, June 11 Rwandan troops drove Ugandan forces from Kisangani today in a fierce seven-hour battle that ended a week of terrifying, indiscriminate shelling and enabled U.N. monitors to wedge in between the two armies and prepare for their withdrawal.

Bullet-riddled bodies of at least 40 Ugandan soldiers lay strewn along the gravel road that leads to the bridge where Rwandan troops halted the Ugandan push into the Congo River port city. The stench of death was everywhere, and there was no water, electricity, food or medicine.

A handful of unarmed U.N. observers were in place to monitor the cease-fire called by Ugandan forces. At the bridge, they raised the U.N. flag and declared that any further fighting would be considered an act of aggression against the international community.

The latest round of fighting, which began June 5, was the third in Kisangani between the two armies, which support rival groups of rebels trying to oust Congolese President Laurent Kabila. Kisangani has become a strategic logistics base for both armies, and disagreements about the conduct of the 22-month war have increased, as has the personal animosity between each side's military commander.

Rwandan soldiers inspected tons of ammunition, guns and an anti-aircraft battery left behind by the Ugandans.

"I am not proud of this," Rwandan commander Col. Karenzi Karake said. "But we were fired at. We won because our soldiers know what they are fighting for. We are now leaving Kisangani regardless of Ugandan intentions."

The battle ended early today when Ugandan army chief of staff Brig. James Kazini called Karake on a satellite telephone and requested a cease-fire, Karake said. In the Ugandan capital, Kampala, a senior government official confirmed that Ugandan forces had withdrawn to a training camp seven miles north of the bridge.

Top military officials from each side were to meet Monday in Kampala to work out a speedy withdrawal of both armies from Kisangani, said Lt. Col. Danilo Paiva, head of the U.N. observer team.

As an eerie calm settled over the steamy city of 200,000, some residents ventured out for the first time in a week. Marcel Thambwe, 30, was dumbfounded at the extent of the destruction; not a single dwelling escaped damage.

"This has no purpose," Thambwe said. "We just want them out of here. Both Rwandans and Ugandans. Bring over the United Nations and stop this destruction. Please."

U.N. observers said at least 6,000 shells had rained down on Kisangani since the fighting broke out. The Red Cross put the civilian death toll at 150 with 1,114 injured, but those numbers were expected to rise as people were discovered in the rubble of their homes and bodies were collected from the streets.

Three children died and one was wounded today while playing with unexploded hand grenades, said Alexander Liebeskind of the Red Cross. As many as 20,000 Congolese have been displaced, he said.

Two men pushed exhausted relatives in wheelbarrows through streets littered with bodies, spent cartridges and artillery shells. Women in one house wailed over their five dead children killed by a mortar shell that exploded at the entrance of a school. Everyone begged for water and food.

Church bells pealed from the twin spires of the 101-year-old Roman Catholic cathedral, which sustained heavy damage from shelling. Congolese priests said Mass to a few dozen faithful who prayed with neither altar nor pews.

Congo's War Triumphs Over Peace Accord

New York Times

September 18, 2000

By IAN FISHER

DONGO, Congo, Sept. 13 — It takes nearly nine hours to get here from the next big town, in a boat that leaks its slow way through swampland and walls of jungle with few hints of human life. But then, there it is: a war rarely seen up close, and getting worse.

Dogs gnaw through new graves. Rebel soldiers, the winners of a battle here just days ago, hold up shredded posters of Congo's pudgy president, Laurent Kabila. They seem surprised — even a little afraid — at the amount of weaponry they captured after five days of fighting: hundreds of machine guns, mortars, rocket launchers, mounds of newly bought ammunition that showed, with little doubt, that Mr. Kabila meant business.

"If we knew all these guns were here we would never have dared to attack them," said Rugaza Ndayisenga, who at only 28 is a commander here for the rebel group, the Movement for the Liberation of Congo.

For more than two years, a complicated war has been fought in hidden places like this. In Congo, the third-largest country in area in Africa, it is a scramble for political power as much as for its bounteous diamonds, gold, timber and coffee. It is sometimes called Africa's World War I because the troops of at least seven nations are battling here, along with three fractious rebel groups and countless militias.

The fighting has gone on despite a peace accord signed in August 1999 by all the major parties — even though that accord has checked the war's intensity. But in recent months violence has surged, here in the northwest along the Ubangi River, as well as in Congo's far eastern reaches next to Rwanda and Uganda. The number of refugees is soaring. United Nations officials say Mr. Kabila is attacking more by air, and rebel officials say his ground attacks involve far more weaponry, like the large cache captured here.

Soon the stakes may grow yet greater, in a way that could unravel the few surviving strands of the peace accord and make the United Nations' hope of stationing peacekeepers in Congo even less likely.

A few days ago, Jean-Pierre Bemba, the rebel leader in Equateur Province, issued a challenge to Mr. Kabila and major Western nations that pushed the accord with more vigor than any of those who signed it. He wants Mr. Kabila to declare whether he will abide by the peace accord, signed in Lusaka, Zambia. If not, he says he will not feel constrained by it either.

"We are at a turning point," Mr. Bemba, a 38-year-old businessman-turned-rebel, said this week in Gbadolite, his headquarters. "Is Lusaka alive still or not? That is the question."

Mr. Bemba's target is specific, and gaining it would probably intensify the fighting: He wants to close down the airport at Mbandaka, the last major city along the Congo River before the capital, Kinshasa. He contends that Mr. Kabila is using the airport there to initiate bombing raids, a violation of the Lusaka accord, even as Mr. Kabila says he will honor other parts of the accord.

"Lusaka is a package," Mr. Bemba insisted. "You must take all of Lusaka. You can't say to a woman, `I take your head; I leave your heart.' "

It is not certain whether Mr. Bemba is capable militarily of closing the airport. Nor is it clear if his major sponsor, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, would give his approval given that Mr. Museveni's own friends, the United States and many European nations, would probably hold him responsible for such a departure from the Lusaka accord.

But, at a minimum, Mr. Bemba's challenge may finally add some clarity to the status of the accord signed in Lusaka.

On paper, the accord calls for a cease-fire, disarmament of militias, negotiations among Congolese political leaders and a withdrawal of all foreign forces. Uganda and Rwanda are fighting on the side of the rebels; Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia on Mr. Kabila's side. Burundi has had troops there, though only to protect its border, it says.

Almost none of the agreement has been fulfilled. So no one with a stake in Congo — warring parties or outside nations eager for stability in central Africa — can say whether it is moving toward peace or further from it.

Aid agency officials say the confusion has made their job especially hard because rich nations are reluctant to give money without the guarantee of a peace accord. And suffering has grown with the uptick in fighting.

Along the Ubangi, an estimated 30,000 to 80,000 people have fled their homes. In eastern Congo, where an ethnic war tied tightly to the larger war is growing worse, relief officials estimate that there are 750,000 refugees, compared with at most 200,000 a year ago.

"Humanitarian needs and suffering of the people will continue whether Lusaka works or not," Charles Petrie, the top United Nations aid official in Congo, said this week in a visit to Gbadolite. Without the accord in place, he said, "it does make it a lot more difficult because we are in a logic of greater conflict."

Experts say all sides have violated the accord in one way or another. For example, Rwanda and Uganda, nominally allies, fought three times in Kisangani, most recently this summer, killing hundreds of civilians. Rwanda has since pledged to pull back about 125 miles from the front lines. Uganda recalled about 5,000 soldiers, roughly half its Congo force, this summer.

Each nation had its own reasons for moving closer to the spirit of the Lusaka accord. Like Mr. Bemba with his ultimatum, Rwanda and Uganda seem to want their behavior to highlight what they say are Mr. Kabila's greater violations.

Many experts blame Mr. Kabila for violating the accord in an almost systematically confusing way. He has rejected the internationally appointed mediator to the conflict.

He agreed only last month, under great pressure, to allow peacekeepers to be stationed on territory he holds. In July, he made no pretense about beginning an offensive against Mr. Bemba, aimed at pushing him beyond the positions all sides agreed on last year. United Nations officials and other experts, however, do not hold Mr. Bemba blameless in various rounds of fighting in Equateur Province.

Mr. Kabila's offensive started well for him, deep in the jungles around the Ubangi River along the border of the neighboring country to the west, the Congo Republic. He pushed Mr. Bemba's forces from Imese, 50 miles south of here on the Ubangi, to just outside Libenge, 125 miles north of here. That put Mr. Kabila within striking range of Mr. Bemba's base, Gbadolite (also the hometown of Mobutu Sese Seko, the longtime dictator whom Mr. Kabila overthrew in 1997).

But the fighting turned on Aug. 10, when Mr. Bemba's forces blew up a hulking ferry fitted with big guns on the Ubangi near the village of Mawiya. He says the attack killed 800 government soldiers. There is no way to verify whether the number, though the smell of charred flesh is still strong inside the battered ship's hull.

The battle for Dongo — a strategic town on the route to Gbadolite — began the week of Sept. 3. After five days of fighting, Mr. Kabila's soldiers fled, leaving behind more weapons than the rebels had expected. Mr. Bemba said more than 30 of his soldiers were killed, and more than 50 of Mr. Kabila's.

People in Dongo said that as government soldiers fled, they rounded up civilians suspected of collaborating with the rebels and executed them — mostly by slashing their throats in a small house where the floor is still covered with blood. Papulu Wenda, 42, said he found the body of his older brother, Jano, 46, in a pile of bodies. The dead, 47 in all, were buried in two mass graves.

"Kabila's soldiers came, and they wanted to kill the people of Dongo," Mr. Wenda said. "I don't understand it."

Even though they won the battle, the rebel soldiers here said government MIG fighter jets still drop bombs on them once a day. The bombs, they said, toppled several houses — including one with a caved- in roof and crumbling walls aside one of many piles of captured ammunition. One commander, Luc Murhunzi, 33, sat next to the ammunition and contemplated the war's near future. He said he did not think Mr. Kabila's plans included observing the Lusaka accord.

"He's using warships," he said. "He's using planes. He's arming himself. This shows he is looking for a military solution."

U.N. Mission in Congo Observes Village Life, and Little Else

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday , October 3, 2000 ; Page A18

BOENDE, Congo –– In nine months as a U.N. military observer stationed deep in the jungle of a nation at war, Col. Ion Albu has confronted much.

There was the housing. "House? It was not even a house," the Romanian officer said of the hut he was given when he arrived Jan. 7. Albu slept in the car.

There were the snakes. Two of them, slithering in the bathroom of the abandoned Catholic mission he eventually moved into. "I killed them," Albu said. "If I don't kill them, maybe they kill me. It is normal. It's the jungle!"

And in the claustrophobic local market, giving off an overwhelming odor of decaying flesh still on the bone, was all that monkey meat. The first time he saw it, Albu said, he vomited.

None of it, however, compares with the tedium.

It has been 13 months since six nations at war in Congo signed a peace accord calling for a truce that the United Nations would monitor, and no one knows better than Albu how little has happened since. The accord has withered. The fighting has continued.

Now, after Congo's president repeatedly delayed their deployment, several dozen U.N. observers are stationed at 13 outposts across a country as large as the United States east of the Mississippi River. Stranded in such places as Boende, they are observing nothing so much as the hard local living.

Somewhere beyond the lush wall of green that encircles this town of perhaps 30,000, fighting rages in spite of the cease-fire. Rebels backed by Uganda are believed to be pressing the front line 60 miles to the north, edging toward Boende and the Congolese troops billeted here.

But no one knows for certain. The front is three days away on what passes for a road in Congo's interior, and the Congolese government won't let the United Nations near it.

"What can I do in Equator province?" Albu asked, throwing his arms in the air. "It's 90 percent jungle! Look! All around! What can I do? Nothing! Nothing!"

It is a refrain repeated, in slightly more diplomatic language, at the U.N. mission headquarters in Kinshasa, the capital. Across the half of the country still controlled by his forces, President Laurent Kabila for months refused to allow deployment of U.N. observers. When finally they were allowed into the field, Kabila refused to allow them to roam.

"We have no freedom of movement," said Juan Pekmez, chief spokesman for the U.N. mission here. "Our observers have no ability to observe."

The lack of cooperation does not bode well for this country of perhaps 50 million people, about 1.7 million of whom have been uprooted by the fighting, according to relief agencies. It also endangers the tattered peace agreement--dubbed the Lusaka Accord, for the Zambian capital where it was signed by Kabila, the three rebel groups and both sides' foreign
allies. The rebels began the war with help, including troops, from Rwanda and Uganda. Kabila got reinforcements from Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia.

So long as the fighting continues, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has said he will delay bringing the U.N. mission to full strength. The Security Council has authorized a force of 5,500, most of whom would be assigned to protect the unarmed observers at three camps along a front that stretches more than 1,000 miles. If that force proves effective in telling the world
what is happening in Congo--officials emphasize that the U.N. mission is to observe and report, not to keep combatants apart--the U.N. presence might grow to some 20,000. But given U.N. peacekeeping fiascos in Somalia and Sierra Leone, and Kabila's vacillation to date, officials are chary of predicting any expansion.

"I don't think anyone's going to pull the plug," a senior U.S. diplomat in New York said. "My own sense is it's going to be a work in progress for many months to come and the U.N. engagement is going to help forward movement, though much slower than anybody wants."

Time already moves pretty slowly in Boende, especially for the only European in town. Albu's fellow blue berets already know life in an African village. Maj. Abdoulaye Diallo is from Senegal; Maj. Mohammed Bogobiri grew up in Ghana. "I'm used to it," Bogobiri said.

Not Albu. On Thursday morning, he waited below a sign that read "Bienvenue a Boende" as a U.N. C-130 Hercules cargo plane thumped onto a dirt airfield. In the adjoining "control shack," homesick Namibian troops gathered around a copy of a Namibian magazine. Albu, with gestures at once friendly and abrupt, herded a handful of visiting journalists into a U.N.
Landcruiser so new it smelled like an automobile showroom, then commenced a tour of the place in which he seemed barely able to believe he had spent most of a year.

"This is the food," Albu said, passing a woman with a basket of green bananas atop her head.

"This is the bathroom," he said, as the jungle opened to reveal a narrow brown creek. Four or five women bent from the muddy bank to scrub clothes. Two others stood in waist deep water soaping up.

"Ladies'," Albu said, and proceeded 20 yards to another branch of the same stream, where men lathered. "Men's," he said.

The road--more of a rutted track, in a town with only one privately owned vehicle--grew worse on the rise to the Catholic complex. Albu found the tidy buildings, brick with excellent concrete floors, under a mass of vines. It took the local men he hired two weeks to clear the jungle that had grown almost to the roofs.

There is no electricity or running water. "If there is rain, we wash," Albu said. "If no rain, no wash." He pressed his palms together toward heaven. "Pray, pray for rain."

Back at the market, where Albu held his nose as he passed the dead monkeys sold with their grimacing smiles still attached, another delegation of observers was set up in a residential section. The Lusaka Accord established a Joint Military Commission of African officers to monitor any truce alongside the U.N. observers. So everywhere the U.N.'s blue berets
have set up in Congo, they have been joined by the green berets of the Organization of African Unity.

"A typical day depends on the situation," said Col. C. G. Gueye, the Senegalese commander of the Joint Military Commission delegation in Boende. "If nothing happens anywhere, we just wait here at breakfast. Talk about the situation. What each person feels. . . .

"After that we can go do volleyball. Or football. Or reading. It depends. "We try always to get something to do."

Kabila's Isolation Fuels Congo War

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday , October 30, 2000 ; Page A01

KINSHASA, Congo –– The siren of the first police motorcycle brings everything else in downtown Kinshasa to stillness. Midday crowds of splendidly dressed but unemployed Congolese freeze in place. The few cars on the wide boulevard quickly vanish down side streets and an idling soldier in khaki tennis shoes mutters orders to the throng as the presidential motorcade of Laurent Desire Kabila approaches: Three more motorcycles, two pickup trucks of lightly armed soldiers, an
antiaircraft gun and, finally, one, two, three, four, five shining black Mercedes E200 sedans, each one empty. "Kabila wasn't in any of them," a bystander announces, drawing the curtain on a scene that sums up both the current state of governance in Congo and the war bedeviling it: a great deal of ceremony, a vain display of force and, in the place where a silenced citizenry looks for leadership, a conspicuous absence.

In this vast land sprawled across Africa's middle, a stew of ragged Congolese militias--and a half-dozen neighboring countries--have been fighting for two years over whether Kabila should remain president. The stalemated war paralyzes a resource-rich swath of Africa and the futures of 50 million impoverished Congolese.

At the center of the stalemate, Kabila is too weak militarily to win the war, and too isolated politically to make peace. During coffee breaks at the regional summits regularly convened to grope toward some kind of solution to the war, Kabila's aloneness becomes a visible thing. While more natural politicians seek one another out to kibitz, Kabila stands by
himself, looking uncomfortable.

"He's isolated completely," said a Congolese analyst who asked not to be identified more specifically for fear of arrest by security police. "Since he doesn't trust anybody, he wants to do everything. . . . Economically all the decisions he's taken are catastrophic. And it's worse on the military ground."

The offensive Kabila launched last spring, with freshly trained recruits and several planeloads of new arms, was soon reversed. Almost every acre his forces captured is back in rebel hands, along with tons of those new weapons. A rebel ambush of a troop ship on the Ubangi River on Aug. 10 cost an estimated 1,000 government soldiers their lives. And at a Kinshasa military base where fighting had erupted twice in recent months, it remains unclear whether the combatants were rival factions within the army or troops refusing orders to go to the front.

Yet Kabila soldiers on, acutely aware that whatever the perils of war, he has more to fear from peace.

The Lusaka Accord, named for the Zambian capital where it was hammered out 14 months ago, prescribes a political process to end the war. A U.N.-monitored cease-fire would be followed by a vaguely defined "inter-Congolese dialogue" in which community and national leaders would decide a way forward.

The accord "envisions"--but, significantly, does not require--that Congo's national discussion end in elections. Even those promoting the dialogue acknowledge it is an essentially toothless exercise, subject to manipulation by a canny incumbent.

But Kabila, whose personal insecurity is a matter of lively gossip--no one seems to know where he sleeps--has exhibited no great confidence in his ability to survive any political opening. For more than a year, he obstructed the truce by barring deployment of U.N. military observers and by launching his offensive, which the United Nations has said is the peace
accord's most egregious violation.

Kabila also prevented meetings of the community leaders who are supposed to carry out the inter-Congolese dialogue. He closed the Kinshasa office of Ketumile Masire, a respected former president of Botswana who had been appointed mediator of the dialogue with Kabila's approval.

For Kabila, "the whole idea of the mediator of the inter-Congolese dialogue coming to Kinshasa is a little like the executioner coming to take your neck size," said a foreign analyst.

Kabila and his inner circle "don't care about their image," said Baudoin Hamoui Kabarhuza, coordinator of the National Campaign for Sustainable Peace in Congo, an umbrella group of civil society organizations. Like many diplomats, business people and other analysts here, Kabarhuza expressed dismay at Kabila's efforts to rule by fiat.

" 'We don't like Masire.' 'Forget about Lusaka,' " he said, describing Kabila's attitude. "As if politics was not dynamic!"

The fragility of Kabila's rule is on open display in Congo's capital, where life has reached a nadir. Streets are crowded with unemployed adults and children whose parents can no longer afford modest school fees. Cars form long lines at gas stations, where fuel is scarce at the government-set price. Only black marketeers reliably have gas, and for that reason are called "Gaddafis."

Inflation, which ran about 500 percent last year, is going to be higher this year, said one economic analyst. Government employees paid at the official rate of 23 Congolese francs per dollar struggle to survive in an economy based on the black-market rate, almost four times higher.

"It's impossible," said a French teacher who asked to be identified only by his first name, Alain. He met a reporter in his simple two-room house, out of the view of passersby. As his wife rolled doughnuts she would sell in the street for one franc each, Alain outlined the monthly finances for their family of six: a salary of 3,200 francs, and food costs of at least 6,000 francs.

"I don't think the war is the only reason" for the economic misery, Alain said. "Take the case of Angola, with 27 years of war. . . . The cost of living is not so high as it is here. I know, because I have friends who come from Angola and they tell me that at least people are paid."

"Yes," added a colleague named Jules, who had joined the discussion. "But the war is an excuse."

"I think the main point is not the war but the lack of democracy," Alain said.

The war is often the excuse for suppressing dissent, according to the country's human rights minister and others. Kabila has outlawed all political activity, and last month closed 10 private radio and TV stations. Journalists, political activists and, increasingly, foreign business people fear arrest by Kabila's assorted security services, including the Department for Anti-Patriotic Activities.

In June, Planning Minister Badimanyi Mulumba was arrested for sending his driver to change $100 on the black market--an "economic crime" so commonplace that virtually every member of the political and economic elite is prosecutable, one businesswoman observed. "They can just pull you in at any time," she said.

"Our security services are reinforced by the . . . war," said Leonard She Okitundu, the Congolese human rights minister. "If people are arrested now, the context is the war." Security agents readily arrest whom they want, arguing that "maybe these people are plotting with the enemies," he said.

Those enemies used to be friends. Kabila rode to power in 1997 behind a rebel army led by neighboring Rwanda and backed by other African leaders who had had their fill of Mobutu Sese Seko, the U.S.-backed dictator who had ruled Congo for 31 years. Kabila promised "national reconstruction" and elections.

But Rwanda and Kabila fell out after a year. And in August 1998 the tiny, militarized Rwanda launched the current war, organizing a rebel group called the Congolese Rally for Democracy and sending its own troops into eastern Congo. Uganda, then a close ally of Rwanda, soon followed.

Three southern African countries--Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia--rushed troops to defend Kabila's government. The Angolans stopped a bold Rwandan assault on Kinshasa, while well-equipped Zimbabwean forces secured the south, with its diamond and copper mines.

The outsiders' reasons varied. Rwanda first penetrated Congo pursuing the ethnic Hutu extremists who had massacred a half-million Tutsis in a 1994 genocide attempt; it claimed Kabila had to go because he had formed an alliance with the genocidaires. Uganda cited solidarity with Rwanda and said it was chasing down rebels of its own.

Angola, which also had helped install Kabila, stayed by his side while pursuing its UNITA rebel forces using bases within Congo. Zimbabwe claimed to be acting on principle, defending Congo against aggressors, although it soon won valuable copper and diamond concessions from Kabila.

In fact, while the Congo war drains the defense budgets of every country involved, powerful individuals in each country--often senior officers--appear to be profiting. Ugandan troops control Congolese gold fields, timber and coffee plantations. Rwanda's territory takes in diamonds and tantalite, a mineral used in high-tech manufacturing.

And Kabila's government is entertaining Angolan offers to help pump oil, now Congo's second-leading source of income. "Why not have a joint venture?" said Nkere Nkanda Nkingi, Kabila's assistant in charge of investments. "We say, 'Fine, my brother, you have proven to be a friend.' . . . These are joint ventures that will continue after the war."

But will the war end?

Kabila's allies now say they want it over. Zimbabwe's finance minister has declared the country "cannot afford" to remain in Congo. Angola would prefer to concentrate on its own rebels, diplomats say.

Despite Kabila's campaign to declare it dead, the Lusaka Accord was essentially reaffirmed this month in Maputo, Mozambique. The United Nations keeps a mission of 500 civilian and military personnel in the country or
standing by, and has authorized deployment of another 5,000. A senior U.S. official called Kabila's current efforts to revise the accord misguided at best, given its fragility. One provision allows Rwanda to remain in Congo until the Hutu militias are no more. For the time being, Rwanda has offered to pull back hundreds of miles farther than the Lusaka Accord requires. Uganda claims it has pulled half its forces out of Congo. "When you have as many belligerents and armies in a conflict as you do in Congo, it's a miracle that a balance was struck in the first place," the official said. "If you try and tinker with it, it's doomed."

Even so, in the diplomatic compounds of Kinshasa, not far from where soldiers guarding Kabila's executive branch ask visitors for a Coke, or small bribe, there is a measure of sympathy for the president's position, given how much standing his enemies have lost in the last year.

Since the Lusaka Accord was signed, the fractious rebel groups have splintered further. Only the Uganda-backed Movement for the Liberation of Congo, which beat back Kabila's advance along the Ubangi River, appears a politically coherent force. It alone among the rebel groups enjoys a measure of popular support, though perhaps only in Equateur, the province that is home to its leader, businessman Jean-Pierre Bemba.

The other major rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy, is bedeviled by infighting and by charges that it exists only as a front for Rwanda. A third band, headed by history professor Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, appears moribund.

Rwanda and Uganda, supposed allies, fought fiercely in June in Kisangani, killing 619 Congolese civilians in the crossfire, according to the Red Cross. The casualties underscored what human rights groups and the U.N. human rights commissioner, Mary Robinson, call a signature of the essentially ethnic war in Congo's mountainous east.

The wonder, say diplomats and analysts, is how little Kabila has managed to capitalize on all this. When Congo's allies called an August summit to evaluate the Lusaka Accord, Kabila walked off early. The affront brought a public scolding from Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who had been Kabila's most staunch ally. And sources say Angola, whose President Jose Eduardo dos Santos expressed irritation with Kabila in the local media, privately began asking the very question that occurred to Kabila's last set of allies: Who else might lead Congo?

Death Toll in Congo War May Approach 3 Million
Conflict Leaves Trail of Starvation, Disease and Carnage

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 30, 2001; Page A01

LUSHEBERE, Congo -- As foreign armies pull back from Congo's farthest reaches and aid agencies move forward, the human toll of the country's 32-month war is being sketched in apocalyptic terms beyond any previously documented in an African conflict. According to a new "death census" conducted by a private American aid agency, the number of lives claimed by the Congo war now approaches 3 million.

The survey by the New York-based International Rescue Committee (IRC) was conducted only in the rebel-held eastern half of the country, where most of the fighting and even more of the accompanying hardship has taken place. The toll would almost surely be higher if the government-held western half were included.

The survey attributes a relatively small proportion of the deaths -- a few hundred thousand -- to the battles waged by the Congolese army, its rebel foes and troops from the half-dozen other African countries that have fought on both sides of the conflict. The vast majority of deaths have resulted from starvation, disease and deprivation on a scale emerging only as aid workers reach areas that have been cut off by fighting and lack of roads.

July 30, 2002
Congo, Rwanda Sign Pact to End Devastating War
By REUTERS

PRETORIA (Reuters) - The presidents of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo signed a peace agreement on Tuesday aimed at ending a devastating war that has killed up to two million people in the heart of Africa. South Africa and the United Nations acted as guarantors for a deal which optimists hope will mark the start of the end of the four-year-old war in Congo.

Rwanda's Paul Kagame pledged to withdraw thousands of troops from eastern Congo and Congo's Joseph Kabila undertook to help disarm Rwandan Hutu gunmen blamed for the slaughter of the Tutsi minority in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

``It's a bright day for the African continent,'' South African President Thabo Mbeki said at a grandiose signing ceremony in Pretoria witnessed by his government ministers and diplomats.

``No more blood must run,'' Kabila said in his address. ``There is a time for war and a time for peace.''

But analysts are wary about the accord's prospects for success after the collapse of previous cease-fires and say the latest deal is fraught with difficulties. ``Any step forward is welcome. But the prospects of implementing this accord are completely unrealistic,'' said Alison Des Forges, an expert on Rwanda with Human Rights Watch.

The conflict in the Congo, dubbed Africa's World War, has sucked in the armies of Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola, which have backed the Kinshasa government. Rwanda and Uganda support splintered rebel groups in the vast country's remote east.

RWANDA THE KEY

Of all the combatants in this complex regional conflict, analysts say tiny Rwanda -- which claims it is there to snuff out Congo-based Hutu ``Interahamwe'' gunmen who committed Rwanda's genocide -- is the real key to peace. Kagame said the accord addressed the core issue of how to deal with ``the genocidal forces that have been behind the conflict in our region.''

Under the agreement reached by ministers last week, the Congolese government pledged to disarm and help arrest the thousands of Hutu militiamen who fled into eastern Congo after slaughtering Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the Rwanda genocide. In return, Rwanda, which invaded in 1998 to try to topple the government and protect its western borders against the Hutu rebels, promised to pull its troops out of the Congo.

But it remains to be proven that the Hutu fighters inside the Congo are all -- or even mostly -- veterans of the genocide. Some experts on the region believe many have left Rwanda since 1994 and are new opponents of what they see as Kagame's minority Tutsi government. Analysts say implementing the accord will not be easy. There are few U.N. troops deployed in the region to disarm the Hutu militants and verify Rwanda's withdrawal. In addition, under earlier peace plans, the United Nations Mission in the Congo (MONUC) originally envisaged the combatants disarming themselves willingly. But the memorandum of understanding agreed last week made it clear that the Hutu fighters will now be disarmed whether they want to be or not -- in other words, probably by force. The parties to the agreement had wanted U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to be present on Tuesday. Instead he was represented by a U.N. diplomat.

Peace Agreement Signed in the Congo

By Terry Leonard
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, December 17, 2002; 10:55 AM

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa –– Congo's government, rebels and opposition parties signed a peace accord Tuesday to end four years of civil war and set up a transitional government to lead Africa's third-largest nation to its first democratic elections since independence in 1960.

Under the accord, mediated by South Africa, Congo President Joseph Kabila will remain the interim head of state until the elections can be held in about 30 months.

The accord appeared to represent Congo's best hope yet for a lasting peace because the deal marked the first time that both major rebel groups and the government have agreed on a power-sharing arrangement. Recent attempts failed when they could not win the support of all the major parties.

South African President Thabo Mbeki expressed hope the agreement would bring lasting peace and democracy to Congo and help stabilize central Africa. "We're quite convinced that they are very determined that this will succeed," said Mbeki. "The agreement would also help bring stability to the entire region."

Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the U.N. mission in Congo, called the agreement one of "great historic importance" and said he was optimistic because the accord involves everyone this time. "We have observed great political will, a spirit of compromise and lots of flexibility ... but we exhort them to demonstrate the same political courage and flexibility in the implementation of the document," said Toure.

"The Congolese people see this moment as really something that is dramatically new," said Mbeki, who also said that, "Africans could not truly reconstruct the continent without peace in the Congo."

Chances for success of this accord also have been bolstered by the withdrawal of all but a handful of the tens of thousands of foreign soldiers who took sides during the civil war.

Namanga Ngongi, the U.N. special representative for Congo, called the accord a "landmark in the history of the country."

He said the chances for lasting peace were enhanced by the commitment of the signatories and their ability to overcome their "old reflexes of distrust." Ngongi praised Mbeki and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan for their determination to bring peace to Congo and noted that the agreement also comes at a time when the U.N. force in Congo is being reinforced.

Under the deal, the interim government will also include four vice presidents named from the government, the two rebel groups and the political opposition. Delegates said it wasn't clear how long it would take to implement the accord.

Congo's civil war has left an estimated 2.5 million people dead, mainly from war-induced hunger and disease. Congo is a resource-rich nation about the size of Western Europe.

In Kinshasa, Congo's capital, newspapers hailed what headlines called the coming of peace, and crowds gathered on street corners, debating if that could be.

"Next year, the Congolese can start to look toward the future, and try to rebuild their country," said Leon Ilunga a civil servant in the garbage-heaped city. "I hope that this deal will stick," he added anxiously.

The peace deal was signed in the South African capital shortly after 2 a.m. Tuesday when negotiators approved a list assigning ministries to the various groups. The Ugandan-backed rebels agreed to give up the finance portfolio to the government in exchange for the presidency of the 500-member national assembly, delegates at the talks said. Civil society representatives will choose the head of the 120-member senate, Joseph Mudumbi, foreign affairs chief of the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy, said.

The talks were a continuation of earlier negotiations held at the South African resort of Sun City in which rebels and the government agreed to the basic structure of the power-sharing agreement. But the negotiations bogged down over control of the army, police, diplomats and public companies.

The new accord calls for the deployment of a national police force drawn from government-and rebel-held areas to maintain law and order in the Congolese capital, Mudumbi said.

"The government is pleased with this agreement," Congolese Communications Minister Kikaya Bin Karubi said in Kinshasa. "We are determined to see to its implementation ... It is clear that some issues have not been dealt with – such as the army, the constitution, security – but the main thing has been done."

A U.N. force is expected to be deployed in Kinshasa to guarantee the security of rebel leaders when they arrive to take up their new jobs, he said.

On Dec. 4, the U.N. Security Council authorized the expansion of the United Nations Mission to Congo, from 5,537 to 8,700 international military personnel.

A committee is supposed to work out details of the deal, said Congolese Rally for Democracy head Adolphe Onusumba, who is set to become one of the vice presidents. It was not clear how long it would take to implement the agreement, Onusumba cautioned. However, "since we negotiated for a political solution to the war, all it takes is commitment from all sides to make it work."

Congo's war broke out in August 1998 when Rwanda and Uganda backed Congolese rebels in a bid to oust then-President Laurent Kabila. Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia sent troops to support the government. Kabila was assassinated in January 2001, and the peace drive gained momentum under his son and successor, Joseph Kabila.

All but a few of the foreign combatants have withdrawn, but fighting, particularly in the rebel-held northeast and the government-held southeast, continues among rebel splinter groups and tribal fighters.

Congo, Rebels Reach Accord
Power-Sharing Arrangement Aims to End 4-Year Civil War

By Emily Wax
Washington Post
Wednesday, December 18, 2002; Page A23

NAIROBI, Dec. 17 -- The government of Congo reached a peace agreement today with its military and political opponents in an attempt to end a four-year civil war that has killed an estimated 2 million people in one of Africa's most volatile regions.

The accord, signed early this morning at a conference in the South African city of Pretoria, prescribes a power-sharing arrangement that would allow Congo's president, Joseph Kabila, to remain in office for at least two years, until democratic elections can be held. Four vice presidents would be appointed, one each from Kabila's government, the political opposition and two armed rebel groups -- the Rwandan-backed Rally for Congolese Democracy and the Ugandan-backed Congolese Liberation Movement.

Congo has been embroiled in the conflict commonly known as Africa's first world war since August 1998, when the rebels and their foreign backers launched an armed campaign aimed at toppling Kabila's father and predecessor, Laurent Kabila. After Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia entered the fight on Kabila's side, the war settled into a stalemate that has left Congo divided roughly in half, with the rebels controlling the east and north and the government holding the south and west.

Under a peace plan reached in April 1999, foreign troops have withdrawn from Congo during the past year. But continuing distrust between the government and the rebels -- and between the rebel factions -- will pose major challenges to the new accord, observers said today.

In northern and northeastern Congo, the Ugandan-backed rebel faction is still fighting sporadically with a splinter group of the Rwandan-supported force. At the same time, fighting over land between the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups has claimed hundreds of lives in an area of the northeast left lawless by the war.

"It's a very important and good step, but the negotiation is not over. It's far from it when you look at the reality on the ground in the Congo," said Francois Grignon, the Central Africa project director for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, an independent research and advocacy organization. "There's still fighting going on, and an entirely new social contract needs to take place for the Congo. There will have to be ongoing talks with local rebel groups and a deal that brings every last group together. That is the reality of seeing real peace in the Congo."

Congolese leaders said they were hopeful that the peace agreement would last. "This is our Christmas present," said Michel On'Okono, an official at the Congolese Embassy in Nairobi, where Congolese refugees gathered and cheered when the news was announced. "We are not saying things are perfect, and it will be rough at times. But this is major progress and there are a lot of people who want to make it work."

President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, whose government brokered the agreement, said bringing peace to one of Africa's prominent trouble spots is symbolically important to a continent where low-level civil wars continue in several countries. "The agreement has enormous regional implications," Mbeki told reporters in South Africa. "You couldn't genuinely say you were moving ahead in Africa if the situation in [Congo] remained unchanged."

Since gaining independence in 1960, Congo has been wracked not only by internal rebellion but by neighbors' conflicts -- notably in 1994, when thousands of Hutu extremists from Rwanda fled into Congo, then known as Zaire, after they participated in the slaughter of a half-million of Rwanda's Tutsi minority. Partly in reaction, Rwanda sponsored the 1998 Congo rebellion, as well as one in 1996 that ousted Mobutu Sese Seko and brought Laurent Kabila to power. Kabila was assassinated in 2001 and his son was installed as his replacement.