THE KABILA REGIME AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

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HE VICTORY OF THE ADFL and its leader Kabila in May 1997 was politically and emotionally a watershed event for Africa. There were, by this time, a large number of Presidents who had old scores to settle with Mobutu and therefore welcomed the demise of his regime, but in addition others saw themselves as a new generation which would give a more genuinely African character to the continent’s interstate relations. From their perspective the old, Cold War-linked, and corrupt leaders had to go, and Mobutu was not only the most important representative of this group, he was its symbol.

Relations with African States
Two months after the capture of Kinshasa much of Africa came to celebrate and congratulate Kabila. The joint communiqué which was signed on July 20, 1997 is extraordinary both for the degree of support it gives the new, self-appointed president of the re-named Democratic Republic of the Congo, but also for who signed it: Chiluba of Zambia; Nujoma of Namibia; Zenawi of Ethiopia; Afewerki of Eritrea; Museveni of Uganda; Patasse of CAR; Didangi of Gabon; Chissano of Mozambique; Bizimungu of Rwanda; and Mugabe of Zimbabwe, also at the time President of the OAU. Surprisingly, no Angolan signatory was present; whether this was significant or not is an unanswered question.

But this support soon weakened. Less than a year later, in May 1998 at the anniversary of the ADFL victory, Rwanda refused to participate. In the same month, Museveni was attacked by one of Kabila’s ministers; and, most important, a DRC organized summit meeting had to be canceled because both Rwanda and Uganda and other invitees refused to participate. A month later, in June, Rwanda was charging the Kabila regime with something like a “capital” offense — it claimed that Interahamwe were being recruited by the Kabila regime and trained at the Kamina military base.

Given the support which Angola gave Kabila immediately after the new rebellion and invasion in August 1998, it is important to note that Angola also showed signs of being dissatisfied with the way Kabila was conducting the DRC’s government and its policies. It was reported that the Angolan government had expected Kabila to develop a more pluralistic government (this was also the expectation of Uganda), and it was dissatisfied with the role given some of its protegés among the Congolese exiles who had lived in Angola. Angola also wanted military control over the area in the Congo which bordered UNITA dominated areas in Angola. This was, of course, something which both Rwanda and Uganda, in effect, had attained. Kabila refused the Angolan request.

Despite the different paths which Angola, Rwanda and Uganda were about to follow, they did, in one respect, face a common dilemma: The goal of eliminating the bases of insurgency movements against their governments located in the DRC had not been met. At one time or another, they all seemed to have blamed Kabila for this. But one may wonder whether, after being in power for one year, Kabila had the military and organizational strength to do much about these movements. Indeed, in the east, the Rwandans and the Ugandans were themselves active on both sides of the border attempting to deal with this problem, but with limited success. If they could not succeed, how could Kabila? Thus, to explain their growing antagonism toward Kabila one must pose the question whether the suspicion — publicly expressed as an established fact — that Kabila was working with insurgency movements such as the Interahamwe was not the most important cause of the divorce. In this context, Kabila’s friendly relations with the Sudan government were also a provocation for Uganda. The Sudan was known to be supplying anti-Museveni movements both in Uganda and those based in the DRC.

In sum, during the first year of Kabila’s presidency, the foreign states which had been most instrumental in putting him in power were frustrated and antagonized by his actions. That does not, of course, mean that all of Africa became antagonistic. There was continuing support from Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Nujoma in Namibia and also from Libya and Sudan.

Relations with the UN and the West
The relations of the Kabila regime with the UN and with Western states was largely dominated by the issue of the UN investigation of the Hutu massacres during the anti-Mobutu forces’ march to Kinshasa. In a variety of ways, Kabila thwarted every attempt to successfully undertake such an investigation and this resulted in a rapid change of attitude — from one which placed great hope in and anticipated support for his regime to one of estrangement and virtual abandonment. On this issue there was a great divide between Congolese opinion and much of the rest of the world. The Congolese viewed the Hutu massacres as a foreign affair between Rwandans (Tutsi and Hutu) and they did not understand why they were being blamed for these events. Increasingly, it became clear that these massacres had been perpetrated, at least in large measure, by the Rwandan troops engaged in the march toward Kinshasa. Why then did Kabila thwart the investigation? The question becomes even more puzzling after Kagame as early as July 1997 in effect claimed that the victory over Mobutu was the result of Rwandan military action. In other words, the fiction that Mobutu’s defeat was solely the result of a Congolese revolutionary war was laid to rest.