By a special correspondent THE THREAT of foreign military intervention in Zaire Congo-Kinshasha) has receded. The dismantling of the refugee camps and the flight of their occupants has removed the stated goal of this "humanitarian operation".
The western powers were more concerned over the success of antiMobutu forces and the stability of cir cheat regine in baire than the lives of the refugees. The aid agencies were amongst the most vocal advocates for a military oncration./ These NGOs are indeed Africa's aries brought religion and demandca colonial government to "civilise the natives". The new missionaries bring food parcels and demand "humanitarian intervention".
They want to ensure permanent dependency on them and the legiti misation of their work in the grand recolonisc sub sanaran Africa. With a few honourable exceptions such as Oxfam they in. vented the 'face' that one million people would die in the absence of western troops in the region securing the distribution of food and medical supplies.
Rebellion
The goal of western military intervention would have been to deleat the rebellion against the Zaireois dictator Mobutu Sese Scko. Instead of disarming the militias which had run the refugee camps, would have supported them in the consolidation of a Hutu supremacist outpost in castern Zaire.
The towns of Goma and Bukavu had be. Interahamwe Huru militia - the in. stigators of the 1994 genocide of the Batutsi minority in Rwanda.
Some of the civilians in these and fear returning to Rwanda because they will be identified by their former neighbours. They were stock-piling arms and ammunition purchased from the west including at least one British company. foot ever since the flight from Awanda for a mintary campaign against the new government there. This would have plunged the region into years of low intensity war.
Many refugees however have remained in those camps over the last two cars against tach will. Ene were usco as numan snicias to pro tect the real scoundrels and to justify the existence of these camps as a Hutu homeland in exile.
Even at the height of the fighting ibly prevented from returning to swanda by minda cadets. Rwandan government had been trying for months to reach agreement with the Zaircois central government on the repatriation of the refuThey wanted to prevent the camps bong usco as a base against them and to prove that their government would not victimise Bahutus as the previous Hutu government victimised Batutsis. In August, Zaireois Prime Minister and Presidential aspirant, Lcon Kengo Wa Dondo was in the Rwandan capital Kigali to initial an agreement on this.
He has different interests ifthis assuc. It was rumource that in the 1997 Presidential elections in Zaire, Mobutu's party would give the Bahutus voting rights converting them into voting fodder for their Thus Kengo Wa Dondo wanted them out as soon as possibic.
The Hutu militias in collaboraton with the Zaircois army had been engaged in attacks during 1996 on the Banyamulenge community in castern Zaire. This people have many connections with the present Kwandan government and some had been involved in the resistance war against the Hutu supremacist government of Juvenal Habyari. mana in Rwanda before 1994.
Many have lived in Uganda where Yoweri Museveni's government has been sympathetic. So it wasn't surprising that the Rwandan and Ugandan them material support in their campaign against the Zaireois army and its Hutu allies.
The immediate trigger to the fighting from October was an order of expulsion on the Banyamulenge people in castern aire by regional deputy governor, Lwasi Ngabo Lwabanji, who gave them a week to Icave.
He threatened those who tried to remain saying that, *they will be treated as rebels and like rebels. will be exterminated and expelled". With their very survival at stake, the Banyamulenge took a stand and fought back.
They had little choice. One of the rebels insisted, "the government tried to take our land and they told us we had to leave the country and go back to Rwanda.
But we don't come from Rwanda and they cannot force us to go because we know how to fight and the army does not." The Banya. mulenge people are often referred to as lutsi by commentators who insist on viewing African politics througe & tear prism However we have argued previously in Socialist Outlook, these ethnic identities are constructs of the 20th century and while uscful to namics in central aurica, do not neig explain them.
The Banyamulenge community currently numbers around 400,000 people who have been settled in castern Zaire for at least two centuries. hey onginally settled near the Mulenge hills from which they took their name This community had been swelled and differentiated in this century by dillerent migrations from Rwanda and by a specialisaProtected by western imperialism: Zaire's dictator Mobutu tion in their occupations. Thus they were often pastoralists in Masisi and cultivators in Runduru.
Many came to Zaire or the Belman-Congo as it then was to escanc German and Belgian colonial op. is such a vast country that they knew they could live relatively free of the colonial administration in Leopoldville (present day Kinshasha).
Tensions
However there have always been tensions between the Banya. mulenge and other communities in the region.
As the Banvamulenge became wealthier using their trading congrew. The Mobutu regime has survirco for ine last thirty cars oy fostering and using ethnic tensions across the country.
In 1981 it stripped the Banyamulenge of Zaireois citizenship and rent rebellion is for the restoration of that right and an end to discrimination against them.
The Banyamulenge had been al. lies of Moburu in the carly days. They participated in the crushing of radical nationalist movement led by Pierre Mulele between 1964 and 1968. This movement for the Second Independence of CongoKinshasha was a continuation of Inc struggle against western imperial. ism's stooge governments.
It was destroyed with the direct involvement of western troops Now the Banyamulenge have united in a broad coalition against Mobuto with Mulele's comrades Kabila is political co-ordinator of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL), an alliance of four disparate parties, which he said was formed with the intention to, "overthrow the irresponsible clique of people in power and to put in place a transitional government which would eventually organise demo cratic elections".
Kabila is leader of the Peoples Revolutionary Party which has a Marxist-Nationalist past and has been active since the military defeats of the late 1960s in propaganda work and consolidation of its influence in liberated zones it controls.
Minerals
The strategy of the Alliance ap. pears to be to gain control over the mineral rich provinces where they can rely on the disaffection of the ing of this wealth finds its way back to them disappearing instead into the pockets of the Mobutu regime.
Their forces have so far captured Sominki gold concession in southcrn Aivu and was making progress towards the gold mines in Laire. Mobutu's personal gold minfallen to them.
The western companies which exploit these mines have withdrawn and Zaireois troops in retreat have looted and destroyed much of the property. Kabila issued an invitation to the companies to return and threatened to revoke their licenses and sell it to their competitors if they don't.
IV On the whole western businesses are fairly sanguine about the recent developments. They have got used to the weak control the central cor are accustomed to bribing the regional government and paying the army battalion salaries in return for A further fragmentation of Zaire and even instability in their profits.
Fortunes to be made They are far too important to all sides for that. There is no threat of nationalisation and there are still huge fortunes to be made gold, diamonds, cobalt, copper and In return for their generous contributions to the military budget and the personal bank accounts of the elite, these companies are on the fast track to make even more money from the privatisation of state firms in the near future Mobutu's political response folconvalescence in the French Riviera following a prostate cancer operation in switzerland was to consolidate his authority within the котспиасии The parliamentary opposition is cern of its leaders is to ensure representation in a post Mobuto Zaire. The outcome of the turmoil in the region is unclear.
There are many divisions within the military. Soldiers are irregularly paid and their ill discipline is notorious. They survive by extorting the rich and poor alike and pillage and rape at will. Mobutu himselt only relies on the absolute loyalty of his There is always the possibility of a coup and politicians in Kinshasha are ingratiating themselves with military figures in preparation for such an outcome. The military defeats in the cast could backfire on Mobutu as demands for a stronger, healthier leader become more proThe Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of CongoZaire (AFDC) cannot with its small forces and in this equation. What may make une atterence is uroan procst channelled against the central government.
Protests and strikes by workers, public sector employees, the urban poor and students would rock the government and could make a difterence. in and of itself it still wouldn't change the nature of the Laircois state but it would be a beginning.