Africa can only help French, north American, South African and Belgian companies exploit the oil fields and mines of Angola and Congo.
These are difficult times. But socialists and internationalists in the north should not fall into inaction and confusion. This is the moment to intensify our efforts, to do everything to favour any change in the balance of forces which will encourage a positive, global solution. We need the cancelling of foreign debt of the countries of central and southern Africa. The wealth of the region's dictators should be confiscated and returned to the population.. There should be a massive aid programme, to rebuild the region. And we should support panafricanist initiatives, as a secular alternative to ethnic chauvinism.. African racism
In the face of the recent rebellion, the authorities in Kinshasa have gradually adopted a deliberately racist policy and discourse. Tutsis (or suspected Tutsis) have been victims of selective repression (and attack in the streets).
Before the rebellion, Kabila's government had rejected "all acts of tribal hatred." By August, government leaders were inciting racial hatred, and justifying the "eradication" of Tutsis, Rwandans and Ugandans living in Congo. "The vermin must be crushed..." screamed the progovernment newspaper Demain le Congo. "The Tutsis may face a similar, unhappy experience to the Jews." A couple of days later, the newspaper reported that "Tutsis are untrustworthy, brutal, grudge-bearing and bloodthirstv.'
This racist propaganda was accompanied by arrests, even summary executions of Tutsis. When the rebels drew close to Kinshasa, the call to racial hatred became the cement which bound the population of the capital to Kabila's regime.
Kabila's Chief of Cabinet, Yerodia Ndombasi, called on the population to "crush this aggressive vermin. " He called the Tutsis "rubbish, bacteria which must be eradicated with method and resolution." + He called on the inhabitants of the capital to "allow the Congolese Armed Forces to complete the total eradication of these vermin, these Rwandan and Ugandan invaders " 5
The government incessantly exhorted the population to be vigilant and mobilised to "throw the Rwandan Tutsis out of the country." •
Congo's Minister of Information, Didier Mumeng, told a radio audience that "the moment has come to put an definitive end to the manoeuvres of these invaders. They have no alternative but to flee. They
face the determination of the Congolese people, who refuse to be subject to the little Tutsi people." 7
Two Belgian journalists say soldiers in Kinshasa invited them to follow a patrol on 27 August. Their testimony is shocking. Tutsis, or suspected Tutsis, were murdered by civilians, and their bodies burned in the streets. These crimes are linked to the regime's racist discourse. Racism against Tutsis, Ugandans and Rwandans has become a patriotic duty.
Rally for Democracy (Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie - RCD) was only announced two weeks after the rebellion started.
This was a heterogeneous movement. It included Bizima Karaha, Kabila's former Foreign Minister, and D. Bugera, one of the co-founders of Kabila's AFDL in 1996. Both men were considered close to the Rwandan regime. Another rebel was Shambuyi Kalala, a Maoist, and former propaganda chief of the AFDL. They were Joined by well-known opponents of Mobutu who had not been co-opted into Kabila's regime. The RCD's president was Ernest Wamba-dia-Wamba, History Professor at Daar Es Salaam University. Other prominent rebels were "dinosaurs"
from the Mobutu regime. Men like Thambwe Mwanba, founder of the conservative
Union of Independent Democrats (UDI)
But the real weight in the rebellion was held by the military men, not the civilians. Many of the soldiers had loyally served Mobutu, and had been hiding from justice in eastern Zaire, waiting for just such a moment. *
Notes
1. Le Soir, 20 August 1998.
2. Quoted in Le Monde, 26 August 1998.
3. Communiqué of the Comité pour le respect des Droits de l'Homme et de la Démocratie au Rwanda, 8 August
1998. Contact: tel. +32 2 2171629.
4. Quoted in Le Soir, 29-30 August 1998.
5. Quoted in Le Soir, 27 August 1998.
6. Quoted in Le Soir, 20 August 1998.
7. Quoted in Le Soir, 27 August 1998.
8. Le Soir, 29-30 August 1998.