Prueba de hipótesis

6.1 INTRODUCTION

The focus in this chapter is on the events in the DRC that followed the collapse of the centre on May 17, 1997 and the end of the reign of President Mobutu. Instrumental in these events were the rebellion of Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD) led initially by Ernest Wamba dia Wamba which threatened to downsize the territory of the DRC as well as the birth of the secessionist movement the ‘Bakata Katanga’ in Katanga Province. The analysis takes into account the relations between the centre and periphery, as well as the lack of actual secession during this phase in the DRC’s history. Of particular importance are the reasons why the peripheries did not breakaway in spite of the collapse of the centre.

The end of the Cold War in 1989 and the genocide of Rwandan Hutu in 1993 are international events that cornered the Mobutu government. It is, furthermore, alleged that the overthrow of President Mobutu was a plot arranged from outside of Zaīre and particularly in the neighbouring countries of the Great Lakes region with the major players being Uganda and Rwanda headed by Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame respectively, Laurent-Désiré Kabila as leader of the rebellion of Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo (AFDL), and behind the scenes the USA.

The collapse of the centre and the actions taken by the new government in an attempt to strengthen its authority receive attention in this chapter, including the various policies implemented by Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s government and how these affected the centre-periphery relations. These are for example the expulsion of the Rwandan people, the abolition of political activities, the constitutional Decree-Law no. 003 of May 28, 1997 by which he established personal rule for the transitional period, as well as the foreign policies with Western and African states. The reactions of the peripheries with regard to the above policies are important and particular attention is paid to the restive peripheries of the 1960s in order to examine the challenges regarding the territorial unity that has threatened the survival of Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s government and how he tried to overcome them. The phase of the collapse of the centre is important in this study, since the collapse of the centre in the former Yugoslavia led to the creation of several states through secessionism as a prominent example.

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This chapter is thus divided into three main sections. The first section provides a background of the events surrounding the ousting of Mobutu and the coming to power of Laurent-Désiré Kabila. As indicated above, those events include notably the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda and the rebellion of the AFDL. The second section discusses the era of President Kabila by analysing Kabilism as the continuation of Mobutism as well as the political measures taken by President Laurent-Désiré Kabila during his ephemeral reign (May 17, 1997- January 16, 2001). The third section focuses on the centre-periphery relations regarding the Central Government and the restive peripheries. It mentions essentially the rebellions of the RCD in Oriental Province and Kivu which gave rise to the coming to power of Joseph Kabila and who was the one that was able to stabilize the DRC to some extent. It also takes an interest in the emergence of the secessionist movement the ‘Bakata Katanga’ in Katanga Province.

A conclusion is provided at the end in order to summarize the phase of the collapse of the centre of the DRC. In addition, it gives some indications regarding the paradoxical attachment of the peripheries to the Central Government in spite of the failure of the DRC as state.

6.2 BACKGROUND TO THE END OF MOBUTU AND THE RISE OF LAURENT-DÉSIRÉ KABILA This section looks at the change that occurred in the presidency of Zaīre with the coming to power of Laurent-Désiré Kabila. Thus, attention in this sub-section is paid to the collapse of the centre and the end of the reign of President Mobutu. Furthermore, it provides an analysis of the fall of President Mobutu who was one of the powerful leaders in Africa.

6.2.1 Collapse of the centre

Apart from the end of the Cold War, the events that took place in Zaīre (DRC) in the second half of the 1990s are strongly connected to the genocide of Rwandan Tutsis that followed the assassination of Rwandan President, Juvenal Habyarimana.

The Rwandan Hutu President, Habyarimana, was an ally of President Mobutu as mentioned in sub-section 5.2.5. On several occasions the FAZ have rescued the regular army of Rwanda, the Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR). An example of such an intervention of the FAZ was when the Front Patriotique Rwandais (FPR) led by the Tutsi Paul Kagame had threatened to penetrate into Kigali during the Rwanda civil war of 1990-1994. According to Peter Uvin (1999), the plane carrying Habyarimana from one more peace negotiation in Arusha was downed on April 6, 1994 (Uvin 1999:261). The killing of Habyarimana unleashed the genocide of a million Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus by the Rwandan Hutu militia named Interhamwe in mid-1994. The massacres did not stop, as Joan Kakwenzire and Dixon Kamukama (1999) confirm, until after

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the FPR had taken over the government in Rwanda in July 1994 with the support of Uganda pro-Tutsi President Yoweri Museveni (Kakwenzire and Kamukama 1999:81).

In addition, Aimable Twagilimana (2007) explains that, after Habyarimana’s death and the defeat of the FAR, at least 2 million Rwandans, mostly Hutu, fled to the eastern part of Zaīre, establishing mammoth refugee camps, which led to one of the severest refugee crises of modern times. The international community intervened, although it had failed to intervene to stop the genocide inside Rwanda. Within the camps, the defeated FAR and the Interahamwe militia were preventing refugees from returning back home, promising them that they will soon attack and reclaim power in Rwanda (Twagilimana 2007:37-38). Winsom J. Leslie (1998) is of the opinion that this unprecedented influx of refugees into eastern Zaīre provided Mobutu with an unexpected opportunity. Cooperation with France on the refugee problem brought him some legitimacy and provided the leverage needed to solidify Franco-Zaīrian ties once again (Leslie 1998:114).

The proximity of the refugee camps in eastern Zaīre along the border with Rwanda was regarded as a threat by the new Rwandan political elites. However, the pro-Hutu regime in Kinshasa was opposed to helping Rwanda in arresting the Interhamwe charged with the crime of genocide. Likewise, Uganda and Angola had concerns about their own rebels. In Uganda there were two rebel groups opposed to the Museveni government that used eastern Zaīre as a rear base, namely the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU). As earlier discussed in sub-section 5.2.5, President Mobutu granted support to UNITA in order to overthrow the Angolan government and there were rear bases of UNITA in Zaīre.

As a result, in early 1996, with the initiative of Rwanda and Uganda, a coalition of political movements⁶⁰ named Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo (AFDL) was formed with the objective of overthrowing President Mobutu. By referring to this alliance, Kai Kaiser and Stephanie Wolters (2012) wrote:

The AFDL’s fighting forces were composed essentially of deserting FAZ soldiers and young boys and men recruited during its military campaign; on its own, the AFDL never had sufficient military might to achieve the military victories that it so rapidly did. The real fighting power came from a coalition of African countries: Rwanda, Uganda, and Angola, which had the tacit approval of key members of the international community, especially the United States, to overthrow the Mobutu regime. Without them, the AFDL and Laurent-Désiré Kabila could never have seized power. [...]. In choosing the AFDL as the Congolese vehicle for their objectives, the three regional allies expected to be able to exercise their military and political

60 These are Parti pour la Révolution Populaire (PRP) led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, the Conseil National de Resistance pour la Démocratie (CNRD) led by André Kisase Ngandu, the Mouvement Révolutionnaire pour la Libération du Zaīre (MRLZ) led by Anselme Masasu Nindanga, and the Alliance Démocratique des Peuples (ADP) led by Deogratias Bugera.

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influence over the AFDL. Their belief was based on the bargain they had struck with Kabila: to provide him with the military strength to go all the way to Kinshasa in exchange for the right to pursue their own security agenda in the Congo (Kaiser and Wolters 2012: 80-81).

On November 30, 1996, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, rebel leader of the ADFL, backed by Uganda and Rwanda, invaded Zaīre. Mobutu’s letter of May 11, 1997 to His Excellency Jacques Chirac, President of the French Republic, confirms the facts mentioned above.

Sir President,

First of all, I want to present my sincere greetings, to you, as much as to your spouse. On behalf of the long friendship that links us for over a decade.

Today the situation is painful for me given the gravity of the moment. First, I lost effective power over the population. Then, at the military level, it is impossible to halt the rebel advance towards Kinshasa which they can reach at any time.

With regard to Kinshasa, I cannot promote an unnecessary bloodbath. Because in any case the rebels will reach it well. Everything is a matter of time.

Need I remind you that I face an unjust war? Today, the United States and Great Britain via South Africa, Uganda, Rwanda and Angola use the gang leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila to stab me in the back enjoying my illness.

In the past, the United States were my allies, remember the Angolan episode. I reserve the right to publish in the coming days my memoirs. So the world finally will know the unsuspected truth.

My friend, you know as well as I do that the gang leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila is a questionable personality, genocidal and inappropriate to direct Zaīre as head of state. I tried everything to prevent this.

But his Western masters, the United States in this case support him and encourage him in that direction.

Given the US stubbornness and the continued deterioration of my health, I have to announce my intention to transfer power to Kabila at our next meeting on the SAS Outeniqua⁶¹ on May 14.

God help Zaīre!

(My translation) (Lettre de Mobutu à Chirac, quoted by Calixte Baniafouna 2009:207).

Victoria Brittain and Augusta Conchiglia (2006) argue that Mobutu’s Western allies might have suggested that he play his last card - that is appointing Etienne Tshisekedi as Prime Minister, which he eventually did. But it was too little too late to open a dialogue with the members of the rebellion led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila (Brittain and Conchiglia 2006:76).

61 SAS Outeniqua is a South African warship where President Mandela has organized the meeting, in neutral waters of the Antlantic Ocean, between Laurent-Désiré Kabila and Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko in order to find a compromise about the future of Zaīre.