In Congo, war gets serious
HIS name was Kabwanga Makengo. Born Lubumbashi, June 3rd 1980.
Private, 2nd Brigade of the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Catholic. Unmarried. The photograph shows a baby face startled by the
camera.
Makengo�s muddied�or bloodied�identity card lay in the trench where he
is buried, next to a smashed anti-aircraft gun. When the rebels of the
Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) took this tiny trading post
on the Ubangi river on September 7th, they put the 34 dead government
soldiers in the trenches and covered them over.
This war has suddenly become more serious. Usually, self-preservation
overcomes valour, and towns and villages fall without a fight. But at
Dongo the battle lasted five days. Two days after surrendering, the
government commander committed suicide.
Two years ago, Rwanda flew its troops across Congo to attack the
capital, Kinshasa, and overthrow President Laurent Kabila�the man
Rwanda had put into power in 1997. The Rwandans and their Ugandan
allies also launched an anti-Kabila rebellion in eastern Congo. The
attack on the capital failed when Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia sent
troops to defend Mr Kabila. The rebel movement in the east split, with
Uganda and Rwanda backing different sides.
Uganda launched a third rebel movement, the MLC, in northern
Congo, training its soldiers, supplying fuel, ammunition and weapons,
and manning the heavy artillery. As a result the MLC has had
considerable success, pushing southwards and westwards towards the
capital. It claims to be retaking territory lost to Mr Kabila�s forces
since a peace agreement was signed in Lusaka a year ago; but neither
side is in the mood for peace.
According to the attackers, Dongo was heavily defended by 3,000-4,000
troops. They had dug a system of trenches and, on the promontory
overlooking the river, had installed four Korean-made anti-aircraft
guns pointing at the forest. (Most African armies use such guns
against infantry forces.) After the battle, the trenches were carpeted
with thousands of spent cartridges. Nearby was a huge stockpile of
weapons and ammunition.
Madeleine Albright, the American secretary of state, once called this
Africa�s first world war. It is nothing like that. The armies�with the
exception of the Congolese government�s�are small, none of them over
20,000 strong, and they are spread out over a sparsely-populated area
the size of Western Europe, much of it covered in jungle. Since there
are no passable roads in Congo, this war is fought by air and water.
The aim is to control the airstrips attached to small towns, and the
rivers which are the main transport routes. Every gun, bullet and drop
of fuel must be flown in from Uganda and then taken by river to Dongo,
or wherever the next target may be. The troops move by dug-out canoe
or walk the forest paths.
Victory at Dongo has given the MLC rebels a huge boost, even
though�reluctant as they are to admit it�the battle was won by Ugandan
artillery. They have captured a treasure-trove of weapons and about 20
prisoners, who will be �re-educated� and turned into MLC fighters.
The rebels can now move on to the junction of the Ubangi and Congo
rivers to cut off the town of Mbandaka and, more important, its
airport, a base for bombers that have been giving the MLC problems.
>From there, the rebels could float down the river to Kinshasa. But
that would be going further than the territory the MLC held when the
Lusaka agreement was signed last year.
The next few weeks will decide whether that peace agreement lives or
dies. At present, it looks fatally wounded. The Ugandans may decide,
once they have regained the territory lost since July last year, that
it would be wiser to pause and give Mr Kabila a chance to negotiate.
Jean-Pierre Bemba, the MLC leader, stresses that he is committed to
the Lusaka agreement. But he will not be drawn on whether he will stop
fighting when the lost territory is reclaimed. He says it is up to Mr
Kabila to show his commitment to peace by allowing a national
conference to go ahead and permitting the deployment of UN
peacekeepers.
Mr Kabila has been ambiguous. He has rejected the agreed mediator,
Ketumile Masire, the former president of Botswana, and now wants the
whole Lusaka agreement renegotiated. He is unlikely to accept the MLC�
s advances without reacting. There are already signs of panic in his
army.
Evidence of that can be found in Dongo. At the back of a low hill, in
a small brick-built house, a brown-black trail of blood leads from a
back room to a patch of recently dug earth in front of the house.
According to one survivor, Popo Mulebe, Mr Kabila�s soldiers found him
and about 50 other civilians from the village hiding in the forest
nearby. They were kept in the house for a few days and then told to
dig a pit to bury the bodies of soldiers killed in the fighting. That
done, the soldiers took them, 12 on one day and 34 on another, shot
them in the house and dragged their bodies to the pit. Some of the
women are still missing.
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