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Hope Glimmering as War Retreats From Congo
October 21, 2003 By MARC LACEY KINSHASA, Congo, Oct. 18 - After a calamitous war, Congo is at a fragile point of healing, with a whiff of hope now detectable in the humid air here. Rebels who had been trying to overthrow President Joseph Kabila's government have traded their military uniforms for designer suits and their jungle barracks for corner offices with prime river views. The Congolese flag is now flying nationwide, and tentative steps have begun to merge rival armies into one. Mr. Kabila, who succeeded his father, Laurent Kabila, who was assassinated in 2001, now has four vice presidents, two of whom were trying to oust him by force until July, when they were sworn in. Under the peace deal that brought this unity about, the men are required to meet at least once every two weeks. "We're all courteous to each other," said Jean-Baptiste Mulemba, one of the new members of the rather unwieldy 500-member Parliament, which includes a variety of rebel factions. "We shake each other's hands. But you can't say we trust each other yet. We are in a period of cold war." It is widely agreed that the real test will be posed by elections two to three years away, the first multiparty elections in Congo since 1960. But the simple fact that the rebel factions are now sharing power and thinking in that long a time frame is regarded here as a major step forward - and a testament to the durability of peace agreements reached by African nations with minimal outside help or interference. Since they arrived in Kinshasa three months ago, the new politicians have squabbled over how high their salaries ought to be. Some have refused to take their oaths of office because they did not want to say anything that could be viewed as kind to the president. Stories of political intrigue and backbiting fill the local press. But none of the bickering has led to gun battles, no small achievement in a nation awash in AK-47's. Beyond the capital, however, many Congolese are still running for their lives. Despite the supposed cessation of hostilities, massacres continue in the remote reaches of eastern Congo, where the United Nations peacekeepers deployed there, now numbering more than 10,000, always appear one step behind the latest killings. "The dying gasps of a spent war," is what the head of the United Nations mission, William Lacy Swing, calls the latest outbreaks. Given the ferocity of Congo's nearly five years of war, few expected much of the peace accord, which was signed in South Africa late last year. Congo, a vast nation of 55 million people, had been reduced nearly to collapse by a conflagration so intense it drew in six neighboring nations and produced a death toll exceeding three million. Many of the dead were civilians who fell more often to starvation and disease than to the machete. The war in Congo, the former Zaire, erupted in 1998, the year after Laurent Kabila ousted the longtime dictator Mobutu Seso Seko. Neighboring Rwanda grew displeased with Mr. Kabila for harboring extremist groups in the eastern Congo that conducted cross-border raids into western Rwanda. It created and backed a rebel group that joined forces with another armed group supported by Uganda, and attacked. Mr. Kabila lost vast swaths of territory to the rebels and held on to the capital only with the help of troops from Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia. Congo's vast mineral wealth sustained the fighting, giving the combatants more incentive to extend the conflict than to cut it off. In a first effort to end the war, labeled Africa's First World War because of the way it inflamed all of Central Africa, the combatants signed a peace deal in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1999. But Mr. Kabila blocked fulfillment of the deal and in 2001 he was killed by his own bodyguards. His son, Joseph, was more receptive to the peace effort, and eventually, after many false starts, the current accord was signed. Preparing for the election will be a monumental challenge. There is no list of voters or even any accurate count of how many Congolese there are. Much of the citizenry, illiterate and spread out in jungle as vast as all of Western Europe, is somewhat removed from the concept of democracy. "We don't have experience with real elections," said Dr. Mbwebwe Kabamba, the head of the emergency room at Kinshasa General Hospital and a longtime member of the political opposition. "We've had dictators. We don't know what it's like to have a choice." Another reason for skepticism about the peace plan's prospects is that several holdouts have not joined, and may never join, the transitional government in Kinshasa. Those include three high-ranking rebel military officers in Goma, in eastern Congo, who have failed to respond to direct orders from their superiors within the Rally for Congolese Democracy to report to the capital. That defiance has led to some fear that war could flare up again with Rwanda. Recent reports from Bukavu, along the Congo-Rwanda border, indicate that Rwandan troops may have made incursions into Congo in recent weeks. For now, though, it appears that most of the former belligerents have made a rather seamless transition from war to something at least resembling peace. "This country has collapsed," said Yeikelo Bongeli, a member of the Assembly from Mr. Kabila's party. "It's time for us all to forget our parties, forget the fighting and start addressing all these urgent problems we have." As for the struggling Congolese people, they remain wary of the latest crop of politicians. They would love to believe that the worst is over but know Congo too well to count on anything. "It's hard to understand how those who have been fighting and killing for so long are going to change their ways so suddenly," said Josar Lobyoa, 32, who like so many other Congolese is jobless but manages to hustle a living somehow. "We all wonder if this will be just a break in the war or if somehow it really might be over for good." Congo's economy remains at a virtual halt. Most people eke out a living not on $1 a day, which is considered desperate poverty, but on 25 cents. The idea that Congo is mineral rich, full of diamonds, platinum, cobalt and other valuable minerals, is an abstraction to most of the populace. The new government, meanwhile, is still figuring out which way is up. Positions have been carefully portioned out among the various players - two main rebel groups, various fringe movements and a m�lange of civil society members, tribal militias and others. Needless to say, it has proved to be a spirited exercise. Many urgent matters have been deferred, including how to respond to the human rights violations that took place during the war. The International Criminal Court has already declared its intent to probe recent abuses, but some rebel leaders prefer that the matter be handled domestically. Security in the capital is especially tight, given Congo's history of assassinations. Each rebel faction came to Kinshasa with hordes of soldiers, just in case, and placed their headquarters along the river - the best escape route. Jean-Pierre Bemba, a rebel-turned-vice-president, has gone even further. He has a helicopter strategically parked a short dash from his riverfront office. Still, he sounds determined about the need for peace to take hold. "If this fails, we all fail," he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/21/international/africa/21CONG.html?ex=1067767435&ei=1&en=8ab54921f6cfe4ec --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. 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