Pascal, Things are deteriorating in central/east Africa....My guess is that we are getting very close to seeing French/Belgian intervention in the Congo, and also possibly military action against the Sudan by Eritrea.....
Also note very heavy fighting tonight about 16 miles SE of Juba between SPLA and NIF Troops....
ANALYSIS-Hutus and Sudan raise stakes in Congo war
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[ Latest News From Sudan At Sudan.Net ]
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News Article by REUTERS on September 24, 1998 at 14:28:06:
ANALYSIS-Hutus and Sudan raise stakes in Congo war
By John Chiahemen
KINSHASA, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Congo's President Laurent Kabila has turned
to exiled Hutus, blamed for the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda, to help
put down a rebellion in a move that risks rekindling Rwanda's ethnic
carnage, diplomats say.
With indications that Kabila is also receiving military support from
Sudan, despite denials, diplomats say they fear national and ethnic
conflict could engulf large parts of central Africa.
''We are seeing very worrying signs that Kabila's government is
calculating on the Hutus taking this war to Rwanda,'' said a senior United
Nations official in Kinshasa.
''This calculation, according to our information, involves the overthrow
of the government in Kigali. If that happens we are likely to see new
massacres in Rwanda on the scale of what happened in 1994,'' said the
official, who asked not to be named.
The same fear is repeated by senior Western diplomats in Kinshasa who met
Kabila's Foreign Minister Jean-Charles Okoto last week to push for a
diplomatic solution to the fighting in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo.
Four rounds of talks have failed to produce a ceasefire. Francophone
Central African leaders, including Kabila, met in Gabon on Thursday for
fresh talks.
Some diplomats said exiled Hutus in Congo and other neighbouring states
were being armed under Kabila's plan to hand weapons to citizens for a
''people's war.''
Kabila says this war would end in Rwanda, which he accuses of supporting
the Tutsi-led rebels, once his allies in his own successful rebellion last
year.
Other beneficiaries are his one-time enemies, diehard loyalists of late
dictator Mobutu Sese Seko -- the so-called Ex-FAZ or former Zaire Army
soldiers who lost the civil war won by Kabila and his then Rwandan-backed
rebels in May 1997.
The Ex-FAZ and the Ex-FAR (former Rwandan Army) soldiers are now grouped
in the pro-Kabila alliance of convenience that has as a common enemy the
Tutsi leadership in Rwanda.
''The only people who are willing to fight in Rwanda are the Ex-FARs and
the Interahamwe (Hutu militias),'' said one Western diplomat.
''The Hutus desperately want to overthrow the government in Kigali but
lack arms and organisation. Suddenly Kabila comes along with arms and
logistics. Of course they will jump at the opportunity.''
In the last two weeks Hutu Interahamwe militiamen, Ex-FAR soldiers and
Congolese Mai Mai warriors have killed over 350 people in two attacks near
Goma, the headquarters of the anti-Kabila rebellion located in the east on
the Rwandan border.
It was the so-called Banyamulenge Tutsis of eastern Zaire -- themselves of
distant Rwandan origin -- in Kabila's army who launched the rebellion on
August 2 with Rwandan and Ugandan backing that has snowballed into a full
civil war.
Allied troops from Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia evicted the rebels from
positions in the west but appear reluctant to be involved in ground
fighting in the east, on the borders with Rwanda, Uganda and Sudan.
About 200 Zimbabwean troops headed for the government's eastern stronghold
town of Kindu on Tuesday for deployment but the plane transporting them
was inexplicably ordered to return to Kinshasa half an hour before it was
due to land, commercial airline sources told Reuters.
''The Zimbabweans don't want to fight in Rwanda and (Zimbabwean President
Robert) Mugabe has shifted his emphasis to a search for peace,'' one
diplomat said. ''The Angolans also oseem content to stay in territory
close to their own interests.''
Diplomats said Kabila had instead been quietly rallying exiled Hutus not
only in Congo but also on recent tours of Chad, Gabon and the Central
African Republic -- all of them anxious to get rid of Hutu elements on
their soil.
In addition, airline sources familiar with the transport of troops and
equipment say Sudan has been supplying both military experts and war
material to back Kabila's forces in Kindu.
The government has officially denied Sudan is involved -- but a senior
government official in Kinshasa privately told Reuters Sudan was prepared
to send troops to stop the rebels advancing beyond the eastern town of
Isiro, located on a major highway to Sudan and Uganda. Rebels took Isiro
last week.
Diplomats say Sudan's involvement in the war could escalate the conflict,
notably by drawing in Uganda further. Sudan and Uganada each support for
rebels in the other's country and cut diplomatic ties in 1995.
Conflict in the former Zaire since 1994 is largely rooted in the historic
Hutu-Tutsi rivalry that culminated in the massacre of up to 800,000
minority Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 by Hutu soldiers and militias.
More than a million Hutus fled to eastern Zaire to escape reprisals as the
Tutsis went on to win a civil war and take power in Rwanda.
The authorities in Rwanda have since made containment of armed Hutus in
Zaire a cardinal national policy -- and believed they were serving this
end by backing Kabila's successful campaign against Mobutu last year. |
