Human Rights Red Flag Flies Over Congo’s Kabila

It has been only five months since he ousted the brutal, longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, but the world increasingly has come to mistrust Congolese President Laurent Kabila, who some analysts say has put his country on the path to becoming an international pariah.

Kabila has raised grave suspicions about his commitment to human rights with his reluctance to help a U.N. investigation into alleged massacres of Rwandan refugees by his former rebels, and with his decision to suspend the relief activities of international aid groups in parts of eastern Congo.

Further, he has heightened fears that Congo will get involved in another regional conflict. Observers warn that Kabila might be considering sending his army to neighboring Republic of Congo to help its ousted president reclaim his position. On Friday, a former military ruler declared that he is again in charge of that country.

Aid workers say thousands of Rwandan Hutus--many suspected of participating in the 1994 genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda--were massacred by Kabila’s troops and their Rwandan Tutsi supporters during the seven-month revolt that toppled Mobutu.

Mobutu--the last of Africa’s legendary dictators, who pillaged Congo, then known as Zaire, during his 32-year rule--died last month in exile in Morocco.

Kabila has insisted that Congo is a “victim of plots by world powers under the camouflage of humanitarian assistance” and has accused relief agencies of arming Rwandan insurgents--an assertion vehemently denied by the aid groups.

The hostility shown to such foreign organizations, analysts say, can only hinder Congo’s hopes for international aid and investment--even if the nation has an abundance of natural resources.

As for the conflict in neighboring Republic of Congo, which erupted June 5 and has claimed at least 4,000 lives, that power struggle has pitted supporters of President Pascal Lissouba against the forces of his predecessor, Gen. Denis Sassou-Nguesso.

Sassou-Nguesso declared victory after his troops captured Brazzaville, the capital, and Pointe-Noire, the country’s second-largest city and center of the Republic of Congo’s crucial petroleum industry.

The rebel leader is believed to have received backing from Angolan government troops, who were seeking to end Angolan rebels’ use of the Republic of Congo as a supply base. Meanwhile, the Angolan rebels have reportedly thrown their weight behind Lissouba, whom Kabila supports.

The U.N. Security Council has called for the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from the Republic of Congo and is considering sending a force there--a mission the U.S. has been reluctant to endorse. A U.S. official underscored Washington’s position that “a cease-fire is the prerequisite for any international intervention.”

Before Brazzaville fell to Sassou-Nguesso’s forces, Kabila had made clear that he could not ignore the conflict in the former French colony, which is just across the Congo River. Shells from Brazzaville have killed at least 31 people in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital.

Officials there believe that supporters of the late Mobutu are responsible for the shelling.

Kabila is widely believed to have followed through on his promise to send troops to Brazzaville to set up a “security corridor” to protect Kinshasa.

Analysts say this could spell disaster. If Kabila’s soldiers become targets, fighting could escalate and Rwanda and Uganda--both allies of Kabila--could be dragged into the turmoil.

Uganda and Namibia are two of the countries Lissouba recently visited in an attempt to drum up support for a regional solution to his country’s war.

New regional combat could escalate the cross-border traffic in illegal weapons. It could aggravate ethnic tensions, sparking new clashes and sending yet more refugees fleeing to relatively stable countries such as Tanzania and Zambia.

“We need to see some degree of stability in Central Africa for everybody’s interest,” said Constance Freeman, director of African studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. “To achieve that goal, all efforts must be made to make [Congo] a success.”

That boils down to a huge injection of financial aid. Earlier this month, Congolese officials appealed to the U.N. to cancel their country’s $14-billion debt--money they say was misappropriated by Mobutu. They have since agreed to renegotiate the debt with each creditor. Still, the international donors have made clear that for them to continue investments in Congo they must see concrete plans for reviving the nation’s economy and proof that it is committed to promoting democracy and respect for human rights.

“We also want him [Kabila] to comply with the U.N. investigations--this is critical,” said one U.S. official. The investigations of the alleged massacres of Rwandan refugees must occur “to determine what kind of killings took place, who perpetrated them and let them be brought to justice,” he added.

The Clinton administration has ordered a high-level delegation, headed by U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson, to visit Congo to urge Kabila to allow the U.N. team to continue its probe and break the deadlock over investigation procedures.

Accompanying Richardson will be Clinton’s special envoy to Africa, former Rep. Howard Wolpe, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Rep. Donald Payne (D-N.J.), a member of the House International Relations Committee.

But international scrutiny can only create huge problems for Kabila, observers say. If he admits that his forces were responsible for the alleged massacres, he and his people would be subject to harsh reprisals from the international community, and financial support for Congo would drop accordingly.

If he blames the atrocities on his Rwandan allies, who helped propel him to power, he risks losing their moral and military backing, which he still needs.

Kabila is “in a lose-lose situation,” said Michael Schatzberg, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin and author of three books on the former Zaire. “But at the moment, he has made the short-term calculation that his future is more keyed to the Rwandans than to the international community.”

Meanwhile, Kabila eventually may need help quelling the growing unhappiness among the Congolese, particularly in Kinshasa, a hotbed of opposition to his rule. Whatever euphoria the Congolese felt when Kabila unshackled them from Mobutu’s decades of oppression is evaporating, as most of the nation’s 45 million people still languish in poverty. Congo is nowhere close to recovering from Mobutu’s plundering.

City streets are filled with potholes, and regular telephone service remains a luxury. Discipline among Kabila’s soldiers, who get paid late or not at all, has reportedly begun to wane.

Kabila has not given the Congolese a good way to vent their frustration; his regime forbids opposition parties, does not allow public protests and reportedly has engaged in gross violations of speech and press freedoms. “The general atmosphere of the regime has not been democratic,” Schatzberg said.

But others say this is somewhat understandable and the world should give Kabila more time before rushing to judgment. “The crew who are governing [the Congo] just aren’t trained yet,” said Freeman of the CSIS. “They don’t know each other that well. They’ve been living all over the world. Give Kabila and his people some time and space.”

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this report.