Foreign Forces Battle With Rebels in Congo

Fighting for control of Africa’s third-largest country drew in two new combatants Saturday as rebel forces in Congo reported clashes with Angolan troops and Zimbabwean fighter jets sent to support President Laurent Kabila.

The rebels, backed by Rwanda and Uganda, said they shot down three jets and moved their 3-week-old offensive to within 19 miles of Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, with little resistance from Kabila’s disorganized army.

Seeking a cease-fire in a conflict now involving five countries, South African President Nelson Mandela called a regional meeting in his country’s administrative capital, Pretoria, but Kabila and Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s hawkish leader, undermined the gathering by staying away.

The rush of foreign forces into the battle and the urgent diplomacy to stop it have revealed dangerous fault lines in the heart of the continent, as well as differences among Africa’s leaders over how to keep the bloodshed from spilling into the nine countries that border Congo--or beyond.

“The emerging conflict has the potential to be Africa’s largest regionwide war--a sort of African world war,” said Salih Booker, chief Africa specialist at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations.

The fighting in Congo, formerly Zaire, stems from a falling-out between Kabila and his Rwandan and Ugandan sponsors, who helped install the former rebel leader in May 1997 after a seven-month uprising that overthrew longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Rwanda and Uganda, governed by ethnic Tutsis, blame Kabila for failing, as Mobutu did, to control incursions into their territories by rival Hutu rebels based in Congo’s vast eastern hinterlands.

On Aug. 2, Tutsis in the Congolese army rose up against Kabila and were joined by elements of Rwanda’s Tutsi-dominated army. They seized Congo’s far-eastern Kivu region, then ferried soldiers across the country on hijacked airplanes, captured the Kitona military base near the Atlantic Coast and began moving toward Kinshasa.

Kabila, who left the capital for Lubumbashi in his home province, fought back with diplomacy. Last week, he won pledges of political and military support from several southern African countries--a success that appeared to slow the rebels’ battlefield momentum.

Troops from Zimbabwe began arriving here Thursday and took up positions around Kinshasa’s international airport. Diplomats said Zimbabwe also sent four Chinese-made MIG-21 fighter jets. Angola massed troops and tanks in its oil-rich enclave of Cabinda, which borders rebel-held territory on Congo’s Atlantic coast.

Zimbabwe sided with Kabila, specialists on Africa say, because his government owes it more than $140 million that it has extended in military credits. More important, they say, Mugabe, who is Mandela’s rival for influence in southern Africa, is convinced that Zimbabwe’s intervention can defeat the rebels and raise his standing as a regional power broker.

Angola is said to have calculated that Kabila’s defeat would mean an even weaker Congo that could afford better sanctuary for its own enemy: the guerrilla movement that fought Angola’s government for two decades and is now threatening to break a 1994 peace accord.

Saturday’s reports from the rebels were the first indication of combat by Zimbabwe’s or Angola’s forces.

Bizima Karaha, who was Kabila’s foreign minister before joining the insurgency, said rebel gunners shot down two Zimbabwean jets southwest of the capital. “This is just a warning,” he told reporters.

Later, a rebel field commander in the area said his forces had shot down a third fighter jet of unspecified origin.

Zimbabwe denied the rebel claim, and there was no independent verification. But reporters in the area saw two warplanes firing on a rebel column Saturday before being driven away by antiaircraft fire. Congo is not known to have a functioning air force.

Karaha also said that Angolan troops and tanks had crossed into Congo and fought rebels near Muaanda, an oil town on the Atlantic. There was no confirmation of this report, although news agencies reported Angolan troop movements toward Congo’s border Friday.

Angola’s powerful, battle-hardened army is the only force now backing Kabila and his military--weakened by a July purge of its Rwandan officers and soldiers--that can prevent the rebels from marching into Kinshasa, according to diplomats and Africa specialists.

But it is not clear whether the rebels, who have reached the town of Kasangulu on the capital’s southern outskirts, are prepared for a final push. A European diplomat here said they had no more than 5,000 troops near the capital, a city of 6 million people.

“They had the element of surprise at first but not anymore,” the diplomat said. “They thought the whole government would panic and flee Kinshasa. But many of Kabila’s ministers have stayed, and his diplomatic successes may have stopped the tide for now.”

Buoyed by its foreign support, Kabila’s government rebuffed an unexpected rebel offer for peace talks last week, saying it would negotiate “not with the servants but only with their masters” in Rwanda and Uganda, a spokesman said.

Rwanda, which has repeatedly denied its all-too-visible presence in the conflict, called Friday for a cease-fire but warned that it would intervene openly in Congo unless the Zimbabwean forces withdrew. Uganda, whose military role here is less evident, issued a similar warning Saturday.

The presidents of Rwanda and Uganda turned up for Mandela’s planned five-nation meeting to discuss his proposal for a cease-fire, formation of a provisional Congo government embracing Kabila and his opponents, and early elections. But Mugabe boycotted the meeting, and Kabila, pleading illness, sent his justice minister, who arrived late Saturday. The meeting, which had started without the minister, was to resume today.

The diplomatic moves and distant battles have left people in Kinshasa tense, confused and often in the dark. The rebels control the huge hydroelectric dam in Inga, about 135 miles from here on the Congo River, and they shut off the capital’s power supply again Saturday night, as they have almost daily.

“First, we heard that we’re being invaded by a foreign power,” said Kisito Muanda, who draws cartoons for a children’s magazine. “Then we heard that foreign troops are coming to save us. But the lights keep going out. . . . We really don’t know what to believe.”

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The Key Players in the Congo Conflict

* Congo: Led by President Laurent Kabila; under attack by a rebel movement seeking to topple his regime and install democratic reform.

* Congolese Democratic Coalition: Political wing of the rebel movement; includes former Kabila government officials, opposition leaders. Rebels are a coalition force of ethnic Tutsi fighters, disaffected members of Kabila’s army and soldiers from former Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s military.

* Rwanda: Neighbor east of Congo; increasingly disenchanted with Kabila for failure to secure the turbulent border region. Said to be backing the rebels with arms and troops and threatens intervention in Congo to protect its “vital interests.”

* Uganda: Borders Congo to the northeast. Said to be backing the rebels with tanks and troops; has threatened unilateral intervention in Congo if other foreign forces backing Kabila don’t withdraw.

* Zimbabwe: African country that does not share a border with Congo; reportedly has sent up to 600 troops in support of Kabila.

* Angola: Borders Congo to the south; has expressed support for Kabila. Angola is believed to have deployed troops and possibly pilots to help Kabila hold off rebel advance.

* Republic of Congo: Congo’s sister country to the west with its capital strategically located just across the Congo River from Kinshasa; says it will remain neutral in conflict despite past troubled relations with Kabila.

* South Africa: Working to broker peace talks between Congo, rebels and their respective allies.

Source: Associated Press