Rwanda-Uganda Battles Imperil Pact in Congo

Recent fighting between two countries that are patrons of rebel factions in Congo could wreck a shaky peace deal to end the Central African country’s yearlong civil war, analysts say.

The upsurge of violence could also strengthen the resolve of Congolese President Laurent Kabila not to share power with those seeking to overthrow him, and win him the image of cooperative “good guy” in trying to end the conflict.

Rwanda and Uganda were among six countries to sign the July 10 peace agreement. But they support competing Congolese rebel groups, whose disagreements prevented them from signing the accord. The two patron countries disagree on how the war should end, and their troops in eastern Congo have clashed in recent days.

A cease-fire announced late Tuesday ended four days of heavy fighting, at least temporarily. But it was unclear whether the truce could permanently end the conflict between the Rwandans and Ugandans.

Their recent battles dashed hopes for an imminent end to the overall conflict and confirmed the widespread view that the peace deal was destined to fray.

“It underscores the biggest gaping hole in the accord, in that it didn’t have the rebels on board,” said Pauline Baker, president of the Washington-based Fund for Peace, a nonprofit organization that deals with peace and human rights issues. “The agreement was pretty wobbly from the outset.”

Under the peace agreement, the guns are to fall silent; armies should disengage; militias, including Rwandan ethnic Hutu extremists responsible for the 1994 genocide against Tutsis, are supposed to be disarmed; and the five foreign armies involved in Congo’s war should be replaced by U.N. peacekeepers. The Congolese rebels would be recruited into a new national army.

But the fighting between Rwandan and Ugandan soldiers in Kisangani, a city of 1 million perched on the Congo River, blocked any progress on these goals.

An untold number of civilians and soldiers have been killed, and many civilians have been trapped or displaced.

Some analysts said the peace agreement was unrealistic because key parties have reasons to continue fighting.

“I don’t think any of the signatories were serious,” said Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, professor emeritus of African Studies at Howard University in Washington.

Opponents have accused Uganda and Rwanda of wanting to prolong the conflict to ensure access to Congo’s vast wealth of gold, diamonds and coffee in areas their armies control.

Officials from both countries have insisted that their involvement in Congo’s war has been solely to protect their own borders against insurgents based in Congo, formerly Zaire.

Uganda has expressed eagerness to leave Congo, citing the strain it has put on the defense budget and, in turn, the country’s relations with international donors and creditors.

But Nzongola-Ntalaja, a native of eastern Congo, said Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had agreed to the peace deal only in principle, in order to regain foreign confidence.

Rwanda, meanwhile, seems bent on continuing the fight in Congo until the last of about 15,000 Hutu militiamen has been caught.

Meanwhile, the conflict and confusion over the implementation of the July accord have given Kabila time to shore up his military and political positions.

“The longer there is disarray among the rebels, the longer Kabila can hold on to power,” said Nzongola-Ntalaja, the Howard University lecturer. “Since he has managed to neutralize the opposition in Kinshasa, the rebels are his only opposition in terms of ability to remove him. So he has nothing to fear.”

The Congolese rebels rose up against Kabila in August 1998, but they disagree over who should lead the movement and sign the peace accord.

“They are becoming spoilers in the whole process for peace and . . . Kabila is now being portrayed as the good guy,” said Claude Kabemba, a foreign policy analyst at the Johannesburg-based Center for Policy Studies in South Africa.

The rebel faction that signs the agreement would have the status to face off with Kabila during an expected national debate on the country’s future and maybe win senior positions in a new government. The country backing that rebel group--either Rwanda or Uganda--would gain influence in Congo.

Control of land is key in the vast nation of 46 million people.

So stiff is the competition to protect vanquished territories within Congo and safeguard the national borders of its neighbors, that some observers see only two options: A de facto partitioning of the country with a buffer zone to protect competing interests; or continual conflict.

Neither alternative bodes well for Congo’s war-weary masses. Although the Rwandan- and Ugandan-backed rebel factions in the east claim to have captured as much as 50% of the country, they have largely failed to win popular support.

Residents of rebel-held land view Rwanda and Uganda as occupying forces. If these resentful civilians were officially forced to live in an area controlled by outside forces, observers predicted, the hostilities would never cease and would ultimately boil over.

Furthermore, the battle to control mineral-rich segments of the land in their prospective partitioned territory would lead to further splits among the rebels.

“I’m not going to say that peace won’t work,” said Baker, of the Fund for Peace. “But there is a long road.”