In Congo Republic, Peace Calls for a Farewell to Arms

MOSSENDJO, Republic of Congo — War turned former taxi driver Justin Didier Kimbala into a gun-toting militiaman. Peace is making him an advocate of forgiveness and reconciliation.

When fighting based on region and ethnicity erupted in June 1997 between Congolese militias, Kimbala, a southerner, found himself trapped among northerners. He was subsequently arrested, thrown in jail for a month and tortured. When he was released, his body was riddled with burns. He could hardly walk.

He was angry and began taking revenge, at first with a machete. Then he killed an Angolan mercenary, took the man’s assault rifle and used it to kill and loot.

But last month, without hesitation and with no compensation, Kimbala handed his weapon to the government of Denis Sassou-Nguesso, who led Kimbala’s rivals to victory in the short but bloody war. Now Kimbala’s one wish is to return to the job he knows best: driving.

“If I had the courage to take up arms, it was because of the harassment,” said Kimbala, 28, who is now back home in Mossendjo, a desolate rural community about 200 miles northwest of the capital, Brazzaville. “But now that there is peace, I preferred to give my weapon back.”

After three years of war, the Republic of Congo is courting peace. Unlike in its giant and similarly named neighbor to the east and south, most of the belligerents here have started disbanding their militias and turning over their weapons.

The government of Sassou-Nguesso, who ousted President Pascal Lissouba in October 1997, has extended a general amnesty to all militias. The political opposition and rebel factions, now united under the umbrella of a National Resistance Council, have welcomed the government’s overtures.

Areas once dominated by anti-government groups are gradually shrinking as the national army and civilian authorities begin to move back. By June, at least 600,000 of the 810,000 people--the latter about a third of Congo’s population--who were forced to flee their homes had returned. Death and malnutrition rates are falling dramatically as access to humanitarian assistance opens up.

Most important of all: It is the Congolese themselves, not regional brokers or outside powers, who decided that they had had enough of war. Consequently, the cease-fire, signed seven months ago, is actually holding. Although there are many factors that could trigger a new outbreak of hostilities, the cessation of fighting is a marked achievement on a continent littered with truces signed and then ignored.

A Continent of Shattered Agreements

In the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, a peace deal signed last year has all but collapsed, and fighting never completely ceased. An internationally brokered peace deal in Sierra Leone quickly unraveled and even led to the kidnapping of U.N. peacekeepers. Three peace accords have been shattered in Angola, where rebels and government forces have been fighting intermittently for a quarter of a century. And while the international community recently helped broker a peace deal between Ethiopia and Eritrea, there is little confidence that the two countries will refrain from again plunging the Horn of Africa into war.

“This is what makes our case quite original,” said Col. Emmanuel Boungouanza, head of the National Resistance Council. “We fought because there was no more freedom in this country. The government took power by force. They interrupted the democratic process in this country. But having fought for a long time, we realize that war cannot solve our problems. We have to stop sometime. We can also be an example to these other countries.”

“In 40 years of independence, we never experienced war like the war we just had,” said Prosper Tete, a member of a council of elders in Mossendjo. “Many people have died. Much of the infrastructure has been destroyed. We think it is useless to keep on fighting.”

The peace is by no means perfect. Key leaders of the political opposition remain in exile, and government officials are adamant that a planned “national dialogue” on the future of the country need not include those figures. All sides committed atrocities during the war, mostly against civilians, but there has so far been no mention of bringing the guilty to justice. Troops from foreign armies allied with Sassou-Nguesso’s government remain.

But U.N. officials are encouraged. They are seeking international support for demobilization and for reestablishing social services and jobs.

“There are so many wars in Africa, seemingly insoluble,” said William Paton, the United Nations Development Program’s representative in Brazzaville. “It’s not very often that we get a good chance for peace with a cease-fire that has held for half a year.”

Congo receives less international funding than almost any other crisis area in the world, Paton says. The U.N. has appealed for $17.1 million this year but has so far received only $1.6 million.

“We could make a perfect example here in Africa if we make this peace process successful,” said Jacques Bandelier, Paton’s deputy. “At least in Central Africa, this is the only place where there is real optimism.”

In typical African conflicts, a political settlement usually precedes a cease-fire. But in Congo, the shooting stopped first.

“The Congolese themselves have woken up and are wondering, ‘Why are we killing each other?’ ” said Jocelyn Mouithys-Madimgou, mayor of deposed President Lissouba’s hometown, Dolisie. “They have decided: No more killing. Nobody told the Congolese to stop. [They] made the decision themselves.”

As in so many conflicts in Africa, the civil war resulted largely from efforts by the country’s political elite to control political and economic power. Lissouba’s tenure was marred by disagreements about the formation of the government and discrepancies in legislative elections. Campaigns of civil disobedience quickly descended into violence.

Disarmament Key to Preventing Bloodshed

One key to ensuring that such mayhem does not return is completion of the militias’ disarmament. The militias are estimated to number up to 31,000 members, including about 15,000 hard-core fighters. Many of the former combatants are young men who were easily induced to take up arms because of unemployment and uncertainty. The militias offered prestige, power and unlimited opportunities to plunder and extort money from innocent civilians.

Although the exact number is unclear, thousands of militiamen have taken advantage of the amnesty. Many have handed over their weapons, but authorities here acknowledge that large numbers of illegal arms--some estimates put the total at 15,000--remain uncollected.

Some of the militiamen have been coaxed to return their weapons for a payment of 15,000 Congolese francs, or about $20. Others, such as Kimbala, have voluntarily given up their guns.

Many of the rebels were members of the army or police force who sided with the resistance movement. For them, re-integration is immediate, restoring them to their previous rank.

A project sponsored by the U.N. Development Program is seeking to help about 4,700 ex-militia members regain their livelihoods. A pilot program offers the opportunity to become self-employed. Ex-combatants who present a feasible business project to the agency are awarded start-up capital of at least $500.

“The opportunity was like a breath of fresh air,” said Christian Pandy, 31, a former militiaman who handed in seven AK-47 assault rifles. The seed money allowed him to relaunch the shoe stall he ran in Brazzaville’s central market before the war. “It is an opportunity to restart everything again and regain some dignity.”

Pandy said he was forced to take up arms to protect his family. But he acknowledged that, under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and encouraged by his rebel comrades, he soon turned to looting.

“Once you have a gun in your hand, everything is possible,” Pandy said. But he said it soon dawned on him that the militias “were killing each other without a specific purpose; nothing was coming out of it.”

Life Returning to Normal in Nation

In areas of the interior, such as Mossendjo, a depressed community set amid rain forests and savannas, most of the administrative structure is functioning again. People are returning home after months in the bush. Farmers are going back to their fields, children to school.

A project run by Spiritains, a French Roman Catholic organization, has enabled Celine Mayounda, 52, and her eight children to move back to their mud-brick home after spending 18 months in the jungle. The Mayounda family was among 100 of the most vulnerable residents of Dolisie, who received 20 shiny aluminum sheets to make a roof. Many homes were stripped of this valuable material during the war.

But many who have returned from months in the forest lack food. Others are suffering from respiratory infections, malaria, skin problems and diarrhea. A polio epidemic has hit some areas because children were not vaccinated during the war. Less visible but equally debilitating is the psychological stress. Much anxiety surrounds the delicate peace deal because there are several factors that could cause its collapse.

Lissouba, the ousted president, and Bernard Kolelas, the former mayor of Brazzaville whom a local court recently condemned to death on war crimes charges, have so far been excluded from the planned national dialogue. The move has cast doubt on the government’s commitment to reconciliation and sparked fears that the exiles might instigate new fighting because they have been left out.

“They were the key players of the war, so how can we have peace without including them?” asked Tete, the elder. “The only way to sustainable peace is having a dialogue that includes everyone.”

Some former rebel leaders doubt Sassou-Nguesso’s commitment to sharing power. They complain that former rebels are not being fairly represented in the new administration and that they hold only a handful of the top military positions in the re-integrated forces. They accuse the government of continuing to employ foreign soldiers and mercenaries, including members of Rwandan groups that were largely responsible for that country’s 1994 genocide.

“As long as these foreign troops are here, we can doubt the goodwill of the government,” said Boungouanza, the rebel coalition chief.

Gen. Gilbert Mokoki, the Congolese officer in charge of the peace process, says government forces are being deployed only to areas where they were originally based, and he denies that the administration is using foreign mercenaries. He confirms that Angolan troops are in the country at the invitation of the government.

Although providing jobs for ex-combatants is important, it is not a perfect solution, says Pedro Goncalves, a U.N. expert on re-integrating ex-fighters into society.

“If their leaders try to manipulate them, all of them will go back to fighting,” Goncalves said.

Also threatening the durability of a lasting peace deal is the number of weapons still in circulation.

“As long as there are weapons in the houses or the forest, there will be a danger,” said Maj. Andre Boussobe-Bouya, head of the mixed contingent of government and ex-resistance forces in Mossendjo. “Our mission is to make everybody understand that peace is priceless and everyone has to give up their weapons. It’s a long process. It won’t end tomorrow.”