ZAIRE-ARMS: Profit Motive Brings Outside Weapons to Conflict

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 29 1997 (IPS) - Chinese diplomats startled the U.N. Security Council recently when they strongly denied Beijing was supplying arms to the beleaguered government of Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko.

The surprise, diplomats here say, was not that China was making the denial, but that the Security Council had never even asked China whether it was providing arms. “It really came out of the blue,” says Security Council President Antonio Monteiro of Portugal.

But for some experts, it’s no surprise that countries like China feel compelled to deny their involvement. Even Monteiro acknowledges that Beijing was likely moved more by press accounts, most recently in The Boston Globe, detailing the delivery of five MiG-21 fighter jets to Mobutu’s forces, than by any pressure from U.N. members to determine the truth.

The Pentagon refuses to comment on Chinese supplies to Mobutu. The ailing Zairean leader, despite his anticommunist reputation, has enjoyed considerable Chinese and North Korean support, as well as backing by France and the United States.

But some rights groups are worried that recent arms shipments — including the alleged MiG shipment and an estimated 600 metric tonnes of North Korean machine guns, grenade launchers and ammunition — could ensure a brutal fight between Mobutu’s forces and the rebels over the capital, Kinshasa. The rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL) Tuesday reportedly seized Kikwit, a city only four hours from the capital by train, and it now controls some two-thirds of Zaire.

U.N. officials are convinced that, if Alliance leader Laurent Kabila tries to take Kinshasa by force, the bloodiest fighting of the six-month rebel campaign will ensue. “It’s just illogical…to think that Kinshasa is going to lay down its arms and welcome Kabila,” says one senior U.N. official, speaking on condition of anoymity. “But Kabila’s on a roll, and he doesn’t want to hear that he’s not going to be able to take Kinshasa.”

Ironically enough, however, the Alliance itself may have be the most important beneficiary of Chinese military largesse. Most of the rebels’ equipment and logistical support has come from neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda, both of which have received large quantities of Chinese arms, according to analysts here.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a 1995 study, also suggested that China had helped to arm former Rwandan Army troops encamped until recently in eastern Zaire. Those Rwandan refugees were routed by the AFDL, and the majority of them have since returned to Rwanda or fled deeper into Zaire.

Such an even-handed flow of arms is in keeping with the policy that “China practises the politics of allowing people to solve their own problems,” as one Chinese official told Britain’s daily ‘Observer’ in 1995.

According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, France, Russia and China are, respectively, the top three arms sellers to sub-Saharan Africa in a trade which brings more than 3.1 billion dollars worth of arms into the region every year.

“I think the arming in this situation is not like in the Cold War, where there was an attempt to secure ideological influence,” says Richard Knight, research associate for the Africa Fund, a New York-based group which monitors human rights in Africa. “Anything that China would have done, or Russia, is for profit.”

For the same reason, Kinght says, the sales are unlikely to boost the interests of arms sellers themselves, although they may certainly make any conflict bloodier.

Steve Goose, programme director for HRW’s Arms Project, agrees. Because Africa is perceived to be a small market for the global arms trade, interested primarily in light arms, few governments are even involved in the trade, which is mostly conducted by private groups, Goose says.

“The problem in all of Africa is largely private transactions,” he argues.

In fact, Zaire was a key recipient of superpower assistance during the Cold War when Zaire was used as a conduit for arms to anticommunist rebels in Angola. Mobutu, installed in 1965 with the help of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, enjoyed U.S. and French support for much of his 32-year rule, although Washington began to cut ties with him in recent years when he reneged on promised economic and political reforms.

Washington has been accused by some observers as favouring Kabila in the current conflict, although Goose says that HRW has found no evidence of U.S. involvement in arming either side in the ongoing fighting.

One human rights analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, says there is some indication that South Africa — whose apartheid- era government enjoyed close covert links to Mobutu — is still involved in selling arms to the parties involved. Goose says that any South African involvement would likely be limited to private arms contractors, although he adds that Pretoria is still responsible for monitoring such sales.

Knight admits that the South African military contractor Armscor is “still run by the old guard, people who love to sell arms all over the world.” But he doubts that President Nelson Mandela’s government is involved in sales to either side, arguing, “Deputy President (Thabo) Mbeki is deeply involved in the Zairean peace negotiations…so I would be surprised if South Africa is selling now.”

HRW found in 1995 that “several planeloads of arms were flown directly from South Africa to Zaire,” ending up largely in the hands of the Rwandan refugees based in the east, in areas now held by the AFDL. South African Foreign Minister Alfred Nzo last year said arms sales to the Rwandan refugees had been stopped, and Zaire has been on a list of nations to which the South African armaments industry is forbidden to supply lethal weapons since 1993.