ZAIRE: Few Expectations From Proposed Pretoria Talks

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Angeline Oyog and Moyiga Nduru

PARIS, Apr 2 1997 (IPS) - European based Zairean opposition figures are quick to question the logic of negotiating with Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko, who they say is discredited and unable to wield authority in his own country.

Nothing serious, they say, can be expected of this weekend’s proposed talks in South Africa between the ailing Mobutu — who is already signalling his non-attendance — and rebel leader Laurent Desire Kabila.

The talks, expected to open Saturday in Pretoria, are supposed to discuss terms for a ceasefire. To be led by Mohamed Sahnoun, joint envoy for the United Nations and Organisation of African Unity, they are seen as Mobutu’s last chance to retain at least some of the power he has wielded for 31 years.

Kabila’s rebel forces have already seized the east of the country and are advancing toward Lubumbashi, capital of mineral-rich Shaba province and the country’s diamond mining capital Mbuji-Mayi in Eastern Kasai province.

The rebel commander feels victory is in his grasp and says he will not share power with the cancer-stricken dictator. He reportedly sees the South Africa talks as a prelude to a summit between him and Mobutu where he will give him his orders.

It is also unclear what role will be played by Etienne Tshisekedi, a lawyer and former dissident arrested and tortured several times by Mobutu’s regime, who Wednesday agreed to act as premier to Mobutu in place of Kengo wa Dondo, forced out last week.

Tshisekedi was first made premier in October 1991, but Mobutu sacked him within days. A transitional ruling council nominated him again in 1992, but he was dismissed again a year later — an act he has never recognised.

Mobutu, 66, has already said ill health will prevent him personally taking part on Saturday, but has not specified who will represent him. But foreign opinion fears further destabilisation in the region, and wants Mobutu and Kabila to meet.

“The West believes there can still be negotiations with a man like Mobutu. We, Zaireans, don’t. Mobutu has given ample proof that he is not interested in negotiating, only in holding on to power,” said Mwamba Bapuwa, a Paris based journalist and a critic of Mobutu.

During the national conference begun in 1991 to prepare for the transition from Mobutu’s autocratic rule to democracy, Bapuwa said “every concession” was made to the President who has ruled Zaire since a coup d’etat in 1965 and has managed to make one of the richest countries in Africa one of today’s poorest.

“The only thing to discuss during these talks, if there ever will be talks at all, is that Mobutu should finally accept the liberation of the people,” said Jacques Mutombo-Cartier, spokesman in Paris of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress.

“The armed rebellion led by Kabila is the final phase of the opposition of the people to Mobutu for years now.”

But London experts here say Kabila’s decision to reject the idea of power sharing would not be received well in Paris. “France has been unhappy with Kabila’s successes in eastern Zaire,” said Theodore Molinga, a Zairean researcher at the University of London.

“France views Kabila’s rebellion as a conspiracy by the United States and Britain to expand English sphere of influence into Francophone Africa,” he told IPS. “Kabila, who has been fighting Mobutu’s regime since his leftist days in the 1960s, is also viewed by Paris as acting as agents of neighbouring Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.”

Last month France tried to get the European Union to back a force to protect aid workers and humanitarian routes to thousands of Rwandan refugees trapped in eastern Zaire. Britain blocked the move, but some suspect the aim of the French proposal was primarily aimed at halting Kabila and only secondarily to help refugees.

A British Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman in London denied that Britain and France had any conflicting views about the crisis in Zaire. “We are concerned about the humanitarian crisis in Zaire,” he told IPS. “We have urged regional leaders to support international call for a cease-fire and negotiations leading to a peaceful solution of the conflict in Zaire.”

Even if the Pretoria talks are held their objective is still ill- defined. “It is unclear what can be expected of the talks,” said Catherine Choquet, deputy secretary general of the Paris based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues.

“But then who cares about refugees? For the past 30 to 40 years, they have been a taboo, used by one or the other party as shields or means of pressure. What we hope though is that the negotiations will mean a pause in the fighting and an agreement to set up shelters for refugees and displaced people,” she added.

Aid agencies say the fleeing refugees are dying in their hundreds near Kisangani in the north east. Nairobi based spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Peter Kessler said an estimated 100,000 refugees were wandering between Ubundu and Kisangani, captured by the rebels on Mar. 15. He said the rebels had refused to allow refugees to stop and were driving them south.

A World Food Programme spokeswoman said in Geneva Monday that one of their workers had seen “hundreds” of dead Rwandan refugees littered along roads during a flight over eastern Zaire.

Included among the fleeing masses are thousands of civilians as well as soldiers of the former national army of Rwanda and militias responsible for the genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994.

“For the past two and a half years, the international community saw the situation in refugee camps degenerate,” said Choquet. “It has spent enormous sums to feed the refugees but took no measures to separate those suspected of participating in the genocide and in the military activities against the new regime in Rwanda from the civilians.”

Refugees were wounded or killed as Kabila’s men, since the start of their operations, attacked refugee camps which they knew sheltered soldiers of the former Rwandan national army.

Choquet’s group demand that both sides order a ceasefire to allow for the evacuation of civilians from the conflict areas or where fighting is imminent. Backed by New York based NGO Human Rights Watch, they are also demanding that orders be given to both sides’ troops to stop killing civilians and to guarantee safe passage of humanitarian organisations.

They also insist on the necessity of identifying and surrendering people implicated in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and making sure that they be brought before courts.