ZAIRE-U.N.: U.N. Prods Rebels on Refugees, Peace Talks

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 1997 (IPS) - Zairean rebels who have captured more than half of the country must accept that they cannot find a military solution and should instead opt for a transitional arrangement, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warns.

The U.N. chief Wednesday told the 15-nation Security Council that all nations must use their diplomatic influence to force rebel leader Laurent Kabila and Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko to accept a peaceful end to Zaire’s civil war. That plan, Annan said, could entail a one-year transitional government followed by U.N.-monitored democratic elections.

“A major political change is on the way,” Annan said, echoing recent statements by U.S. and European spokesmen that the 32-year Mobutu regime is ending. “We are trying to get them to manage that change…A solution does not arrive by military means.”

The rebels are reportedly only 180 miles away from the Zairean capital, Kinshasa — the only major city not yet under their control. But one senior U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS, “It’s just illogical to think that Kinshasa is going to lay down its arms and welcome Kabila.”

The problem, the official added, is that both Kabila and Mobutu believe their position to be stronger than it may actually be. “Kabila is on a roll. He doesn’t want to hear that he’s not able to take Kinshasa,” the official argued. By the same token, he said, Mobutu is unwilling to admit that he may finally have to cede power and likely cannot supervise any transitional arrangement with the rebels.

Although the rebels have won remarkably bloodless victories in most of Zaire since beginning their insurgency last September, U.N. officials now say the regional and ethnic differences in Kinshasa make it unlikely that forces there will surrender without a fight.

As such, the world body has stepped up its diplomatic efforts to build support for a one-year transitional arrangement. But the United Nations remains unsuccessful in its efforts to convince the Security Council of the need for U.N. peacekeepers to be deployed there for the first time since a small, Canadian-led multinational force left last December.

“Now, nobody is talking about it,” Security Council President Antonio Monteiro of Portugal said of proposals for a Zaire peacekeeping mission. “There is a clear priority for the Council to get a peaceful settlement in Zaire.” But after a possible cease-fire, Monteiro and Annan both said, some U.N. force could arrive.

A cease-fire looks far from easy at this point, although U.N. envoy Mohamed Sahnoun and South African President Nelson Mandela are lobbying both sides to achieve one. The AFDL now holds three of Zaire’s four most populous cities and its key diamond, cobalt and copper zones, and have been welcomed warmly in every area where they have routed Mobutu’s weak and often unpaid forces.

But some diplomats here contend that Kabila’s honeymoon may not last much longer, with the United Nations increasingly critical of the rebels’ continuing drive to the capital.

U.N. officials and human rights groups have also strongly condemned the rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL) for its ongoing cutoff of humanitarian assistance to Rwandan refugees near the Zairean city of Kisangani.

“I am shocked and appalled by the inhumanity of those who control Eastern Zaire,” Annan said of the AFDL’s recent blocking of access to the refugees. “I don’t think that the international community can stand by as thousands of innocent women and children are starved to death.”

He urged governments who have influence with Kabila’s rebels — believed by U.N. officials to include the United States, as well as the governments of neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda — to encourage the AFDL to allow a resumption of normal humanitarian aid.

Amnesty International estimates that some 80,000 Rwandan refugees — mainly ethnic Hutus blamed for Rwanda’s 1994 genocide of minority Tutsis — are suffering from starvation and exhaustion since the rebels seized Kisangani last month. As many as 90 of the refugees are dying each day, Amnesty claims.

“How many refugees have to die or suffer human rights abuses at the hands of the AFDL before world governments and intergovernmental organisations send a clear message to the AFDL that they would be held accountable for any further deaths?” the human rights group asked in a statement Wednesday.

“This seems to be a revenge of the Tutsis,” one U.N. official said of the treatment of the Rwandan Hutus. “There are reports of massacres going on, as well.” He noted that the United Nations had always had problems trying to separate civilian refugees from former members of the Rwandan Army and rightist ‘Interahamwe’ paramilitary force, which are blamed for killing as many as one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus before fleeing to Zaire in 1994.

But Annan contended that most of the refugees currently cut off from humanitarian aid are “innocent civilians”. The United Nations planned to airlift the refugees back to Rwanda, which has said it will accept them. But the Rwandan government refuses to allow them to fly directly into Rwanda, while the AFDL has warned that the refugee population is suffering from a cholera epidemic and may spread the disease if they travel elsewhere.