By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Nov 6 1997 (IPS)

Washington will resume its cautious approach toaward the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, says Bill Richardson the U.S. administration’s chief trouble-shooter for Central Africa.

Testifying before Congress Wednesday, Richardson – the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations – declared that the long-stalled plan to send a U.N. delegation to investigate reports of alleged massacres against Rwandan refugees in eastern Congo was now back on track.

“The mission was successful,” Richardson told lawmakers. He said he hoped that the UN delegation, which was stuck for six weeks in Kinshasha unable to visit alleged massacre sites before its recall to New York last month, will leave for the Congo this month.

Richardson, who returned last week after talks with the Congo’s President Laurent Kabila, said the United States would participate at a donors’ conference for Kinshasha, in Brussels Dec. 3-4.

“The Brussels meeting will be made much easier if the agreement between Kabila) and Amb. Richardson (about the UN investigation) is in effect,” noted Joe Wilson, the Africa director on Clinton’s National Security Council, a few hours after Richardson spoke.

Richardson, who met with other regional leaders in Central Africa during his mission, also said that he had raised “strong objections” to Angola’s military intervention in Congo- Brazzaville last month and elicited from Luanda’s foreign minister a promise to withdraw Angolan forces from the oil-rich former French colony “as soon as possible.”

Speaking before the same Congressional panel, the ousted Republic of Congo President, Pascal Lissouba, appealed for Washington to back the dispatch of an international peacekeeping force to Brazzaville to oversee the Angolan withdrawal and the preparation of democratic elections – presumably under the newly-installed regime of the former military ruler, Gen. Denis Sassou-Nguesso.

“Without these kind of forces,” the exiled Lissouba said, “all the elections under Sassou’s rule will be a masquerade.”

But Wilson, who spoke separately with foreign reporters, said such an initiative would be premature. “It does not seem to me that the situation necessarily lends itself to a peacekeeping (operation) at this time,” he said.

He added that Washington and other capitals should first use their diplomatic clout to press Sassou to cooperate.

Lissouba, Congo-Brazzaville’s first democratically elected president, was ousted Oct 15 by Sassou after a fierce civil conflict that virtually razed Brazzaville, considered one of West Africa’s most modern and comfortable capitals, during four months of fighting. The Angolan intervention tipped the balance in favour of Sassou.

President Bill Clinton denounced the takeover as a military coup d’etat and suspended all but humanitarian aid to Brazzaville, while pressing the Angolans for a quick withdrawal. But Lissouba found himself virtually ignored during Wednesday’s hearing which was devoted almost exclusively to US policy toward Congo-Kinshasa and Rwanda.

Most lawmakers who attended the hearing wanted to hear about what action Washington has taken over persistent reports that Rwandan forces, and Kabila’s Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL), were responsible for massacres of thousands of mainly Hutu refugees in eastern Zaire during, and after, their nine-month campaign to oust the 32-year-old regime of the late Mobutu Sese Seko.

Lawmakers and influential human rights groups have argued that the evidence of mass killings and their cover-up is so serious that Washington should tie all future assistance to the new central government to its cooperation with the UN mission and its progress towards ensuring human rights and democratisation.

“We have no problem with aid going to NGOs (non-governmental organisations) or regional or local governments,” said Scott Campbell of Human Rights Watch/Africa, “but not to the central government.”

Not only has the government failed so far to cooperate with the UN mission, but Kabila continues to practice a “politics of exclusion” in which NGOs are excluded from taking part in the reconstruction of the country, political parties continue to be banned, and “security forces continue to multiply in number, Cambell charged.”

Other groups here argued that Washington needs to become more engaged with Kabila. In his testimony Salih Booker, Director of Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign relations, maintained Washington must take the lead in mobilising “extensive international support.” for the 47 million people of the Congo. They needed a more secure environment, reconstruction of the economy, and the promotion of cooperation between the AFDL and other democratic forces.

“To focus almost exclusively on the UN investigation undermines our ability to promote what must be the higher goal of helping the Congolese to achieve a successful transition,” he said.

Richardson, on the other hand, insisted that, in addition to his agreement on the UN mission with Kabila, progress towards democratisation is being made. “The new government has attempted to broaden its base by including non-AFDL members in the cabinet and as regional governors,” he said, while “NGOs remain active throughout the country and most continue to operate freely.”

He also praised the installation of a Constitutional Drafting Commission last month, although Campbell pointed out that its membership so far is exclusively AFDL. The Commission is supposed to help pave the way towards national elections by April 1999.

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