US-AFRICA: Washington has Problems in Two Congos

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct 16 1997 (IPS) - With Angolan troops occupying part of Congo-Brazzaville, and Congo-Kinshasha refusing to allow a U.N. investigation of alleged massacres on its territory, the United States once again finds itself involved in African struggles which it would prefer to ignore.

Washington’s inattention to the two Congos over the last five months, however, actually may have contributed to deteriorating conditions in both countries, according to political analysts.

“It just shows we don’t have a Central Africa policy; certainly not a preventative policy,” said Salih Booker, head of Africa Studies of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Faced with the ouster after months of murderous street fighting of the elected government of President Pascal Lissouba in Brazzaville, Washington has called for the organisation of new elections to restore democratic and civilian rule.

State Department spokesman James Rubin said Wednesday the United States will consult with U.N. Special Envoy Mohamed Sahnoun and Gabon President Omar Bongo, who unsuccessfully tried to mediate between Lissouba and former president Denis Sassou- Nguesso, about how best to achieve those ends.

He said Washington also will discuss with other members of the U.N. Security Council the possibility of a U.N. force being sent to Brazzaville to help oversee the process – despite its opposition to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s urgent appeal earlier this week to insert a peacekeeping force into Brazzaville while the fighting continued.

“It looks like that situation has been overtaken by events (and) that we’re in a situation where Mr. Sassou’s forces control Congo-Brazzaville,” Rubin said. “And what we want to look to now is, assuming the consolidation of his control, a process by which elections can be organised, democratic rule can be returned, and then this country can return to some degree of normalcy.”

Rubin expressed particular concern with the role played over the past week by Angolan troops which, he said, captured Pointe- Noire, the Congo republic’s major port and oil centre. He said U.S. envoys had formally protested Angola’s move in both Washington and Luanda.

“The point is that …they don’t belong there; they belong in Angola,” he said. “We would prefer to see the Angolan government spending its time and energy focused on implementing the Lusaka protocols and their own peace agreement, rather than in other countries….” Other U.S. officials believed that a speedy Angolan withdrawal was not on the cards.

“They’ll stay until they get what they want,” said one official who noted that both the Angolan rebel group Unita, and the secessionist Liberation Front for the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), had used Pointe Noire as a supply base and, in FLEC’s case, a rear guard.

“Since the Angolans helped install Sassou-Nguesso, it shouldn’t be too hard to get what they want,” according to the official, who noted, however, that the region around Pointe-Noire is populated mainly by Lissouba’s Bakongo ethnic group.

“It’s impossible to tell whether Sassou-Nguesso’s rule will be actively resisted there,” he said.

Lissouba’s removal marks a setback for U.S. interests in the region, according to Booker, who said the ousted president had tried to reduce Brazzaville’s reliance on France and especially on the French oil company ELF, which handles almost all of Congo’s oil wealth.

“This fighting had a lot to do with oil,” he said. “Lissouba was trying to invite U.S. businessmen into what had been an exclusive French reserve.” Analysts from within and outside the U.S. administration that ELF provided crucial support, including mercenaries, to Sassou-Nguesso, but that the Angolans, who also received encouragement from ELF, invaded for their own reasons.

Throughout the fighting, Washington played virtually no role, according to informed sources. “We didn’t even try to help with the mediation,” notes Booker.

Early in the fighting, Washington evacuated its entire embassy staff from Brazzaville. Meanwhile, across the Congo River in Kinshasa, Washington has put itself in a delicate position with the government of President Laurent Kabila.

It announced Wednesday it will send a delegation next week to Kinshasa to meet with Kabila to persuade him to cooperate with a U.N. investigation into reports of massacres allegedly committed by his forces during and after his successful campaign last year to oust the late president, Mobutu Sese Seko.

The delegation, which includes Washington’s Special Envoy on Burundi, Howard Wolpe, and Rep. Douglas Payne, will be headed by Washington’s U.N. Ambassador, Bill Richardson.

Officials here told IPS that Richardson originally suggested the idea of U.S. mediation between Kabila and the world body to Annan without consulting the State Department. Donald McHenry, a retired senior diplomat, was recruited for the job but turned it down, according to knowledgeable sources.

Kabila and the United Nations have been deadlocked for months on how the U.N. team will do its work. Earlier this year, Kabila successfully demanded that an earlier U.N. human rights investigator, Chilean Robert Garreton, be removed from the assignment and that the scope of the investigation be broadened to include ethnic violence which roiled eastern Zaire back to 1993.

A mission headed by Togolese Justice Atsu-Koffi Amega travelled to Kinshasa during the summer but was not permitted by the government to carry out on-site investigations. After six weeks in Kinshasa, they were pulled out by Annan last month.

Sources here said they hope that a compromise proposal redefining the investigators’ work put forward by Eritrea might break the deadlock, but that Washington’s direct involvement in mediation has significantly raised the stakes.

Rubin himself underlined that point Wednesday when he warned that “a failure to allow the U.N. investigation to go forward will only serve to prevent Congo from reentering the community of nations, having access to international financial support …and being able to be considered a normal country.”

Washington has offered Kinshasa only 10 million dollars in bilateral aid for 1997 and has tentatively earmarked up to 40 million dollars more for next year. But none of this may be disbursed unless Kabila permits the U.N. investigation to go forward.