**Behind refugee crisis is the struggle for control of
central Africa**

(Reprinted from the December 14, 1996 issue of the People's
Weekly World. May be reprinted or reposted with PWW credit.
For subscription information see below)

By William Pomeroy

The plight of over a million Rawandan refugees is being used
to put a righteous gloss on the call for western military
intervention. However, other, less admirable, purposes than
the feeding of hungry people are being nourished.

A complex drama has developed in this large strategic region
of central Africa with several contending forces involving
diverse African ethnic groups that spread across state
boundaries as well as rival western imperialist powers that
never left the scene despite "independence" and who are now
jostling for control of the region's natural resources.

Although bloody warfare between Tutsis and the Hutus which
led to the flight of over a million Hutus to Zaire has drawn
the most attention, resolution of the problem in those two
small countries is not the central principle in the larger
drama. That "principle" lies in Zaire, a vast territory with
some of the richest mineral deposits in Africa. Zaire, the
former Belgian Congo, as is the case with virtually all
African countries, is made up of numerous ethnic groups in
provinces that have repeatedly threatened to secede. It has
been held together by the ruthless dictatorship of General
Mobutu Sese Seko, the willing neo-colonial ally, who has
literally looted the country to amass colossal personal
wealth, while millions of Zairians exist in extreme poverty.

Over time Mobutu, who carried through the CIA plot to
assassinate Patrice Lumumba at the time of independence in
1960, shifted his loyalty from Belgian interests to an
alliance with those of the U.S. and France, the only
colonial power to keep armed forces in its former colonies.
French troops have been used to intervene not only in Zaire
to put down anti-Mobutu and secessionist revolts, but also
in Rwanda and Burundi, both former Belgian colonies. In the
up and down struggles to govern these states, the French
have supported the Hutus who are the majority group.

In the recent period Zaire has slid toward chaos with rebel
movements growing in the provinces, a situation complicated
by the presence of the refugees in Zaire's eastern Kivu
province.

In 1994 an extremist Hutu militia called the Interahamwe
(those who kill together) rose up against the then-coalition
government in Rwanda of Tutsis and moderate Hutus and
massacred at least half a million Tutsis. It was the threat
of retaliation by the Tutsi-led army that caused the mass
flight of Hutus to Zaire. At this point the French army
intervened with "Operation Turquoise," enabling the Hutu
militia to escape and establish a base in the huge refugee
camps in Zaire.

There the refugees established towns and two years elapsed
before their plight became front-page news with appeals for
emergency international aid, with France taking the
initiative on the question. The reason: the increasing
success of a rebellion led by the Alliance of Democratic
Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADLF) which has
won control of most of Kivu province, driving out Mobutu's
Zaire army and threatening to move against the Hutu militia
in the camps. France faced the loss of its foothold in both
Zaire and Rwanda-Burundi, and, unable to intervene
unilaterally without risking a major war, called for an
international intervention force, to provide humanitarian
aid to the refugees.

The ADLF, a coalition of left and conservative groups from
Kivu, Kasai and Shaba provinces, is headed by Laurent Desire
Kabila, leader of the People's Revolutionary Party which he
founded in the mid-1960s. He was a friend of Lumumba and was
together with Che Guevara in 1965 when the latter joined
with liberation forces in the Congo.

The ADLF is supported by the Tutsi-led armies in Rwanda and
Burundi and has the support of Tutsis living in Zaire who
number 400,000. Kabila announced that ADLF forces would
regard any French troops as the enemy and would open fire
should they intervene.

France accused the U.S. and Britain of dragging their feet
over sending in an interventionist force of at least 10,000
that would supervise the delivery of aid to the refugees. It
was generally recognized that the chief problem in the camps
was the Hutu militia that controlled aid shipments and
killed anyone seeking to return to Rwanda and Burundi, which
have been ready to receive them. The removal of the Hutu
militia was obviously essential, but at French insistence
the international force declared that it would not be used
for that purpose.

As the question of a joint intervention was argued, some
influential voices were raised in France assailing the role
of the United States. The man who has reportedly
masterminded French policy in Africa for the past 40 years,
Jacques Foccart, called the fighting in Zaire an undeclared
battle for influence between Paris and Washington, and
insists that France's real enemy in Africa is the United
States.

On Nov. 6 the leading French paper Le Figaro claimed that
the U.S. was responsible for the Tutsi (i.e. ADLF) attacks
in Zaire, that there were a number of U.S. military advisers
in Kigali (the Rwandan capital) and that "there is a
Rwandan-Ugandan plot to destabilize Zaire and Washington is
behind it."

The intervention issue was settled when ADLF forces attacked
and drove out the extremist Hutu militia from the main
refugee camp. Freed from intimidation, half a million
refugees poured back into Rwanda and Burundi. It was a move
that undermined the French strategy, leaving the anti-Mobutu
liberation movement in a commanding position in eastern
Zaire.

A theory that a U.S. "destabilization" of Zaire is occurring
could be credible in view of what is believed to be the
impending demise of Mobutu. In that case a link with the
forces capable of assuming power in Zaire is important. For
Zaire, the crucial question is the nature and substance of
that link.
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