But slowly things started to go sour. The boys around Mzee could not correspond with their family, if they still had one, because the families were caught on the rebel side and there was no mail or telephones operating between the two camps. Their salaries were very irregularly paid. The FAC medical services treated them like poor relatives, with the limited medical help that was available going to well-connected officers. Those who wanted to go back to school were forbidden to do so. Some who deserted were shot. Then came the arrest and trial of Masasu Nindaga.141 Masasu had been their man. Slightly older than most of them, without family (his father had deserted the home and left him with an old uncle), a former street boy like many of them, he had managed by sheer force of guts and cunning to become one of the founding members of the AFDL in October 1996.142 Masasu had been kept in jail until April 2000 and then freed as a lubricant for the secret negotiations then going on with Kigali.143 But on October 21, 2000, Masasu was rearrested. His crime was going to the Kivus and talking with many people belonging to his old prewar crowd. The conclusions of these conversations were that people hated the Rwandese but that they did not like Kabila very much either. This induced Masasu, who had always been a kind of “Kivu nationalist,” to try to strike an independent course and create his own faction within the FAC, based on “his” kadogo group, with the ultimate hope of starting a Kivu secessionist movement. This Kabila quickly learned, and he feared that the “third way” guerrilla movement in the east that Masasu had in mind would probably be started with Rwandese help.144 As the RPA was by then building up its forces for an attack on Pweto, Mzee became sure that this was part of the plot. He ordered Masasu to be transferred to Pweto, probably in the hope of arranging some kind of last-minute bargain with what he saw as a concerted move between Kigali and his prisoner. Whether or not the conspiratorial link existed, Masasu could not deliver the end of a plot he had barely started, and he was shot in Pweto on November 24. All hell then broke loose among the Kivutian kadogo in Kinshasa; there were hundreds of arrests, thirty-six were shot, and 250 fled to Brazzaville.145 RCD-G South Kivu “Governor” Basengezi Katintima was delighted and made sure that everybody in Bukavu heard about the arrests and the executions.146 Kinshasa clumsily tried to deny the clampdown.147
Then came the attack on Pweto which quickly turned into a rout. The kadogo had to bear the brunt of the fighting in spite of the fact that they had not been paid or resupplied for months and were almost starving. To make things worse they had received inhumane instructions, ordering them to shoot their wounded comrades “because it would be too expensive to fly them out to Kalemie or to Lubumbashi.”148 When the RPA-RCD-G troops came down on them, they fled across the border into Zambia because they simply did not have the means to fight the enemy’s overwhelming force. Most of the boys refused refugee status in Zambia and asked to be repatriated, knowing full well that this meant they would go on fighting. Never-theless, Kabila publicly disowned them and accused them of cowardice. In the refugee camps in Zambia many died because their wounds went septic and they lacked even basic medical attention. “We have defended a man who has showed little or no interest for our personal lives,” one of them declared to an NGO person working among the refugees.149 As in a nightmare, Mzee, the father figure, had finally turned into an ogre. It was this feeling, coupled with the execution of Masasu and the Kinshasa clampdown on their comrades, that set in motion the desperate and clumsy conspiracy eventually leading to the president’s assassination.
But then (and here we have to go beyond Smith and Glaser’s account, to which I have substantially adhered so far, even if with some additional details) there was another dimension, “the Angolan connection.” It was not a murder plot, properly speaking, but it was a deliberate conspiracy of silence. Luanda was furious at Kabila for squandering the diplomatic opportunities that he could have taken advantage of. The Angolans wanted his regime to survive, but they did not think that his policy of deliberately torpedoing the MONUC deployment, of humiliating Masire, and of mocking the international community was leading him (and them by association) anywhere. They had tried to explain that to him many times, after the Lusaka August 2000 meeting and later, after Maputo I and Maputo II, and each time they had been met with a deaf ear because the former fierce “Afro-Stalinists” who had turned into clever and crooked “petro-diamond capitalists”150 had no more conceptual common ground with the time capsule—enclosed former companion of Che Guevara. Kabila was locked up in a black-and-white world where the “UN-U.S.” represented the epitome of evil. He believed in his own propaganda. His capacity to maneuver did not extend to the succubus in human guise he felt the “international community” to be. He honestly believed that there could be no durable compromise with the imperialist dragon and that only short-term tactical accommodations were possible. These remained pitifully inadequate compared to what his wily Angolan allies would have wished. And as if this was not enough, Kabila then crossed an absolute red line: his constant cash problems caused him to start dealing in diamonds with UNIT A. In August 2000 his close aide Commandant Jean-Calvin Kondolo151 contacted a diamond trader who was a known operator for Savimbi.152 By October the newsletter Africa Confidential could write in the same issue “Recent reports indicate that Savimbi’s business allies are again trading diamonds in Kinshasa” and “Several diplomats believe that dropping Kabila might unblock the peace negotiations.”153
It is at that point that a bizarre event becomes relevant: eleven Lebanese citizens, all related by blood, were killed within days of the president’s murder, apparently on orders from Gen. Yav Nawesh and Col. Eddy Kapend. Incredible stories were later invented, saying that Kasereka had carried a list of the eleven names in his pocket because the Lebanese had been the financers or instigators of the assassination.154 In fact, the Lebanese victims were thought by Luanda to be the diamond-trading link between Kabila and UNIT A, and that link had to be brutally cut.155 Which throws the Nawesh-Kapend radical action into a very peculiar light: both men, and a number of other pro-Angolan officers, were perfectly aware of the fact that the kadogo had become desperate and were about to kill their “father.” They had warned Luanda, saying at the same time that the plot was so amateurish that any danger of a successful kadogo putsch could safely be ruled out.156 Luanda had apparently told them to keep quiet and to get ready for the transfer of power.157 On the day before the assassination General Nawesh had ordered the disarmament of a number of units at Camp Tshatshi and Camp Kokolo.158 These were made up of Balubakat soldiers whom he felt the Angolan camp could not trust if things got rough. And then, during the Wednesday 10 a.m. cabinet meeting, which actually decided what had to be done before the president’s death would be announced, Gaëtan Kakudji tried to take over, saying that he was closest to the dead man. It was Eddy Kapend, firmly seconded by Mwenze Kongolo, who put him back in his place and suggested that Joseph Kabila should exercise interim power. The Angolans had apparently suggested earlier that Victor Mpoyo should take over when the president was killed, but Colonel Kapend had told them that this would be both too obvious and probably impossible, since the Balubakat would not tolerate it.159 As a Lunda, Kapend was keenly aware of the effect that such a publicly pro-Angola man as Mpoyo (even if he was a Muluba from Kasai) assuming power would have had on the Balubakat. The whole Katangese secession–civil war–deportation issue would have jumped back to the fore at a time when, with the fall of Pweto, Lubumbashi and the whole of Katanga seemed to be within the reach of the Rwandese.160
The consensus was that Joseph was the safest bet. He was young, he was inexperienced, he was rumored not to be his father’s son, and he had no tribal constituency of his own in the Congo because he had spent practically all of his life abroad. This made him an ideal choice to be used as a front by a pro-Luanda government. So Kakudji was told to sit back and let the young man, who was not even present,161 assume the appearance of power. The “Nokos” (“uncles,” or, more properly, “godfathers”) had made their choice, and t
hey felt confident that it would work smoothly. Actually, they, and the rest of the world, were in for a big surprise.
8
NOT WITH A BANG BUT WITH A WHIMPER: THE WAR’S CONFUSED ENDING (JANUARY 2001–DECEMBER 2002)
Li’l Joseph’s new political dispensation
“Notwithstanding the formal appointment of Joseph Kabila as interim head of state, a Joint Military Command reportedly retains effective control, with Colonel Eddy Kapend in charge, according to intelligence sources.”1 At first not many observers would have granted much of a political future to the young (twenty-nine years old) taciturn son of the dead president. He was constantly watched by Luanda’s men, did not have any real political or tribal constituency of his own, and was closely “protected” by Kapend and his group. In addition, he was caught between the demands of an international community for which his father incarnated everything that was wrong with African politics and those of a close “palace guard” that had decided to carry on with those very policies that had so alienated the dead man from the rest of the world. His chances looked very slim indeed. But the next three months were going to witness an extraordinary political and diplomatic balancing act from which he would emerge as the fragile but triumphant arbiter of the situation.
His first move was to address the Military High Command to pacify them by saying that his intent was to “attain the objective Mzee Laurent-Désiré Kabila had set for them, namely to reconquer all the occupied territories of the country.”2 The next day the word interim had disappeared from his title and Mwenze Kongolo said that he would have to be sworn in. But he added, “We all came to the conclusion that this young man was the one we needed to keep things under control for the time being, until we have a President again.”3 The warning was clear, but Li’l Joseph pretended not to hear.4 Instead he held statesman-like conversations with Presidents dos Santos, Nujoma, and Mugabe, who had come to Kinshasa to attend his father’s state funeral.5 The next day the RCD-G rebels asked Parliament not to recognize him as president.6 On January 25 he was nevertheless sworn in and immediately met with UN Special Envoy Kamel Morjane, U.S. Ambassador Bill Swing, and EU Special Representative Aldo Ajello. Devoid of any national constituency, he had decided to treat the international community as his power base.
On January 26 he made his first big speech as president. Widely followed on Radio Télévision Nationale Congolaise, it was a careful construction designed to please everybody. For the belligerent Nokos there was a pledge to “demand the immediate withdrawal of the aggressor states” and to “defend the country’s unity and territorial integrity.” For the human rights advocates there was a “commitment to respect fundamental rights as well as individual and public freedoms.” For the international community there was a promise to “examine ways and means to revive the Lusaka Accord” and a pledge to “pursue political openness so that all political actors can exercise their rights.” To the business community he promised to “liberalize economic activities, first . . . in the diamond sector and then in the currency exchange sector” and to “propose a new mining code and a new investment code.” To Washington he said, “Without beating about the bush, I recognize there has been mutual misunderstanding with the former administration. The DRC intends to normalize bilateral relations with the new administration.” He thanked his allies, “particularly Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia.”7 He declared himself “firmly resolved to improve cooperation with our main partners of the European Union, especially France . . . and Belgium with which we share historical ties.” He promised to “collaborate closely with the UN, particularly with the Observers’ Mission in the Congo . . . notably with regard to the urgent deployment of its forces on our soil.” And he ended with a peroration: “[I salute] the lofty spirit of sacrifice of our brothers and sisters living in the occupied territories… . My military, political and diplomatic efforts will be directed towards your total liberation.” Awash with all the right buzzwords, it was an artist’s performance,8 and he lost no time capitalizing on the refreshing effect he produced on his listeners. Two days later he met with South African President Thabo Mbeki. Three days later he held a widely publicized meeting of the Military High Command during which he extracted a personal pledge of loyalty from Colonel Kapend.9 But unknown to Kapend he had first met secretly with the leaders of the Balubakat community and told them that their help was required as he wanted to arrest all those who had connived in his father’s death and could be a threat to his position. He told them they did not have much of a choice; if they abandoned him, the Lunda would sooner or later take over with Angolan help, and it would be the post-humous triumph of Moïse Tshombe, Tshisekedi would make a comeback (which meant the triumph of their hostile Baluba cousins from Kasai) or, worse, there would be chaos and the military victory that the “rebels” and their foreign sponsors had been hoping for all along. None of this was very attractive to the Balubakat and the community pledged its support.
The young, not-quite-yet-president then left the country on the first leg of a whirlwind foreign tour.10 On January 31 he was in Paris, where he met President Jacques Chirac and his Africa adviser Michel Dupuch. On February 1, together with President Kagame, he attended the Washington Prayer Breakfast organized by President George W. Bush. The same day he met with Secretary of State Colin Powell,11 and by February 2 he was in New York, where he gave a speech at the United Nations Security Council. In the words of a journalist who attended the event,
When he first appeared, tightly surrounded by his entourage, some people thought he seemed to be a puppet in the hands of his powerful allies. But two and a half hours later, after his speech, UN diplomats were queuing up to shake his hand and congratulate him… . Surprisingly for his age, he had found the right words to put the Security Council members on his side.12
Losing no time, he then met with businessmen, earning accolades from the usually no-nonsense Jane Perlez of the New York Times, who wrote, “The new young leader has made a case for fresh investment in the Congo.”13 The next day he was in Brussels to meet Prime Minister Guy Verhofsadt, who pledged to support him. He then flew back to Kinshasa’s grim world.
There were now 100,000 refugees in the Republic of Congo, fleeing recent fighting between the FAC and the MLC in Equateur; at least four hundred civilians had been killed in Ituri during the past two weeks in clashes around Bunia, and the UPDF had recruited another six hundred Hema child soldiers to be trained in Uganda.14 Reality was quickly reasserting itself. But the young man knew he had to keep the momentum generated by his trip, if only on the symbolic level. On February 5 all the militants of the peace campaign who had been incarcerated on January 10 as one of his father’s last decisions were released, and “P’tit Joseph” declared, “Everything has to be re-started from zero.”15
Still, the iron hand was very much present inside the velvet glove, and arrests of citizens from the Kivus, both civilians and military, continued unabated.16 The young president did not want to acknowledge these domestic developments. Instead, he met with Nelson Mandela, who obligingly declared himself “very impressed”17 with his young host, and then flew to Lusaka to attend the latest summit trying to revive the ailing Agreement. This earned him renewed diplomatically useful kudos, particularly since Kagame, still sulking from his cold-shouldering in Washington, had declined to come. Then, as Joseph flew home, there was another wave of arrests on February 18, unconnected with the Kivus but very much connected with the conspiracy to kill his father: Gen. Yav Nawesh, Colonel Mabila (commander of FAC forces in Mbandaka), the late president’s security adviser Nono Lutula, the former ANR director George Leta Mangassa, and three superior officers. The Angolans got nervous and brought eight hundred men from Luanda to reinforce Dolisie in the neighboring Republic of Congo. Six days later the president moved in for the kill and arrested Colonel Kapend himself.
For four days Luanda maintained a stunned silence before it finally acknowledged the situation. When it did, it was to sullenly accept what had happene
d. The key reason was Angola’s nervousness concerning the military situation. Bemba was still extremely reluctant to accept any kind of talks, in spite of Ugandan efforts.18 This was because UNITA had dispatched six hundred men to Bangui, complete with artillery and transmission equipment, to bolster the MLC forces, which still had Kinshasa in their sights.19 This made dos Santos quite wary of any major upheaval in the Congo. But just to be on the safe side, Joseph Kabila had closely surrounded himself with a Zimbabwean bodyguard, directly under the orders of the ZDF overall commander in the DRC, Gen. Amos Chingombe.20 As overthrowing the young upstart president seemed likely to create more problems than it would solve, dos Santos swallowed his pride. After all, he had achieved what he wanted, even if by other channels than those he had planned to use.21
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