consequence of a political problem ; it could be solved peacefully through negotiations. No

military intervention alone will resolve it.

It is sad to note that conflicts in our country, now and in the past, divide African leaders. If the perspective of the basic interests of congolese people, rather than those of an individual leader, were to guide African leaders' consideration of the conflict, unity of perspective on the conflict would be almost inevitable. Leaders of Africa must always keep in mind the perspective of African people's basic interests while considering any conflict which arises on

the continent. The principal cause of rebellions >has always been the growing gap -- since

independencebetween leaders and the large masses of the people.

We have taken up arms, in Congo, because all the channels through which frank and

constructive dialogue between leaders and oppositions could take place, were closed. In

few months of Kabila in power, repression set in and kept growing. Indications of State

terrorism became obvious. Lives of dissidents became threatened daily. Through military

tribunal justice, the number of people shot had reached about 1 00 or so. We have taken up

arms to save lives and to prevent what was looming on the horizon as a national catastrophe from actually occuring. We have to reduce, weaken or completely remove obstacles which have always made it impossible for Congolese to freely come together around a round table conference, reconcile themselves, and deeply ponder on the problems they confront since independence, to come up with durable solutions.

That is to say, to reactivate the process of democratization, initiated in 1990, and

blocked by Mobutu for 7 years - after it had reached its apoglse with the 1992 national conference (CNS). Mr Kabila, once in power, failed to re-activate the process, killing,

thus, the great hope generated by the overthrow of Mobutu's regime.

As it is well known, the first war of liberation, 1996-1997, in which most countries of the sub-region actively participated, was motivated by two basic facts. Firstly Mobutu continued to frustrate the people's want for democratization. He opposed the implementation of the CNS's decisions. To stay in power, for power's sake without accountability to the majority of the Congolese people, he resorted to geopolitics, a politics of exclusion, of divide and rule of transforming differences into sources of discriminations. He incited people to tribal hatred and ethnic cleansing in Shaba, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces especially. He went as far as approving the repeal of the nationality citizenship right of Rwandan speaking Congolese. These were expelled and became refugees in Rwanda. They had, eventually, to fight their way back to their country, Congo. This led, partly to the armed uprising in 1996. Secondly, Mobutu exploited the consequences of the Rwandese genocide of 1994. In a close alignment with France (0peration Turquoise), he supported ex-FAR elements and the genocidaire

interahamwe militia to stage, using the Congo, a come back to power in Rwanda. Some regugee camps became military training camps. This created a major threat to peace and security in post-genocide Rwanda. Mobutu continued also supporting Savimbi's UNITA, keeping the civil war in Angola alive thereby posing a major threat to the return to peace and security in Angola. He opened his country to opposition groups threatening peace and stability of other neighbouring countries. In brief, Mobutu continued to be a major factor of

destabilization of the sub-region. The overthrow of Mobutu's regime, by the Congolese people led by AFDL and the States of the sub-region, generated, thus, tremendous hope for the Congolese resumption of the process of democratization and for the return of peace and security in the sub-region. Mr Kabila was seen as the bearer and the realizer of that

hope.

Once in power, Mr. Kabila failed to fulfill that hope and instead, he betrayed it. He expressed no desire to open up, even just for consultation, to other political formations. He used his veto right to frustrate collective leadership within the AFDL and ended up removing from ruling positions his colleagues in the AFDL leadership. The AFDL had no more control on his increasingly solitary exercise of power. He failed to take up, as soon as possible, the nationality citizenship question, often exploited by political manipulators to generate ethnic conflicts in eastern Congo. He did nothing significant to secure the borders with Rwanda and Uganda ; he instead left areas around there free for use by ex-Far elements, lnterahamwe militia and neighbouring Uganda' s armed opposition groups.

The threat to peace and security in the area remained alive. He resorted, increasingly, to

double talk type of politics-using even corruption to influence, for his own benefit, even the neighbouring states. Later on he linked up with UNITA through a share associationship in a diamond concession. Not only genocidaire forces of the ex-FAR and lnterahamwe militia were allowed to continue organizing themselves and continuing to threaten Rwanda's peace and security, by September 1997, according to captured lntarahamwe, these were being recruited and trained to kill Congolese Tutsis. They were also promised to return to Rwanda, after the war, to destabilize it. By the beginnning of the war, it was reported that 5000 lnterahamwe militia were being given military training in Kamina. They constitute an important element of Kabifa's fighting forces. It is clear that Kabila was succumbing to Mobutu's legacy.

After few months in power, Mr.Kabila showed his true colours desire for absolute power,

desire to get rich quickly (even by dubious means -- irregular contracts) and desire to

eliminate real or presumed political adversaries. He kept bundles of cash money in his house or office. He deeply despised people, like President Museveni, who offered advice he did not like. Being less sophisticated than Mobutu, Kabiia's Mobutist exercice of power became increasingly chaotic.

This has been clearly felt, inside as well as outside the country ; he missed appointments

with Heads of state, failed to keep promises he made and did not honour the payment of contracted debts.

Needless to say that salaries of civil servants, teachers and even soldiers were precariously handled. He surrounded himself with internationally known crooks with an insatiable thirst for money -such as Minister of State Mpoyo, etc. It is a known fact Mr. Kabila asked for 30% commission on contracts he signed, where the late President Mobutu would have settled for 1 0 %. The management of ill acquired property dossier (prepared by the CNS on mobutist dignitaries) became an important occasion for Kabilist dignitaries to enrich themselves. Detained Mobutist dignitaries were released after a payment of money whose destination can only be guessed.

The RCD is being confronted, in the liberated area with many unpaid debts left by AFDL officials during the first war of liberation.

To avoid being controlled by people who brought him to power, Mr Kabila gradually distanced himself from sub-regional leaders whose advice he despised. He removed, one

after another, the colleagues with whom he created and led the AFDL. Andre KISASE NGANDU died miraculously during the war of liberation. MASASU NINDAGA was arrested and is still in jail. Deogratias BUGERA was replaced as General Secretary of the AFDL by Kabila's nephew, Vincent Mutomb Tshibal. Mr Kabila resorted to tribalization, clientelization and nepotization of the State apparatuses.

Most important positions of decision-making in the government, the national army, the national security services, the central Bank and the AFDL were given to family, clan, old buddies (of the youth years or the maquis) or his Baluba Katangese tribe members. No consideration of competence was upheld.

Mobutu had militarily well trained sons; he never nominated his son to the postion of commander of armed forces. As did Mr Kabila with his (26 or 27 year old) son Joseph Kabila

who had only 2 months of military training in China. Mr Kabila was following Mobutu in

organizing the army as a personal army. He, thus, antagonized nonKatangese soldiers who

brought him to power - the so-called (<Kadogos)> especially. He formed a tribal militia. Among the newly recruited soldiers, about 95 % were Katangese drawn principally

from his Manono zone.

Mr Kabiia's dislike of democracy led him to organize a face saving process of

democratization with the creation of a constitutional commission whose draft constitution gives unlimited powers to the President. Even the consituent Assembly was to be composed by nomination. This dislike is recently expressed in his decision to organize rushed elections even before the current war is over.

Mr Kabila aligned himself with Kyungu wa Kumwanza's UFERI (Union des Federalistes

lndependants). As a governor of Shaba, (now Katanga), in the 1990's, Kyungu wa Kumwanza

undertook, in line with Mobutu's geopolitics, to incite Katangese to tribal hatred and

ethnic cleansing of Luba-Kasaians residing in Katanga. Many Baluba died in this process, in

Katanga and on their way to Kasai. The CNS demanded that the governor be arrested and

brought to trial as a genocidaire criminal. He was saved only because of being a Mobutu's

protege. This was a revealing alliance.

Katangese around Mr. Kabila were among the most opposed to the Tutsis in the State seen

as their political adversaries. The campaign inciting people to hate Tutsis and their allies took form around the struggle for power opposing Katangese elements to Tutsis elements. This campaign quickly developed into an incitement to ethnic cleansing of Banyamulenge and other Tutsis in general.

These were accused of being the cause of problems in Congo and later on decreed as

foreigners and expelled from the couuntry-following Mobutu's geopolitical approach. The experienced JUFERI militants must have played an important role in this campaign. It is on this basis of antagonism against Tutsis that lnterahamwe militia, ex-Far elements and other extremist Hutu became Kabiia's group's objective allies. And the adoption by Kabilists, of the threat of the Hima Empire ideology - the ideological justification of the extremist Hutu's pratices of the elimination of Tutsis as mortal enemies, had to follow. This became the

instrument of mobilisation of the ex-FAR and lntarahamwe militia against Congolese Tutsis.

That some Burundian extremist Hutu, around FDD, felt sollicited by the campaign is a

matter of course. What is strange is that, for other interests, Presidents Mugabe and Nujoma

took the ideology as a factual threat to their countries to justify their military backing of

Mr. Kabila.

Between aprif and june 1998, in the circles of kadogos, the need to get rid of Mr. Kabila was

taking shape -as suggestions for change were having no effect. Rumors of an incoming coup

d'Etat, attributed to the Tutsis military group -including the Rwandese military

assistants group- started circulating. Mr. Kabila, on the basis of those rumors, acted in

a way which triggered off the war. The rwandese military assistants were expelled in

a very humiliating way- accusing them of all kinds of incredible things. They had come to

Congo with their arms and were forced to leave without them.This gave material basis to the

ideological campaign, orchestrated in the media, inciting Congolese to hate and kill

Tutsis, especially after the rebellion began.

The witch-hunting of Tutsis, followed and took a delirating form. Even embassies were not

spared from the search of hiding Tutsis.

Africans and African-Americans resembling what is believed to be Tutsi morphology, suffered from this Tusti Hunting. Non-Tutsis Congolese exhibiting Tutsis features were not spared either.

Indeed, the rebellion was cooking for some time inside the army -- affecting mostly 3000

Congolese soldiers (Kadogos) who felt betrayed by President Kabila. They felt their lives

threatened in their very marginalization. The Banyamulenge soldiers constituted about 111 th

of this group. With the impact of the anti-Tutsis compaign, they felt most vulnerable and most determined to defend themselves.

After the expulsion and departure of the Rwandese military assistants, the lives of

Congolese Tutsis were highly threatened. Many of them had to run away or went in to hiding.

Those who stayed and could not hide were arrested and eventually killed.

Even Tutsis in the prison of Makala were assassinated. At camp Kokolo, in Kinshasa, it

is now known that 500 Tutsis were executed. About 100 unarmed young Tutsi, in military

training in Kamina, were also assassinated. It became clear that genocide of Congolese Tutsis

Banyamulenge and others was underway. Given that turn of events, it was necessary to

fight against Kabila's regime and get the Tutsi to the liberated zone for their own

protection. The rebellion which started in Kinshasa ( the Tshatshi camp take over ) had

to organize itself very quickly and more freely in Goma.

But, at the same time, it was necessary to get to Kinshasa as quickly as possible to rescue

isolated Kadogos still fighting without any possible reinforcements. Goma was the

headquarter of the 10 th Brigade- the largest one of the national army - 20.000 soldiers.

This brigade, led by commandant Jean-Pierre Ondekane (native of Equateur province) joined

the rebellion and made a public statement on August 2nd 1 1998. It became the core of the

rebelling army.

After just few weeks of war, the extent of the implementation of the genocide plan was

revealed by what was encountered in the liberated cities of Kalemie, Kisangani as well as Banyamulenge's locality of Vyura. Battalion commanders, who had been given specific

directives to kill Tutsis and who had defected to the side of the rebellion, were denouncing

those genocide directives.

Kabila tried to confuse the international community by failing to recognize the

existence of the military rebellion he was confronting on the battlefield. He denied

existence of any internal problem which might have caused the armed opposition. He tried to

hide the fact that he was becoming a clientelist terrorist dictator ruling by

repression and organizing a new destabilization of the sub-region. He manipulated, to the fullest, the incident of the expulsion of the Rwandese military assistants to accuse Uganda and Rwanda of military aggression. He declared war on Uganda and Rwanda without daring to directly carry out the threat.

The campaign against Rwanda, Uganda and Congolese Tutsis, well fed by lies and

half-truths, electrified unemployed lumpenproletariat of Kinshasa who got certainly some money for it. A racist and xenophobic nationalism emerged. The real trajectory of events gave rise, in people's minds, to mythologies. No one seemed to remember the history of the 1994 genocide and its consequences in Congo which eventually had given rise to the convergence of forces, in the sub-region, leading to the overthrow of Mobutu.

The concern for peace and security - which, among other things, led to the agreement

between, especially along the borders, with Uganda and Rwanda for the latter to keep 2

battalions inside Congo - and the continuous presence of lnterahamwe militia and ex-FAR

elements along the borders with Rwanda were forgotten.

The international community should remember that after 1994 genocide, the question of

peace and security is for Rwanda -if not the African Great Lakes region in general a matter

of life and death. It should be understood that Rwanda and Uganda would not just sit by

while their peace and security are greatly threatened . That they have contained themselves must be applauded and respected.

The extremist Hutu ideology of the "Hima Empire Peril" , initially carved by G.

Kayibanda, during his time, was used as a theory to explain the presumed aggression. Kayibanda was not even thinking of Uganda at all; only of the possibility of a Tutsi

federation of Rwanda and Burundi seen as a threat to the Hutu's dream of the Empire of

the Sun. Orthodox marxists have just replaced the "Hima Empire Peril" with US imperialism to sing the following song : "Congolese people should not rebel against Kabiia's terrorist

and genocidaire politics because they would be just serving US imperialism - which is

incarnated by Uganda and Rwanda !". The qualitative element introduced. by the shift from the 3 Id World War of the so-called "Cold War" and the current neo-liberalist war using

financial bombs as the newest weapons -according to subcommandante marcos-is not grasped. Nobody seems to be shocked by the idea of the " extremist Hutu empire peril "

organized on the basis of the genocide of the Tutsi -not even Presidents Mugabe and Nujoma.

In any case, the "Hima Empire" ideology is used, in the ideological struggles, in

struggles for or against genuine democracy to hide the real issues of the exercise of power.

Academic researchers should study and explain why racist or ethnicist ideologies dominate

the ideological struggles in the African Great Lakes sub-region.

For- mercantilist reasons essentially, Zimbabwe and Namibia rushed to the rescue of

President Kabila. For reasons of keeping a hegemonic presence in the sub-region as a way of dealing with her civil war, Angola followed suit. They all claimed to be intervening on Mr. Kabiia's government's side in the name of SADC -- which includes countries which

intervened to overthrow Mobutu for the restoration of peace and security in the

sub-region and for the reactivation of the democratization process in the DRC. They now

intervened against the Congolese people's interests for democracy in favor of their

narrow national interests, personal ego tripping, corrupting needs and for the self-proclaimed President Kabila to remain in power-even if on the basis of genocide of Congolese Tutsis.

Zimbabwe suppplied military equipment and military uniforms to Kabila's government worth

200 million US dollars. Mugabe's brother or nephew has important commercial interests in

the DRC. Zimbabwe also benefits from lnga's power. It also had been given promises of

shares in mineral concessions. We have recently learned that, through a South African company, Kabila's government has given shares to Presidents Mugabe and Nujoma. More

particularly, through a Greek businessman close to Namibian authorities, mineral

exploitation rights in Kolwezi have been given to Namibians. In the areas they control,

Angolans have been behaving as conquerors.

Their soldiers went looting, raping women and destroying buildings(e.g. in Kitona). Their

tanks rolled on children in Kitona. It is rumored that Angola has been pumping oil in Moanda for themselves. They refuse free entry to the controlled areas to Kabila's officials. Angola and Zimbabwean planes bombed civilian areas in Masina and Kingasani (in Kinshasa)

and Kalemie. It is not for the benefit of the Congolese people that those countries

intervened militadly in our country. In eastern Congo, claimed to have been subject of

aggression, no trace of raping of women could be found. It is the allies of Kabila-the

Interahamwe, etc-who are responsible of massacre of people. We have been told that

Kabila's government had up to 150.000 soldiers. These and those from Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe are not enough. Sudanese, Chadians, ldi Amin Dada's partisans, the Lord.

Resistance Movement partisans, the FDD partisans have been also brought in.

Genocidaire lnterahamwe militia (recruited even from outside Congo), ex-Far elements and

exiled mobutist DSP elements have been mobilized. With the exception of the last

group, the first two, as in the case of Mobutu's forces in the first liberation war, are the most active elements of Kabila's forces. Rushly recruited and trained young Congolese, 12-17 years old, are proving useless in the battle front. It is a most shameful covered way of massacring the Congolese youth organized by Kabila. Congolese soldiers of Kabila are not fighting at all;

they are not motivated to fight. Why should they fight, just to keep the unreliable

terrorist dictator in power ?

The military victory of Kabila inspires no motivation. He has, so far, had no vision, no

consistent policy and has simply behaved as an incompetent Mobutu. In the main Kabiia's war

is, thus, being fought by others. Most often, when our forces meet Kabiia's forces on the

battlefield, Congolese soldiers disorderly run away leaving their weapons behind. We have

captured ldi Amin Dada's partisans who said that they had only 3 days of military

training. This is absolutely irresponsible.

The RCD armed opposition holds on and will fight on until .Kabila is removed. The armed

rebellion is right against all the reactionaries who came to rescue those who incarnate dictatorial legacy and fascist terrorism. Such a realization also motivates the rebel forces. Like what happened in Liberia with ECOWAS military intervention, initially to prevent Charles Taylo@s rebellion to win but ended up crowning him President after 7 years of war of destruction of the country, the RCD will defy all the foreign military interventions coming to impose on us a leader who has disqualified himself to rule.

He has violently divided the Congolese nation instead of guaranteeing its unity. Angolan,

Zimbabwean and Namibian authories, now aligned to fundamentalist Sudanese and genocidaire lnterahamwe militia, should meditate on the Liberian experience.

Moreover, the RCD does not want to see Congolese compatriots continuing to die and

national resources being wasted. We think that it is possible to force Kabila's government to come to negotiations to find a durable solution to the fundamentally political problem confronted by the Congolese people: Mobutist dictatorship legacy aggravated by Mr. Kabila. The RCD has been affirming their willingness to meet Mr. Kabila to discuss all the basic problems preventing the Congolese people from achieving the construction of a democratic State . Those are the real causes of the war. Mr. Kabila remains opposed to the idea and wants to win military victory by all means possible. He is still looking for more troops from other African countries and raising funds to actively pursue the war to victory.

Kabila's military victory will not bring a durable solution to the Congolese problem.

Instead, it will aggravate it and bring about new ones. A regime that wins victory on the

basis of an organized physical elimination of one part of the Congolese, a brutal repression

of political adversaries and an alignment with all the most reactionary anti-democratic

forces in the subregion will not be able to reconcile the Congolese among themselves and

have them come together around a table conference to deal with the political problem

of lack of democracy and come up with a durable solution -- the democratic State. Such

a regime will lack credibility and the necessary trust of all the Congolese and all the neighbouring countries. The exclusivist methods used to deal with political

adversaries -- Tutsis and their allies - will certainly be used again to deal with new

adversaries. Another ethnic group might be singled out as the cause of all the problems

of the DRC. Military victory will thus reinforce the fascist character of the regime not the resumption of democratization. It is the military defeat of Kabila which provides hope for reconciliation and democratization.

Mr. Kabila should not be allowed to win militarily.

What the RCD is interested in is not military victory for military victory's sake. The RCD

wants to win a political victory -- credible transition to democracy. If this can be

achieved through negociations as well, we go for these. But, in any case, the RCD will not

permit Kabila to win a military victory. The RCD will fight on up to victory if Kabila

refuses to come to negotiations.

All the pressure must be put on Mr. Kabila to come to his senses and join the RCD in direct

negotiations. He has disqualified himself as head of state failing to guarantee national

unity and instead calling for the extermination of a part of the nation -Congolese Tutsis. The RCD demands that he be brought to the international tribunal to be tried for his crime against humanity. Nevertheless, the RCD still wants direct negotiations with his government as a

necessary step to spare lives and to start the process of reconciliation of the now divided

Congolese Nation. We appeal to the international community to persuade Mr. Kabila's government to stop killings and accept direct negotiations with the RCD.

The RCD is organized on the basis of 4 principles:

1) openness to all democratic political formations and civic organizations i.e, the RCD is against all forms of politics of exclusion - including geopolitics;

2) collective leadership as a way of preventing the possible rise of a dictator from within the RCD -- as did happen in the AFDL with Kabila;

3) representation (regional, gender, oppressed minorities) as a necessary element for

participatory democracy;

4) and the RCD minimal political program which takes up major demands of the majority of the Congolese people is the rallying motive force.

We do insist also, in the RCD, for an ethic of truth and humility in our actions and

relationships with people.

Geopolitics has led to ethnic cleansing under Mobutu (1990's) and now under Kabila. Not only people must circulate freely throughout the whole country, they must also be free to

establish themselves anywhere in the country.

Nothing fundamental divides the working people of Congo.

The question of political leadership of the movement has been the key element explaining

the failures of past political movements for the Congolese collective emancipation since

the times of Patrice E. Lumumba. Lack. Of clarity on the ideas guiding the movement, wrong profiles of the leaders of the movement and absence of mechanism of control of leaders

by the led were the core of the reasons of failures . In the RCD, we believe that correct

practice of collective leadership is an important step in the direction of finding a

solution to the problem of political leadership. For a long time, especially with Mobutu, political leadership was basically controlled from the outside.

Representation (all forms) must be substantive and not just decorative: competent people to

represent competently people of the region, oppressed minorities and women. One to a

number of factors, such as geographical limits of area under the RCD control, this principle is yet to be satisfactorily implemented.

Military rebellion took shape before the creation of the RCD. The articulation of the

military and the political dimensions into a coherent and well integrated politico-military

movement has yet to be achieved. The fact that matters of war logistics dominated the RCD

concerns, at the expense of fundamental issues of politics, was an expression of that

relative inarticulation . One consequence of this has been the fact that bureaucratic

routine of problem-solving of the so-called urgent matters of logistics has taken over political leadership. Necessary meeting of the leading organs of the RCD kept being

postponed. Until now, there is no global program of action outlining the tasks of each department as required by the 3 agreed upon priorities :

1) support to the army to conduct the war;

2) governance of the liberated territory and continuation of the building of the RCD as a movement. Without such a program, the RCD has lacked clarity on ideas guiding the movement and has functioned under the banner of "crisis management"

Tendencies of arbitrary decision-making (with no proper consultation), putting aside

suitable procedure required by collective leadership, have resurfaced. For example, people have gone on trips without these having been thoroughly discussed for their relevance, modalities, budget requirements and expected results. The failure of the council

Directoire) to act correctly explains the lack of follow-up on many decisions. The process of building the RCD as a movement has been retarded. As documents, such as the internal bylaws, have still to be produced, functions of each RCD organ remain vaguely specified . Such an environment may be conducive to the emergence of another dictator.

The above limitations are crucially important.

The important thing is that they have been identified and steps have been taken to correct them. Some clarity is being achieved on ideals that must guide the RCD, required profiles of the RCD leaders and how to reinforce collective leadership. With this clarity, we believe, the RCD will lead the Congolese people to victory. Qui vivra verra.

Ernest WAMBA dia WAMBA

President

RCD

Karl Mwepu