From The Sunday Nation (Kenya), 22 April

The Congo Story: From Lumumba to Mzee Kabila

Kinshasa - On a chilly night on January 17, 1961, the formerly elected prime minister of Congo, Patrice Lumumba, and two of his former ministers, were dragged from their holding cells to a tree. On that fateful day in the copper rich district of Katanga, a Belgian officer, acting on orders from Kinshasa, gave an order and Lumumba was sprayed with bullets. Exactly 40 years later, on January 16, 2001, Laurent Desire Kabila, a man from Katanga, was in Kinshasa's Marble Palace preparing to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Lumumba's death. Suddenly, one of his body guards turned and, without speaking, sprayed him with bullets.

As Kabila fell, he gave pause to a movement of Lumumbaism which he had resurrected in his march from his Katanga homeland to drive the technocrat Mobutu SeseSeko from Kinshasa. To many Congolese, Kabila's death was a repeat of an old-age colonial legacy and as in Lumumba's death, they are pointing accusing fingers at the Americans and Belgians. When Sunday Nation visited the Marble Palace, Angolan soldiers stood outside the massive gates of what used to be Mobutu's home and the place where Kabila was killed. The parallels between Lumumba and Kabila are clear to the teary-eyed Congolese. With the death of Laurent Kabila, Uganda and Rwanda have started pulling their troops out of Congo and many see this as evidence that the war was not by rebels fighting Kabila but of super powers who are afraid that given a chance, Congo has the potential of becoming one of the richest and most powerful nations in the world.

The war in Congo has not been a war between Laurent Kabila and rebels hoping to overthrow the government. Sunday Nation has established that there isn't much of what one can call rebels. This has been a war between the invading forces of Rwanda and Uganda against Congo and its mineral-benefiting allies of Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia. It is also a war in which it is believed the Americans have invested nearly US$5 million in supply of weapons and assistance to those opposed to Congo. The rebels said to have been fighting Kabila were small and poorly organised and without the support of Uganda and Rwanda would have been unable to capture any land. Intelligence sources have confirmed to the Sunday Nation that Uganda and Rwanda picked a few Congolese and asked them to front as rebels.

This, the sources argue, is the reason the main rebel factions, namely the Congolose Rally for Democracy (RCD led by Prof. Wamba dia Wamba, and the Congolese Liberation Front led by Jean Pierre Bemba, Mbusa Nyamwisi and Ateenyi Tibasiima, are uneasy with the withdrawal of Ugandan and Rwandan troops and are keen for dialogue with the new government in Kinshasa.

The instability in Congo has partly been instigated by Congo's yet untapped mineral wealth that even the Mafia now want to control. The fighting has been in the rich mineral regions of Eastern Congo. Despite the nearly abject poverty of its people, Congo is so rich in mineral wealth that it has virtually all known rich minerals found in the world. Large deposits of gold, copper, cobalt, diamonds and petroleum oil still remain untapped. The country's rivers provide a source of hydroelectric power giving Congo the capacity to light up all of Africa. Thousands of kilometres of forests have ample supply of wood that rivals that of the fast-depleting forests of the Amazon. At the University of Kinshasa, Congo has Africa's only nuclear reactor and research centre since the country also has uranium deposits. The American atomic bombs that were dropped on the Japanese islands of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in the Second World War used uranium mined in the Congo.

Congo's richness is also its curse. Everyone wants to benefit at the expense of the Congolese. After years of enriching Belgium, a free Congo attempted to define a system that would share its mineral wealth with its own people. This, Lumumba saw, could only be achieved by minimising the influence of the West in the Congo and by forming friendships with communist-leaning systems. This is an idea that was revived by the late Kabila. Lumumba's murder 40 years ago was the finale of a long drawn out campaign against African leaders who questioned the influence of Western nations and adopted communism as a way of rule. According to the US News and World Report, fearing Lumumba's ideas of African self-reliance and an African brand of communism, the American Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, had in 1960 dispatched an agent to assassinate Lumumba. The agent named Sidney Gottlieb, had arrived in Congo with a toothbrush for Lumumba. The toothbrush was laced with poison.

The Belgians, however, beat the CIA in assassinating the popular Lumumba who, a week before he was killed, wrote to his wife, "I prefer to die with my head unbowed, my faith unshakable, and with profound trust in the destiny of my country." He was 35. New evidence has shown that getting rid of Lumumba and his communist ideas was so important that the Belgian Police commissioner in charge of the operation, Gerard Soete, used a hacksaw to cut up Lumumba's body and dissolved it in sulphuric acid. There was to be no martyr left to bury. Last year, Soete retold his involvement in Lumumba's death and on Belgian national television displayed two of Lumumba's teeth, which he claimed he had saved as mementos.

Observers in Congo speculate that Kabila's body must also have been heavily destroyed because no one was allowed to view it. Conspiracy theories that it is not Kabila buried on the grounds of the National Palace are circulating in Kinshasa. This adds to the mystique surrounding his death and the involvement of foreigners. "The Americans killed him," a Congolese journalist told the Sunday Nation. "They offered him money and he told them no, not now, and they knew they could not control him, so they killed him." "It was the Belgians, always the Belgians," a woman at Kinshasa's market said. Another blamed the Lebanese because after Kabila's death, 11 of them were shot dead by security forces and were accused of engineering the assassination.

These may just be expected conspiracy explanations of the murder but they underscore the belief of many in Congo - Mzee Kabila was killed because he wanted the best for his people. Though how good he was to his people is questionable, billboards bearing his photo and declaring him a national leader and martyr are in nearly every corner of Kinshasa. People still talk of him as the man who managed to get rid of Mobutu and who resurrected Lumumba's "profound trust in the destiny of" Congo. For starters, after taking power, Kabila got rid of the name Zaire and restored the popular name of Congo. To differentiate it from the Republic of Congo, whose capital Brazzaville can be seen across the Congo river from Kinshasa, he added Democratic to the name. Mobutu's yellow and green flag with an image of a burning flame was replaced by a blue flag. The new flag has one large star in the middle symbolising the power base of Kinshasa province, and six other stars symbolising the original six provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

After taking control, Kabila replaced almost all government officials with Kiswahili-speaking people from the East, an area that had been sidelined by Mobutu. Now, it is not French nor Lingala that is heard in the corridors of power in Kinshasa but Congolese Kiswahili. Even the new leader, Joseph Kabila is fluent in Kiswahili and English but has difficulties with Lingala and French. After taking power, Kabila appeared driven to get rid of many of Mobutu's systems but was unable to sever the tentacles that had been siphoning minerals from Congo. Diplomatic sources point out that he was so obsessed with Congo being independent that he became unreasonable and blind to the fact that Congo was a major player in international politics. He became suspicious of many and turned his friends, Museveni and Kagame, into his bitter enemies.

After taking power, he continued signing questionable mining deals with American and European companies. A recent report by the World Policy Institute shows that a deal with American Mineral Fields is said to have been a reward to the company for assisting in the days leading to ousting of Mobutu. Eastern Europe Mafia groups are taking part in the mining industry in Congo and sources told the Sunday Nation that they are so powerful that they will not be easy to contain. It is also said that Zimbabwe has been benefiting from illegal mining of Congo's diamonds and that President Robert Mugabe is highly dependent on the money he is getting from Congo. The dependency is so strong that sources point out that if it was not for Congo's minerals, Mugabe's government would fold.

Angola, like Congo has rich deposits of oil but has had a love-hate relationship with Congo. In March 1977, for example, rebels fighting Mobutu marched in from Angola and invaded the Shaba region, taking control of a large region and nearly making it to the copper mining town of Kolwezi. It is not yet clear to the Sunday Nation how much Namibia is benefiting from siding with Congo but there is ample evidence that the military assistance Kabila got was not for free.

From The Zimbabwe Standard, 22 April

Terror returns to Muzarabani

Nine families supporting the MDC in Muzarabani had their homesteads destroyed by Zanu PF supporters over the Independence holiday, as war veterans continue with their orgy of terror in rural areas. The Standard on Friday spoke to some of the affected families who are now housed at the MDC headquarters at Robinson House in Harare. The families narrated their ordeal at the hands of war veterans and ruling party supporters who burnt their granaries, huts and raided livestock and food.

Wellington Rwaninga of Kairezi Village, the district chairman for MDC, said his homestead was destroyed last week by scores Zanu PF supporters, comprising war veterans and youths who raided his family on Wednesday afternoon. The attackers took everything they could get hold of, including his goats. Rwaninga said the Zanu PF supporters were led by a war veteran called Mujambajecha. "They took us by surprise as I was relaxing with my family. They force-marched us out of houses, before burning down my four houses. I managed to escape the raid and slept the whole night in the bushes. My family was harassed and was asked leave the village and go and stay with people who are sympathising with the MDC. "I have lost everything which I have worked for the past 20 years," he said. Rwaninga told The Standard that Zanu PF supporters had set up bases at Chandereka and Chimoi business centres. He said the war vets were forcing people to attend pungwes.

James Chihoto, another victim who suffered the same fate as Rwaninga, said his family was forced out of their homes and denied permission to harvest their crops, which he said were looted by the Zanu PF youths. "These people are terrorising us. We are now living in a war zone. Everyone is no longer free, especially families who are known to be staunch members of the MDC. We have been living in hell since the war veterans launched their campaign in January. The only crime we have committed is of supporting MDC," he added. He said the war veterans had declared the constituency a no go area for the opposition, with each family in the constituency being asked to report their visitors to the war veterans leadership because any visitor is being viewed with suspicion

Another youth member, Ignatius Musora, told The Standard how he was brutally beaten and left for dead by the war veterans after he had refused to attend one of the night rallies over the Easter holiday. "They raided my home in the night and broke down my door and dragged me to the outside of the hut where they beat me with logs. They left me lying on the ground thinking that I was dead. I managed to struggled to walk to our neighbour’s home who provided me with shelter for the night. "He then helped me with bus fare to Harare as my savings were destroyed during the raid. I am now worried about my family. I don’t know what has happened to them since I left last week," he said. Muzarabani is in Mashonaland Central Province, a stronghold for Zanu PF where five deaths related to political violence occurred last year in the run up to the general election. Norbert Nzinzi of Zanu PF defeated MDC candidate, Timothy Mukwenge, in the parliamentary elections.

From The Sunday Independent (SA), 22 April

Mugabe to seize slain widow's farm

Harare - President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has begun moves to seize the farm of a 72-year-old widow, scarcely two months after suspected state agents gunned her down in a hail of automatic fire. Silverstream farm in the Nyamandlovu district, about 80km north of the western city of Bulawayo, was among 138 farms listed in the government gazette on Friday for "compulsory acquisition" by the state, under the name of Alfred Olds. Gloria, his late wife, was shot dead at dawn in early March. She was found dead with 15 bullets in her body, lying inside the gate of her homestead. Her son, Martin, was murdered a year ago on his nearby farm in an independence day raid by Mugabe's war veterans and members of his notorious secret police, eyewitnesses said. Her other son, David, who also farms in the area, could not be contacted, but friends of the family expressed dismay. "It's shocking that the government is rushing to grab Gloria's farm so soon," said one, who asked not to be named. They said the family would challenge the proposed seizure in court.

Last Wednesday, the anniversary of Martin's death, mobs of war veterans marched onto his deserted farm and marked out properties for themselves, the independent Daily News reported yesterday. Six men are in custody after being arrested last month in connection with Gloria Olds' murder. The alleged killer, war veteran Howard Ncube, is also accused of abducting an official of the opposition MDC. The official is believed to be dead. Mugabe has ignored legislation since February last year when mobs of veterans began their campaign of occupation of white farms. "We have resolved to go ahead and allocate land on all gazetted properties," Joseph Made, the lands minister, said this week. The government has targeted 3 000 white-owned farms, but Made said more land would be seized if that proved inadequate. Western governments have dismissed his land reform programme as a lawless and racist landgrab that is destroying Zimbabwe's economy.