The Zimbabwean Government has started clamping down on cultural protests ahead of the 2002 presidential election.
The area of most concern for the state is music since this reaches a mass audience.
Most people think Oliver Mtukudzi's hit song "Wasakara" refers to politicians clinging to power. When songs like this are played, Zimbabwean audiences have taken to chanting opposition slogans and waving red cards, indicating it is time for Mugabe to go.
Some leading performers have decided to
go abroad to escape harassment. The most prominent of these is the singer Thomas
Mapfumo.
Mapfumo recently set up a second home in the United States because he felt it
was no longer safe for him and his family in Zimbabwe.
Comedian gagged
The country's top stand-up comic, Edgar Langeveldt, also decided recently to
travel and work outside Zimbabwe following political pressure. His jaw was
broken last year by an attacker who claimed to work for the state.
More recently a government MP walked out of a performance Langeveldt was
giving at a beauty pageant. The next day four armed men stormed the office of
the organiser and threatened to close the annual event down.
"I don't want to die for comedy," says Edgar. "I thought to myself - maybe
it's time I took a holiday, let everybody cool down!"
Safer at home
Many artists say they're close to going abroad but find it hard to leave
their home country. Singer Chiwoniso Maraire says she does not feel in any
physical danger at present. But if it ever came to that she would rather be in
danger in her home country than in a foreign land.
"First I would have to start answering that I'm an African; then I would have
to start answering that I'm an African woman; and then I'd have to start
answering why I was singing against that particular government."
A song by Chiwoniso was banned on state-controlled radio last year. Now it is
being played again - that is how contradictory and unpredictable the state's
response to cultural resistance can be at times.
In this atmosphere of uncertainty, artists can only guess at the limits of
the government's tolerance. That is why some feel it's easier to leave home, at
least for a while.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- Zimbabwe's ruling party swept to victory in a special election marred by political violence and intimidation, state radio reported late Monday.
The radio, reporting the results in southeast Zimbabwe's remote and mountainous Bikita district, said Claudius Makova had received 12,999 votes to 7,001 for opposition candidate Bonnie Pakai with most votes counted.
The result was seen as an index of President Robert Mugabe's popularity ahead of next year's presidential election. Mugabe, 76, has been in power since the country gained independence in 1980.
The special election in Bikita was called after the opposition lawmaker who won the seat in June died of cancer.
In the June vote, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change won by a narrow margin. MDC officials claimed Monday that violent campaigning by ruling party militants had intimidated voters this time around. Militants and veterans of the bush war that led to Zimbabwe's independence camped near several of the district's 40 polling stations, MDC spokesman Learnmore Jongwe said.
Earlier, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corp. had reported that about 4,000 people were turned away from polling stations during the weekend after their names did not appear on voting lists.
The ruling party hurled its own accusations Monday: Makova, the election winner, said opposition militants trucked in from other districts caused the violent clashes that marked campaigning in the district. More voters would have turned out if they had not been threatened by opposition activists, he told state television.
The clashes during the campaign left one ruling party supporter dead, but there were no reports of serious violence during this weekend's polling.
In parliamentary voting around the country in June, Mugabe's ruling party won a slender majority, taking 62 of the 120 elected seats. The run-up to those elections were marred by violence that left 32 people dead and thousands homeless. Election monitors said most victims were opposition supporters.
Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence, with inflation and unemployment soaring. Political violence has been worsened by the illegal occupation of 1,700 white-owned farms by war veterans and ruling party militants.
Mugabe has called the occupation a justified protest against unfair land ownership by whites. His government has begun nationalizing hundreds of white-owned farms, which it says it will hand over to landless blacks without paying compensation to white owners.
Chief of staff Colonel Eddy Kapend ordered troops to block the main airport serving the capital, Kinshasa, and to close the river border with neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville.
Colonel Kapend read out a message on state television urging citizens to be calm - but made no mention of the shooting.
Reports suggest the shooting lasted for
about an hour, but then died down.
Other reports say all DR Congo's frontiers have been ordered closed.
No reason was given for the move, but there there is speculation about an
attempted coup against President Kabila.
"The Congolese people need your serenity and your discipline," Colonel Kapend
said.
Streets empty
Many Kinshasa residents hurried home after the broadcast, and many streets
quickly emptied.
Reports quoting the Belgian ambassador in Kinshasa said telephone lines had
been cut, and television and radio services interrupted.
No increased military presence has been reported on the streets.
The president's whereabouts are unclear, though he is thought to be in the
capital.
President Kabila's hilltop residence in central Kinshasa is known as the
Marble Palace and is usually heavily guarded by soldiers and a North Korean-made
tank.
In Nigeria, President Olusegun Obasanjo has decided to cancel a planned visit
to Kinshasa following news of unrest, his spokesman said.
Unstable history
DR Congo has been in turmoil since 1996, when Rwandan-backed rebels launched
their war against the ailing President Mobutu Sese Seko.
That rebellion led to President Kabila's installation in 1997 - but since
1998 he has himself been facing a rebellion backed by Rwanda and Uganda.
At least six neighbouring states are currently involved in the war in DR
Congo, with some backing the government, others the rebels.
Various rebel groups currently control roughly half the country.
NAIROBI, Jan 16 (Reuters) - A senior Ugandan intelligence source said Congolese President Laurent Kabila had been killed in a coup attempt in the capital Kinshasa on Tuesday.
"He has died. He was shot by unknown people... earlier
today I am 101 percent sure he is dead," the senior intelligence source in Kampala told Reuters by telephone, saying his information came from intelligence sources in Kinshasa.
"The situation now is very unclear," he said, adding that he did not know who was in control of the city.
Belgium's Foreign Ministry earlier reported that shots had been fired around Kabila's palace.
Uganda and Rwanda support Congolese rebels who have been fighting to overthrow Kabila since August 1998.
Other intelligence sources from countries in the region also said Kabila had been killed.
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Shots were fired Tuesday near the palace of the Democratic Republic of Congo's President Laurent Kabila, diplomats said, and a presidential aide ordered the army to block Kinshasa's main airport and the river border.
A senior intelligence source in Uganda, which along with Rwanda supports Congolese rebels who have been fighting to overthrow Kabila since Aug. 1998, said the president had been killed in a coup attempt in the capital Kinshasa.
"He has died. He was shot by unknown people ... earlier
today I am 101 percent sure he is dead," the senior intelligence source in Kampala told Reuters by telephone.
He said his information came from intelligence sources in Kinshasa.
The report could not be immediately confirmed.
"The situation now is very unclear," the source said, adding that he did not know who was in control of the city.
Earlier, Kabila's personal chief of staff read a message on state television saying the airport and river border had been closed.
"I am asking the commander in charge to block the airport and to block our border (with neighboring Congo Republic) along the River Congo," said Colonel Edy Kapend. "It is forbidden to use arms without prior order."
Civilians were asked to remain calm.
In Brussels, a Belgian Foreign Ministry spokesman said: "Our ambassador reported shots being fired around the palace."
Michel Malherbe told Reuters the ambassador reported that telephone lines had been cut in the capital Kinshasa.
Malherbe said the ambassador reported that television and radio broadcasts had also been interrupted.
Attempts to end a war in the former Zaire, Africa's third largest country, have been shattered by renewed fighting and analysts fear the conflict will escalate as warring sides maneuver for ground and power.
Eighteen months after a peace accord was signed in the Zambian capital Lusaka, there is still no end in sight to the Democratic Republic of the Congo's 29-month-long war.
Up to two million people have been displaced by the fighting and a quarter of a million have fled to neighboring countries.
JOHANNEBSURG, Jan 16 (Reuters) - South Africa's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday its mission in Kinshasa had reported an attempted coup underway in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but that the fate of President Laurent Kabila remained uncertain.
"Our reports do confirm an attempted coup. It is our understanding that the military went on television to confirm the process of an attempted coup," said ministry spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa.
He said the South Africans did not yet know whether Kabila was alive or dead.
"We can't confirm the reports that Kabila and his son were shot," he said.
Other sources gave conflicting accounts of Kabila's fate.
A regional security official in Kigali, Rwanda, said he had spoken to soldiers in the Congo who had confirmed to him that Kabila was shot and killed in the bedroom of his palace.
"Three hours ago, some (government) soldiers burst into Kabila's bedroom and shot him dead. I am talking to people who were part of the action. I am sure that he is dead," the source told Reuters by telephone from Kigali at 1700 GMT.
But another regional military source said Kabila was shot and wounded and was taken to a hospital where he was in an intensive care unit.
A government source in Zimbabwe also told Reuters Kabila had been wounded and not killed.
HARARE, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank governor Leonard Tsumba said on Tuesday average inflation was expected to rise to about 70 percent in 2001 from 55.7 percent last year, further threatening the fragile economy.
"Deep seated inflationary pressures persist (and) current estimates indicate that overall inflation will rise to average above 70 percent this year," Tsumba said in a briefing to journalists, economists and business leaders.
High inflation levels had led to high nominal interest rates with serious debt service implications for the country's productive sectors, Tsumba said.
He said Zimbabwe's exports were estimated to grow by only 2.3 percent in 2001 after an estimated 5.4 percent decline in 2000 while imports would grow at 3.5 percent against a decline of 9.3 percent last year.
While the central bank would continue to pursue the monetary policy it unveiled last August, it would with immediate effect base the key bank rate on the moving average rate of inflation to reflect recent inflation trends and expectations, he said.
Until now, the bank rate was capped at a range of two to 2.5 percentage points above inflation.
The central bank said it would from February 1 increase to 50 percent from 30 percent its statutory reserve ratio on demand deposit liabilities of commercial and merchant banks in a bid to stem excessive money growth.
"The statutory reserve ratio on time and savings deposit liabilities of commercial and merchant banks has been lowered to 20 percent (from 3O percent) to promote resource flows into a longer-term savings pool, necessary to support long term lending and investment," Tsumba added.
Statutory reserves are non-interest bearing.
Daily News: 1/16/01 8:34:40 AM (GMT +2)
Staff Reporter
THE MDC and the National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA) yesterday called on Augustine Chihuri, the Police
Commissioner, to resign immediately following his confession that he is a Zanu
PF supporter.
Welshman Ncube, the MDC’s
secretary-general and the Member of Parliament for Bulawayo North-East, said
Chihuri's statement was “irresponsible and mad”.
Lovemore Madhuku, the NCA
vice-chairman, said it was “unfortunate and
unconstitutional”.
Wayne
Bvudzijena, Chihuri’s spokesman, said yesterday what Chihuri said
amounted
to stating the obvious.
Bvudzijena said: “During the BSAP regime, no
policeman aligned himself or herself with the nationalists. So the situation is
the same.
“The ruling party is the government. So what do you expect him to
do? The position he was trying to make was that the police take directives from
the government and this leads you to the ruling party. Let’s not split hairs
here.”
Ncube said: “That was an irresponsible statement by a man who holds
such an office. All this demonstrates the problems inherent in politicising
State institutions. He must resign now. He is clearly an unsuitable person for
that job.”
Ncube was reacting to a statement by Chihuri when he warned
members of the Police Protection Unit at a belated Christmas party in Harare on
Saturday that they risked losing their jobs if they took part in politics.
“We can never return to the rule of law if we continue to have people like
Chihuri in high office in the government,” said Ncube.
“Look, a Zanu PF
member dies in Bikita West and 100 people are arrested, but 35 people aligned to
the MDC died during the run-up to the last June's parliamentary election and no
one was arrested or questioned,” he said.
Chihuri said: “Many people say I
am Zanu PF. Today I would like to make it public that I support Zanu PF because
it is the ruling party. If any other party comes into power, I will resign and
let those who support it take over.”
Chihuri called on members of the force
to leave politics to politicians and said those who have other ideas should
resign before they are exposed.
Madhuku said: “That was extreme arrogance
and is unacceptable. He is urging the force to support Zanu PF.
Now we
understand why the police are behaving in the manner they are.”
BUSINESS DAY RSA: 17 January 2001 - HARARE — The continuation of politically-linked violence may push Zimbabwe’s labour groups to more extreme measures after their one-day strike last week proved to have little effect on government policy, labour leaders said on Tuesday.
Zimbabwe’s ailing economy was virtually halted on August 2 when labour leaders, backed by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and white commercial farmers, called for a nation-wide work stoppage.
Labour officials are weighing up new strikes to force authorities to take firm action to stop violence in impoverished townships and on farms across the country, said Isaac Matongo, head of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.
"The situation has not improved," he said.
Police and farm leaders confirmed on Tuesday that mobs claiming to be ruling party militants abducted workers’ children from two farms south of Harare last week.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said at least 10 children were taken for several hours from a workers compound near Chitungwiza, 25km from Harare, on Friday.
Police released them and were investigating complaints by another group of at least seven children, mostly teenagers, who were seized at a nearby farm on Saturday. No arrests had been made by Tuesday, Bvudzijena said.
The state-controlled Herald newspaper reported on Tuesday that one group of children was released after 20 farm workers surrendered themselves to a mob of self-avowed militants.
The workers were forced to dance and sing slogans of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party before being released, the newspaper said.
It said some of the workers were forced to smoke marijuana, which grows in the wild and is widely accessible in farming districts.
The newspaper described the militants as "rogue" veterans of the bush war that released this former British colony from minority white rule in 1980.
Ruling party militants and squatters led by war veterans have illegally occupied more than 1 600 white-owned farms since February, demanding they be seized, divided up and turned over to landless blacks.
Mugabe has described the occupations as a justified protest against the unfair ownership of huge swaths of Zimbabwe’s best farmland by a few thousand white descendants of British and SA colonial era settlers.
He has called on his followers to occupy private land peacefully but police have largely stood back where violence has flared.
Matongo said last week’s general strike was a warning to the government that more mass action would follow if it failed to crack down on violence on farms and in towns blamed mostly on ruling party militants angered over the party’s poorest-ever electoral showing in June’s parliamentary elections.
After two decades of virtually unchallenged rule, Mugabe’s party won a slender majority of 62 of 120 elected seats in the Harare parliament. The labour federation top leaders will meet by the end of this week to discuss their next move, Matongo said.
The independent Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce estimated last week’s shutdown cost at least Z$600m in lost production, orders and sales.
The nearly six months of farm disruptions cost the country up to a quarter of its crops of wheat and tobacco, Zimbabwe’s biggest source of desperately needed hard currency, according to farm union estimates.
The union warned that land preparation and planting for next year’s tobacco crop is far behind schedule and must be completed by September 1 if minimum production targets are to be met.
Tobacco sales earned about US$220m last year, about 30% of Zimbabwe’s hard currency income. — Sapa-AP.
NAIROBI, Jan 16 (Reuters) - A senior Ugandan intelligence source said Congolese President Laurent Kabila had been killed in a coup attempt in the capital Kinshasa on Tuesday.
"He has died. He was shot by unknown people... earlier
today I am 101 percent sure he is dead," the senior intelligence source in Kampala told Reuters by telephone, saying his information came from intelligence sources in Kinshasa.
"The situation now is very unclear," he said, adding that he did not know who was in control of the city.
Belgium's Foreign Ministry earlier reported that shots had been fired around Kabila's palace.
Uganda and Rwanda support Congolese rebels who have been fighting to overthrow Kabila since August 1998.
Other intelligence sources from countries in the region also said Kabila had been killed.
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Shots were fired Tuesday near the palace of the Democratic Republic of Congo's President Laurent Kabila, diplomats said, and a presidential aide ordered the army to block Kinshasa's main airport and the river border.
A senior intelligence source in Uganda, which along with Rwanda supports Congolese rebels who have been fighting to overthrow Kabila since Aug. 1998, said the president had been killed in a coup attempt in the capital Kinshasa.
"He has died. He was shot by unknown people ... earlier
today I am 101 percent sure he is dead," the senior intelligence source in Kampala told Reuters by telephone.
He said his information came from intelligence sources in Kinshasa.
The report could not be immediately confirmed.
"The situation now is very unclear," the source said, adding that he did not know who was in control of the city.
Earlier, Kabila's personal chief of staff read a message on state television saying the airport and river border had been closed.
"I am asking the commander in charge to block the airport and to block our border (with neighboring Congo Republic) along the River Congo," said Colonel Edy Kapend. "It is forbidden to use arms without prior order."
Civilians were asked to remain calm.
In Brussels, a Belgian Foreign Ministry spokesman said: "Our ambassador reported shots being fired around the palace."
Michel Malherbe told Reuters the ambassador reported that telephone lines had been cut in the capital Kinshasa.
Malherbe said the ambassador reported that television and radio broadcasts had also been interrupted.
Attempts to end a war in the former Zaire, Africa's third largest country, have been shattered by renewed fighting and analysts fear the conflict will escalate as warring sides maneuver for ground and power.
Eighteen months after a peace accord was signed in the Zambian capital Lusaka, there is still no end in sight to the Democratic Republic of the Congo's 29-month-long war.
Up to two million people have been displaced by the fighting and a quarter of a million have fled to neighboring countries.
JOHANNEBSURG, Jan 16 (Reuters) - South Africa's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday its mission in Kinshasa had reported an attempted coup underway in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but that the fate of President Laurent Kabila remained uncertain.
"Our reports do confirm an attempted coup. It is our understanding that the military went on television to confirm the process of an attempted coup," said ministry spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa.
He said the South Africans did not yet know whether Kabila was alive or dead.
"We can't confirm the reports that Kabila and his son were shot," he said.
Other sources gave conflicting accounts of Kabila's fate.
A regional security official in Kigali, Rwanda, said he had spoken to soldiers in the Congo who had confirmed to him that Kabila was shot and killed in the bedroom of his palace.
"Three hours ago, some (government) soldiers burst into Kabila's bedroom and shot him dead. I am talking to people who were part of the action. I am sure that he is dead," the source told Reuters by telephone from Kigali at 1700 GMT.
But another regional military source said Kabila was shot and wounded and was taken to a hospital where he was in an intensive care unit.
A government source in Zimbabwe also told Reuters Kabila had been wounded and not killed.
First up for President-elect George W. Bush and his foreign policy team could be a crisis in Africa. Wars proceed in Angola, the DRC, Sierra Leone, and the Sudan. Any one of them could rapidly deteriorate. But it could well be the collapse of Zimbabwe that forces Washington's hand.
The Bush regime wants as little to do with Africa as possible, but African crises tend to be sudden, violent, and destabilising. Zimbabwe itself is important, but what makes its future inextricably tied to the new office-holders in Washington is its proximity to and influence on South Africa. South Africa is the linchpin of Africa. If that nation prospers, there is hope that most of Africa will benefit from its example as well as the export of its know-how and capital. If South Africa strengthens its democracy under President Thabo Mbeki, there is greater likelihood that democratic practice and good governance will spread northward.
South Africa's crime and corruption are obstacles to its own success. But the mess in neighboring Zimbabwe is also a sharp brake on South African progress, and therefore on President-elect Bush's apparent desire to shed responsibility for Africa. As long as South African peace and development are mortgaged by dangers in Zimbabwe, and the nearby wars in Angola and the Congo, Mr. Bush and his aides will be forced to consider what to do if one of these states deteriorates.
Zimbabwe could easily implode. Since 1998, President Robert Mugabe has become increasingly autocratic, erratic, and greedy. In 2000, he lost a national referendum, narrowly won a parliamentary election by intimidating voters and opponents, and single-handedly destroyed Zimbabwe's once-robust economy. Toward the end of 2000, Mr. Mugabe became increasingly racist in rhetoric and action. First, he sent supposed veteran rent-a-thugs onto white farms to take them by force even though he lost the referendum that would have sanctioned such confiscations. After narrowly and questionably winning the parliamentary election, he sent more thugs onto more farms to punish whites and Africans for backing opponents to his ZANU-PF movement. Two dozen white and black farmers and farm-workers were killed. Then, after the Zimbabwe Supreme Court on three occasions declared Mugabe's actions illegal, and the occupations unlawful, he and his government refused to obey, telling the justices to resign.
Mugabe said that he was above the law. This was not the first time Mugabe defied his own Supreme Court. But, late in 2000, he also defied advice and public rebukes from Mr. Mbeki and from President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria. He also told a special representative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to mind his own business. As Zimbabwe entered 2001, it was virtually bankrupt. Foreign-exchange reserves were nil. Economic growth per capita had fallen over the year from 2 percent to an unprecedented minus 7 percent. Very little tax revenue was coming in from big tax-payers, like the commercial farmers, because of their own difficulties. Inflation had shot up to 80 percent, government deficits were approaching 30 percent of GDP, the local currency against the US dollar had fallen, and every kind of business indicator had plummeted. Before Christmas, there were long lines for gasoline, cooking oil, and kerosene. Staples like bread were increasingly scarce on store shelves. Moreover, hospitals lack supplies and cannot pay their staffs. Schools cannot pay their teachers. The bloated civil service hardly operates.
South Africa's currency, in part, has also weakened as a result of Zimbabwe's troubles. Foreign investment dried up significantly and tourism slumped (it has completely vanished in Zimbabwe). South Africa worries that any bloody end to the 20-year-old Mugabe era would be difficult and affect its own stability, particularly if violent street protests or a military coup drove Mugabe out. Yugoslav-like peoples' uprisings are more likely than a coup. As shortages become more severe, maize meal becomes harder to buy, jobs grow scarcer than ever, gasoline becomes impossible to find, and brownouts turn into power outages, mass antagonism could spill into the streets, leading to the storming of the state house and the final end of the government. All of Southern Africa could find itself in turmoil.
Sooner than it wishes, the Bush team may be called upon to help the United Nations, South Africa, or Britain prevent widespread bloodshed. It would not be asked to intervene directly, but it will need to be a major player in this situation, as well as in the more obvious problems in Angola, the Congo, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. That will mean crafting a policy to confront these problems, not least the sustainable rebuilding of collapsed states and the reconstruction of their economies. To do nothing in the face of a civil war in Zimbabwe, as well as in the other conflicts, would withdraw support for South Africa and consign it and the rest of Africa to poverty, war, flights of refugees, and the impossibility of growth and development.
Instability and dictatorship anywhere are not in the interest of the United States. Cleaning up after tragedies and disasters is also costlier than prevention. So Bush should try to understand how far Zimbabwe has fallen, and then do something about it.
Robert I. Rotberg is director of the Kennedy School's Program on Intrastate Conflict, and president of the World Peace Foundation.
From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 17 January
Kabila 'is shot dead by minister' after sacking army chiefs
Gaborone - The president of the DRC, Laurent Kabila, was believed to have died last night after being shot by a minister he had just sacked. The Belgian news agency Belga, quoting a Congolese official in Brussels, said that the assassin was probably Col Kayembe, the deputy defence minister. Mr Kabila had apparently ordered his son Joseph to arrest Col Kayembe, whom he had just sacked at the presidential palace in Kinshasa with other senior military officials for their handling of the civil war. Col Kayembe pulled out his gun and shot the president, the agency said. Joseph Kabila and several others in the room at Mr Kabila's official residence were believed wounded.
The agency reported that another military leader, Col Eddy Kapend, had taken power in Kinshasa, at least temporarily, to avert a power vacuum. At first the shooting was seen as a coup in one of Africa's largest and most turbulent countries as gunfire erupted around the palace. Congolese government members insisted early today that President Kabila was still alive. A senior security official said that Mr Kabila had been shot by a bodyguard. He said: "He took two bullets, one in the back and another in the leg. He is seriously wounded and was taken to hospital by helicopter."
But several governments said that while reports of the president's death had yet to be confirmed, they believed he had been killed. Tim Atkinson, the British ambassador in Kinshasa, said: "We have received a lot of reports from a variety of local sources, many of them usually quite reliable, all alleging that the president has died." In Washington a senior State Department official said: "We do not know that he is dead; we have not verified it. But at this point we have seen enough reports from enough sources to conclude that he is dead." Louis Michel, the foreign minister of Belgium, the former colonial power, said the shooting took place in the presence of generals Mr Kabila had sacked. M Michel said that the death was not the result of a coup but rather "an argument that descended into violence".
Gaetan Kakudji, the Congo's interior minister, retorted: "The Belgian minister of foreign affairs can say what he wants, but I will make my announcement tomorrow." Earlier he had said that Mr Kabila was alive and issuing orders, while a Congolese general, Francois Olenga, said: "President Kabila is alive and everything is OK." A government official said he had seen a presidential helicopter land at Kinshasa's main hospital. Diplomats reported heavy fighting around the palace after the shooting. The situation worsened as telephone lines were cut and the airport and borders closed, with a curfew declared. Congolese television broadcast music and cultural programmes, occasionally interrupted by a still picture of the president.
At nightfall, soldiers loyal to the Kabila regime were patrolling the streets of Kinshasa, which had emptied as civilians feared a round of violence similar to that which accompanied the overthrow of the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. People gathered around television sets to listen to an emergency announcement by Col Kapend, a senior aide to Mr Kabila, in which he appealed for the armed forces to remain loyal. He said: "To the army chief of staff, to commanders of ground, air and naval forces and all regional military commanders, I order you to take charge of your units. While waiting for further orders, no guns shall be fired, for whatever reason. The Congolese people need your serenity and your discipline."
There are fears that the country, as big as most of western Europe, will plunge further into chaos after three years of civil war in the eastern region that have left thousands dead and created more than two million refugees. The former Belgian colony's story since independence has been a turbulent one. As Zaire, it was ruled for three decades by Mobutu, one of Africa's most corrupt and ruthless dictators. The two sides in the civil war are being backed by various countries in the region.
From The Independent (UK), 17 January
Kabila's fall spells more pain for heart of Africa
Month by month, from the time he came to power in 1997, President Laurent-Desire Kabila gained only one thing - enemies. If, as was claimed last night by his foes and later confirmed by the Belgian government, President Kabila has been assassinated, his death will solve nothing for the DRC. It is likely to deepen regional instability and could be a fatal blow to his staunchest ally, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. But if, as his interior minister insisted, President Kabila is "issuing orders" from a hospital bed after being shot by one of his own men, the mutiny or attempted coup still marks the most decisive blow so far against Mobutu Sese Seko's successor.
The rotund guerrilla - who despite coming to power by the gun in 1997 was hailed by Madeleine Albright as chief among a "new generation" of African leaders she assumed to be democrats - began losing his grip on power even before the start in August 1998 of the world's biggest war, now involving seven countries. Too compromised during his long ascent to power in the former Belgian colony, Mr Kabila barely controlled the entirety of Africa's third largest country - bigger than France, Germany, Spain and the UK put together.
If the 32-year rule of Marshall Mobutu, supported by the West, was brutal, it prevented the Balkanisation of the huge mineral-rich territory. From the start, President Kabila was the wrong person to keep the country together. Brought to power by Rwandan military forces, Mr Kabila soon found himself threatened by them. His decision to expel Rwandans from Kinshasa in August 1998 sparked the war. Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe rallied to his cause, claiming that it was crucial to prevent the break-up of the DRC. The international community dithered, the allies' military commitment failed to develop into supremacy and their principles collapsed into a scramble for the country's wealth. The other side - rebels backed principally by Uganda and Rwanda - has been no better. They entered the war on an ethnic pretext but evolved their respective strategies in relation to attainable mineral deposits. Uganda made nearly as much money last year from gold exports as from coffee, despite having hardly any reserves.
There is justification for the view that the DRC of Congo is too big and too diverse to survive. Its capital, Kinshasa, is in the far west of a country so neglected that it has no roads or infrastructure to bind it together. Hutu and Tutsi rivalries - and memories of the 1994 Rwandan genocide - serve to accentuate differences. As the war has progressed, anti-Kabila forces have gained the upper hand. More than two million civilians have been forced to flee their homes and the rebels have transformed the east of the country into fiefdoms run by warlords where tribes and sub-clans clash. Several thousand people - including pro-Kabila soldiers - fled into northern Zambia three weeks ago.
It was reported at the same time that Rwanda and Uganda were stepping up their support for an offensive. However, no new attack has materialised. Uganda is only weeks away from an election and this war is not a vote-winner, especially with refugees flooding in. A ceasefire negotiated in Lusaka in July 1999 was violated by all parties and ultimately led to the armies' positions being frozen without an end to fighting. Amid futile attempts by South Africa to broker peace, the international community has lost interest and the UN has failed to deploy troops. In the DRC, any existing sense of organisation has collapsed. Mr Kabila's government's revenues from diamond exports have dropped and civil servants - including most soldiers - go for months without pay. In the east, both Rwanda and Uganda have reportedly integrated rebel-held territory administratively into their civil services.
President Kabila showed little inclination towards peace - failing to turn up for summits and rejecting a facilitator appointed by the OAU to help start talks between the government, the opposition and the rebels. His allies, foremost among them Mr Mugabe, told him for months that they wanted out; the war was too costly and the pay-offs too small. If, as seems likely, President Kabila is dead, a vacuum of historic proportions has opened up in southern Africa. There is no obvious successor - the government in Kinshasa is made up of Kabila's cronies and family members. Now diplomats face a Herculean challenge: to lead seven warring countries to the negotiating table when each will be tempted to launch the endgame.
Comment from The Daily Telegraph (UK),17 January
Shambolic giant of Africa sinks once more into chaos
Here we go again. Once more the Congo, that shambolic giant at the heart of Africa, is on the brink of chaos. Or rather the world is being forced to pay attention to the chaos, as few could dispute that the old Belgian Congo slipped over the brink long ago. Barely three years have passed since Laurent Kabila, an ageing Marxist bush-fighter with a jolly smile and a penchant for safari suits, took over, promising to steer the Congo into a new era. In seven months he had sprung from obscurity as the leader of a third-rate Sixties guerrilla movement to overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko, that arch kleptocrat. With South Africa consolidating majority rule, the West briefly dared to hope his arrival could be the next step in Africa's rebirth.
In months those dreams were dashed. Yesterday's apparent coup attempt is merely the latest upheaval in a presidency marked by blundering, brutality and graft. Mr Kabila's political education began in the heady and bloody days after independence in 1960, when the Belgians abruptly gave up the struggle for the colony they had exploited so long, and left. When Mobutu, then a young army officer, manoeuvred his way amid the chaos to take over, Mr Kabila ended up on the wrong side and took to the jungle. Before he began his rebellion against Mobutu in 1996, his only appearance in the headlines was in 1975, when, as the leader of a group of Maoist militants, he kidnapped three American students and a Dutch researcher to finance his guerrilla campaign. After briefly backing him, Che Guevara, the revolutionary icon, wrote a trenchant assessment that he spent more time in brothels and bars than pursuing politics. "Nothing leads me to believe he is the man of the hour," he wrote. This has proved all too apt.
Mr Kabila swept to power in May 1997 in one of the smoothest takeovers in African history. For more than three decades Mobutu had looted his country, then called Zaire. Mr Kabila barely had to fire a shot. The people of Kinshasa came out in their hundreds of thousands to hail his arrival. Bolstering his image as the man of the moment, he had many of the regional leaders on his side, including, crucially, Yoweri Museveni, Uganda's canny president. Briefly, Mr Kabila said all the right things. The airport, once the most notorious centre of bribery in Africa, was cleansed. Aides even set up an anti-corruption centre to eliminate graft.
Yet his alliance was an unwieldy coalition of regional, ethnic and political interests. With Mobutu out the way, it swiftly fell apart. Mr Kabila soon showed he had not changed since Che's day, and he relied on pawning the Congo's mineral riches to stay in power. A year after he took over, his old Rwandan and Ugandan allies turned against him and tried to drive him out. He clung on to power only when, with pledges of fat concessions in diamonds, he persuaded President Mugabe of Zimbabwe and others to bail him out. Since then, the Congo has been locked in a hideous war that has sucked in seven countries and destabilised the heart of Africa.
Reports last night suggested that Kabila was still in charge. So the war will continue, as will the graft, until the next hiccup forces the world to take note.
From The Star (SA), 17 January
MDC claims rigging after shock defeat
Harare - President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party is being accused of vote-rigging after winning back a seat in parliament from the opposition MDC in a rural by-election. The victory is seen as an important boost for the ruling party's chances of winning presidential elections in April next year. Preliminary results released by registrar-general Tobaiwa Mudede on Monday night gave Zanu-PF about 13 000 votes to the MDC's 7 000 in the strongly contested Bikita West constituency. This would be a huge swing to Zanu-PF, which narrowly lost the seat in the June general election.
MDC spokesperson Tafadzwa Musekiwa said Zanu-PF had rigged the weekend election and his party would mount a court challenge against the result. "We lost because of institutionalised rigging by the ruling party. All the state machinery was used against our supporters. We will not take it lying down," said Musekiwa, who is a sitting MDC MP and has been co-ordinating the party's work in the constituency. There was no way his party could have won the election against the backdrop of state-sponsored violence in which one person was killed and 237 were injured. Zanu-PF's victory reduced the MDC's presence in parliament from 57 to 56 seats. Zanu-PF now holds 63 elected seats in parliament. But the ruling party still has a huge majority because the constitution gives Mugabe the power to appoint 30 extra MPs.
Zanu-PF spokesperson Nathan Shamuyarira said the victory marked the beginning of the end of the road for the MDC. Zanu-PF would now focus on winning the presidential elections next year. But the ruling party's victory is expected to act as a wake-up call for the MDC to review its strategies and plan for the presidential elections with vigour. The party has been criticised lately for losing steam and getting lulled into a false sense of security and complacency about its accomplishment, after it broke the ruling party's stranglehold on parliament last year with an unexpectedly strong performance. In contrast, Zanu-PF, shaken by its near-defeat in the June election, threw everything into the Bikita West battle. This helped to more than double the number of voters giving it the nod.
Opinion from the Christian Science Monitor, 16 January
The Zimbabwe effect
By Robert I. Rotberg
First up for President-elect George W. Bush and his foreign policy team could be a crisis in Africa. Wars proceed in Angola, the DRC, Sierra Leone, and the Sudan. Any one of them could rapidly deteriorate. But it could well be the collapse of Zimbabwe that forces Washington's hand.
The Bush regime wants as little to do with Africa as possible, but African crises tend to be sudden, violent, and destabilising. Zimbabwe itself is important, but what makes its future inextricably tied to the new office-holders in Washington is its proximity to and influence on South Africa. South Africa is the linchpin of Africa. If that nation prospers, there is hope that most of Africa will benefit from its example as well as the export of its know-how and capital. If South Africa strengthens its democracy under President Thabo Mbeki, there is greater likelihood that democratic practice and good governance will spread northward.
South Africa's crime and corruption are obstacles to its own success. But the mess in neighboring Zimbabwe is also a sharp brake on South African progress, and therefore on President-elect Bush's apparent desire to shed responsibility for Africa. As long as South African peace and development are mortgaged by dangers in Zimbabwe, and the nearby wars in Angola and the Congo, Mr. Bush and his aides will be forced to consider what to do if one of these states deteriorates.
Zimbabwe could easily implode. Since 1998, President Robert Mugabe has become increasingly autocratic, erratic, and greedy. In 2000, he lost a national referendum, narrowly won a parliamentary election by intimidating voters and opponents, and single-handedly destroyed Zimbabwe's once-robust economy. Toward the end of 2000, Mr. Mugabe became increasingly racist in rhetoric and action. First, he sent supposed veteran rent-a-thugs onto white farms to take them by force even though he lost the referendum that would have sanctioned such confiscations. After narrowly and questionably winning the parliamentary election, he sent more thugs onto more farms to punish whites and Africans for backing opponents to his ZANU-PF movement. Two dozen white and black farmers and farm-workers were killed. Then, after the Zimbabwe Supreme Court on three occasions declared Mugabe's actions illegal, and the occupations unlawful, he and his government refused to obey, telling the justices to resign.
Mugabe said that he was above the law. This was not the first time Mugabe defied his own Supreme Court. But, late in 2000, he also defied advice and public rebukes from Mr. Mbeki and from President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria. He also told a special representative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to mind his own business. As Zimbabwe entered 2001, it was virtually bankrupt. Foreign-exchange reserves were nil. Economic growth per capita had fallen over the year from 2 percent to an unprecedented minus 7 percent. Very little tax revenue was coming in from big tax-payers, like the commercial farmers, because of their own difficulties. Inflation had shot up to 80 percent, government deficits were approaching 30 percent of GDP, the local currency against the US dollar had fallen, and every kind of business indicator had plummeted. Before Christmas, there were long lines for gasoline, cooking oil, and kerosene. Staples like bread were increasingly scarce on store shelves. Moreover, hospitals lack supplies and cannot pay their staffs. Schools cannot pay their teachers. The bloated civil service hardly operates.
South Africa's currency, in part, has also weakened as a result of Zimbabwe's troubles. Foreign investment dried up significantly and tourism slumped (it has completely vanished in Zimbabwe). South Africa worries that any bloody end to the 20-year-old Mugabe era would be difficult and affect its own stability, particularly if violent street protests or a military coup drove Mugabe out. Yugoslav-like peoples' uprisings are more likely than a coup. As shortages become more severe, maize meal becomes harder to buy, jobs grow scarcer than ever, gasoline becomes impossible to find, and brownouts turn into power outages, mass antagonism could spill into the streets, leading to the storming of the state house and the final end of the government. All of Southern Africa could find itself in turmoil.
Sooner than it wishes, the Bush team may be called upon to help the United Nations, South Africa, or Britain prevent widespread bloodshed. It would not be asked to intervene directly, but it will need to be a major player in this situation, as well as in the more obvious problems in Angola, the Congo, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. That will mean crafting a policy to confront these problems, not least the sustainable rebuilding of collapsed states and the reconstruction of their economies. To do nothing in the face of a civil war in Zimbabwe, as well as in the other conflicts, would withdraw support for South Africa and consign it and the rest of Africa to poverty, war, flights of refugees, and the impossibility of growth and development.
Instability and dictatorship anywhere are not in the interest of the United States. Cleaning up after tragedies and disasters is also costlier than prevention. So Bush should try to understand how far Zimbabwe has fallen, and then do something about it.
Robert I. Rotberg is director of the Kennedy School's Program on Intrastate Conflict, and president of the World Peace Foundation.