Congo at the crossroads: after Goma where next?
The rebel triumph leaves sub-Saharan Africa's largest country contemplating
further upheaval and even possible disintegration
* David Smith <
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/davidsmith> in Goma
* The Guardian <
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian> , Friday 23
November 2012 16.13 GMT
A crowd gathers around four bodies strewn over hardened volcanic rock.
Children pull T-shirts to their noses and mouths so they don't retch but
cannot resist peering at the slain young men. Two are sealed inside green
body bags but the job was left half-done, exposing a face and uniformed arm
bearing the Congolese national flag.
Even in death these soldiers were neglected, their corpses uncollected two
days after they fell defending the frontline, despite it being a short walk
to the UN peacekeeping mission in Goma, the most prized city in the east of
the <
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/congo> Democratic Republic of the
Congo. Most of their comrades ran for the surrounding hills or defected to
the invading rebels, known as M23, instantly gaining higher pay, more food
and crisper uniforms.
"All the soldiers here didn't get support and had to fight alone," said Sifa
Mirindi, an unemployed 20-year-old drawn to the macabre visitor attraction
beneath the Nyiragongo volcano. "The president didn't help them. We can help
M23 go to Kinshasa and remove the president because he does nothing."
President Joseph Kabila is blamed for Congo's disgrace,
<
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/20/congo-rebel-m23-take-goma>
having surrendered Goma with hardly a fight to a group widely seen as a
proxy of neighbouring <
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/rwanda> Rwanda, a
thorn in Congo's eastern side for nearly two decades. Next, the rebels could
threaten Bukavu in South Kivu, expanding their control over a vast swath of
lush territory rich in coltan (used in mobile phones), gold and diamonds.
They have
<
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/21/congo-rebels-ready-march-kinsha
sa> even vowed to march almost 1,000 miles west to the capital, Kinshasa,
and send Kabila the way of Muammar Gaddafi.
Fury at the feeble showing – and at the impotence of the UN – has led to
riots and the burning of cars and buildings in Kinshasa, Kisangani and other
cities. The loss of Goma was a massive shock and a symbolic fracture. Not
for the first time, sub-Saharan <
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/africa>
Africa's biggest and most blood-drenched nation is facing an existential
crisis. This unwieldy, failing state could begin to fragment.
The nightmare began more than a century ago when Belgian colonisers
effectively set up a mass slave labour camp to plunder rubber and ivory,
killing millions of people and chopping off the hands of adults and
children. Congo was effectively
<
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3516965.stm> King Leopold's personal
fiefdom and has arguably never recovered. Then, after a fraught struggle for
independence in 1960, it nearly broke apart as regions turned on each other.
The holding centre of gravity was Mobutu Sese Seko, who seized power in 1965
and plundered about £3bn while Zaire, as he named it, collapsed into a
series of city states with railways, roads and mail falling into ruin. Amid
the rutted roads of Goma, which he seldom visited, Mobutu maintained a
palace with six black Mercedes and the city's sole ambulance.
The vicious kleptomaniac was eventually overthrown after losing his cold war
sponsors in the west. Then, as now, the threat came from the east and
Rwanda, where 800,000 people had been butchered by Hutus in the 1994
genocide. When Mobutu sided with the Hutus, Rwanda's new government backed
Tutsi militias which fought their way to Kinshasa and installed Laurent
Kabila as president in 1997.
Kabila, who swiftly renamed the country, soon fell out with Rwanda and found
himself under threat in turn. He begged neighbouring countries for help,
triggering the <
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/16/congo>
deadliest war in African history. Kabila was assassinated in 2001 and
replaced by his son Joseph, who is increasingly perceived as weak,
ineffective and not up to the job.
Hutu extremists in eastern Congo launched an armed group and pledged to
"liberate" Rwanda; Kigali has responded by sponsoring a series of militias
of which M23 is seen as the latest.
The Congolese government has said: "We consider Congo as a country that is
under foreign occupation." It is humiliating for many Congolese, who occupy
a mineral-rich land a hundred times bigger than Rwanda, yet now lag
militarily and developmentally.
"We are in shame," said Dr Simplice Vuhaka, a trauma surgeon at the Heal
Africa hospital in Goma, which is receiving victims of the fighting.
"Everyone knows how the national army was treated: no food, no salary. My
brother is a soldier. I advised him to withdraw and join M23 and he did. The
M23 people are proud now and they see Kinshasa. They're very able to reach
it because people are tired. I don't know the future of Congo."
The government, riven with corruption and ineptitude, is deeply unpopular
with all but the small elite who milk it. Possible scenarios include M23
overthrowing Kabila or a coup by military officers incensed by his weakness,
similar to that in Mali earlier this year. There are fears of wider
instability and that anti-government sentiment could tear this nation of 450
tribes apart.
For Vuhaka, Balkanisation is unthinkable. "I see things in a demographic
way. In a big country, people are swallowed. If you try to divide the
country, someone will be in a minority somewhere. We will be like Europe
when it was at war for three centuries. Having M23 in Kinshasa would be
better."
Despite the suffering and hurt pride, many Congolese loathe the idea of
giving up on the state. Bolingo Kambere, 35, a hospital chaplain, said: "The
important thing is a government which can show whether something is big or
small. There is only one house and it depends on the administration."
Kambere threw himself to the floor of his home when an M23 bomb destroyed
the roof of a nearby house, costing one resident a limb. He has seen Goma
endure biblical suffering, for instance when tens of thousands of Hutu
refugees died from cholera as volcanic ash blotted out the sun. "I think as
a servant of God, we can question why," he said. "The response is that
people forsake the law of God. That's why we have widows, orphans, women who
are raped."
Amid the chaos, some are even nostalgic for Mobutu who, like strongmen
before and since, presided over relative peace and unity. The current
government retained power last year in an ostensibly democratic but flawed
election in which its troops opened fire on the opposition.
A source at the UN, who has lived in Goma for years, said: "The country is
too big for the current elite and the capacity of the Congolese today. It is
rotten. The problem in eastern Congo is not Rwandan strength but Congolese
weakness. The people are hopeless, hopeless."
The source dismissed the notion that Rwanda was still protecting its border
from Hutu extremists as "something only people in Britain still believe". He
added: "It's about power and controlling all sorts of resources. A Tutsi
minority rules Rwanda and they know it's not going to be forever. They have
to fight every day it lasts."
Even by Congolese standards, Goma has endured much in
<
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/oct/02/insideafrica.congo> its
history, from mass looting by the army to the arrival of a million Rwandan
Hutu refugees, years of cross-border wars and, in 2002, a volcanic eruption
that poured a tide of lava through its heart. The bodies of the soldiers who
died on the frontline this week were eventually collected by the Red Cross,
whose staff were dealing with a power cut. "In Goma we are living under a
volcano," said one staff member, Joseph Matumaini. "One day, there could be
another eruption."
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Received on Fri Nov 23 2012 - 15:49:32 EST
