Ndadaye, Habyarimana, Ntaryamira, Kabila...

Eight years, four Presidents assassinated

The first reaction when hearing about the news of president Laurent-Desiré Kabila's murder is that of déjà-vu: he is the fourth president who disappears during the last eight years in the Africa of the Great Lakes in similar circumstances. In first place, there are some negotiations under way (before 1994 among the Rwandans in Arusha and now in Lusaka due to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo), which puzzle and divide the majority parties before a powerful minority which, being protected by the great lobbies and international powers, and by means of the arms, is moving towards the absolute control of power. Just like the Burundi example, these negotiations have not achieved any relevant progress so far. Meanwhile, an extremist minority is still holding the power. Secondly, a non-Tutsi president, which is the main factor of cohesion of a society, and does not give in to totalitarian pretensions by a small extremist minority existing within the Tutsi ethnic minority. Finally, this assasination has got rid of a president supported by the majority of the population.

On the other hand, Kabila's image was not at all comparable to that of the three Hutu presidents assassinated before: the Burundian Melchior Ndadaye and Cyprien Ntaryamira, and the Rwandan Juvénal Habyarimana. Ndadaye, for instance, possessed myth-like characteristics similar to those of Latin American Salvador Allende. Kabila, however, was even responsible for genocide, at least a passive one. He was first given the role of leader of the Alliance which was supposed to set Zaire free from Motubu, but he actually committed a grave genocide, with hundreds of thousands of helpless Hutu civil refugees as victims.

Taking advantage of the position he had been given by a powerful international mass media propaganda, Kabila dared to take control of the gigantic Zaire, which he renamed as Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He dared to do what was unthinkable for the so-called Hutus "in service" -those Hutus in such relevant positions as the presidency of Rwanda-, but were just puppets to be used to clean up the image of the exclusive Tutsi lobbies who had achieved absolute power. However, his ambition most probably stopped him from measuring objectively the powers he was detaching himself from, and consequently facing to. The support of many neighbouring countries saved him repeatedly, sometimes by the skin of his teeth, of being removed from office by his old allies, the Tutsi army of Rwanda and Burundi (almost monoethnic) and Uganda (80 % of the top militia being Hima-Tutsi). Finally, he has suffered a foreseeable assassination.

If the agents behind this assassination are the same as those behind the previous three and the same confusion and propaganda is broadcasted, we may very well hear and read the usual comments: the ones to blame for the assassination are of his group. But we must not confuse mercenary executor with ultimate people to blame. In April 1994, after the outrage against the presidential aeroplane which killed presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, and meant the beginning of the killings that year, the version that finally prevailed was that the agents belonged to the circle of the Rwandan president. Nowadays, a parallel version is not to be supported. The internal divisions of the Rwanda FPR, the revelations of some important members of this organisation and the conclusions of the UN investigator, Michael Hourigan, are decisive. Anti-terrorist judge Jean-Paul Bruguière has already got clues to claim that the assassination was committed by a Tutsi band (the same which murdered Flors Sirera from Manresa and her two colleagues from World Wide Doctors) under the command of current president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, and most probably with the north-American support, according to Wayne Madsen, American investigator especialised in publications about the National Agency of Security of his country. Bruguière is expected to dictate a warrant of arrest against the highest people to blame. The affair was initiated by the widow of one of the french soldiers deceased in the assassination. Now, with a better look at history, the repeated use of the same mascarade makes it less credible, more obsolete.

With this look at the past and in order to understand the present situation better, we have to make a question with a future view: Whom can this crime benefit? This is the key issue. Obviously, Kabila was the main obstacle to the partition of the Democratic Republic of Congo so longed for by those whose only goal is sacking its enormous resources as fast as possible, no matter the human lives at risk. The invading Tutsi army is loathed by all the Congolese and its expulsion is the greatest unanimous wish in Congo. The Congolese, yet most probably with exterior influences, have developed this alternative third way. Those who approve of it have tried to persuade people to believe something which is just a trick for many others. According to them, in order to achieve the expulsion of the enemy it was necessary to kill Kabila beforehand. Kabila's disappearance may create serious divisions among the Congolese, up to reach insurmountable depths. Kabila was from Katanga, south of Congo, and the Rwanda army has put his assassination down to soldiers from the province of Kivu, in the eastern part, the reason being to generate a conflict between the native population of both Congolese provinces. If that was the case, the warlike Tutsi lobbies and their foreign allied would have succeeded, once again, in their attempt of dividing to defeat. Let's hope that the devil of regionalism, less ferocious than the ethnic one yet generator of death and suffering in the Africa of the Great Lakes, does not arise now in a Democratic Republic without Kabila. New fractures must still be added to the already existing between Burundese Hutus and Rwandans and between the regions of both countries. The Africa of the Great Lakes has probably never had a non-global solution, most unlikely now after the continuous invasions in ex-Zaire. The agreements that the democratic majority of Burundi and Buyoya's dictatorship might achieve in Arusha will be of no use to the hundreds of thousands of Congolose who have been dying during these last months while the US is supporting the mighty armies of Uganda and Rwanda.

To finish with, as European Union citizens and members of the so-called "international community" we must mention our own responsibilities in this huge tragedy. The EU is supplying the invading countries, which are ruled by dictatorships responsible for the genocide, with enormous financial aid. France, bilaterally, has backed up Buyoya's dictatorship during the last years. Yet, the gravest responsibilities for the human tragedy are to be put down to the US. They have encouraged the successive invasions. Within the UN, tamed and controlled, they have blocked humanitarian interventions, investigations and resolutions which could have saved millions of human lives. Ten years ago, by invoking the intangible quality of national borders, the largest military deployment of the second half of the twentieth century was mounted in the Persian Gulf. At the same time, in October 1990, with the invasion of Rwanda, a covered plan was initiated which had the division of Zaire as a final goal. Now, Kabila happened to be killed on the day before celebrating the 40^th anniversary of the asassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, who strongly opposed himself to North-American and Belgian interests in Congo.