Refugee plight is Laurent Kabila's first public crisis
Refugee plight is Laurent Kabila's first public crisis
By Nicholas Kotch
NAIROBI (Reuter): Cruelty meted out to Rwandan Hutu refugees in eastern Zaire is turning into a diplomatic and public relations disaster for Laurent Kabila, the rebel leader hoping to take charge of Africa's giant state.
Within hours of eye-witness testimony from villagers on Wednesday that rebel soldiers killed refugees, both the United States and the United Nations warned Kabila of the damage being done to his image as a credible replacement for Zaire's ailing autocrat, President Mobutu Sese Seko.
"I am shocked and appalled by the inhumanity of those who control eastern Zaire to these refugees, most of whom are innocent," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in New York. "If the rebel alliance would like to have normal relations with Western governments, they've got to act in a credible way and a humanitarian way, and that doesn't seem to be the case right here," echoed U.S. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns.
The people at the center of the latest crisis are up to 100,000 Hutu refugees who were camped in desperate conditions south of rebel-held Kisangani, the biggest northeastern city. Since Kabila's Alliance launched the rebellion last October, with as yet ill-defined support from Rwanda and Uganda, the veteran former Marxist has enjoyed a honeymoon with ordinary Zaireans as well as most foreign diplomats and journalists.
His crusade to end Mobutu's 32-year reign, and install a semblance of good governance in black Africa's largest country, struck a chord throughout the continent.
But the persecution of the remaining Rwandan refugees in Zaire could change positive perceptions and force a rethink in those Western countries, led by the United States, which have displayed most sympathy for Kabila's cause.
"Kabila has no interest in allowing this kind of incident. Politically it's not good for him and from a humanitarian point of view it's unacceptable," a senior African diplomat said.
"Kabila doesn't want this on the front page, definitely not on the eve of his triumph," added a foreign aid worker in Zaire. Kabila's first response on Wednesday night was to blame any problems on UN inefficiency and what he said was an attack on villagers by Hutu former Rwandan troops among the refugees.
"It is absolute nonsense. There is no truth whatsoever in these reports," Kabila said from his base at Lubumbashi.
The rebels sealed off the camps area from Monday to aid workers and journalists. Villagers said rebels killed hundreds of refugees on Tuesday, burying bodies with a mechanical digger.
Annan accused the rebels of starving the refugees to death, blocking out aid workers and preventing a repatriation airlift which Kabila grudgingly authorized on April 5.
Since then not a single refugee has been allowed to leave. The refugees are the rump of the millions of Hutus who fled Rwanda in 1994 to escape Tutsi rebels. The others have gone back, some to swell the number of Hutus in prison accused of the genocide of about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.
The refugees near Kisangani are the largest concentration of an estimated 300,000 still in Zaire. They have trekked 600 kilometers (375 miles) westwards over volcanic rock and through forest to reach the makeshift camps south of Kisangani.
UN and other aid agencies want to care for the refugees as well as possible. This policy has been opposed by many in Africa since 1994 as naive and provocative because it does not allow for the terrible crimes many of the refugees committed.
For the Tutsis who now dominate Rwanda, the refugees who fled furthest are the most guilty of genocide and include thousands of ex-soldiers and militiamen. This view is shared by ethnic Tutsi troops who spearhead the rebel forces.
Events this week have underlined the different agendas within the rebel Alliance, according to diplomats and other sources closely following the conflict.
Tutsis and Rwanda want the armed Hutus in exile neutralized for decades to come and unable to use eastern Zaire as a launchpad for attacks, they say.
Kabila and Zaireans of other ethnic groups want to topple Mobutu. The fate of the Hutus is not a top priority for them. The suspicion in Kisangani among many aid workers was that the Tutsis' anti-Hutu agenda would be implemented in the camps to the south whatever the cost to the Alliance's reputation.
"Kabila's image as he rides into Kinshasa is the least of their concerns," the senior foreign aid worker said.