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.