by Eric Margolis
PARIS-
By the time this column appears, the Congo River port city of Kisangani
will likely have fallen to advancing rebel forces. Once Kisangani is
secured, and the rebel army resupplied, the road to Zaire's capital,
Kinshasa lies open.
Kisangani,
eastern Zaire's most important city, used to be called Stanleyville
when Belgium ruled the Congo (today Zaire). After Belgium abruptly
withdrew in 1960, this vast nation of 200 tribes and 40 million people
dissolved into bloody chaos. Congolese rebels, known as Simbas, raped,
tortured, and massacred whites in Stanleyville. Italian airmen who fell
into Simba hands were eaten.
White
mercenaries from France and Belgium - Les Affreux (the frightful ones)
led by the legendary soldier of fortune Bob Denard, and the famed Wild
Geese under Mad Mike Hoare, raced to rescue remaining whites in
Stanleyville. Anti-communist Cubans paid by CIA flew air strikes in
B-26 bombers.
This
week, Serb mercenaries fighting for the central government of President
Mobutu, who is dying of cancer here in France, were in action around
Stanleyville, trying unsuccessfully to halt the rebel advance.
The
Zairean Army, good only for rapine and pillage, is melting away. The
rebel forces are most unusual. Unlike Africa's normally rag-tag,
undisciplined soldiers, these rebels are well-organized and effectively
led, amply supplied and tightly disciplined. Interestingly, they have
the latest well-maintained arms and expensive combat uniforms.
It's
amply clear outside powers are backing the rebels and their shadowy
leader, Laurent Kabila. Some of the rebels belong to the tough Tutsi
Army from neighboring Rwanda; others are ethnic Tutsis from eastern
Zaire. Having crushed the Hutu army, they appear determined to march on
Kinshasa and overthrow Mobutu's crumbling regime.
Uganda,
a new US client, is also aiding the rebels. French security experts
believe Israel and the CIA may also be secretly supporting and
supplying insurgent forces. France, which rules much of West Africa
through local black overseers called 'presidents,' backs Mobutu. Paris
is convinced there is an American plot to oust France from much of its
West and North African dominions - just as the US kicked Britain and
France out of their Mideast colonies in the 1950's. France and the US
are openly vying to secure control of Zaire, which has vast resources
of minerals, gems, gold and oil.
The
French compare today's events in eastern Zaire with the famous Fashoda
incident at the end of the last century in which British and French
colonial forces almost went to war at an obscure post in southern
Sudan. After the Fashoda scare, the two imperial powers agreed to
divide Central Africa into spheres of influence.
Over
the past year, the US and Israel have been arming and financing the
minority Christian regimes of Eritrea, Uganda, and Ethiopia. Forces
from these African nations have invaded Sudan, whose Islamic regime the
Americans are attempting to overthrow. Now this 'Anglo' entente has
turned on French-backed Zaire. To the angry French, nothing less than a
new race to colonize Africa is under way. France's European partners
are also increasingly worried by the growing strains between Europe and
the US over black Africa and the Mideast.
Europe's
strategy is to support France's political and economic domination of
North, Central and West Africa, and to discreetly reassert European
influence in the oil-rich Mideast. In the view of Paris, the Clinton
Administration's Mideast policy is almost wholly shaped by Israel
through its powerful American lobby. Israel's strategy is to keep
Europe, which tends to side with the Arabs, out of the Mideast, while
expanding Israeli influence in Central Africa and along the Red Sea
Coast on the Horn of Africa. Israel has long had special interests in
Zaire's mineral wealth and Africa's arms markets.
Unless
France manages to mount a serious mercenary force to succor Mobutu - or
even sends some of its crack intervention forces based in West Africa
to Zaire - it seems inevitable that the Mobutu regime will fall, or be
overthrown by a coup. The political situation in Kinshasa is chaotic,
as various factions vie for power to succeed the moribund Mobutu. As of
now, however, no Zairean leader has the stature of authority to grab
the throne of God-King Mobutu.
Another
fascinating questions is, who will lay hands on Mobutu's treasure after
he dies. The Zairean ruler has a reputed US $5 billion stashed away in
European banks, not counting castles and villas. His cronies have
looted Zaire to the point where it is totally bankrupt. The future
battle over Mobutu's treasure will dwarf the struggle by the
Philippines to recover the horde of the late Ferdinand Marcos and
confront Swiss banks with another major, and highly unwelcome crisis.
No
matter how much lip service is paid to the UN and aiding refugees, the
real theme in Africa is a return to the great power rapacity of the
19th century colonial era. Control of oil and minerals is the sina qua
non of international power. The great race for Africa is again afoot.
[Eric Margolis is a syndicated foreign affairs columnist and broadcaster based in Toronto, Canada.]
