One Man's Week By John Nagenda

Who'll Save Kabila From The Bruisers? -- The inter-Congolose dialogue, every day it is delayed, signals serious storms ahead. By pulling out unilaterally, Uganda was ahead EVERYONE who has met the new President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila, is extremely enthusiastic about him. They say he is very bright but controlled and polite, in addition to having a modest and friendly approach. He is, in that respect, the very opposite of the last leader of the DRC, the late, assassinated, Laurent Kabila. Laurent, in Biblical language, begat Joseph; but it is not the column's intention on this occasion to map out the clear contrasts between the two. You could say there is no time, and with good reason. If the young president is to bring back the bacon to his tortured nation (and even that might be debated: bring it back from where and when?), he has to start yesterday. The inter-Congolese dialogue, every day it is delayed, signals serious storms ahead. Whether you like it or not Uganda, by taking the unilateral step to very largely vacate its Congo positions, was ahead of the other protagonists in giving that country a fresh chance towards that all-important dialogue, especially if the other players did the same. Already Uganda had played two other major cards, first by giving military training to indigenous Congolese so that they could stand strongly on their own feet and thus take a meaningful part in the dialogue (indeed make sure such a dialogue did happen). Second, Uganda had ensured the various Congolese factions with which it worked got united in a serious entity worthy of respect. Only then, loyal to the end, did it start waving goodbye. These things did not happen by accident but design. Of outsiders remaining behind, special word is due to Rwanda, right at the cutting edge of Congo, and tacitly recognised as such by the Lusaka Peace Agreement. The Rwandese, of all the players, need the UN forces (such as they might be) to come into Congo before Rwanda's own departure. Speak only of the Interahamwe, who are still active in Congo today, and the reason becomes obvious. Almost equally the Angolans share a dangerous border with Congo and must be satisfied that the rabid UNITA will not take any advantage. But what possible excuse can be made out for those errant bullies, so far from their own habitat, Zimbabwe? Even, one supposes, Namibia? And here lies the crux of the problem. Now that withdrawing from Congo seems closer, it is one of these bruisers, Nujoma of Namibia, who blathers, seemingly on behalf of President Joseph Kabila, that Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, with their rebel cohorts, have massacred around two and a half million Congolese nationals during their stay in Congo. This is barking madness, and only intended to confuse the issue so that Nujoma, and especially Mugabe, both too far away from Congo to have any meaningful reason to be there, can hang in for a few months more to finish their "business". Fortunately the current Security Council visitors in the region have found little trouble in seeing through this cheap trick. As if this were not enough, a so-called Commission looking into Laurent Kabila's assassination, has "coincidentally" ruled that Rwanda, Uganda and "their" Congolese were guilty; this without a shred of evidence! Back to where we started: what does the admirable Joseph Kabila, so different from his dad, have to say about all this? Nothing, but not because he has nothing to say. Has he become more or less a prisoner in the hands of his keepers, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia? They form his guard against the old Kabilites in Kinshasa, who have been well kept down since the death of old Laurent; also no doubt against the pressing and increasingly powerful rebels who are no friends of old Kinshasa. Therein lies the real tragedy. Who is going to break this remorseless chain? Kabila, charming and forward-looking as he might be, sees the barrel at his breast wherever he looks. He is in need of serious prayers. * * * As good a time as any to look at the incongruous linkage between the profoundly laughable recent UN Panel on the Congo, and the current 12-man Security Council visitation in the region. The latter resound to a weighty tread, the former were hollowness itself. France, rumoured to have played such a strong part in the setting up of the Panel, is also titular leader of the Security Council team, but here all similarity ceases. I like the deftness of touch with which a sometimes elephantine Council has played this particular game, and without in anyway messing up the elegant features of the past and future UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. It is now incumbent upon us all to play the same straight bat, as we say at the cricket. Indeed Uganda has set the ball rolling by appointing a Commission of Inquiry into the Congo affair. Let all necessary information flow as freely as the milk of a new mum. Let no rapists of Congo treasure find shelter to button themselves up uncharged. Let the noble police of the world, however few of them, take and guard every nook and cranny of Congo until all there is safe and flourishing, yea even for the first time in a century and more. Amen. Meantime here in democratic Uganda, amid high excitement, over 700 people were nominated for the forthcoming parliamentary elections. Voters' turn-out will be, as usual, higher than in most so-called democracies elsewhere. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Ends