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Congo rebels running amok?
January 29, 1999
By David Ouma Balikowa
Kampala - News coming out of rebel occupied eastern Congo ought to be jolting
supporters of Uganda's military involvement in Democratic Republic of Congo.
Supporters had from the start dismissed and taken in bad faith well intentioned caution about our involvement there. To many of them, what mattered is that we possessed military ability to oust President Laurent Kabila.
Actually some of them gave Kabila end of February to have fallen. That was before they encountered the Angolan and Zimbabwean troops. Since then we've not heard of much movement on ground towards Kinshasa.
Instead we have witnessed more squabbles in rebel ranks and amongst their Ugandan and Rwandese allies!
First, the UPDF wasted no time dismissing the Rwandese as not doing well on their southern front. The impression created was that they should let UPDF, which is mostly positioned in the northern front of eastern Congo, come and burst through the frontlines of Kabila's allied forces.
Well, they seemed to make the point until Kabila made gains on the northern front by capturing three towns where another rebel leader Bemba is being helped by the UPDF.
Since then we have not heard much squabbles about who is the best fighter in eastern Congo -- between RPA, UPDF and the two rebels groups they support respectively.
Instead, the squabbles have merely narrowed within the various camps. This week, Rwandese troops fought a three-hour battle with Congolese rebels near Kivu, signalling another crack between RPA and Wamba dia Wamba's Rally for Democracy (RCD).
The cracks made another nose dive when dissent rocked the RCD. Wamba's second vice chairman, Arthur Z'Ahid Ngoma quit and made scathing attacks against the RCD. His outburst revealed a lot about the politics in the RCD and how it functions.
All the above signal a disintegration of some sorts of the forces behind the Congo rebellion. The trend of events makes it likely that we are to see further splits among the forces seeking to oust Kabila! Hopefully rebel leader Jean -Pierre Bemba will not turn guns at his UPDF backers!
But the way things are turning out, nothing can be ruled out on this eastern side of Congo!
And mind you this is happening in a period of less than six months since the rebellion was launched. The trend of events and splits among the rebel ranks and their backers would seem to white wash Kabila. At least he was able to hold Congo and the liberation forces together for one year until he fired his Rwandese army commander and asked Rwandese troops to leave which sparked off the rebellion.
The developments in rebel Congo remind us of what Kabila told Museveni at the
start of the rebellion: That DR Congo is too big for Museveni and Kagame to
swallow! Time might disprove him, but so far his words seem to explain the
squabbles and splits among the rebels and their backers. It also puts into
question their ability to keep the country together if they are splitting at
this rate this early!
This is compounded by the fact that irrespective of the good discipline of the participating forces like UPDF, the rebellion remains very unpopular among the Congolese population. The Congolese want no fight, it kills!
To some of us, what is happening in rebel Congo was just too predictable. While it was too easy to get into Congo we might find getting out hard!
Why? Because military interventions are by nature actions of political intervention. There is no way Uganda while inside there will not get caught up in Congolese internal political squabbles.
If you asked me again, I still think going into Congo was a bad project. We could have put tax-payer's money to better use. Like it or not, we will never be able to claim innocence for the Congolese blood being spilt in this war.
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