Efforts to overthrow Kabila leave Congo in chaos

Eating dinner in Goma, on the extreme eastern border of Congo with Rwanda, my Congolese colleague's mobile phone rang: "Have you heard the radio?" asked another friend, anxiously. "They've taken the radio station and the airport. There's a tape playing over and over, accusing the president of corruption and favouring people from his part of the country".

That was the first we knew of the rebellion that has plunged the Congo into turmoil in the last two weeks. My colleague immediately phoned others in the capital, Kinshasa, thousands of kilometres to the west: "Have you heard anything? What's going on?" Nothing; the capital seemed calm. Thirty minutes later, every phone line from the east had been cut, and we would be out of contact with the rest of the world for the next nine days.

Rumours spread rapidly. By the following morning, it was common knowledge that a group of soldiers had mutinied, and that Goma was now controlled by military who were calling for President Kabila to go. Fighting had broken out in the capital too. Bukavu and Uvira, the main towns to the south, were scenes of fierce clashes. But Goma maintained an unnatural calm; no overt fighting, just depressed, discouraged people keeping off the streets and searching for news.

What had precipitated the crisis? Only a year before, Laurent-Disiri Kabila had swept to power. Mobutu, one of the last of Africa's "dinosaurs" had been consigned to extinction after 30 years of greedily destroying one of Africa's wealthiest nations. The people eagerly greeted Kabila's restoration of the country's name: the DR Congo, not "Zaore", as Mobutu had re-baptised it. But now the coalition of Rwandan, Ugandan and Angolan power that had backed Kabila had fallen apart. Everyone on the street was saying that Congo's neighbours were backing this new uprising, this "second liberation" as it was - half-mockingly - being called.

Key to it all, said most friends I talked with, were the Banyamulenge. This group of Congo-based ethnic Tutsis (living to the south of Goma), has close kinship with Rwanda. Some Congolese won't accept they are Congolese at all. Once they enjoyed patronage from Mobutu, and were awarded Congolese nationality. But abruptly they fell from favour, and it was taken away again in the 1980s.

The Banyamulenge never accepted this; last year it was their uprising which started Mobutu's overthrow. Now they have risen again, dissatisfied with Kabila's government, outraged at his favouritism for his own people (the Katangais), and furious at the continual attacks on Tutsis (Rwandan and Congolese), by militia armies in the north-east. Kabila's order the week before that "all foreign soldiers must leave Congo" had pushed them over the edge.

"It's all a Rwandan plot," said one colleague. "Once Kabila started to show a little independence, they couldn't tolerate it. It's just an invasion, an occupation!"

But where were these foreign soldiers? The leaders of the rebellion in Goma repeatedly state they are Congolese, from various ethnicities. On the streets, the same mix of faces seemed to fill the ranks of the new armed forces as before. But this didn't stop wild rumours circulating: Ugandans had crossed in force, Rwandan convoys had been seen; now the US was rumoured to be behind it all, now the French.

For me, my work had been nearing its end. Finishing a two-week training and evaluation trip with a local community organisation, I was to leave shortly. But I couldn't: the borders were closed, and there were no communications with the outside world.

I made contact with the small group of expatriate aid workers still blocked there. Twenty of us were meeting twice a day to review security and to consider evacuation. Ironically though, we felt quite safe. There still hadn't been any shooting. The whole town had fallen without any apparent fighting. Was everyone in on it, then? What had happened to those military that weren't?

Military vehicles rushed backwards and forwards through the town, crowded with sombre youths in khaki. A cargo jet was hijacked, and in an audacious move, a group of rebels flew right across the country to take a southwestern town and open a second front in the fighting. Glued to our short-wave radios, we listened for updates from the BBC and RFI.

Some Congolese, caught up in the moment, saw the thing as a great game. But my colleagues in the local organisation were downcast: "What does this mean for our country? Everything that we have rebuilt since last year will be smashed again".

As the days passed, the town slowly settled into an uneasy semblance of normality. Shops reopened, people took to the streets again, and my Congolese friends started to plan for an uncertain future. After five days of negotiations, I won permission to leave: the Rwandan border was still closed, but four of us drove north to Uganda and crossed back into Rwanda from there. Along the road north we saw people continuing to work their fields, but they looked at us strangely, wondering why we were there. The next day, in response to international pressure, the Congo-Rwanda border was finally re-opened and many more of Goma's foreigners left.

What does the future hold for Congo? As I write, reports say rebel forces have struck a fatal blow to the capital, cutting its power and that Kabila has fled to Katanga, his home-region. But others report gains for forces loyal to the president. Rumours swirl around, bewildering, frightening, uncertain. The Congolese people continue to suffer the results of decades of misgovernment backed by international interests. It is not clear whether the fighting will settle into an ugly proxy war between Kabila and Rwanda. But the humanitarian needs will be large, but we don't know how large yet. And, whoever rules Congo, concerted international support for reconstruction will be essential. For now, the Congolese people endure another chapter in a dismal catalogue of human suffering brought on by one violent political transition after another.

Stephen Jackson directs the International Famine Centre at UCC. Previously a relief worker in Rwanda, he travels frequently to the Congo on one of the Centre's projects.