Zaire Outcome May Hold Key to Africa’s Future

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa —  Far more than the future of Zaire and its 45 million people rides on the imminent fall of Mobutu Sese Seko’s ruinous regime before a rebel-led military onslaught: The political and economic fortunes of much of Africa may be at stake.

Experts say the outcome of the epic struggle between Mobutu’s tottering regime and rebel leader Laurent Kabila’s guerrilla army could provide a huge boost to the world’s poorest and most turbulent continent--or a setback that will hobble it for years to come.

“This is damned important for all of Africa,” said Chester Crocker, who was assistant secretary of State for African affairs in the Ronald Reagan administration and now teaches diplomacy at Georgetown University. “It’s a great opportunity and a great challenge.”

By virtue of its strategic location, its rich natural resources and its colossal size--a quarter as big as the United States--Zaire anchors the nine nations on its borders. But resolution of Zaire’s crisis also will affect vital interests much deeper into southern and eastern Africa.

“A takeover by Kabila, if he gets it right, could encourage stability and economic growth in the whole region,” said Terence Taylor, assistant director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

Analysts said a best-case scenario would begin with a peaceful transition of power from Mobutu, followed by democratic elections and a credible government able to maintain Zaire’s territorial integrity and embrace free-market reforms.

That would quickly draw massive infusions of foreign aid and investment to the country that rebels have pledged to rename Democratic Congo. And that, in turn, could provide an economic and social bonanza to a region with vast potential for development.

Zaire boasts some of the world’s richest deposits of gold, diamonds, manganese, zinc, copper and cobalt. Mineral production has plummeted over the last decade because of mismanagement, civil unrest, graft and lack of investment.

But neighboring Zambia is privatizing its giant copper mines. If Zaire’s new government followed suit, cross-border mining and trade could benefit both nations. The Benguela railway line in Angola, destroyed by two decades of civil war, could be rebuilt as the shortest route from the mines to the sea.

Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa, regularly ravaged by drought, are eager to tap Zaire’s vast network of rivers and lakes. With irrigation and better farming, Zaire and the surrounding Great Lakes region could become a breadbasket for the famine-plagued continent.

Refurbishment of Zaire’s dilapidated dams and electrical lines, especially from the long-stalled Inga power project on the mighty Zaire River, could generate enough electricity to light much of Africa.

“If we reach regional stability and if we can efficiently exploit the wealth of Zaire, in 10 years’ time, maybe, we may see the African renaissance that Africans are talking about now,” said Kikaya Bin Karubi, a U.S.-educated Zairian journalist and political consultant.

“Eastern Africa is already on the way up. Only Zaire and Angola are lagging behind,” he said. Zaire is “the big missing piece in the puzzle.”

On the other hand, further anarchy in Zaire could fuel conflagration in an area long seared by secessionist wars, violent coups and ethnic bloodletting.

“If there’s more instability in Zaire, it affects all the adjacent countries,” warned Denis Venter, executive director of the independent Africa Institute of South Africa. “The spillover affects Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Angola, even South Africa. We could get refugees and illegal immigrants flooding in here.”

Zaire could yet explode in a blood bath if the insurgents fight their way into Kinshasa, the capital. It could split into warring fiefdoms if the new rebel-led regime was unable to control the long-repressed ethnic and separatist passions that nearly destroyed the young nation at independence from Belgium in 1960 and for decades afterward.

The bankrupt and chaotic country could sink further into a political and economic abyss if the rebels simply replaced one corrupt dictatorship with another. Donor governments, international banks and multinational businesses would stay away, as they have since Mobutu reneged on promises to start democratic reforms in 1990.

“Frankly, the prospects for a stable government don’t look very good,” warned George Ayittey, a Ghanaian economist in Washington who consults for international aid agencies. “And instability in Africa doesn’t stop at borders.”

Ayittey said Kabila’s military and political alliance appears united only in its opposition to Mobutu. Once in power, he fears, it will splinter in a bitter competition for power and spoils.

“If you look across Africa, the record of rebel movements shooting their way into power is deplorable,” he said. “The rebel movements simply split into factions and fight among themselves. . . . And if nothing is done, the factionalism could lead to a breakup of Zaire or a free-for-all like in Somalia.”

A violent breakup of Zaire could spark a bloody redrawing of other borders. Most African nations still seethe with tensions born in 1884 when European powers drew the continent’s map with colonial profits rather than ethnic and social realities in mind.

The long-term picture is further clouded by the covert support that numerous African nations, including seven of Zaire’s nine neighbors, have lent to Kabila to settle old scores with Mobutu and to end cross-border insurgencies.

During his long reign, Mobutu helped destabilize much of Central Africa by funding and arming regional guerrilla groups. To be sure, he acted until recently on behalf of the United States and other Western powers that embraced Mobutu as a staunch ally in the Cold War fight against communism or, in the case of France, as a way to help prop up friendly regimes in Africa.

Angola is a prime example. Mobutu was the chief conduit for U.S. arming of Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA rebels in that country’s long civil war. Despite U.S. opposition in recent years, Zaire has continued to provide weapons, bases and contraband for Savimbi, thwarting implementation of peace accords signed with the Angolan government in 1994.

Now both sides of the Angolan conflict are fighting in Zaire. Savimbi’s troops have joined Mobutu. And Angola’s president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, reportedly has massed armor and aircraft to create a western front for Kabila’s push on Kinshasa. Diplomats say battle-hardened Angolan government troops, ostensibly exiles from the southern Zairian province of Shaba, already have fought alongside Kabila’s rebels in several battles.

Analysts say the end of Mobutu’s 32-year regime would cut Savimbi’s crucial supply lines and could finally bring peace to Angola. “It’s obvious that a settlement in Zaire and a settlement in Angola are very closely linked,” said Jakkie Potgieter, senior researcher at the independent Institute for Strategic Studies in Johannesburg.

Rwanda’s Tutsi-led regime also has played a key role in Zaire. It actively backed Kabila’s uprising in eastern Zaire last fall to clear out exiled Rwandan Hutu military bases that Mobutu supported at refugee camps along the border.

The assault led to the repatriation of more than 800,000 Hutu refugees to Rwanda and pushed a hard-line group of soldiers and militiamen blamed for the 1994 Rwandan genocide far into Zaire’s jungle. The dying remnants of that group are now awaiting evacuation near Kisangani, more than 300 miles from home.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni also lent crucial early support to Kabila, including weapons and advisors. Uganda’s army crossed into eastern Zaire to wipe out guerrilla groups backed by Mobutu and the Islamic regime in Sudan, eliminating a major threat on its western border.

Zambia and Burundi have both allowed rebels, oil and other supplies to cross their territory, and diplomats have reported rebel training camps in Tanzania and arms shipments from Ethiopia and Eritrea.

No one knows how Kabila, whose rebel movement was virtually unknown a year ago, will repay his benefactors. Nor is it clear if any of the nations drawn into the conflict will encroach on the crippled giant, seizing valuable cropland or mineral resources.

“Clearly those countries that supported Kabila figured they would have influence over him,” said David Smock, coordinator of African activities at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a Washington-based body created by Congress. “I think people now are realizing that influence may be limited. He is his own man. And he’s very much of an unknown.”

Those countries’ problems will not end with peace in Zaire. But analysts say real progress on the continent--or an “African renaissance,” as South Africa’s deputy president, Thabo Mbeki, has termed it--may be impossible without it.

Jakkie Cilliers, director of Johannesburg’s Institute for Strategic Studies, adds a note of caution, however. Zaire’s devastated economy will take years to rebuild, he said. And given the region’s ethnic, religious and other schisms, a fast turnaround to long-term peace and prosperity is unlikely.

“What happened in Zaire is the state collapsed a long time ago,” Cilliers said. “And it hasn’t caused a huge disruption in the region. It’s been a silent implosion rather than a dramatic explosion. I’d guess that’s going to continue no matter what happens after Mobutu. The most probable scenario, I’m sorry to say, is more of the same.”

Times staff writer John Daniszewski contributed to this report from Kinshasa.