Beyond Mobutu: Kabila and the Congo - University of Wisconsin ...

Michael G. Schatzberg - Beyond Mobutu: Kabila and the Congo - Journal of Democracy 8:4 

Beyond Mobutu: Kabila and the Congo 

Michael G. Schatzberg 

On 17 May 1997, the military forces of Laurent Kabila's Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la 

Libération du Congo (AFDL) seized Kinshasa, ending dictator Mobutu Sese Seko's long sway over 

the land that he had renamed Zaire. It had taken the insurgents less than eight months to march 

from east to west across the vast country and sweep away the decaying carcass of the 

once-powerful Mobutist state. Although most Congolese rejoiced at the AFDL's entrance into the 

capital of what would once again be called the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), there 

remained a layer of wary reserve. As one citizen put it, "My country is rich, but after 32 years of 

Mobutu, our people are poor. We can only be happy about his departure, but the one thing we will 

all reject is another dictatorship that comes to replace him." 1 

Such caution is in order. Ex-premier Etienne Tshisekedi, long the leader of parliamentary opposition 

to Mobutu, was excluded from the new government, which then banned party and political activities. 

Kabila announced that a commission would write a new constitution by October 1998, with a 

referendum by December. Legislative and presidential voting would follow in April 1999. Alluding to 

Tshisekedi, he accused those calling for immediate elections of self-interest. "Let's stop talking 

about democracy and elections," he urged. "We are not going on with the preceding regime, but we 

are building a new state built on new values." 2 While promising democracy to the DRC's 42 million 

people, he named himself president, claiming broad executive, legislative, and judicial powers 

pending the adoption of the constitution. 

The political situation in Congo remains fluid. No one, perhaps not even Kabila himself, has a clear 

idea of what he and his regime would [End Page 70] like to achieve. Some observers see in 

Kabila's political history indicators of a return to a radical left-wing nationalism of the sort associated 

with the early postindependence premier Patrice Lumumba, who was assassinated in 1961--in other 

words, Lumumbism without Lumumba. Yet Kabila is no Lumumba, and the foreign and domestic 

circumstances of the late 1990s are far removed from those of the early 1960s. The Cold War has 

ended; Congo is no longer a prize in the great game. External influences remain important, but local 

powers such as Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and Angola--not the superpowers--were key in Kabila's 

triumph. Popular now, he may run into trouble as Congolese frustrated by three decades of 

dictatorship and poverty increasingly demand regular avenues of political participation and an end to 

economic deprivation. 

Many fear a return to a kind of Mobutuism without Mobutu, and there are disquieting signs of 

renascent authoritarianism in some of the Kabila regime's early actions. After Tshisekedi addressed 

a group of university students, Kabila enforced the ban on politics by seizing him and his wife and


detaining them overnight. There is also evidence that AFDL forces have massacred civilians, and 

Kabila's cooperation with UN human rights investigators thus far has been hesitant and grudging. 

But again, both international and domestic political configurations have changed. Today's DRC is as 

different from Mobutu's Zaire of the 1970s and mid-1980s as it is from Lumumba's Congo of the 

early 1960s. Authoritarianism is now far less likely to be tolerated. International financial institutions 

require both market-based economic liberalization and at least some sort of democratic opening. 

Congo's disastrous economic situation, the growth of political parties, the vibrancy of urban 

associational life, and the emergence over the last decade of Mobutu's rule of various rural and 

urban associations organized along confessional lines mean that people are much less likely to 

remain passive in the face of repression. The state is also now less capable of comprehensive 

repression than it once was. 

Kabila's vision for the future remains cloudy, and the unsettled nature of events on the ground 

means that his continued tenure in office cannot be assumed. The best one can do, given the 

fragmentary evidence available, is to offer a highly provisional assessment of both the country and 

its new president at the dawn of the post-Mobutu era. Such an assessment, however, must be 

grounded in an appreciation of the main features of the Congo's troubled history in the nearly four 

decades since it gained its independence. 

The First Republic, 1960-65 

The turbulence of the first five years after independence should be understood against the backdrop 

of Belgian colonialism. Although the [End Page 71] colonialists built what was, for the times, a 

rather impressive material infrastructure, their political dealings with the Congolese were 

heavy-handed and oppressive. The colonial economy extracted wealth from those who produced 

it--whether through work in the mines, individual taxation, or forced agricultural labor. Colonialism 

was not an experiment in building democracy; Congolese had no say in the laws and policies that 

governed their lives. The school system stressed primary education; freedom of religion was limited 

because the colonial state persecuted indigenous religious groups as subversive; and there were no 

freedoms of expression or association. Furthermore, while the colonial regime permitted cultural 

organizations based on a single ethnic identity, it banned transethnic political parties until almost the 

last minute. At independence, therefore, Congolese often perceived the new world of competitive 

electoral politics in predominantly ethnic terms. 

Independence came on 30 June 1960, and almost immediately the country was plunged into a 

maelstrom of violence. By mid-July, the Congolese army had mutinied against its Belgian officers; 

Belgian troops had intervened, ostensibly to restore order; and the mother lode of Congolese 

mineral wealth, the southern province of Katanga (Shaba), had seceded under Moise Tshombe. 

Within a year, the following events had also occurred: 1) UN troops arrived after the country had 

become an object of Cold War strife. 2) The constitutional arrangements that the departing Belgians 

had bequeathed broke down entirely as President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Minister Lumumba 

"revoked" each other's authority, resulting in a political deadlock that prompted then-Colonel Joseph 

Mobutu's first coup in September 1960. Mobutu immediately turned the government over to a 

College of Commissioners, composed of the few college graduates the country possessed. 3) 

Lumumba was arrested, imprisoned, and assassinated. 4) Central-government forces clashed with 

Lumumbist troops from Stanleyville (Kisangani). 5) There was widespread ethnic conflict and civil 

war, with much of the worst fighting in the secessionist province of South Kasai. 3 

By the second and third years of independence, new, smaller provinces were being carved from the 

old ones; from 1963 through 1967, much of the country was engulfed by rebellions against central 

authority. At their apogee in 1964, these largely uncoordinated revolts covered more than half the 

country and were eventually put down only with substantial military intervention from foreign 

mercenaries, Belgium, and the United States. The larger picture was not pretty--competing poles of 

political authority and legitimacy; external military and political interventions and the intrusion of Cold 

War politics; ethnic conflict throughout the country; and serious armed insurrections against the 

national government. 4


This disintegration of civil and political order had three main causes. First, decolonization was badly 

bungled. Although the Belgians left [End Page 72] behind an ostensibly democratic constitution and 

government, these new structures were uninspired copies of Belgian institutions, and quickly proved 

unworkable. Even had they been better adapted, there were not enough trained personnel to staff 

the government. By and large, the Congolese were technically unprepared to operate the levers of 

the state. There were few university graduates, and there had been no period of apprenticeship in 

the practices of democratic self-rule. 

Second, politicized ethnicity and the widespread mistrust that went along with it made political 

legitimacy virtually unattainable. This contributed to the secession of Katanga, fueled the ethnic war 

in Kasai, and was also behind many more localized outbreaks of violence. In part, politicized 

ethnicity was bound up with a serious constitutional question that has never adequately been 

resolved. In the DRC's early days, the primary political debate concerned the constitution: Was 

Congo to be a unitary or a federal state? How much power would the central government have? 

What powers and responsibilities, if any, would be left to the provinces and what role would they 

play in the allocation of influence? The champions in this struggle were Kasavubu, who argued for a 

federalist solution stressing the gradual creation of national unity from the bottom up, and Lumumba, 

who feared that federalism would encourage ethnic conflict and separatism. The Belgian-designed 

Constitution represented an ill-wrought compromise that could not resolve the basic issue. 5 

Third and finally, the Cold War complicated matters enormously. External interventions--by the 

Belgians, the Soviets, the Americans, and the UN--may have prevented the Congolese from working 

out their own solutions to political problems. The rebellions of the mid-1960s were, at least in part, 

an attempt by frustrated Congolese to gain a "second independence" because the fruits of the 1960 

independence had effectively been denied to them. It was under these conditions that General 

Mobutu, with a wink and a nod from the U.S. embassy, staged his second military coup in 1965 and 

seized power from the civilians who had shown themselves incapable of governing the country. 6 

The Second Republic, 1965-90 

It is sometimes hard to remember that in 1965 Mobutu was a genuinely popular figure. The civilian 

political order that he supplanted had lost all legitimacy, and many Congolese--perhaps even a 

substantial majority--welcomed the new regime. Most people had suffered terribly during the 

rebellions, and even years later keenly recalled the human and material losses of those years. 

Mobutu's response to the political turmoil and instability was to reconstruct the sinews of a strong 

state. Perhaps ironically, given his own role in the political and military defeat of Lumumbist forces, 

[End Page 73] Mobutu clearly favored a unitary state. In Mobutu's grand design, virtually all political 

control flowed from Kinshasa. He moved quickly, creating a rubber-stamp legislature and 

reconsolidating the smaller provinces into fewer, larger units. Mobutu tried to contain ethnic strife by 

removing the political autonomy of the newly reconstituted provinces and by nationalizing their 

police forces. Provincial governors, once elected, now served at the pleasure of the president. 

Single-party rule became a reality when Mobutu founded the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution 

(MPR) in 1967. It quickly became clear that Mobutu's vision of the party-state was 

all-encompassing. He would permit no other political organization, and he soon dominated all 

institutional arms of both state and party. Trade unions, women's organizations, and youth groups all 

were brought under the MPR's umbrella. By the mid-1970s even some church organizations came 

under attack, as the president moved to restrict their power by ending their control over school 

networks. The state-controlled media sang Mobutu's praises. A cult of personality bloomed. He was 

President-Founder of the Party, President of the Republic, Commander in Chief of the Armed 

Forces, the Great Helmsman, and the Father of the Nation. In fairness, it should be mentioned that 

an important part of his centralizing project--the struggle for cultural authenticity--was a genuine and 

remarkably successful attempt to forge a single national identity. 7


Badly flawed economic policies such as the 1973 "Zairianization" of the economy and the 1974 

radicalization of the revolution (which brought certain key economic sectors under state control) 

completely disrupted commerce and agriculture. Congolese saw these economic adventures for 

what they were--raids on the national wealth by Mobutu and his politico-commercial bourgeoisie. 

Grandiose and unsuitable development schemes such as the Inga-Shaba high-tension power line 

and the Maluku steel mill drove the government deeply into debt. Then the price of copper dropped, 

further contributing to a pervasive sense of scarcity and insecurity. The formal private sector 

languished. Officials, perennially uncertain of their power and perquisites in the face of Mobutu's 

whims, frantically gouged ordinary citizens so as to "lay away" enough to cushion any fall from 

political grace. Insecurity and scarcity fed on each other, spreading corruption and oppression over 

the entire country. When generals stole to finance their private commercial ventures, unpaid soldiers 

raided villages. When state-employed physicians could no longer survive and when there were no 

longer any medicines, they charged their patients. When teachers went unpaid, they dunned their 

students. This vicious chain of extraction prompted a massive exodus from the formal economy to 

the mushrooming informal sector. 8 

As his regime's legitimacy evaporated, Mobutu ruled increasingly through coercion and fear. He 

wanted the army weak and divided so [End Page 74] that it could not threaten him politically (as 

recent events again showed, Mobutu's armed forces had trouble against opponents who could shoot 

back). Yet it was still strong enough to crush unarmed civilian opposition, especially when the MPR 

youth wing and the ever-present political police lent a hand. Students, women, peasants, miners, 

and opposition politicians all felt the repressive weight of the state. Extortion, arbitrary arrest, 

detention without trial, and extrajudicial executions were common, giving birth to a reign of terror. 

Strong external support helped Mobutu to remain in power. An anticommunist during the Cold War, 

he received help at certain key junctures from the U.S. government, including the Central 

Intelligence Agency. Throughout the years of global confrontation the United States and its allies, 

France and Belgium, were quick to come to Mobutu's aid when needed. The parachute drop on 

Stanleyville in 1964, as well as the military interventions to put down rebellions in Shaba in 1977 and 

1978, were indications of his value. Mobutu, too, knew that he could play the anticommunist card to 

get Washington's attention. 9 

The Hijacked Transition, 1990-97 

The late 1980s witnessed the emergence of a more open style of opposition, repression 

notwithstanding. Tshisekedi's Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social (UDPS) became more 

militant in Kinshasa, as did--on occasion--students and women. Coupled with the decline of an 

already weakened economy, this created circumstances in which la foule--the "crowd" of Kinshasa's 

streets--could become an important political force. In early 1990, Mobutu held a series of popular 

meetings designed to discuss the country's problems. Much to his chagrin, many Congolese used 

the occasion to demand an end to single-party rule. In April of that year, a shocked Mobutu 

effectively legalized a three-party structure. The end of the Cold War, and the violent death of 

Romanian strongman Nicolae Ceau_escu, to whom Mobutu had been close, doubtless also had an 

effect. When the Soviet Union dissolved as 1992 dawned, it was obvious that the West's rationale 

for supporting Mobutu had vanished along with it. 

Although Mobutu tried to control the scope and pace of the political opening, institutional life in the 

capital changed dramatically. Seemingly overnight, hundreds of political parties appeared (some 

with regime financing). A vocal and critical press materialized as well. There was a rebirth of 

organizational life as people started to sense the potential for change. Many of the regime's 

keener-witted barons began edging away from Mobutu, founding their own parties in hopes of 

enhancing their political credibility. The opposition, however, remained largely fragmented. Many 

oppositionists could not resist the regime's blandishments and rallied to it--for a price. Others could 

not contain their own ambitions [End Page 75] to become Mobutu's successor. A Sovereign 

National Conference, modeled along the lines of other such conclaves in French-speaking Africa,


met throughout much of 1991-92. This body named Tshisekedi prime minister, sparking a drawn-out 

bout of wrangling between Mobutu and his fiercest political opponent over who would control key 

levers of state power. The crowd also had its say in this regard; at several junctures the Roman 

Catholic Church was instrumental in getting people into the streets for peaceful protests against 

Mobutu's machinations. Unfortunately, these marches were often violently repressed. 

Mutinies among the ill-paid soldiery in 1991 and 1993 made the situation even more complex. The 

troops were angry that the National Conference delegates were much better paid than they were, 

and that some merchants--with opposition prompting--refused to accept the inflationary new 

banknotes that Mobutu's government was printing. With the state failing to pay them a living wage, 

troops sought succor by stealing whatever was not nailed down. The pillaging highlighted the army's 

decline as even a minimally disciplined fighting force. 

Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, the flight into the informal economy had worked in favor 

of regional autonomy, especially in Kivu, Kasai, and Katanga. People in these areas had organized 

economic circuits independent of the central government. In a sense, the old debate between 

centralization and federalism had quietly been settled on the ground. Regionally autonomous and 

economically independent provincial units were the winners. More disturbingly, these years also 

witnessed the cynical manipulation of local ethnic tensions. In 1993, portions of all three regions 

were subjected to ethnic-cleansing campaigns orchestrated largely by the Mobutu regime, with the 

active collusion of certain local officials. Longtime Luba residents of Katanga were forced to "return" 

to Kasai, while local tensions between "indigenous" groups and prosperous "newcomers" in portions 

of Kivu threatened to destabilize the entire region. 10 

The years 1993 and 1994 were marked by instability and horror in two small countries on Zaire's 

eastern periphery. The autumn of 1993 saw the outbreak of virtual civil war in Burundi, accompanied 

the following spring by the genocidal slaughter of Tutsis in Rwanda. A massive humanitarian crisis 

ensued. More than a million Hutu refugees flooded across the border into Zaire, fleeing in fear from 

regimes that were now dominated by Tutsis. Mingled among the innocent were many with blood on 

their hands. Even worse, the perpetrators of this holocaust came still organized, armed, and eager 

to seek revenge against those who had defeated them militarily and driven them into exile. The 

refugee camps in Zaire became bases for operations against the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan regime 

of Paul Kagamé--a situation that both Rwanda and Burundi found threatening and intolerable. 11 

Mobutu, too, should have found the predicament perilous, for [End Page 76] Kagamé's Rwandan 

army was professional, disciplined, battle-hardened, and--because of the genocide--highly 

motivated. They were, in other words, all of the things that Mobutu's armed forces were not. But by 

1996 Mobutu, as we now know, was ill with the prostate cancer that would kill him in September 

1997, and had all but abdicated daily control of the state to Prime Minister Kengo wa Dondo. 

Kabila and the Rebellion 

Until late 1996, Laurent Désiré Kabila had never been more than a secondary player on the 

Congolese political scene. Moreover, as a long-standing opponent of the Mobutu regime who had 

operated clandestinely for approximately three decades, he knew of Mobutu's penchant for 

eliminating both enemies and "friends" who might become potential rivals. Kabila thus had no 

incentive to call attention to himself or his activities. As a result, much about his past is uncertain, 

subject to conflicting testimonies and inconsistent evidence. What follows, therefore, is only a 

preliminary sketch. 

We know little of Kabila's parents or social background, but he is an ethnic Luba who was born in 

Likasi, Katanga, in 1939. His family's origins, however, are in Ankoro--in the Manono Zone of North 

Katanga. He was apparently able to finish his secondary studies in the Congo, and seems to have 

spent a brief time in Paris before independence. Early on, he became involved in the torturous and 

tragic Luba politics of North Katanga. At independence, the Luba of North Katanga were 

represented, locally and nationally, by the Balubakat party, a political grouping that staunchly


opposed secession. The party was split in two, a division that would endure throughout the First 

Republic. Jason Sendwe, a moderate politician operating primarily on the national stage who was 

predisposed toward compromise and conciliation, led one wing. The other wing operated more on 

the local level and was dominated by Prosper Mwamba Ilunga. Mwamba Ilunga and his followers 

not only opposed Tshombe and the secession of Katanga, but once Lumumba was eliminated they 

became zealous allies of his supporters who were struggling to restore a Lumumbist government. 

They were les durs (hard-liners), leftists willing to take up arms to create a unified, progressive, and 

socialist Congo. At least some of them were influenced by communist doctrines. Kabila was firmly 

allied to this Lumumbist camp. 12 

After the secession of Katanga, Kabila became involved in the fighting against Tshombe's armed 

forces as a high-ranking leader of the Balubakat Youth. While I can locate no specific sources that 

detail his activities during this period (August 1960-January 1961), many contemporary accounts 

mention the extraordinary ferocity of the Balubakat Youth in battle and the fear that they inspired. 

They were [End Page 77] also noted for indiscipline, and even Mwamba Ilunga could not fully 

control them. 13 Kabila spent most of 1961 studying at the University of Belgrade in Tito's 

Yugoslavia, but there are no indications either of what he studied or of what effect, if any, this stint in 

Eastern Europe had on his political views. It is reasonable to speculate, however, that--at the 

least--his stay reinforced his left-wing leanings. In 1962 Kabila returned to the Congo, taking up a 

series of positions in the North Katanga provincial government. He entered the North Katanga 

legislature later that year, beating out 16 other candidates for a seat as an alternate delegate 

elected by the legislators. Kabila was chosen as someone who would not deviate from the preferred 

political line. He was, in other words, a known and predictable political commodity: a firm supporter 

of Mwamba Ilunga and an ardent critic of corruption and poor administrative methods. 14 

In late 1963, President Kasavubu closed the national parliament; Lumumbist politicians left the 

country for Brazzaville, where they founded the Conseil National de Libération (CNL) as well as 

several training camps for armed insurgents. The CNL soon fell prey to factionalism and split into a 

wing led by Christophe Gbenye, and one led by Egide Bocheley-Davidson. Kabila rallied to the 

former and became the CNL's secretary-general for social affairs, youth, and sports. In early 1964, 

the CNL dispatched Kabila and Gaston Soumialot to Bujumbura, Burundi, where they were to 

organize and promote revolution in the eastern reaches of the Congo, especially in Kivu and North 

Katanga. Kabila soon filtered back to Albertville (Kalémie), the capital of North Katanga, where he 

apparently became principal secretary for information in the provincial government. In May 1964 he 

took part, along with elements of the Balubakat Youth, in a brief and unsuccessful insurrection. A 

month later, however, he returned and retook the city with some of the CNL's military forces. 15 

During the latter half of the year, Kabila became even more caught up in revolutionary politics and 

was named vice-president in charge of external relations and commerce for the CNL's Eastern 

Section. In this capacity, and throughout much of 1964 and 1965, he seems to have been well 

traveled. At various moments he appeared in Nairobi, Dar-es-Salaam, Cairo, and Paris. We also 

know that in 1965 he was running rebel operations from Kigoma, Tanzania, and that he frequently 

crossed Lake Tanganyika into Congo. 

In April 1965, the CNL was dissolved, and succeeded by the Conseil Suprême de la Révolution 

(CSR). As the CSR's vice-president in charge of the eastern military zone, Kabila met Ernesto 

("Che") Guevara and his Cuban expeditionary force. Guevara and the Cubans were in eastern 

Congo from April to November 1965 to help advance the Congolese revolution. Abroad when they 

arrived, Kabila did not appear at Guevara's base camp until July. By that time, the Cubans had 

already [End Page 78] determined that the front was badly disorganized, many rebel leaders were 

inept, and there was much need for more training. The rebel troops, moreover, lacked discipline and 

a spirit of sacrifice, and the local people had a negative impression of the Congolese rebel leaders. 

When Kabila finally did arrive, the Cubans were less than excited by his revolutionary potential. 

Although he spoke well, he had several Guinean women in tow. The Cubans found him cordial, but 

somehow aloof. Guevara and his troops fought well in several battles (at least according to their 

mercenary foes), but eventually left in discouragement. 16


Kabila's Ministate 

By 1967, the rebellions were effectively over. Kabila and some other rebels withdrew into the 

mountains of South Kivu, in the Fizi-Baraka area, where they founded the Parti de la Révolution 

Populaire (PRP) in October 1967. Initially, the PRP's goal was to carry on the revolution and to 

overturn the Mobutu regime, but they quickly found themselves isolated and on the defensive. They 

lacked weapons, and do not seem to have received any covert assistance from the Soviet bloc. 

Indeed, by the early 1980s, they claimed that they were more interested in raising political 

consciousness than in waging a shooting war against Mobutu. The regime, for its part, was either 

unable or unwilling to dislodge them from their mountain redoubt, or at least found their presence in 

a restricted area tolerable. During the 1970s and 1980s, in effect, the PRP had their own ministate. 

Organized along Leninist lines, the PRP enclave featured collective agriculture, schools teaching 

simplified Marxism-Leninism, and organizations for young pioneers and revolutionary women. The 

PRP's armed wing also favored a Leninist organizational style, and was directed by both a military 

general and a political general. Even though the PRP's preferred class analysis featured seven 

social classes, in the end everything boiled down to a conflict between the oppressed and the 

oppressors. But all was not perfect in the PRP's socialist heaven, which many of the local Bembe 

population recall as a place where Kabila used force to stay in power and exploit their labor. 17 

Ideology notwithstanding, by the mid-1970s PRP military actions had degenerated into small-time 

banditry. During this time, the PRP existed in mutually profitable symbiosis with the Zairian army in 

Kivu. Garrison commanders, always on the make, would trade munitions to Kabila's group for the 

proceeds of local gold-mine robberies. 18 But money remained a problem, and was perhaps the 

reason for the PRP's 1975 kidnapping of four Western students who were studying primates at Jane 

Goodall's Gombe Stream Research Center in Tanzania. 19 

In the late 1970s there were few sightings of Kabila and the PRP. Kabila does not seem to have 

taken part in either of the Shaba insurrections led by Nathaniel Mbumba and the Front de Libération 

[End Page 79] Nationale du Congo (FLNC) in 1977 and 1978. The 1978 rebellion came very close 

to toppling Mobutu, but was put down by French and Belgian troops with U.S. logistical support. 

Kabila's absence is a puzzle in light of a report that the PRP and FLNC had made efforts to 

cooperate in late 1977. But by that time it was possible that Kabila's attention was fixed on his 

commercial affairs. He continued smuggling gold from Zaire to East Africa, and became a 

successful trader. He maintained homes in Dar-es-Salaam and Kampala. While in Uganda he 

certainly encountered both Yoweri Museveni, now president of that country, and Paul Kagamé, now 

vice-president of Rwanda. During his travels, Kabila also seems to have learned some English. 20 

Kabila was also mostly invisible in the 1980s. He surfaced in Europe in 1982 to testify against 

Mobutu and the excesses of his regime before the Second Russell Tribunal (the Permanent Tribunal 

of the People) at Rotterdam. In late 1984, the PRP briefly seized the town of Moba on Lake 

Tanganyika, an episode best known for the violent repression that followed Mobutu's reconquest of 

the area. 21 But after that, Kabila and the PRP faded from view. Almost nothing is known of Kabila's 

activities during this time; perhaps he thought it prudent to maintain a low profile while engaged in 

entrepreneurial ventures. Unlike other opposition leaders such as Mbumba or Gbenye, he never 

returned to Kinshasa after the political opening in 1990 and took no part in the National Conference. 

It was thus surprising when Kabila emerged in late 1996 first as a spokesman, and then as the 

leader, of the AFDL. 

The waves of Rwandan migration and the historical roots of the unrest in eastern Zaire are complex 

topics. Suffice it to say that the Banyamulenge of South Kivu are speakers of Kinyarwanda who are 

the descendants, mostly Tutsi, of people who settled the region just west of Lake Tanganyika well 

over a century ago. Despite this, the Mobutu regime fostered a view of them as outsiders. Then too, 

antipathy lingered from the 1960s, when many Banyamulenge sided with the central government 

against the rebels and the local peoples who supported them. A 1981 law, popular with other groups 

in the area, effectively stripped most Banyamulenge of Zairian citizenship. Ethnic conflict ensued


throughout the early 1990s. Some Banyamulenge "returned" to Rwanda to fight for Kagamé's 

Rwandan Patriotic Front as it strove successfully to oust the genocidal Hutu-dominated regime. The 

resulting Hutu-refugee influx into Kivu severely complicated an already tense situation. Throughout 

1995 and 1996, anti-Banyamulenge violence increased. The climax came on 7 October 1996, when 

South Kivu's governor ordered all Banyamulenge to leave the country within a week. This sparked 

the revolt. It seems that Kabila joined the Banyamulenge sometime between August 1996 and the 

governor's inflammatory speech. 22 

Early in the rebellion, there was doubt as to who was in charge. [End Page 80] Kabila was initially 

described as a spokesman for the rebels, while the military commander was André Kisase Ngandu. 

By mid-November, however, Kabila was increasingly portrayed as the leader and Kisase Ngandu 

had disappeared from view. Months later, it became known that he had been killed under 

circumstances that remain tenebrous. Kabila was certainly a major beneficiary of Kisase Ngandu's 

misfortune. The early descriptions of Kabila seemed slightly at odds with what one might expect of a 

lifelong revolutionary with more than 30 years in the maquis. One correspondent described him as a 

"stout man who wears two-toned alligator shoes, a Mirabella baseball cap and well-pressed military 

attire." 23 Was this the man leading the war against Mobutu? 

Kabila presented himself as the leader of the AFDL, an umbrella group comprising his own PRP and 

three other, even less visible organizations. 24 All were anti-Mobutu; beyond that not much is known. 

Although it was soon apparent that AFDL forces were receiving substantial assistance from 

abroad--first from Rwanda and Uganda, and then from Angola--Kabila insisted that the insurgency 

was home-grown. The true extent of external involvement became public only in July 1997, when 

Kagamé admitted what had long been suspected: Rwanda had planned and directed the rebellion, 

and Rwandan troops and officers were in its forefront. Not only did they provide equipment and 

training to Kabila's forces, they also took a direct part in the capture of Kisangani (Stanleyville), 

Lubumbashi, Kenge, and Kinshasa. When in 1996 the Rwandan government decided to eliminate 

the threat from the Hutu refugee camps in Zaire, it sought out Congolese opposition groups such as 

the PRP, enlisting their help to fight Mobutu and, not coincidentally, to provide a Congolese political 

cover for operations against the camps. From the Rwandan perspective, Kabila was a familiar face 

who may simply have been in the right place at the right time. Rwanda was the Godfather of the 

Congolese rebellion. 25 

Future Tasks 

Despite the gaps in our knowledge, it is clear that Laurent Kabila's resumé is short on democratic 

credentials. Caution dictates that we face the possibility that Kabila may not really be interested in 

establishing liberal democracy. To the best of our knowledge, Kabila has never been popularly 

elected to any office, and his history suggests that his understanding of, and commitment to, 

democratic precepts may be rather limited. But he has stated that he would like to implement a 

democracy, and he has set a timetable. If, at least for a while, we choose--perhaps somewhat 

optimistically--to take Kabila at his word, what must be done for democracy to emerge in the DRC? 

First, the polity has to be reconstructed. The enduring question of the balance between 

centralization and regional autonomy must be resolved. [End Page 81] By the end of the Mobutu 

regime, de facto regional autonomy in many parts of the country was a reality. Popular 

disillusionment with Mobutu's centralism and authoritarianism is likely to color reaction to any 

proposed constitutional scheme. Perhaps the pendulum has for now swung back toward 

decentralization and local political control. It may be best to build on and further empower the local 

developmental and church organizations that have emerged in the last decade. (Personal or ethnic 

militias, by contrast, must be disarmed and disbanded.) In other words, Kabila and the new group of 

leaders will probably need to reach an accommodation with the many religious and secular 

nongovernmental organizations, especially those in the cities, that opposed the Mobutu regime 

during its last decade. If they are included and respected, these ostensibly nonpolitical associations


could substantially smooth the road to viable democracy. Moreover, legitimate and nonviolent 

oppositionists such as Tshisekedi and the UDPS will need to feel that they have a role in the 

building of the new order and a reasonable chance to win office. 

Second, basic human rights--including freedom from hunger, freedom from disease, and freedom 

from fear--will have to be respected; no democracy is possible without them. Kabila will have to 

show the Congolese and the world that he and his forces were not involved in war crimes. He will 

also have to recognize that Mobutu did forge a national identity. Whether called Zairians or 

Congolese, Kabila's compatriots do distinguish between themselves and the Rwandans, and Kabila 

may have to demonstrate to the Congolese that he is autonomous. Given how he came to power, 

these last two points may pose a dilemma. If he blames the Rwandan army for the atrocities, Kabila 

both angers his backers and admits that he was not in full control of the rebellion. Congolese will not 

be happy to see their new government cast as a cat's-paw of tiny Rwanda. Yet if Kabila claims 

direction of the uprising, then he bears responsibility for the massacres. Is it any wonder that he has 

failed to welcome UN investigators with open arms? 

Third, a completely devastated economy must be rebuilt. Copper production, 440,000 tons in 1989, 

dropped to 33,600 tons in 1994. The hyperinflation of the early 1990s made the currency all but 

worthless, and in 1993 the foreign debt was $11.3 billion. Per-capita GDP seems to be about $220 a 

year, among the world's lowest. 26 Infrastructure crumbled under Mobutu, and the economy must be 

put on a sound footing. It is unclear whether Kabila and the AFDL can do this. Can an old 

Lumumbist who once believed in collective farming find happiness as a World Bank-approved free 

marketeer? Perhaps his experiences in the informal economy and international trade will serve him 

well here. He has already taken much-needed steps to curb corruption. 

Constructing democracy requires time, patience, and vision. It remains to be seen whether Kabila 

and the AFDL will be given the time, can develop the patience, and possess the necessary vision. 

Under the best [End Page 82] of circumstances, building democracy in the Congo would be difficult. 

But even under the worst of circumstances, democracy is not an achievement beyond the capacity 

of the Congolese people. 

Michael G. Schatzberg is professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is 

the author of The Dialectics of Oppression in Zaire (1988) and Mobutu or Chaos? The United States 

and Zaire, 1960-1990 (1991). 

Notes 

1. Howard W. French, "With Mobutu Out, Zaire Rebel Chief Claims Presidency," New York Times, 

18 May 1997, A1. 

2. Tom Cohen, "Kabila Sworn In, Assuming Sweeping Powers to Rule Congo," Associated Press, 

29 May 1997. 

3. See Crawford Young, Politics in the Congo: Decolonization and Independence (Princeton: 

Princeton University Press, 1965); Jules Gérard-Libois, Katanga Secession (Madison: University of 

Wisconsin Press, 1966); René Lemarchand, Political Awakening in the Congo: The Politics of 

Fragmentation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964); and the impressive analysis and 

documentation accumulated by Benoît Verhaegen and his collaborators in the annual CRISP series, 

Congo 1960-1967 (Brussels: CRISP, 1961-69). 

4. On the rebellions, see Benoît Verhaegen, Rébellions au Congo, 2 vols. (Brussels: CRISP, 1966, 

1969); and Crawford Young, "Rebellion and the Congo," in Robert I. Rotberg and Ali A. Mazrui, eds., 

Protest and Power in Black Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 969-1011. 

5. For a general discussion, see Young, Politics in the Congo, 475-532.


6. On the international dimension, see Madeleine G. Kalb, The Congo Cables: The Cold War in 

Africa from Eisenhower to Kennedy (New York: Macmillan, 1982); and Sean Kelly, America's Tyrant: 

The CIA and Mobutu of Zaire (Washington, D.C.: American University Press, 1993). 

7. See Crawford Young and Thomas Turner, The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State (Madison: 

University of Wisconsin Press, 1985); and Thomas M. Callaghy, The State-Society Struggle: Zaire in 

Comparative Perspective (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984). 

8. Michael G. Schatzberg, The Dialectics of Oppression in Zaire (Bloomington: Indiana University 

Press, 1988). On the informal economy, see Janet MacGaffey, Entrepreneurs and Parasites: The 

Struggle for Indigenous Capitalism in Zaire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 

9. Michael G. Schatzberg, "Military Intervention and the Myth of Collective Security: The Case of 

Zaire," Journal of Modern African Studies 27 (June 1989): 315-40. 

10. On the regime's terminal phase, see Jean-Claude Willame, Zaire: Predicament and Prospects 

(Washington: United States Institute of Peace, 1997); Colette Braeckman, Terreur 

africaine--Burundi, Rwanda, Zaire: Les racines de la violence (Paris: Fayard, 1996), 203-67; and the 

remarkable commentaries of Lye M. Yoka, Lettres d'un Kinois à l'oncle du village: Zaire, Années 90, 

in Cahiers africains no. 15 (Brussels: Institut Africain-CEDAF, 1995). 

11. See Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (New York: Columbia University 

Press, 1995) and "The Great Lakes Crisis," Current History 96 (May 1997): 193-99. See also 

Human Rights Watch, "Zaire: `Attacked by All Sides': Civilians and the War in Eastern Zaire," 9:1A 

(March 1997); and Human Rights Watch, "Zaire: Transition, War and Human Rights," 9:2A (April 

1997). 

12. This account is based on disparate sources of perhaps varying accuracy. See, however, 

Verhaegen's useful capsule biographical notice in Rébellions au Congo, 1:520, as well as Kabuya 

Lumuna Sando, Nord-Katanga 1960-64--De la sécession à la guerre civile: Le meurtre des chefs 

(Paris: L'Harmattan, 1992). 

13. Conor Cruise O'Brien, To Katanga and Back: A UN Case History (New York: Grosset and 

Dunlap, 1962), 292; Benoît Verhaegen, Congo 1961 (Brussels: CRISP, 1962), 311; Lemarchand, 

Political Awakening in the Congo, 267; and Gérard-Libois, Katanga Secession, 170. 

14. Verhaegen, Rébellions au Congo, 1:416, 520; and J.C. Willame, Les provinces du Congo: 

Structure et fonctionnement, 5 vols. (Leopoldville [Kinshasa]: IRES, 1964), 1:123. 

15. Jason Sendwe was mysteriously murdered at about this time; some Katangan Luba still blame 

Kabila (whose involvement remains uncertain). Although the evidence is inconclusive, one 

investigation suggests that Sendwe fell victim to mutinous central-government troops who had come 

over to the CNL. See Verhaegen, Rébellions au Congo, 1:520 and passim; and Jules Gérard-Libois 

and Jean Van Lierde, Congo 1964 (Brussels: CRISP, 1965), 31-43, 225. On Sendwe's death, see 

Kabuya, Nord-Katanga 1960-64, 143-44; and Africa Confidential, 29 November 1996, 2. 

16. Gérard-Libois and Van Lierde, Congo 1964, 225, 538; Jules Gérard-Libois and Jean Van Lierde, 

Congo 1965 (Brussels: CRISP, 1966), 145, 178, 188; Richard Gott, "Che Guevara and the Congo," 

New Left Review 220 (November-December 1996): 3-35; Paco Ignacio Taibo II et al., El año en que 

estuvimos en ninguna parte: La guerrilla africana de Ernesto Che Guevara (Buenos Aires: 

Ediciones del Pensamiento Nacional, 1994), 124-27; and Mike Hoare, Mercenary (New York: 

Bantam, 1967), 271, 302. 

17. Much of this information is gleaned from "Entretiens avec le PRP dans les maquis du Zaire," 

Info-Zaire 37 (December 1982-February 1983). On Kabila's relations with the Bembe, see Cindy


Shriner, "Kabila: Despot or Democrat? Accounts of Kabila's Odyssey Contradictory," Washington 

Post, 19 May 1997, A1. 

18. Schatzberg, Dialectics of Oppression, 60. 

19. After two months of negotiations, the students were released; an unknown ransom was paid. 

James C. McKinley, Jr., "Mobutu's Nemesis Keeps His Plans to Himself," New York Times, 1 April 

1997, A1. 

20. Shriner, "Kabila: Democrat or Despot?"; Schatzberg, "Military Intervention and the Myth of 

Collective Security"; and Africa News, 29 May 1978, 7. 

21. Laurent Kabila, "Mobutu arrête, torture et tue," in C.K. Lumuna Sando and Buana Kabue, eds., 

Mobutu Sese Seko: Le procès (Brussels: AFRICA, 1982), 75-76; and Amnesty International, Zaire: 

Reports of Torture and Killings Committed by the Armed Forces in Shaba Region (London: Amnesty 

International, 1986). 

22. Human Rights Watch, "Zaire: `Attacked by All Sides': Civilians and the War in Eastern Zaire"; 

Peter Rosenblum, "Endgame in Zaire," Current History 96 (May 1997): 201. 

23. James C. McKinley, Jr., "Old Revolutionary Is a New Power To Be Reckoned with in Central 

Africa," New York Times, 27 November 1996, A6. 

24. On these other three organizations, see Africa Confidential, 1 November 1996, 2. 

25. John Pomfret, "Rwandans Led Revolt in Congo," Washington Post, 9 July 1997, A1; and James 

C. McKinley, Jr., "Rwanda's Big Role in War May Haunt Congo Leader," New York Times, 12 July 

1997, A7. 

26. Economist Intelligence Unit, Country Profile: Zaire 1995-96 (London: Economist Intelligence 

Unit, 1995), 17, 22, 40.

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