The Assassination Of Laurent Kabila
By
Horace Campbell,

President Laurent Kabila was shot and killed in Kinshasa the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Tuesday January 16. His shooting stemmed from the acrimonious situation within the military leadership of the army, after the stinging defeat of the military forces at Pweto in Katanga Province in the past three months. Thousands of soldiers ran away from Pweto to Zambia, reporting that they had been fighting for years without pay. The Zimbabwean government evacuated their own soldiers after the routing at Pweto.

The fighting between the Rwandan supported elements of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD-Goma) and the Kabila military had exposed the weaknesses of the Lusaka Peace Process. The Lusaka Peace Process Accord was signed in Lusaka Zambia on July 11, 1999. This Accord called for a cease-fire, the release of prisoners, the deployment of a Joint Military Commission, the arrest of those who committed genocide in Rwanda, the disarming of the armed militias, and the convening of a National Dialogue. The government of Zimbabwe had pressured Kabila to sign the Lusaka accord because its military forces had been trapped and surrounded at Ikela. After the Peace Accord in July 199, there was renewed fighting and as soon as the Namibian and Zimbabwean troops broke out of encirclement at Ikela. Tthe war continued with the plunder of the mineral resources of the country to finance the war.

When the Peace Accord was signed, the Kabila Government sought to use the period to re-arm and to extend the war. There has been an intensification of the plunder of the country by all of the military forces, who find war more profitable than peace. The armies of both Uganda and Rwanda, which had intervened in the DRC to support elements of the Congolese society, were both involved in the looting and there was an occurrence of fighting between these two armies in the DRC. This was the high point of the senseless war that had engulfed the country and held fifty five million Congolese people hostage to militarists.

Wamba dia Wamba, one of the leaders of the rebellion, had rejected the military means and on Monday, January 15, 2001, one day before the assassination, had rejected another effort to strengthen the militarist forces. It was the plan of the Ugandan political leadership to sideline Wamba and the civilian political leadership in order to strengthen the military cooperation between Uganda and Rwanda for the military overthrow of the Kabila Government. Jean Pierre Bemba of the MLC had been nominated as the new military strongman for the militarists. The merger of the RCD Kisangani (Wamba's formation) and the MLC was to lead to one new military opposition. Wamba argued that the merger only made sense politically if it were a step to support the Lusaka Peace Process and the National Dialogue.

Government of National Unity
In rejecting the new military alliance, Wamba dia Wamba called for unity among all Congolese people to liberate the country from the forms of governance that had been set up and institutionalized by Mobutu and Laurent Kabila. Now is the best time for the end of the war, the deployment of UN peacekeepers and for the formation of a government of National Unity. This must be a government of all Congolese who are committed to the National Dialogue and for the transfer of power to the Congolese people. This process must be anchored in the positive gains of the Congolese people since the Sovereign National Conference of 1992. This conference laid down the basic principles for the transition beyond Mobutism and was the high point of the organization of the ordinary Congolese. Neither the British, the French, the US, nor the Belgians wanted to hear anything of the Sovereign National Conference, because this body called for the release of all information relating to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. Today, January 17, is exactly 40 years since Patrice Lumumba was assassinated in the Congo. It now a matter of public record that President Dwight Eisenhower had given orders for the elimination of Lumumba.

The Road to Peace
Laurent Kabila has been an obstacle to the peace process in the DRC. His government opposed the Lusaka Peace process, opposed the calling of the National Dialogue and opposed the peace process in Burundi. There were some in the United States and elsewhere who argued that Kabila was the heir to the anti imperialist traditions of Lumumba and that he should be supported. This position was maintained in the face of the overwhelming evidence of his support for the forces that had committed genocide in Rwanda. In August 1998, when Kabila called on the citizens of the DRC to go out and kill fellow citizens, he became an illegitimate leader irregardless of his previous record.

The death of Kabila should be the opportunity to end the war, to respect the Lusaka Accords and for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The history of the failures of the United Nations in the Congo for the past forty years can be remedied by the swift deployment of peacekeepers to support a government of National Unity. Those who support peace in all parts of the globe must seize this opportunity to promote peace over war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The person named by the organization of African Unity to be the neutral facilitator for the National Dialogue, Sir Ketumile Masire, must be despatched to Kinshasa to start the National Dialogue to initiate the new road to peace, truth and Reconciliation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.