Faced with the Kivu crisis, foreign powers are as divided as Kinshasa's politicians
Events in eastern Zaïre continue to outpace the West's diplomatic response. There is relief in several Western capitals that some 600,000 refugees have returned to Rwanda without the deployment of an international intervention force. So Rwanda has a much stronger hand now, while Zaïre's leverage is slipping by the day. Any multilateral intervention will need Rwanda's blessing. That means it will have its military headquarters in Uganda or Rwanda and will not require the setting up of a major logistics base in Zaïre with heavy forces. Plans for the intervention force to seize Goma and Bukavu airports from opposition forces led by
Laurent-Désiré Kabila and the Banyamulenge rebels seem to have been shelved – and with them, President
Mobutu Sese Seko's hopes that a military-backed humanitarian mission might help break the opposition hold on Kivu.
Bangui's latest mutiny sends a worrying message to its southern neighbour
Bearing little comfort from his Paris trip, President Ange-Félix Patassé flew home on 25 November to an army mutiny in its eleventh day, with French troops holding a...
A dubious win, summary arrests, an empty treasury – Chiluba's second term begins
As soon as the elections were over, police went into the offices of Zambia's own election monitors, the leaders of the party that came second went into hiding...