Paul Kagame

By 26 August Kabila could count on varying degrees of support from: • Zimbabwe: President Robert Mugabe was the strongest supporter of military backing for Kinshasa and was equally keen to assert his regional leadership credentials at a time of acute domestic unpopularity; Zimbabwe was a major arms supplier to Kabila before and after he gained power and has growing business interests in Congo; • Angola: fearful that Congo's instability will help Jonas Savimbi's União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola forces it was persuaded by Mugabe to help shore up Kabila as a means of securing the Congo-Angola border and cutting UNITA supply lines; on the back of Angola's involvement we hear that South Africa's Executive Outcomes are also working with Kabila with one report suggesting they might organise a cross-border attack into rebel-held territory in Eastern Congo from Central African Republic; • Namibia: helped persuade Angola's President José Eduardo dos Santos to join the pro-Kabila alliance; is giving logistical support but few if any troops; • Kenya: Daniel arap Moi's government has pledged diplomatic support for Kabila and hasn't ruled out military help; Moi instinctively distrusts any cause backed by Uganda's Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda's General Paul Kagame; • Mozambique: facilitated disguised transhipments of Chinese arms for Congo through Beira corridor to Zimbabwe and on to Lubumbashi; • Tanzania: unease among some ministers about growing Tutsi influence military and diplomatic in the region but is also keen to maintain congenial relations with neighbouring Burundi and Rwanda; it hurriedly withdrew on 24 August some 600 troops and 200 policemen it had sent to Congo for training; • Congo-Brazzaville: has pledged total commitment to Luanda (whose troops help keep President Denis Sassou Nguesso in power) and by extension to Luanda's allies...

President Pasteur Bizimungu and Vice- President and Defence Minister Paul Kagame boycotted a reception for the UN Secretary General in May and Foreign Minister Anastase Gasana publicly rebuked him...

Paul Kagame...

Rwanda is also involved in what one US official called the ‘dual mediation' via its Vice-President and Defence Minister Paul Kagame...

Moi and his Kalenjin ruling circle accuse Museveni' s National Liberation Movement of imperial ambitions and especially of sponsoring the 1994 triumph in Rwanda of General Paul Kagame's Front Patriotique Rwandais...

Sendashonga was an obvious target: a Hutu he had belonged to the Tutsi- dominated Front Patriotique Rwandais ; as its trusted Interior Minister he was one of few to dare contradict Vice-President Paul Kagame...

Friends with General Augustin Bizimungu of Rwanda's former army the ex-Forces Armées Rwandaises Tavernier is said to have a ‘grand plan': a contract in CAR as a spearhead to deploy his ‘Red Khmers' against the ‘Black Khmers' (as some French officers call them) of Vice-President Paul Kagame's Armée Patriotique Rwandaise...

Paul Kagame's government was irritated by the effusion of sympathy - without material help - lavished on his country; there is a move to announce a major US programme - some estimates put it at $40 million - to assist refugee repatriation in Rwanda...

Those same guerrilla groups have close contacts with the Rwandan Hutu soldiers of the former Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR) and they get their weapons through the same channels - which is one reason why General Paul Kagame Rwanda's Vice-President and Minister of Defence opposes the embargo...