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Congo fighting mirrors '90s war

Rwanda, Angola reportedly join conflict

By Gus Constantine THE WASHINGTON TIMES | Thursday, November 13, 2008

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To his followers, Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda is known affectionately as "Mon General." He calls himself a born-again Christian and claims he is fighting a war to liberate Congo from corruption.

Yet prominent rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch say his troops loot from, rape and execute civilians.

Lately, reports of troops from neighboring Rwanda and Angola in Nkunda's stronghold in eastern Congo -- on opposite sides of his 11-week offensive against government troops -- have raised the specter of a renewal of Africa's first world war.

"If the reports of an armed intervention by Angola are confirmed, it would certainly change the situation in eastern Congo," said Herman Cohen, a national security official and assistant secretary of state for Africa in the Reagan and Clinton administrations.

Angola lies more than 1,000 miles away from the battle grounds in eastern Congo, where Nkunda's forces have forced 250,000 civilians to flee to the regional capital of Goma for protection.

From 1997 until a shaky peace deal in 2003, Angola, Zimbabwe, Chad and Namibia helped Congolese forces prevent the ouster of the government of Congolese President Laurent Kabila by the combined forces of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. An estimated 3 million people died.

The Rwandans had earlier installed Mr. Kabila, a man from southeastern Congo, in power, bringing an end to dictator Mobutu Sese Seko's three decades of rule.

The Rwandans later turned against Mr. Kabila who was assassinated in 2001.

Now the threat of renewed fighting, with a flood of photos depicting civilian refugees on dirt roads, have rallied the United States, United Nations, the African Union and individual European countries to call for a negotiated settlement.

This week, Africa experts Jennifer Cooke of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group appealed for an intensified effort to craft a peace deal.