Global Policy Forum

By Karl Vick

They may control much of Africa's third-largest country, but the foreign powers involved in Congo's war are fighting more over public opinion than over turf -- and Rwanda and Uganda appear to be losing.

Joseph Kabila, the soft-spoken young soldier who succeeded his slain father, Laurent, as Congo's president this year, is being received in European capitals as a peacemaker and embraced by the United Nations as the new best friend of the peacekeeping mission that his father thwarted at every turn. "It's clear that today we have excellent relations with the government," said Kamel Morjane, the chief U.N. official in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital. "The situation has changed fundamentally."

That it has. Three years ago, before Rwanda and Uganda fomented the rebellion that started the Congolese war, President Bill Clinton hailed the presidents of the two countries as "Africa's new generation of leaders." Last month, in a U.N. report detailing the exploitation of Congo's riches by invading armies, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Paul Kagame of Rwanda are described as "on the verge of becoming godfathers."

The controversial report of a U.N. panel of experts on the illegal exploitation of natural resources so infuriated Museveni that he announced Sunday that Uganda would no longer participate in the official peace plan for Congo. "The report is in the main shoddy, malicious and a red herring," Museveni proclaimed in a government-owned newspaper. "Genocide, terrorism and disenfranchising the Congolese people are causes of this problem, not minerals."

In Washington Monday, the State Department urged Uganda to reconsider its withdrawal from the accord. "The participation of Uganda in the Lusaka process is important for the ultimate success of the process," spokesman Philip Reeker said. Because Museveni also announced that Uganda would continue to withdraw its troops from Congo -- its main obligation under the so-called Lusaka accord -- the practical effect of abandoning the accord remains to be seen. But analysts said the announcement reflected the frustration of a government that had enjoyed one of the shiniest images on the continent before it became involved in Congo.

In the 80-page U.N. report, Uganda stands accused of "wide-scale looting" and "systemic exploitation." The document, an uneven blend of anecdote and statistics, lists diamond exports totaling $3 million over the last two years from Uganda, a country that has no diamonds of its own; Congo is among the world's leading diamond producers.

Rwanda, meanwhile, is calculated to have taken in at least $250 million in 18 months by exporting Congolese col-tan, a once-obscure mineral essential to the production of some computer chips. Senior Rwandan officials also lambasted the U.N. panel. "It's disingenuous," said Patrick Mazimhaka, a Rwandan minister of state. "I do believe that, objectively, in the end this side of the war will come out with the moral high ground."

Independent observers also criticized the report for its frequent reliance on vague attribution and, in some cases, raising allegations without any support. Hanlie de Beer of the Institute for Security Studies, a South African think tank, took the panel to task for scarcely touching on the substantial mining and oil deals cut by the countries that entered the war on Kabila's side: Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia. "What they said about Uganda and Rwanda, you can say the same things about Zimbabwe and Namibia," de Beer said.

U.N. officials indicate the panel's tenure will be extended, in part to investigate Congo's allies. But whatever the final outcome, analysts say, even the flawed current report reinforces the widely held impression that Congo's government is no longer the primary obstacle to peace.

During Laurent Kabila's rule, Congo constantly frustrated implementation of the Lusaka accord, named for the Zambian capital where the plan was hammered out almost two years ago. His son, however, has opened government territory to U.N. peacekeeping troops who are to monitor the cease-fire and pulled back Congolese troops from front lines. Joseph Kabila also welcomed former Botswana president Ketumile Masire, who is to preside over an "inter-Congolese dialogue" that is to decide the country's political future but whose Kinshasa office Laurent Kabila ordered shuttered.

While both Rwanda and Uganda pulled back front-line troops weeks before deadlines, the Congolese rebel groups that they sponsor have begun causing problems. Jean-Pierre Bemba, whose Congolese Liberation Movement was created by Uganda, refused to move his forces from central Congo until the United Nations sent troops to take their place. The request went beyond the U.N. mandate, which is merely to observe.

Meanwhile, the rebel group sponsored by Rwanda, the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), briefly refused to allow 120 Moroccan peacekeepers to land in Kisangani, in north-central Congo. When the blue helmets were finally permitted to land, civilians in Congo's third-largest city lined the streets to cheer their arrival. The same adulation has greeted even U.N. officials in other areas, especially those held by Rwandan and RCD forces, who are widely resented by the Congolese. Morjane said "the reception our forces are being given" holds a lesson for foreign governments. "This is essentially a political message the population is giving to all the parties," Morjane said. "I hope they will all get the right message."