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CHAPTER FIVE
ESTABLISHING THE RATIONALE BEHIND THE AZN COALITION’S MILITARY INTERVENTION DECISION
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about the possible outbreak of the full scale conflict during a regional conference in Namibia.
Verifications that were carried out in relation to this threat will be analysed.
The second section will critically make an analysis on decision for intervention within the national context of the intervening countries. As will be observed, the decision at national level will be done in relation to the threat given and verification made as well as analysis done in relation to the interests of a given country. The decision undertaken to commit troops will be made (arguably) in line with the legal constitution of the three SADC intervening countries. The processes undertaken by the relevant national institutions of the respective intervening countries will be critically discussed.
The third section will discuss the decision for intervention within the SADC subregional context. The diplomatic processes undertaken by the respective structures of SADC such as the SADC Organ on Politics Defence and Security Committee (OPDSC) and the Inter-State Defence and Security Committee (the ISDSC), among others as well as the challenges involved will be critically discussed. The section will also look at how these SADC decision processes and the challenges encountered finally led to the decision for intervention by the three SADC countries under a coalition of the willing arrangement.
Having critically analysed the decision making processes and the challenges encountered at the subregional level, the fourth section will try to identify, and ascertain the national interests of the intervening SADC countries. The fifth section will make a critical evaluation of these interests in terms of whether or not they were primary or secondary, permanent or temporary, general or specific. This evaluation and categorisation will be done in order to try and assess the impact that these interests could have had on the respective countries’
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decisions for intervention. It is this evaluation that will assist in analysing how these interests complemented each other thereby leading to the adoption of a coalition military strategy that became a tool for the attainment, pursuance and safeguarding of these respective interests.
5.2 The significance of diplomatic early warning and threat assessment to the decisions for intervention.
The unfolding of events that led to the outbreak of the 1998 conflict in the Congo were monitored and analysed at different levels within the national institutions of the three SADC countries that intervened in the conflict in support of the Kinshasa government.76 Information about the events in the Congo from the time Kabila ascended into power and the challenges that his regime faced in terms of political and military security threat particularly from the subregion was collected, analysed and gathered by the relevant institutions within the countries that undertook the decision for intervention in support of the Kinshasa regime.
Generally the institutions and ministries that collected and analysed such information and disseminated it as early warning to the relevant authorities included the diplomatic missions of the AZN that were accredited to Kinshasa.
In the case of Angola, besides receiving information about the impending threat from its embassy, the Luanda government also got valuable updates about the security situation in Congo from an Angola Armed Forces (FAA) contingent which was deployed in the Congo Brazzaville on bilateral defence arrangements between the government of Angola and that of Congo Brazzaville. The increase in traffic in terms of influx of Congolese refugees from the western DRC into Angola through the Matadi border was a significant indicator for early
76 Author is indebted to this valuable information availed to him by anonymous senior official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Zimbabwe, Harare, 13 February 2010.
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warning for the government of Angola that the security situation in Congo-Kinshasa was increasingly getting unstable and threatening the interests of Luanda. The FAA unit that was deployed near Kitona on the DRC/Angola border was also possibly one of the sources of information that provided early warning about the impending threat on Luanda emanating from the Congo.77
In the case of Namibia, in addition to getting the relevant updates from its diplomatic mission in Kinshasa, the other possible source of information regarding early warning for the government of Namibia was the Namibian Defence Forces (NDF) units which were deployed in Katima Mulilo (Kazungula) on the border of Namibia with Zimbabwe, Angola, Botswana, and Zambia.78 Besides collecting information from its diplomatic mission in Kinshasa, the government of Zimbabwe had a Military Training Team that was in Luanda enroute to Kinshasa on a mission to reintegrate and train the Congolese armed forces. The possibility was very high that whilst in Luanda, the Zimbabwean contingent was in constant communication with the authorities and its counterparts in Kinshasa about the unfolding events thereby liaising and disseminating that valuable information to Harare for evaluation and analysis in as far as how that threat would impact on the interests of Zimbabwe and the possibility of taking an intervention decision.79
Another notable source of early warning to the three SADC countries could also have been through the normal routine meetings and briefings that their ministries of foreign affairs held
77 Author is indebted to this valuable information availed to him by anonymous senior official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Angola, Luanda, 30March 2009.
78 Author is indebted to this valuable information availed to him by anonymous senior official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, Namibia, 19 June, 2009.
79 Author acknowledges this valuable information regarding threat analysis processes given to him by an anonymous former senior Intelligence officer in the Angola Armed Forces’ External Relations Directorate, 30 March 2009.
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with the respective missions accredited to Luanda, Harare and Windhoek as well as their respective missions in Kinshasa. The diplomats, particularly ambassadors and defence attachés could have been critical in the provision of early warning to the relevant government ministries and departments of the three countries that intervened in the conflict.
Perhaps the overall and notable source of early warning was at the level of presidency in the region. President Yoweri Museveni informed President Robert Mugabe (in his capacity as the Chairman of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security- OPDSC) during the Southern African International Dialogue on Smart Partnership in Namibia at the end of July 1998 on the need to convene a meeting of SADC states to discuss the unstable security situation that was unfolding in the Congo.80 The deteriorating situation in the DRC indicated the possibilities of an imminent outbreak of war. There seems to have been some synchronisation between Museveni and Kagame to jointly support an armed rebellion in the Congo by deploying the UPDF and the RPF to assist the Congolese rebels in the quest to advance attack and capture Kinshasa.81 The fact that high level foreign affairs, defence and security officials from the government of Kinshasa traded accusations at the meeting with those from Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi provided significant early warning of an impending threat. This provided an initial verification about a breakdown of relations among the former
80 The meeting involved Presidents Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Pasteur Bizimungu of Burundi, Laurent Kabila of the DRC, Sam Nujoma of Namibia, Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, Fredrick Chiluba of Zambia, and Paul Kagame of Rwanda. This laid the foundation for the First Victoria Falls Summit which was held from 7 to 8 August 1998 (Author’s interview with Dr Stanley Mudenge, Harare, 15 November 2009). Dr Mudenge was the Zimbabwe’s Minister of Foreign Affairs during the period of the coalition’s military intervention. As observed the various statements by the leaders from the great lakes region in regards to the involvement of their troops in the armed rebellion to oust Kabila could have part of the information used for the purpose of early warning and threat analysis and evaluation in respect of the risk of this threat to the intervening countries interests.
81 In Mudenge’s view “Museveni’s statement was part of the early warning that prompted member countries of the SADC coalition to take a closer interest at what was happening and to become eventually involved militarily” (Interview with author, Harare, 15 November 2009”.
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allies. Kabila was accusing the governments of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi of invading the DRC (Baregu, 1999:143).
On the other hand Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi accused Kabila of not being supportive to their concerns, thereby not showing gratefulness to the role they played in assisting him to topple Mobutu (Baregu, 1999:143). Kabila was also accused of bad governance and issues related to crimes committed by his armed rebels against civilians during the AFDL’s advance to capture Kinshasa. He was also accused of marginalising the ethnic Banyamulenge Tutsis of Rwandan origin, who had sought refuge in the eastern DRC following cycles of genocidal violence in Rwanda since the 1960s.82
The above trading of accusations between the Kinshasa regime and the governments of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi possibly was verification to the early warning that had already been disseminated to the governments of the SADC intervening countries. The other verification to the unfolding threat in the Congo was done during a meeting of SADC Heads of State that was held between the 7 to 8 August 1998 in Victoria Falls to deliberate on the DRC conflict through Museveni’s initiative. It was agreed at this meeting that a Ministerial Committee comprising of foreign affairs ministers from Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe was then dispatched to Kigali, Kampala and Goma to verify the allegations by the DRC government on Rwanda and Uganda’s involvement. It was dispatched to visit the Great
82 Although no concrete evidence was proffered, public allegations made against Kabila such as the ones that referred to him as a man who practised nepotism, one-man dictatorship and “Mobutuism without Mobutu”
(Campbell, 1999:21-35, also see Baregu, 1999:143) were all indicators that his regime was under threat. Such anti Kabila statements also provided early warning to the three subregional countries that plans to oust Kabila could have been at an advanced stage. Other unverified allegations that were made public include the fact that, the DRC President had the potential to commit anti-Tutsi genocide to a scale that would dwarf the killing fields in Cambodia (Campbell, 1999: 21-35). When one looks at the Nairobi grapevine sources which alleged that Kabila never called a single cabinet meeting and the state house in Kinshasa saw nothing but an orgy of sex and alcohol during his first nine months in office (Mujaju, 1999:92), it cannot be ruled out that threat analysts within the relevant governments in Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia used such information to evaluate and analyse the threat that the government of Laurent Kabila was facing and the impact of its fall on the respective interests of these three countries.
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Lakes region, in particular, Kampala, Kigali, Kinshasa and Goma in the eastern DRC.83 The findings of the ministerial delegation confirmed the view that only a superior military response would deter the intentions of rebels and their supporters (Rupiya, 2002:96).
Besides the verification made by the respective Foreign Affairs ministers, President Museveni later admitted at the same Victoria Falls meeting (despite having initially denied any involvement of Ugandan troops fighting alongside the Congolese rebels), Kampala had deployed about 52 Ugandan reconnaissance elements to Kitona when hostilities broke out in August, 1998. The admission, which could have been necessitated by Museveni‘s concern about the UPDF reconnaissance elements that could have been entrapped by the coalition offensive was part of the information to verify the threat that the Laurent Kabila government was facing, its possible impact on the interests of the three SADC countries. His public appeal to the Americans in Kinshasa to arrange for a safe passage was also possibly used as verification of threat by the three countries.84 He however argued that as for the two infantry battalions that were deployed inside the DRC in the Ruwenzori Mountains, it was a result of a gentlemen’s agreement that was entered earlier with President Kabila to try to curtail the use of that area by Ugandan rebels infiltrating the north west of the country.
However, President Kabila told the same meeting that the agreement had since been done away with when it became clear that Uganda was abusing its welcome to begin to threaten
83 As also revealed by Dr Mudenge to the author during an interview (Harare, 15 November 2009), he led the verification team, which was expected to recommend a way forward. It was from the findings of this team which were in the form of a very detailed report that it was concluded that while it was true that there was a rebellion in the DRC, there was also undisputed evidence of foreign aggression. He said that the Committee left without any reasonable doubt that Rwanda and Uganda had some overt involvement in the rebellion. Mudenge also noted that although Rwanda and Uganda initially denied any involvement in the rebellion, it was later discovered that the two countries had actually crafted it. Hence, according to him, Uganda and Rwanda were backing the DRC rebels seeking to overthrow Laurent Kabila from power. This information constituted immensely to the early warning and threat assessment and evaluation in respect of the intervening countries’
interests.
84 LLB Info, Gweru, 24 December 2008.
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the security of the DRC.85 Thus, the above discussion indicates that early warning, threat assessment and verification were carried out by the three intervening countries in relation to how this threat was going to be a risk to their respective interests. As will be observed in the later sections, the member countries’ decision for intervention were based on the level of the early warning to the impending threat in relation to the three countries’ respective interests.