_WORLD WATCH______________________________
_________________Democratic Congo_______________
Tensions high after leader’s death
Kabila left a troubled country
After the death of Congolese President Laurent Kabila, who was assassinated on January 16, power in Kinshasa has passed into the hands of his 31-year-old son Joseph, who was sworn in the day after his father’s funeral. But the Fides news service reported that tensions remained high in the capital city.
The local governor, Norbert Katintima, prohibited the celebration of a funeral Mass for the slain president. That order promptly produced confusion, as inaccurate media reports indicated that Catholic Church leaders had decided against the funeral, and officials from neighboring Rwanda and Uganda chimed in with complaints that they had never been invited to the requiem.
The circumstances surrounding the death of Laurent Kabila remain unclear. He was reportedly shot by a member of his own security staff, but many Congo citizens believe that other African powers had a hand in the assassination. While the international community has called for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Congo, Angola has reinforced its military position there, explaining that its troops are providing security for the capital.
A former Marxist and leader of the rebels who ousted General Mobutu Sese Seko in May 1997, Laurent Kabila had insisted on making a clean break from the past, and changing the country’s name from Zaire to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Welcomed at first by the international community, Kabila angered his adversaries by setting up a regime based on nepotism, and obstructing a United Nations inquiry into charges of extortion on the part of his troops against Hutu refugees. Since August 1998 Kabila himself had been facing a rebellion in the eastern provinces, where rebel forces enjoyed the support of Rwanda and Uganda. Zimbabwe and Namibia, as well as Angola, had sent troops to aid the Kabila regime. The clash of African powers was complicated by the ethnic troubles that have wracked the Great Lakes region, and the struggle for control of the rich natural resources located in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
During Laurent Kabila’s tumultuous stay in power, human-rights organizations frequently criticized his government for a variety of offenses, including repression of religious freedom. Recently Cardinal Frederic Etsou of Kinshasa, the president of the country’s episcopal conference, complained about repeated harassment of Catholics and arbitrary arrests of bishops. On January 10, for example, Bishop Cyprien Mbuka of Boma was released after 12 days’ detention in a Kinshasa military prison for “nurturing subversive intentions regarding the Kinshasa government.” Over the last two years, three other bishops and three priests have been arrested on similarly vague charges. And on the same day that Bishop Mbuka was released, the government denied media coverage for the launching of a Church-sponsored peace effort, sponsored by Cardinal Etsou. Congo’s communications minister, Dominique Sakombi Inongo, bluntly threatened media outlets that they would be closed if they broadcast coverage of the event, the Fides news service reported.