politicacommentDr. Alexander von Paleske – — 23.11. 2008 — Sir Quett Ketumile Joni Masire war von 1980 bis 1998 Präsident von Botswana. Unter seiner Führung konnte sich Botswana auch weiterhin zu einem stabilen und wirtschaftlich sehr erfolgreichen Staat Afrikas weiterentwickeln. Von 2000-2003 vermittelte er erfolgreich zwischen den Kriegsparteien im Kongo und ermöglichte so das Friedensabkommen von SunCity/Südafrika am 1. April 2003, das den 2. Kongokrieg beendete.
Angesichts der neu ausgebrochenen Kämpfe im Osten der Demokratischen Republik Kongo (DRC) bat ich Sir Masire um ein Interview. Das Gespräch fand am 17.11. 2008 in Gaborone der Hauptstadt Botswanas statt.
Sir Ketumile Masire Photo: Dr. v. Paleske
Sir Masire, you were from 1999 onwards involved as facilitator in the negotiations that led to the Congo-Peace Accord in Sun City in 2003.
No, since 2000.
I understand, you had in the beginning some squabbles with the then President of the DRC Laurent Kabila.
With Laurent Kabila and his Foreign Minister.
What was the problem?
It was very simple. Kabila thought the dialogue was merely meant to confirm, that he is the President. That was the first thing he said to me, when we met after I had the assignment.
I thought it beholds me to call on him and go over to Congo to present myself before I meet other leaders. But he did not respond. And then there was a meeting at the UN to which I was invited and I went there and Kabila was also there and I sought to meet him and it was difficult for me to meet him. And then the US Ambassador arranged a meeting where he went to Kabilas Place and said „Would you like to meet Mr. Masire?“ and Kabila had no way out and said „yes“. The US Ambassador said „Ok, I call him“. He picked up the phone and said „Kabila is here and willing to meet you“. (Laughs, Anm. d. Red.) Can you come now. So I went and we had a talk on one to one. And he said „I take it what we shall start with is to confirm, that I am the President of the Congo and if there is an interim arrangement I will be in charge of an Interim arrangement“. I said, „that is what the dialogue is all about, it will be decided by the dialogue not by me“ and I think that was really the seed of the problem. And all along because I refused to cast that vote for him. I thought it was for the Congolese to do it. It was what was at issue, what the dialogue was all about. Let’s say that’s it.
Uganda and Rwanda basically invaded the Congo in 1998 and a UN Report in 2002 claimed, that they plundered the resources of the Eastern Congo. Rwanda has been accused of having stolen Coltan to the tune of 270 Million US Dollars and Uganda with it’s Army General Salim Saleh a.k.a. Caleb Akwandanaho had been accused of having plundered Gold and Timber in the Ituri District. What do you think retrospectively, was the issue really protecting minorities or was it about mineral wealth.
I have absolutely no evidence, of mineral wealth – as the reason – but that the minority, the Tutsi minority or the Banyamulenge Minority is certainly an issue that needs to be settled and if it is not settled, you can forget about the peace in the Congo.
At that time, when you had all the negotiating parties together at one table in Sun City, did you have the impression, that it was the interest of Rwanda, to create a bigger Rwanda including North and South Kivu Province? Was it ever discussed?
No, it was never discussed. But when I did the investigations into the Genocide in Rwanda, I dared to ask that question: The Congo is so big, Rwanda is so small and the population so great why don’t you give the Eastern Congo to them or let the excess population to become Congolese.
To whom did you put that question, to Kagame or to Kabila?
No I put it to a lady ambassador, who was at that time the representative at the OAU for the Congo. And I had gone to the Congo to report on my investigations in Rwanda. That was before I was appointed facilitator for the Congolese dialogue.
When you look backwards now, these borders have been drawn by the colonial powers with rulers, disregarding ethnicity . And there has been a clear position by the then OAU, not to change borders, because it will end up nowhere. There is virtually no African country, that has not got this problem.
I think I shouldn’t be understood to say we should redraw borders. And I have said, that there are two good things, that the colonialism has done. One is to parcel us into viable entities. Doesn’t matter whether they cut the tribe, two tribes, a tribe into half one called Kenyans, the other Tanzanians but at least there is a group of people, who feel, they belong together who can administer and plan their affairs together instead of just a marauding unidentifiable mass of people.
So that, as I personally feel, is a good thing. The second is the language question . It’s a pity, that Africa was not colonized by one colonial power, because we would be speaking one language. We would be having the same system of doing things. And that thing, I would say, it is good, that the OAU, that was the first thing, they endorsed, that the colonial boundaries must not be tampered with.
There were rumors, that when Kabila marched to Kinshasa in 1996, to oust President Mobuto, he had made promises – the Tutsis, Rwanda and Uganda supported him on that March – to find a solution to the ethnic problems in the Eastern Congo, when he was in power. Promises, which he actually never was prepared to honor, Promises made, only to get the support of Rwanda and Uganda at that time.
I think, Laurent Kabila (the former president and father of Joseph Kabila, Anm. d. Red.) was a Machiavellian and I don’t think, honest decisions were made, that he was accustomed to. And he talked , as it should at the moment. I couldn’t be sure whether he ever had that in mind or didn’t have it in mind. May I derail a little. We were at this Intercongolese Dialogue in Johannesburg and just about to finish it
That was in 2003?
Yes, and Pierre Bemba says, by his own admission, he was on the phone with Kabila Junior (The now President of Congo, Anm. d. Red.) for the whole day, he said. I then eventually I convinced him, that the thing was not to come up with a resolution here by “ he and I” ,just hijacked the whole process and in fact, they did.
So I invited Thabo Mbeki, Joseph Kabila and Pierre Bemba. Bemba found it very amusing, because he said: „Once I have agreed with Kabila, all these Congolese here have been queuing for jobs from me and I have undertaken to give everybody whatever asked for. Some asked to be ministers, I told them yes, some asked to be Permanent Secretaries, I said yes“. But you could see, this man, I thought, it suited his purpose, if he could get these people to say yes to these people. He had absolutely no intention, however, giving them those posts. But it might have been the same with Kabila senior (The father Laurent Kabila, Anm. d. Red.).
When you look now at the conflict in the Eastern Congo, don’t you feel a little bit betrayed by the parties, who promised in 2003 in Sun City so solve the problems in a peaceful way.
I feel so. But t I have one to honor, I don’t know enough as t what has happened since then, what has caused the present situation. And two when I left the peace process in 2003, I felt that unless the Government of the Congo changes it’s attitude, which was an attitude generally shared by the Congolese about the Banyamulenge, that there will be no peace.
Was General Nkunda in 2003 already involved in the negotiations?
No, he was not, but on the 30th of March 2003 (the day before the signing of the peace agreement, Anm. d. Red.), he sent me a telegram saying, that unless he was included in the agreement, there would be no peace in the Congo.
And you ignored it.
It was not possible to include him at that point.
Did he contact you before? Did you hear from him before?
No, no, I never heard from him, I heard about him from others, not from himself.
Do you think, that Nkunda is a force of his own? When you look at his CV, he joined the RPF of Paul Kagame, when it was a rebel group and was fighting alongside Kagame against the Hutu-Government in Rwanda, then afterwards he marched with Laurent Kabila towards Kinshasa to oust President Mobuto. Later on he was joining the invasion of the Eastern Congo by Rwanda. Do you think, he is an independent force or just executing the orders of Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
No, I would not necessarily say, he carries out the wishes of Kagame, but I would say, he is working carrying out the wishes of the Tutsis, whether they are Banyamulenges in the Congo or the Tutsis in Rwanda, Kagame being one of them.
When you look back, the 2nd Congo war from 1998 to 2003 cost the lives of roughly four million people, either directly or indirectly and if you see now the Hundreds of Thousands of refugees don’t you think, that the „protecting of the Tutsis“ is only a pretence but that in fact he has different motives.
The Tutsis is all what the war was about.
But when we talk about different motives, we have not to talk about mineral wealth in the Eastern Congo?
Mineral Wealth yes, it could be. But even if it is just an excuse, in a multiethnic society, every component of the society must be better off inside the group, than outside the group. They will always demand, to have a larger share in the cake, than it is proportionally due to them and a ruler must be aware of this. And while he cannot do it in a way that will excite the jealousy of others, nevertheless he should give them no excuse, to feel, that they be discriminated.
When you look at Nkunda’s career, he became a General in the united Congolese Army after the Sun City Peace Accord. Would you not have expected him to sort out the problems from inside the Congolese Army rather then soon to leave the army form his own Tutsi Rebel group.
If you would have interviewed him, if you would have Tea with him, he would tell you „yes, I joined the Congolese army, because I naively believed, now that all the past was over that we live together as Congolese. But as I came closer to the thing, I saw, there was still discrimination“, I am not saying, that I know anything about it, but this is, what he is likely to say. „Now that we were so close to the seat of power I realized just how power has been manipulated to the disadvantage of my people“.
But he was appointed General in the Congolese Army in 2003 and he left the army less than one year later, to form his rebel group. Do you think, that was justified?
Even a day sometimes is enough to see, whether you are welcome or not welcome.
But after such a long war, one would expect him make some effort to improve the situation .The Congolese Army was and is very undisciplined.
Let’s admit I don’t know where in the scheme he fitted but he is likely to have had people above him, who were directing things in a way, and he realized, he was not going to change the situation.
The Tutsis or Banyamulenge in the Congo are more than the Tutsis in Rwanda a minority, a smaller minority in the Congo than in Rwanda and yet at the present moment Nkunda is controlling large areas in the Kivu Provinces of the DRC and there are reports of terrible atrocities committed by his forces even before the war flared up. Is he not doing ethnic cleansing there in order to create space for Tutsis from Rwanda?
I really don’t know, that might be.
Do you think, that Rwanda’s Government is still pursuing the idea to annexing parts of the Eastern Congo, may be through an interim solution as perhaps a semi-autonomous Republic of Volcano?
No, I am not privy to that imagination. Even when I suggested it, I was just a little bit mischievous when I suggested it to the Congolese lady diplomat they should do something about the Congo ,rather than about Rwanda. Either give them a piece of land or let some of the excess population go into the Eastern Congo, I was just doing that independently I had not any of the Tutsis make that suggestion. So I don’t know, because I think, there has never been a dispute as to where the boundary is.
I fully agree with you, there is a dispute not about boundaries but about minorities and how they should be protected. But is it not possible, that Rwanda’s government has basically the idea, that the only way to do it is by annexing , because nothing else is going to work.
No, I don’t know. Because as of now there are several reasons which Kagame owns up or uses as a pretext. Two, that we might suspect other his motives. One is, Kagame uses the argument, that France managed to make the Hutus get out of Rwanda into the Congo. And he says, he doesn’t feel safe while those fellows are in the bush. And the big thing was, to get these people. It may be an excuse.
May be, the real motive is the minerals, as you said. But as an excuse he said „I don’t feel well safe, when these people are still in the bush and Mr. Joseph Kabila can’t account for them“.
But what is Kagame’s proposal to solve this problem, does he want to drive them further westwards or what?
That is his first reason. The second reason, which he doesn’t so loudly articulate is that the Banyamulenge are discriminated, against and as they are Congolese, they must have the rights and privileges, that all Congolese have. That’s, when you put Kagame in a corner, he will say.
But other people will say, there is also mineral wealth, other people will say he has the intention to create a place for his excess population , and in fact that is one of the things, the Congolese generally, who are not Banyamulenge suspect: the Rwandese will just ooze into the Congo, because they speak the same language and therefore they cannot make out, who is a real Banyamulenge and who is not.
But it is a matter of fact, that Rwanda has basically no minerals only Tea and Coffee.
I would qualify the matter of fact that Rwanda is not known to have mineral wealth (laughs, Anm. d. Red.).
Do you see any solution to the problem? There is such a huge humanitarian crisis in the Congo. Have you been approached again as a mediator?
No, people have made suggestions, but I have not officially been approached. But I think, the solution could be in dialogue. I suggested at that time two things to Joseph Kabila, neither of which he did. There is a sociological problem. Let a world renowned sociologist come and dwell into the whole problem and see how the problem can be solved. Kabila agreed, but his lieutenants made him say No. If we do that with the Bunyamulenge then the whole of the Congo there are so many ethnicities, they will also want that. And the second one was, that Kabila should make them feel welcome. Not in an extravagant way, just quietly, putting them here and there into positions of trust.
We almost had a quarrel at a SADC meeting in Lusaka, when I dared to suggest that. I said to Kabila that he was the only person at the time, on whom they could all agree on. And that instead of holding power by virtue of the mysterious group, that appointed him, he must let the dialogue appoint him. Kabila was very angry with me for having made that suggestion. So that fell by the wayside. And I felt there should be ownership. If he could make all those Congolese that were there, feel, we agreed in Sun City. He could say I am here by your will I have not asked for this. You yourself imposed it on me. I felt this would have been a good psychological and political breakthrough.
So in other words you would say, there is a lack of political leadership in the Congo, that can unite the country?
Yes!
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