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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Whose finger on the trigger?
Author:Smith, PatrickISNI
Year:1997
Periodical:The World Today: Chatham House Review
Volume:53
Issue:6
Pages:144-147
Language:English
Geographic terms:Subsaharan Africa
Congo (Democratic Republic of)
Subject:foreign intervention
Abstract:'The shape of Africa resembles a revolver', wroter Franz Fanon, 'and Zaire is the trigger'. More than thirty years after Fanon's assessment, new fingers are on the trigger but the analogy holds true. The future of the country, now renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo, is crucial for order and stability in the region. But there are many political questions about how pluralistic the new order under Laurent-Désiré Kabila will be, how tolerant of dissent, and to what extent it will be prepared to allow the regions to maintain their quasi-autonomy from the capital. Moreover, Kabila's Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo-Zaire is a formidable military machine which, after its success in Zaire, might try its strength elsewhere. Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni leads, but does not dominate, the powerful coalition of African leaders behind Kabila, which includes Rwanda's General Paul Kagamé, Angola's President José Eduardo dos Santos, Eritrea's Issayas Aferworki, Ethiopia's Meles Zenawi, and Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) leader John Garang de Mabior. If the coalition behind Kabila gains from his success, other powers - notably the authoritarian regimes in Kenya, Nigeria and Sudan - are losing. For France and its African satellites, the Zaire conflict was an unmitigated disaster, the result of a heinous conspiracy. The overthrow of Mobutu was, however, overwhelmingly organized and achieved by a coalition of Africans not given to taking orders from outside.
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