File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/current, message 26


Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 00:41:49 +0100
From: Joćo Paulo Monteiro <jpmonteiro-AT-mail.telepac.pt>
Subject: Re: M-I: The battle for Kinshasa


slr-AT-marx.org (L. Proyect) wrote:

> Today's NY Times has an interesting item on the composition of Kabila's army:
>
> "Kabila claims to have an army of 70,000 soldiers. Western military
> analysts cannot confirm that number but say he has recruited heavily in
> recent weeks after the fall of several major cities. Kabila's army has also
> been augmented by the arrival of thousands of second-generation Zairian
> exiles from Angola, who fought on the government side in Angola's long
> civil war."
>
> This is the first news I have heard about Zairian exiles fighting with the
> MPLA.

The piece must be refering to the then katanguese secessionists
(followers of Moses Tchombé) in exile for decades on the Lunda provinces
to the northeast of Angola. The katanguese militias traditionally side
with the MPLA in its wars with UNITA in these crucial, diamond rich
provinces. Now they are returning home. They have done so on a
relatively early stage of the present war, having taken part on the
offensive to liberate Lubumbashi, the capital of Shaba (formerly
Katanga).
There are, however, perhaps tens of thousands of other zairian
immigrants, mostly living in and around Luanda. Some of them may have
made their way to the angolan army and be back home now, on a more or
less voluntary basis, accompanied by some angolan officers. These have
entered the fray recently, coming from Cabinda, opening a new front to
the west of Kinshasa, near the Atlantic.


> It would seem that "tribalistic" Africa has much more
> internationalism than first meets the eye. Cubans, Zairians, South Africans
> fought on behalf of Angola's freedom. Now Angola, Rwanda and Uganda are
> returning the favor. An interesting research project would be to find out
> exactly the level of cross-fertilization between various revolutionary
> forces on the continent.


Sub-Saharian Africa is, ultimately, one big nation. And since the actual
existing nation-states, for various reasons, are fragile and politically
restless, instability travels easily across borders. Ordinary africans
simply don't understand the notion of national borders. If you're a head
of state in a country, you'd better make damn sure your neighbours are
not hostile, for they can make your life a misery. So, it's not so much
romantic ideals of internationalist solidarity that are at play here.
It's more a subtle system of communications that creates this effect of
domino pieces falling one over the other. Anyway, I'm glad that things
are now finally smiling to the more progressive nationalist forces on
this region.



Jo=E3o Paulo Monteiro

Porto



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