Karl Vick

• Africa Coverage • World Section • Talk: World news message boards • Live Online Transcripts

Africa Journal: Can America Help in Congo?
With Karl Vick
Washington Post Africa correspondent
Thursday, Feb. 22, 2001; 1 p.m. EST

Washington Post foreign correspondent Karl Vick is live online from Nairobi, to discuss issues and events in eastern Africa.

After the assassination of Congo President Laurent Kabila on January 17, new possibilities for peace in the vast war-torn nation seemed possible. Vick will talk about the latest efforts to end Africa's largest war as well as reports that Kabila's assassination was not the work of a lone bodyguard.

He will also be available to discuss the latest news from Africa including clash between the government and press in Zimbabwe government, the apparent end of the Ebola outbreak in Uganda, and the continuing toll of the AIDS epidemic.

Submit your questions for Karl Vick now.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

washingtonpost.com: Welcome to Africa Journal. Karl Vick will be with us shortly.

washingtonpost.com: Welcome Karl Vick. I wanted to ask you about your story yesterday in which you talked about the self-censorship of Kenyan booksellers when it comes to John Le Carre's new book. This sounds like an atomsphere in which freedom of expression is cramped. Does this affect you in your reporting?

Karl Vick: Ah, well, yes and no. Freedom of expression surely is cramped when retail booksellers, at least a couple of whom strike a bookbuyer as pretty good fellows, fans of the First Amendment principles (if not the Amendment itself, because there isn't one in Kenya) and actually kind of brave, when these guys won't even stock a bestselling novel for fear of having the bark scorched off 'em by the national government, in its compliant courts.

That said, there seems to be plenty of free press here. The big local dailies at least project an image of fearlessness, and a bevy of lesser rags appear willing to run anything. So it's hard to say.

Certainly things are heaps better than they were, say, 10 years ago, when the ruling party here still behaved as if any attack on it or its chief, His Excellency President Daniel arap Moi Himself, was an act of treason punishable by jail time preceded by a session in the basement of Nyayo House (Ask About Our Torture Chamber). Things have loosened up a good bit.

But none of that seems to hinder the International Press, as we are known here. Foreign reporters appear to have pretty free range. The days of Moi's boys (in LeCarre's phrase) calling out our names on the floor of parliament or threatening to expel us appear to be gone. Everyone has trouble renewing their work permits, I find, but this appears to be due to general incompetence rather than pointed message-sending.

washingtonpost.com: Welcome Karl.

Karl Vick: Thanks. I had prepared an opening statement...


In Nairobi, your monthly internet bill runs between $200 and $300. At least mine does. This is largely because there is but one lonely old uplink in Kenya, and it is owned by the government. The uplink is called JamboNet, "jambo" being the Swahili word for "a big hello to you." Nothing but good feeling all around, in other words. (You’d be cheerful, too, right?)

Anyway, to get the rant in the correct order, the next link in the chain is the ISP, in this case AfricaOnline. A catchy name, and a classy webpage, but they have their billing issues. Cut people off without warning. Or else send daily warnings after you’ve paid—because in Africa, money doesn’t really have any meaning; I mean, there’s no standard to purchase, and, well, even I’m getting bored at this point. Suffice to say it’s not one world quite yet.

And everything’s up to date in Des Moines.

Without objection....

Lusaka, Zambia: Do you think the new Bush administration will adopt a different policy than the Clinton administration, particularly in its sympathy toward Rwanda and its military presence in Congo?

If so, how might that effect the implementation of the Lusaka Peace Accords.

Trad Hatton
Catholic Relief Services
Zambia

Karl Vick: That is everyone's assumption. The logic behind it is seated in Clinton's refusal to allow the UN to intercede to stop the genocide, chiefly because of what had happened in Somalia just a few months before (U.S. soldiers killed, then dragged through the streets of Mogadishu before the cameras of CNN, while on a UN mission to stop something bad from happening in Africa).

There was blood on the UN's hands from Rwanda, and on Clinton's by extension. He felt guilty, and if many think he lost the moral authority to criticize Rwanda when it plunged into Congo not once but twice. In any event, the U.S. has been quite light in its criticism of Paul Kagame's government, with the exception of when it fought Uganda (a supposed ally) in Kisangani. Everybody got spanked pretty good that time.

Anyway -- longwinded today, aren't I? -- it's true that George W. Bush comes into office without this history, this scar on the soul, whatever. And so he might be less inclined to be as tolerant of Rwanda's militarism. Hard to tell just yet, because things seem to be going pretty well in the Congo peace process. There's been scant fighting since W. hit office.

washingtonpost.com: Last week Le Monde was reporting that the assassination of Laurent Kabila was not the work of the lone bodyguard but of a larger conspiracy. What do you make of this story?

Karl Vick: I think it's yummy.

This is the one, right, that has 35 killers or so dispatched to put a bullet through (in one British journalist's wonderful phrase) Kabila's thick, shaved skull, then lay down covering fire before piling into waiting cars? Or something like that.

I like it a lot, especially the predicate that Big K had ordered a bunch of bodyguards killed the day before. It doesn't make perfect sense, of course (Charles Onyogo Obbo -- spelling possibly correct -- had a lot fun with the report in his East African column this week, keying on the unlikelihood of waiting getaway cars in Kinshasa, where nothing ever works.)

But at least it explains the half hour or so of gunfire on the grounds of the Marble Palace that featured so prominently in the first reports. The ministers who survived the, um, change of government, put out a version that denied the gunfire happened.

On the other hand, I talked with a party that had sent a car past the palace like an hour after it all happened, and found no sign of anything at all amiss. The checkpoint sleepy and good humored. Go figure.

Hyattsville MD: I would have thought that both Uganda and Rwanda would have been (secretly) thrilled to have a good excuse to get out of the ruinous involvement in Congo. It's been politically devastating and a burdensome expense. Yet both countries are resolutely holding out from the joint meetings in Lusaka. Are they waiting for a bigger bribe?

Karl Vick: I would have thought so too. Especially Uganda, where the Congo debacle has been a real negative for President Yoweri Museveni. And he's got an election in a week or two. A tight one at that.

Possibly why his government has this week announced its pulling out a couple of battalions (I think it was battalions) right away.

On the other hand, a good many of his soldiers are having a good deal of fun across the border. And making some money, by all accounts, chiefly from the gold mines the Ugandan Peoples Defense Force and its allied rebels occupy (and charge admission to, or from, I suppose). Uganda's gold exports rose significantly last year, without an expansion of its own mines, so...

It's more complicated for Rwanda, of course. The Hutu extremists really do use Congo as a base. But the war has proven ruinous on that front, too. Rwandan officials acknowledge that, because of this war, the Interahamwe who carried out the 1994 genocide are no longer a rag-tag militia but a well-trained and better-armed military force, thanks to the training provided by the foreign armies (notably Zimbabwe, by several accounts) that rushed to Kabila's aid after Rwanda and Uganda invaded.

Cottage City MD: What kind of influence can the US use in Africa when we are such a small donor and very little involved in any other way? Why should they care what we say? I think the Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes all give a lot more foreign aid; their opinion might carry some weight.

Karl Vick: Cottage City, eh? That one I don't know.

You ask a good question. The paradox is that U.S. gives pitifully little anywhere overseas except Israel and Egypt, and yet continues to be the big dog in most countries, chiefly because it's the only remaining super (not to say duper) power, right?

In many African countries, people still see the US's hand in all sorts of things, including a great many where it mostly likely isn't at all. It's the legacy of the Cold War, of course, when America really did have an interest in the continent, the way a checkers' player watches the board.

The most common belief--shared even by some quite bright journalists (but they're Europeans)--is that the US is actively supporting Rwanda or Uganda or both in the Congo war. When people ask me if I think it's true, I'm afraid I have to say I don't, then try to explain the culture of embarrassment that rules Washington, and how the down side is so so so so so so so so much steeper than the up for any administration that would authorize such a venture. But still the rumor/belief goes around.

Those Scandinavians are generous souls, it's true. Not clear what kind of suck it buys, though.

Washington, DC: Hi Karl -- love your writing! Keep it up. I just got back from a trip to Uganda, where I had a great time. What do you think of the upcoming elections there? I'm sure Museveni will win, but do you expect there to be any trouble or violence? What is the latest from Kampala?

Karl Vick: Let's take that question and the next one together...

Mt. Rainier, Md.: Karl, it seems from this distance that there is actually more hope for democracy in Zimbabwe, violent as it is, than there is in Uganda which hasn't been reaching the papers. The ruling parties in both places have felt free to kill opposition figures or jail them, but in Zim[babwe], the opposition seems to be well-organized and cohesive. In Uganda, they still have not determined the real enemy is President Museveni. What are your thoughts?

Karl Vick: You know, you might be right. I have never been to Zim, but people who go talk glowingly about the place. You hear about the brightness of the people, how engaged they are, what hope the opposition inspires just by being as sharp as it is.

It's such a different picture than you get from watching Zim's president, Bobby Mugabe, who seems such a hopeless case. Unlike Uganda's warrior prince Yoweri Museveni in so many ways. Foreign reporters love the moose, as we call him. He's witty, urbane, philosophical, all the words.

But the election his country is "running" does appear to resemble the kind we saw in Zimbabwe last year (and that one was merely parliamentary). Opponents' rallies being busted up. Campaign workers arrested. And a general atmosphere of foreboding as the March 7 presidential election nears.

You make a point.

Bellevue, Washington: When I was in Tanzania in August of 2000, the country was suffering from the third year of poor seasonal rains (as was Kenya). Except for one story about floods in the Serengeti during November, I've been able to find nothing about the rains this year (or about famine there). Were the rains this year sufficient to end the drought, or at least to not make it worse?

Karl Vick: A quick pop over to the Famine Early Warning System's homepage http://www.fews.net tells us the crisis appears to have waned, at least in terms of food security. The short rains were good, and, dig it, are called "vuli" in that part of Africa.

Army worms seem to be rearing their heads, though. Check it out.

washingtonpost.com: Just to go back to what you said earlier, Why is the Congo peace process going so well? Is there any explanation besides the excusable absence of Laurent Kabila? And what do you make of his son? Place holder? Stooge? Congo's answer to George W?

Karl Vick: Well, some of us believe that Kabila was removed so that the peace process could go forward. I'm not saying I'm one of those who believe this, but I'm not saying I'm not, either. It's just that literally everybody else who was in Congo (let's name 'em: Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Namibia, heh, Burundi and last but far from least, Angola) all probably really did want the war over, or at least scaled way back (Rwanda, for instance, has not been enjoying the logistical paradox of holding a 1,000-mile front with an army that essentially goes everywhere on foot).

Angola seems to be calling the shots in this. It fancies itself a regional superpower and had made its disgust with L.D. Kabila crystal clear, to the point of senior officials asking visiting journalists, "How can we get rid of this guy?" My take on his assassination is that Angola is responsible in the same way the U.S. was for Patrice Lumumba's death: It may not have pulled the trigger, but it created the cirumstances in which it happened, it created "permission."

As for Little Joe, am I the only one who thinks he looks like Tupac?

He's a cypher at this point, but there may be more there than meets the eye. The Rwandans who knew him in the first Congo war spoke very highly of him, and these guys are hard to please. The question to me is what he'll do with the men around him, who were essentially his father's coterie. A motley crew in many ways, but they were the ones who gave him the job.

Arlington, VA: I've been very surprised at the sudden successes of the negotiations in Congo. Although there was, of course, a change in the president, it looked at the time like most of the senior government staff was staying in place. Yet, under the "new" administration (which really didn't seem to include all that much in the way of new faces), Congo suddenly seems much less obstructionist and negotiations are going swimmingly, comparitively, anyway. What's your take on how this came about?

Karl Vick: The bullet that penetrated Laurent Kabila's thick, shaved skull.

If any further proof was needed that Congo's late president was the primary impediment to the Lusaka accords going forward, it has been provided by his removal, hasn't it?

Washington, D.C.: This may be a bit off-topic, but what is your take on the current situation in Angola? What do you think the Bush Administration's approach to the civil war there will be? Will it differ greatly from Clinton's?

Also, what is your guess as to how the recent developments in Congo might affect the situation in Angola?

Thanks for taking the question!

Karl Vick: Ah, but for me it's off-beat. My patch just doesn't include Angola, a place I've never been. It's the worst stop on Joburg Jon Jeter's turf. When I grump to him about some of the places I have to go, he comes back with:

"Angola is worse. Everyone's got a gun and the children live in sewers."

I can, however, take a stab at part two: Angola wants a pliant Congo, one that will prevent the UNITA rebels from operating freely across the border (in Congo, that is), and one that will not, for instance, enrich said rebels by creating circumtances that drive Congo's diamonds across the border to Angolan rebel buyers. Which is something Laurent Kabila did.

Angola likes Joseph Kabila, by all accounts, and had a signficant say in his ascension.


That ought to do it for this session. Me I'm off to Congo myself in the morning. Expect I'll bring something special back. Last time it was malaria!

Cheers.

   |      |