The Challenge for Kabila in Raising a Battered Nation

Laurent Kabila has prevailed in Zaire, leading a guerrilla army to the overthrow of President Mobutu Sese Seko’s corrupt regime. Now we shall see whether Kabila can govern and turn an insurgency into a democracy. Success would mean stability and possible prosperity in Zaire and and Central Africa. Failure could seal the ruin of a shattered nation.

Kabila was expected to arrive today in Kinshasa, the capital, to take power officially and set up a transitional government for what he has renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo. South African President Nelson Mandela, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and other African politicians are already showering Kabila with advice worth heeding. The steps he may take today and in the days ahead, including a decision on whether to remain a military commander in addition to being head of state, will illumine the prospects for his country.

The sensible first step would be establishment of an interim government with broad representation of all the country’s major political organizations, including opposition factions, like his own, that opposed Mobutu’s long dictatorship. An obvious model could be South Africa, which with the fall of the apartheid regime brought together old enemies in a new government. As Mandela did in South Africa, Kabila can send a message of openness and fairness to internal political and ethnic factions by setting a goal of elective government. But this should be a promise the rebel leader can keep, and putting a hard date on elections at this point might be self-defeating.

To the outside world, the best message would be one of activity. Rebuilding roads, hospitals, schools and other infrastructure destroyed by decades of neglect would set Kabila on a proper path.

That the country is a shambles of graft and mismanagement does not mean that it is destitute. Mineral production plummeted in recent years due to civil unrest, but the new leader, if he chooses, can capitalize on a wealth of gold, diamonds, zinc, copper and other resources to ease poverty. Mobutu, during his 32 years of plunder, hid billions in Swiss banks. Those too are potential assets of the new regime.

But wealth alone cannot assure change. Kabila is the key. What we know of the man is not fully revealing. A leftist by Cold War measurements, his choices will mark the immediate future for Central Africa. “Central” is a word he should keep in mind.