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Vol 39 No 17

Published 28th August 1998


Congo-Kinshasa

Turning the tables

The simmering rebellion against Kabila is dividing Eastern and Southern Africa

After less than a month of fighting, Congo’s rebellion has sawn the country in two. The rebels announcing their opposition to President Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s ‘despotism’ and ‘nepotism’ quickly captured, with support from Rwanda and Uganda, a triangular swathe of territory stretching from Bunia in the north-east across to Kisangani. But Kabila’s forces, backed by Angola and Zimbabwe, still control much of the west of the country as well as the mineral-rich south-eastern province of Katanga. Angolan and Zimbabwean troops dramatically intervened in the last week of August to counter the rebel offensive in the far west, which had started moving northwards from the Kitona airbase towards the capital in Kinshasa.

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