Congo's fledgling democracy runs up against unwieldy, underpaid army
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - Willy, a 35-year-old career Congo soldier, has fought in armies run by presidents and rebels. He has followed orders in three languages, deserted to escape execution and switched sides for better pay.
Now he's joined up with the unified military his Central African country is trying to create out of armed factions built by warlords and dictators. But Willy, who gave only his first name to avoid censure by superiors, says salaries are so bad he could easily desert again.
As President Joseph Kabila prepares to move from transitional leader to Congo's first freely elected president in more than 40 years after a landmark vote, one of his major tasks will be securing the loyalty and maintaining the discipline of thousands of one-time militiamen like Willy who are used to changing allegiances.
During a 1998-2002 war, rebel leaders and neighboring countries carved out private fiefdoms throughout vast Congo, scooping up men like Willy to build armies that eventually left the country with up to 300,000 soldiers of varied allegiances.
Much of Congo's recent fighting has been between military groups loyal to one former rebel leader or another. As results from a first round vote were announced in August, clashes between Kabila's forces and those of challenger Jean-Pierre Bemba killed dozens. Fighting broke out briefly again between armed factions a few days before second round results were released earlier this month.
Plenty of those not in uniform have also resorted to violence. Tuesday, after a crowd of Bemba supporters gathered outside the supreme court as a hearing began over his fraud allegations, shots and fighting broke out and part of the courthouse caught fire.
Bemba has said he will confine his challenge to the courts. And as part of the peace deal to end the war, militiamen have been asked to choose to join integrated brigades or disarm with the promise of payments to make up for losing their soldier's pay.
Willy, a former Bemba fighter, said he knows the army needs to be unified, but complains that troops are disorganized and pay is poor. He gets US$30 a month as an officer; enlisted men make closer to US$20. Many soldiers say they supplement their income by growing spinach outside their barracks that they sell for about three times their monthly salary.
Progress toward a "one country, one army" ideal has been slow. Funding shortfalls and logistical problems mean only about 46,000 soldiers had been integrated by elections instead of a planned force of about 63,000, coordinator Col. Aime Mbiato Konzoli said.
"It's not like making fufu," said Konzoli, referring to a simple local dish made in villages throughout Congo. He said integration has been held back by everything from sparse funding to a lack of roads to transport men from one region to another. Decades of neglect have left the densely forested country more than three times the size of Texas with few paved roads.
Civilians are as wary of soldiers as of militiamen.
"If there's no work, then you become a soldier," said Andre Bako, 30-year-old manager of a sports club in the capital, Kinshasa. "Then, they're not well paid, so they harass people ... During the night, if you meet a soldier, you may be lucky and nothing happens. If you're unlucky, they'll take everything in your pockets."
Rights groups have accused soldiers of much more serious human rights abuses -- including raping women, turning civilians into forced laborers and plundering village crops.
The government has said such abuses are more likely the work of still un-integrated fighters, and has said it has launched investigations.
Funding for integration has come piecemeal from governments involved in the training, said Jason Stearns, a Congo analyst at International Crisis Group. He said little money has been set aside to establish tribunals that would punish soldiers for crime.
Army integration is "the orphan of the transition in the sense that it's been a bit abandoned by both the international community and the government," Stearns said. "The former chains of command have been broken down, but what has failed almost completely is creating a professional army corps."
Willy says he joined the army of longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko at 18 because he didn't have the money to finish high school after his father's death.
When rebel leader Laurent Kabila, father of the current president, overthrew Mobutu in 1997, Willy stood with Mobutu's forces at first. But he defected when Kabila promised a better salary, along with US$250 upfront.
But he hated learning orders in Swahili, the native language of Kabila's forces, instead of the more widely spoken Lingala used under Mobutu. Willy said Kabila's original forces also received larger rations than newcomers from Mobutu's army, and his promised pay was halved to $50 a month.
Willy was sent back to his native Equateur province to fight Bemba in 2001, after Laurent Kabila was assassinated and his son took power. There, his unit was threatened with execution after retreating against orders, so he deserted and joined Bemba's forces.
He said Bemba paid nothing, but he was driven by the desire to fight "the new dictator." They found food where they could and scavenged boots off corpses of men they'd killed, he said.
Then in 2003 Bemba joined the transition government and brought his 20,000 troops in for integration, Willy among them. So the rebel returned to government service, going through a 45-day training program led by Belgians, South Africans and Angolans.
"They told us we were no longer ex-Mai Mai, ex-RDC," he said, naming various rebel groups. "They said we were just integrated military."
Commands are now given in Lingala and French, but the pay is less than it was with Laurent Kabila.
"They can combine us, that's great. But if they don't pay us well, everyone will go back," Willy said -- maybe to a farm, or a school, or to any other army that might offer better pay.
