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Alliance troops, as the rebels are called, captured Kikwit, home of Mennonite Brethren (CEFMZ) offices, on April 29. They are now headed for Kinshasa, the capital, some 400 kilometers west of Kikwit. Along the way, troops have entered several areas where many of Zaire's 140,000 Mennonites live.
Alliance troops earlier captured the key city of Kisangani.
Kananga, Tshikapa and Kikwit--towns with Mennonite church offices--are on the route to Kinshasa. Mennonite Central Committee workers in Kinshasa report Kikwit appears to have been taken without much fighting.
In many places defeated troops have looted homes and farms as they retreated. As they enter Mennonite areas, however, looting may be minimal as most Zairian troops appear to be trying to get to Kinshasa as quickly as possible.
Terry Sawatsky, co-director of MCC's Africa programs, says most people do not fear Alliance troops and he predicts little displacement of local people.
He speculates the Alliance will meet with minimal resistance--as they have since they captured the city of Kisangani several weeks ago--until they are within striking distance if Kinshasa.
Currently three MCC workers remain in Zaire, all now in Kinshasa. They are Ann and Bruce Campbell-Janz, who direct MCC's Zaire programs, and Michael Salomons, who had been working on agricultural projects in Kahemba, near Zaire's border with Angola. Two other MCC Zaire workers, Krista Rigalo and Fidele Lumeya, are in Nairobi, Kenya, on a short vacation. Rigalo and Lumeya were previously in Bukavu, where they cooperated with local churches to distribute seeds, tools, medicine and food to help people re-establish themselves after retreating soldiers and desperate Rwandan refugees stripped crops from fields and belongings from their homes. MCC shipments containing 32,968 blankets and 1,713 school kits have been sent to Bukavu.
Several Zairian church leaders met recently to discuss producing a peace poster relevant to the current situation.
Many Zairians, weary of the current corrupt government headed by President Mobutu, have tended toward anti-Mobutu sentiment and support for, or silence about, the rebels' leader, Laurent Kabila.
As Alliance troops advance they are returning Zaire to its former name--Congo. Provinces and towns are also assuming their old names where those names have been changed.
Zaire's civil war began in October 1996 after President Mobutu's government issued a ruling that ethnic Tutsis who had been living in Zaire for several generations had to leave. The Tutsis, known as Banyamulenge, took up arms and were soon joined by others opposed to Mobutu's government.
When rebels captured eastern Zaire in October 1996, several hundred thousand Rwandan refugees fled west into Zaire's dense forests. The United Nations is now locating and transporting some back to Rwanda; many others remain unaccounted for. "It is difficult to predict how many have died, but it seems clear the numbers are very high," says Sawatsky.
MCC
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