Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

by Jason K. Stearns

The Le Monde journalists, who spoke with several of the fugitives, concluded that the assassination had been the work of a bunch of bitter former child soldiers who were seeking revenge. This is possible. However, the whole affair—the lax security at the presidency, the escape from prison, the murder of the Lebanese—seems to be too well choreographed, too slickly greased to have been the doing of a few renegade bodyguards. There are several indications that Rwanda was directly involved. First, according to the Congolese security services, before fleeing, the Masasu crew admitted to being in cahoots with Kigali. Second, when they did flee, along with several affluent Lebanese businessmen, they made their way directly to Rwanda, where some were eventually given influential political and business positions by the government. Last, a former Rwandan security official told me that he had seen Colonel James Kabarebe on the day of the assassination. Kabarebe, who was still running Congo operations for the Rwandan army and would soon be promoted to become head of the army, reportedly slapped him on the shoulder and said, “Good news from Kinshasa. Our boys did it.”28