Africa's great war

The conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DROC) has reinforced Africa's status as a strategic ghetto in the post-Cold War world. The absence of non-African involvement or even interest underscores a break with earlier eras of colonial ambition and Cold War rivalries. Some observers have seen in this war the division of DROC and thus the break-up of central Africa. This does not, however, reflect the agendas of the states involved in the conflict. The chief protagonists - Rwanda, Uganda and Angola - are fighting to preserve their own regimes against insurgents mounting attacks from Congolese territory. Rwanda and Angola in particular, although on opposing sides, share similar goals: to install a sympathetic regime in Kinshasa that can put an end to these attacks. The fracturing of DROC will not serve this purpose, and could well worsen their problems.