Zaire

Robert W. "Bob" Roche, a former Peace Corps volunteer who later worked in Africa with Catholic Relief Services, died Jan. 12 of undetermined causes at Sanctuary at Holy Cross, a Burtonsville senior living community. The Columbia resident was 61. "We are awaiting the results of an autopsy as to the cause of death," said his son, Robert L. Roche, who lives in Washington. Robert Winslow "Bob" Roche was born and raised in Monroeville, Pa., where he graduated in 1968 from Gateway Senior High School.

PARIS -- To understand what is happening now in Zaire it is necessary to know what happened before. The post-colonial power struggle of the 1960s, and certain ethnic and tribal rivalries that antedate the exploration and colonization of the Congo basin and the kingdoms of Rwanda and Burundi, are being re-enacted.It is possible to interpret events since 1994 as a reconquest of Rwanda and eastern Zaire by those ethnic groups that dominated it when colonialism arrived. The colonial power found it convenient to patronize and rule through traditional rulers and aristocracies.

HAVANA -- He was Che Guevara's worst headache. Laurent Kabila, leader of the rebel forces in Zaire, is portrayed as leader of an earlier, failed rebellion, but witnesses from those times say he was often far from the fighting, and had a tendency to issue orders that were impossible to carry out.Guevara and nearly 100 Cuban officers spent six months in Zaire -- then the Congo -- in 1965. trying to train fighters in a movement begun by members of the government of that assassinated Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

Thirty years after achieving its "independence," the African nation of Zaire is once more in a state of chaos. Fearing civil war, Belgium has dispatched soldiers to evacuate its nationals.Would that Belgium had always shown such solicitude for all the inhabitants of its erstwhile colony, formerly known as the Belgian Congo. Belgium's colonial legacy is just about the scariest in the whole house of horrors. To use one example, in the early 1900s, when Belgians were systematically plundering the vast and rich area, indigenous Africans were impressed into a form of slavery to do the grunt work of stripping their land for the benefit of the European occupiers.

TRYING TO ERASE 32 years of misrule, its newest savior has renamed Zaire as the Democratic Republic of Congo and reimposed the flag it took at independence. As a fiery leftist of the 1960s, President Laurent Kabila is trying symbolically to turn the calendar back three decades and redo things right. But in real policy, the only way is forward.Mr. Kabila has no track record in government. Contradictory messages from him told each hearer what he or she wished to hear. A radio broadcast in his name was full of 1960s revolutionary rhetoric.

CYIMBOGO, Rwanda -- Edward Ntagunjiri was one of the first to test the promise that he and his family would not be murdered if they came home to Rwanda.On Friday, thousands of other Rwandan Hutus came home from eastern Zaire.They had fled to Zaire two years ago, fearing the vengeance of Tutsis who had won control of their homeland. They had a reason to be afraid: Rwandan Hutus had massacred more than half a million Tutsis in Rwanda.Like 64-year-old Ntagunjiri, the exiles had little choice.

NORTH Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms, ever the cuss, believes that Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide is a "dangerous psychopath."There are a number of ways to respond to such a charge. The first is to dismiss it as a small, mean-spirited comment emanating from a small and mean-spirited man.Or we can make use of the adage, "It takes one to know one," and speculate whether Senator Helms believes the people of Haiti are the only ones who have the right to elect the psychiatrically challenged to public office.

A peace pact signed in Africa last week generated cheers at a Carroll County-based charity where officials hope to extend their medical aid to areas that have gone years without a doctor's services. Besides enabling volunteers to travel more safely, the agreement between leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo could help Interchurch Medical Assistance raise money for its aid programs, an official at the charity said. "Peace will make a huge difference," said Dan Metzel, grants manager for the group, which is using a $25 million federal grant to re-establish Congo's health care system.

A peace pact signed in Africa last week generated cheers at a Carroll County-based charity where officials hope to extend their medical aid to areas that have gone years without a doctor's services. Besides enabling volunteers to travel more safely, the agreement between leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo could help Interchurch Medical Assistance raise money for its aid programs, an official at the charity said. "Peace will make a huge difference," said Dan Metzel, grants manager for the group, which is using a $25 million federal grant to re-establish Congo's health care system.

The job of holding Zaire together was made more difficult, no matter who is attempting it, by the riots and looting in the capital Kinshasa, the mining center Kolwezi and other towns that erupted late last month. Food and medicine were stolen, factories wrecked, health care centers dismantled. AIDS may even have been spread by the theft of hospital research center refrigerators containing blood samples.Now that President Mobutu Sese Seko has appointed his sworn opponent, Etienne Tshisekedi, to be prime minister, only to threaten to fire him for trying to grab control of the military, confusion rather than either of these two politicians rules the country.