By Lynne Duke
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 9, 1998; Page A21

KINSHASA, Congo, Aug. 8—With nationalistic rhetoric at fever pitch here as President Laurent Kabila faces an armed revolt, Congolese leaders scoff at the notion that outsiders can decide this proud nation's fate.

But a sad fact of Central African geopolitics is that the continent's third-largest nation, once called Zaire, has been so hobbled and vulnerable in recent years that its neighbors have easily pushed it around.

Fifteen months ago, a regional military coalition of Rwanda, Angola, Uganda and Burundi -- along with disaffected Congolese -- ousted the despised dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, and catapulted Kabila into the presidency of the country he renamed Congo.

Now, with Rwanda leading a new anti-government revolt, fighting that raged in several parts of the country last week has sparked international fears of a broad regional assault on Congo yet again, with Kabila and his fragile regime the targets.

This complex new conflict could plunge parts of this region into intense ethnic and cross-border conflict, rendering Congo an even more unstable place than it has been in recent years.

For the United States, the new fighting deeply complicates relations in the region, especially with Rwanda. Washington sees Rwanda as a close ally, though it has publicly admonished the government for sending troops into Congo.

Kabila's army is fledgling and of questionable loyalty, his resources are thin and his country's infrastructure still suffers from Mobutu-era decay.

In his favor, though, is the intensified nationalism -- heavily dosed with ethnic hatred -- that the conflict has sparked. Congolese people may not be fully behind Kabila and his policies, but they are fully behind their nation's new cause: defending Congolese sovereignty against attack from a neighbor that people here would like to believe is insignificant.

"Rwanda is nothing compared to Congo. It is nothing, madame," said Tsaqu Lau, 31, a Kinshasa man in search of work. "I want President Kabila to finish it, because the Rwandans have been making trouble for a long time."

Rwanda's military, dominated by the Tutsi ethnic group, has sent troops into Congo in support of a Congolese Tutsi revolt that started a week ago along the eastern border and here in the capital, U.S. officials say.

Though no evidence has emerged to support the claim, Kabila has accused Rwanda's close ally, Uganda, of involvement as well. Both nations deny any involvement.

With the rebels having boldly leapfrogged from far eastern Congo to the Atlantic coast in the west, all eyes have turned south, to Angola, to see what, if anything, that neighbor will do.

No Angolan involvement has emerged thus far, though Angolan security officials were in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, on Friday -- a fact that U.S. officials in Washington have noted. Rwanda, Uganda and Angola are known to be either disappointed or downright outraged at Kabila's governing style, and Washington is concerned about the possibility of broader foreign involvement in the Congo conflict.

Rwanda spearheaded the 1996-97 anti-Mobutu revolt to gain security on its western border. Ethnic Hutu insurgents from Rwanda, who were responsible for the 1994 anti-Tutsi slaughter of 500,000 Rwandans, were using bases in Zaire to launch raids across the border against Rwanda's Tutsi-led government. Rwanda also hoped to install a leader in Zaire who would bring some economic stability to the chaotic region.

Kabila's regime, however, has not solved either of these problems to Rwanda's liking, analysts say, and now Rwanda is having another go at shaping Congo's government.

"They're trying to get right what they did last time," said a U.S. government official. "It's a rerun."

But the Tutsi ethnic group -- which leads the Rwandan regime and also forms a small minority in Congo -- is much-maligned in the region by other ethnic groups. As such, the Rwandan incursion sets the stage for "an enormously dangerous, volatile situation," the U.S. official said. "You could have large numbers of people killed in inter-ethnic conflict."

Kabila accused Rwanda of seeking to establish a "Tutsi empire" on Congolese territory. Tutsi civilians still remaining in this capital over the past week were being rounded up, tortured and possibly killed.

Kabila also said on Thursday that he would create citizens defense groups and issue them guns. Thousands of Kinshasa youth converged on Martyrs' Stadium here to sign up for defense duty.

The rebels hold a half-dozen towns in the east and far west, but government troops reportedly have counterattacked at the western town of Muanda, which independent sources said had fallen to the Tutsi rebels.

A senior member of Kabila's government acknowledged that the violence against Tutsis would continue, especially in the country's east, where Congo's small Tutsi population is concentrated near the Rwandan border.

"By starting this war, they made themselves targets," the senior official said of the Tutsis. "They are a small minority, and all the surrounding tribes are against them."

"It's going to happen, and Clinton and all the people in Washington have to know that," the government official said of the ethnic blood-letting to come.

Government officials and citizens alike here in Kinshasa assume that the United States is somehow involved with the Rwandan agenda in Congo.

In this war as in the last one, a small U.S. Special Forces team was in Rwanda on a training mission when Rwandan troops crossed into Congo. When U.S. officials learned of the incursion, however, the training exercise was aborted, according to Lt. Col. Nancy Burt, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

A special Pentagon and State Department assessment team also was in Rwanda, discussing ways to enhance military aid to the regime, when the attack in Congo began. Washington ordered that team to return home.

The United States has warned Rwanda publicly about the presence of its troops in Congo. The U.S. official said behind-the-scenes talks took place by telephone last week between high-level Clinton administration officials and Rwandan Vice President Paul Kagame, who also is defense minister and the government's most powerful figure. The content of those talks is not known.

The Congo conflict was the subject of a regional summit in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, today, but beyond the expressed hope that the conflict will end, no formula for ending the fighting was reached.