There's anger to go around in the destitute streets of Kinshasa, and it is not all directed against President Mobutu Sese Seko or rebel leader Laurent Kabila, the two men locked in a dance of death over who will lead this country of 45 million people.
Much of it is directed elsewhere: at the United States, that distant but powerful entity that, from the viewpoint of a typical Zairian worker - scraping by and not knowing when he can afford his next meal - is at or near the root of this country's problems.From politicians to peddlers, Zairians are quick to lay at least a share of the blame for the poverty and civil war that have engulfed them on the cynical manipulations of a faraway superpower.
The anger was evident Thursday when several hundred government supporters protested in a downtown square and in front of the U.S. Embassy here, accusing the United States of orchestrating the country's civil war to get rid of Mobutu. But criticism is almost as likely to come from Kabila's supporters, who say the U.S. tilt against Mobutu came too late.
"America has been supporting Mobutu for more than 30 years, and everybody in Zaire knows that. If the Zairian people are suffering, it is because of the Americans," shouted auto mechanic Major Mbankana, unable to contain his anger recently when he saw American journalists conducting interviews.
Even now that U.S. policy seemingly has turned against Mobutu, he says he fears that the United States aims to install another puppet rather than bring the democracy that Zairians want. "Americans are like a razor blade. They can wound you on one side or the other," he said.
At the Palace of the Nation, the old Parliament building overgrown by weeds and now favored by members of Mobutu's ruling MPR Party, the privileged of the regime also are seething - and wondering if they should run into exile before the expected arrival in coming days of Kabila's rebel forces.
To them it is clear that the fall of the Soviet Union meant that Zaire, and its longtime anti-Communist head of state, was no longer of any strategic value to the United States.
"(Mikhail) Gorbachev is responsible for what is happening in Africa," said one party operative who refused to give his name, referring to the former Soviet leader. "If we were still in the Cold War, this would never have happened."
Mobutu rose to power during the first turbulent years of independence for Zaire, then called the Republic of Congo, which was a former Belgian colony. The United States was fearful of Communist expansion into the Third World, and Mobutu was favored by the CIA and every U.S. administration from Kennedy to Reagan. Throughout the Cold War, Mobutu aided U.S. efforts to quell Marxist insurgencies on the continent and was handsomely rewarded with U.S. foreign and military aid.
The United States broke with Mobutu at the end of the Cold War. His plundering of Zaire's wealth and disregard for political freedoms or the material needs of his own people had made him an embarrassment.
The United States does not admit to supporting the rebels, but some of its diplomats will admit to, in the wry words of one, "crushing neutrality." And although there is no proof of U.S. military help to the rebels, there are ample indications that several African states friendly to the United States - such as Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia - have been assisting Kabila.
But in recent weeks, U.S. officials have become more critical of the rebels, especially for alleged massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees.
The U.S. position has been that there should be a transition in Zaire. Washington would prefer a negotiated, peaceful transfer of power to an "inclusive" transitional government, including Kabila and representatives of the democratic opposition to Mobutu's regime that has arisen during the past five years.