Think of Yugoslavia, writ large across the landscape of Central Africa. In Africa, tribes, the essential unit of life, power, and society, remain the key to everything. The tribe provides physical security, laws, welfare, old age support, housing, friends and family. Africans hardly ever marry outside their tribes, and are loathe to leave their tribal areas. In other words, the tribe is Africa's equivalent of our nation state.
Zaire forms the geographic heart of Africa.
An implosion and tribal war there could destabilize much of the continent, producing cross-border tribal wars such as we are seeing this week in eastern Zaire. If Zaire's colonial borders are redrawn, then all of black Africa is open to territorial uncertainty and a storm of conflicting nationalist, tribal and economic claims. The ailing Mobutu Sese Seko cannot much longer rule his disintegrating empire from a Swiss hotel. There is no more cash to buy the loyalty of tribal chiefs. No new God-king awaits in the wings.