African states, in common with other regions of the Third World perceived chiefly as "crisis zones", have a habit of wandering in and out of our sight - present for a month or two, perhaps, when war or epidemic throws up a particularly high rate of casualties, fading away again when the figures slide back to an acceptable, or at any rate unremarkable level. Bad news, it seems, is news, while good news . . . well, there really isn't very much good news.
World attention focused on the Great Lakes region of eastern Africa in 1994 when Rwandan soldiers and popular militias massacred some 800,000 people, mainly ethnic Tutsis. Here was an event which was stark and brutal, which cried out for an international response and which, if not quite comprehensible, was nonetheless in some sense explicable.
In this part of the world, we were told, there were two types of people, Hutus and Tutsis. Hutus were stocky, with round faces and broad noses, while Tutsis were slim and long-nosed: one the Idi Amin type of African, the other your typical Ethiopian long distance runner.
Yes, and the Tutsis tended to run things and the Hutus tended to resent this. What exactly it was that had turned this resentment towards genocide was to remain obscure, but the phenomenon itself was not entirely unfamiliar. Had we not in Europe too attempted to dispose of a people supposedly identifiable by their privileges - and their noses?
In due course, the media focus shifted to other crisis zones. The Hutu/Tutsi problem, it appeared, had gone away. In a sense "gone away" is precisely what it had done, though only down the road to neighbouring Zaire, where the former Rwandan government, its army and the murderous Inter ahamwe militia re-established themselves in comfort and sat back to wait. It was to return, however, after 1996 as a key factor in two rapidly succeeding armed conflicts in the Congo, the latter of which has dragged in actors from a dozen African countries and eight armies and become, in the words of Susan Rice, the US Deputy Secretary of State for African Affairs, "akin to Africa's first World War".
The offensive of 1996-1997, which saw the replacement of the Mobutu dictatorship by the regime of Laurent Kabila (and the renaming of Zaire as the Democratic Republic of Congo), was in some senses a civil war, but one in which the victorious party relied heavily on the military muscle of outside forces, particularly Rwanda and Uganda.
THE corrupt Mr Mobutu had long been a Cold War client of the West, but his fall was not greatly mourned, except perhaps in France. Mr Kabila was a largely unknown figure, a revolutionary commander from the 1960s without any particular political support base. In spite of his "leftwing" nationalist background he was quick to make pragmatic noises and briefly took his place among the so-called new generation of African leaders who were, three short years ago, the focus of much hope and wishful thinking.
Such optimism was short-lived as Mr Kabila quickly disappointed both Congolese democrats and, more crucially, his Rwandan and Ugandan backers. These two eastern neighbours had become involved in the DRC principally to advance their own security agendas, for Rwanda to destroy the Hutu-dominated remnants of the national army (FAR) and Interahamwe, for Uganda to combat two separate anti-government insurgencies operating partially out of Congolese territory.
Mr Kabila's perceived failure to address adequately the legitimate security concerns of his neighbours gave them the excuse some might say they were looking for to do the job themselves and in the process, through a new "civil war", install a more amenable regime.
Their renewed offensive of August 1998, spectacular at first, was only stopped, and Mr Kabila's bacon saved, by the intervention of Zimbabwean and Angolan forces on the pro-government side.
Mr Kabila has gained support, political and military, from Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Chad, Libya, Sudan and perhaps Cuba, while the rebels are backed by Uganda, Rwanda and to a much smaller degree, Burundi. Numerous other militias and tribal groups have joined in on either side, often simply on the principle that my enemy's enemy is my friend.
In the background there is the usual crop of political groupings - RCD, MLC, CNRD, FDF - an alphabet soup of acronyms proclaiming progress, democracy and liberation and disguising opportunism, venality and rapacity.
By spring this year, with an estimated one million displaced persons, the war had reached a stalemate, leaving the way open for diplomacy and eventual negotiations. In summer, a peace agreement was signed in Lusaka, Zambia, but its proposals have yet to be implemented and a slide back to armed conflict is far from impossible.
What has caused this intractable and bloody war? Libya's Col Gadafy, unsurprisingly, sees the hidden hand of Washington: "When the United States sensed the African continent was moving towards unity, it created a conspiracy at the heart of the continent to block that unity."
It is true that President Museveni of Uganda is a friend of America, but otherwise evidence for the Gadafy thesis is lacking.
What is not in doubt is that there are "imperialist" motivations at work, involving this time not primarily the usual suspects, Britain, the US, France and Belgium, but the new African imperialists Rwanda, Uganda, Zim babwe and perhaps South Africa.
The DRC is a rich country with a poor people. Its diamonds, gold and other minerals have been plundered for the personal enrichment of army commanders and warlords and used by both sides to finance their war. They also feature in the long term economic plans of ambitious business interests in at least three of the outside nations involved in the conflict.
Mr Kabila has bolstered his originally weak personal position since the start of the hostilities by nationalist rhetoric and the manipulation of ethnic resentment, as in his call for "Bantu solidarity against the Nilotic people", the same Nilotic people, let us remember, who installed him in power. Race hatred can be a useful tool for the political powerseeker, but it is not always easy to turn off when circumstances change.
If the Congo is to move away from disaster it must be on the basis of the implementation of the Lusaka accord, with the disarming of the genocidaire militias, the recognition of legitimate Ugandan and Rwandan security concerns and the creation of democratic and economic structure which are open to all Congolese.