It feels like a familiar story -- ethnic groups clash in civil war in Africa -- but in Zaire, indeed in most of Africa, that story bears little relation to reality. In fact, if ethnic differences alone were sufficient to breed violence, the entire continent would constantly be at war, and most of Africa is at peace. The problem in Zaire is poverty, poverty brought on by 30 years of misrule. PNS correspondent Steven Were Omamo is a writer and agricultural economist based in Nairobi. He is a Rockefeller Foundation Social Science Research Fellow at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute.

Africa is in the news again. Zaire has followed Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, and Somalia into civil war.

The story has an awfully familiar ring. According to most reports, rebel leader Laurent-Desire Kabila is heading an uprising of his "tribe," -- the Banyamulenge, close relations of the Tutsis of Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda -- against the government of President Mobutu Sese Seko.

But is this familiar story accurate? Is Kabila's campaign merely a confrontation between an ethnic group and a national government? More broadly, given Africa's immense diversity, is civil war based on ethnic differences inevitable?

Almost all Africans belong to one ethnic group or another. Each has a distinct language and culture. These groupings form the fabric of our societies and enrich friendships, economic ties, and political allegiances. For the most part, our ethnic identities are sources of strength and stability. But they are a mixed blessing -- given their central positions in our lives, they can also divide us, and fuel ideas for which we will fight, kill, and die.

Individuals, communities, and countries strike different balances between the cohesive and divisive aspects of ethnic identities. But only the divisive dimension appears in analyses of public affairs in Africa. It is easy to point to "hot spots" like Rwanda and Burundi, Sudan, Somalia, Liberia, and now Zaire and conclude that civil strife must be based on ethnicity. But this easy explanation is wrong.

As in other "hot spots," things could have been very different in Zaire. The country is huge -- second largest on the continent, half as big as the United States and twice the size of South Africa -- and has natural and mineral wealth to match. But over his 30 years in office, Mobutu and his cronies have amassed huge personal fortunes rather than invest this wealth for the benefit of his country. Zaire remains one of the world's poorest countries.

From the first, Kabila and his Alliance of Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFLC) have made it clear that their principal grievances stem from the deep poverty gripping the entire country -- not just Kabila's native eastern Zaire. They see an end to Mobutu's rule as the only way forward.

The AFLC's rapid march across hundreds of miles of forest and farmland suggests that many rural Zaireans sympathize with their crusade. BBC radio reports show that many of those clamoring to join AFLC are not from Kabila's ethnic group. And in the capital of Kinshasa, hundreds of miles from the war zone, the government has banned all public demonstrations because so many residents support the AFLC.

Poverty is the fundamental impetus for change in Zaire. Poverty is at the root of Kabila's war. Competition for survival may indeed pit one ethnic group against another, but this need not lead to violence. In fact, it usually does not -- if ethnic differences alone were sufficient to breed violence, the entire continent would constantly be at war.

Most of Africa is at peace. This is a resounding vindication of African leadership. True, many countries have endured periods when the divisive aspects of ethnicity seemed overwhelming. But the moments passed. And Africans have learned from these uniquely African experiences -- many of us are unwilling to let our ethnic differences and identities become primary.

Most leaders continue to play the "ethnicity card" to create division and buy time -- but the sophisticated ones have abandoned the simple divide-and-rule style of the colonial powers. Instead, they try to quell dissent by creating division within, rather than across, opposition groupings, not all of them ethnically based. If the Zairean conflict does descend into ethnic-based violence it will be in part because Mobutu, like many other leaders, remains locked in the colonial mode of rule.

There is no way to know how the Zairean conflict will end. But so long as the world -- particularly the West, which historically has held sway in African conflicts -- views Zaire, and the rest of Africa, as being on the verge of collapse into ethnic warfare, a long-lasting resolution to the crisis is impossible.

Poor governments tend to make poor people poorer. From time to time, struggling for crumbs under the dinner table, poor people fight and kill each other. The way to end the fighting and killing -- in Zaire and Rwanda or Chicago and Los Angeles -- is not by removing ethnic differences, but by reducing poverty and broadening opportunity all around, and by urging government to loosen the link between ethnicity and welfare.