OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kampala | Tuesday 7.30pm.
A SMALL aircraft carrying civilians and a top Ugandan army officer to a town controlled by rebels in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has gone missing, a Ugandan army spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Captain Shaban Bantariza said the aircraft, chartered from Tropical Airways, left Entebbe for Bunia, about 370km north of Congolese rebel headquarters in Goma at the head of Lake Kivu. It was carrying two Ugandans, two foreign civilians whose nationalities he did give and Colonel Jet Mwebaze, a brother of Brigadier James Kazini, the acting chief of staff of the Ugandan armed forces.
Shaban said the plane was last seen flying at low altitude shortly after crossing the border into the DRC Kasese, about 280km west of Kampala, apparently looking for a place to land. He said the plane had probably crashed. He ruled out the possibility it had been shot down by forces loyal to DRC President Laurent Kabila since his troops do not control any airstrips in the north-eastern Congo region.
Bunia is 40km west of the Ugandan border. Witnesses in Bunia say Ugandan troops are guarding the airport there.
Meanwhile the DRC rebels said on Tuesday that government security officials have enlisted dozens of former commanders in the the Rwandan Hutu army to fight for Kabila.
Bizima Karaha, a rebel leader, said former top Hutu military commanders who fled Rwanda in mid-1994 fearing reprisals for the 1994 genocide, were recently recruited from refugee camps in the Republic of Congo, to the north of the DRC.
Among those who have left the camps on the north bank of the Congo River and reportedly moved to the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, are Major-General Augustin Bizimungu, a former chief commander during the 1994 Hutu government-organised massacre of up to a million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Last week, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees asked authorities in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, to relocate thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees from the camps to avoid their conscription into the war in neighboring Congo.
The US State Department has also expressed concern over allegations that Kabila’s army has equipped and trained at least 10000 former Rwandan troops involved in the 1994 genocide at Kamina air base in south-western Congo. Kabila’s government denies the accusation.
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