Women’s organisations in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Monday accused the United Nations mission there of turning a blind eye to ongoing fighting which has ravaged this part of the vast African country.
In a letter addressed to United Nation’s Secretary General Kofi Annan, four women’s groups slammed the UN mission in DRC, called Monuc, for maintaining a ”guilty silence” during the ”war of aggression and occupation” in their Nord-Kivu province.
Monuc seemed to be ”out for a stroll in the countryside” in the Nord-Kivu towns of Lubero and Beni, where UN military observers are stationed, as well as in other DRC flashpoints including strife-torn town of Bunia, in Ituri province, they said.
The groups singled out the main rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), which receives backing from neighbouring Rwanda, as the aggressors in Kivu’s ongoing violence.
The women also said the world body should urge the Kinshasa government to send troops and aid to Nord-Kivu.
The DRC government already backs one of the rebel groups fighting in the area — the RCD’s rivals Congolese Rally for Democracy – Liberation Movement (RCD-ML).
Both the Kinshasa-backed RCD-ML and the Rwanda-backed RCD have accused the other of breaking a brand new ceasefire agreed last week.
The UN mission on Saturday sent military observers to the Kivu area around Beni, Butembo and Lubero to assess claims made by both rebel groups that the other is mobilising its troops — a violation of the truce — in preparation for a military offensive.
Despite the signing of a final peace pact for DRC last April, which formally ended a four-and-a-half year war in the country, fighting rages on between the rebel groups aided by their government backers in the mineral rich east. ‒ Sapa-AFP