/ 1 July 2003

Rival factions set to be neighbours in Bunia

A political group drawn from the ethnic Lendu majority in north-east Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Ituri region is to set up shop again in Bunia, two months after a rival ethnic faction shot its way into power there.

The acting president of the Ugandan-backed Nationalist and Integrationist Forces (FNI), Ngabu Wele, met on Monday in Bunia with General Jean-Paul Thonier, commander of a French-led European Union (EU) security force deployed in the town, according to EU force spokesperson Colonel Gerard Dubois.

”Ngabu asked if it was possible for the FNI to set up a headquarters in Bunia… The general said, as soon as you like, but under the same conditions imposed on the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC),” Dubois told journalists.

The FNI was formed in Uganda earlier this year as an envisaged component of a multi-ethnic coalition designed to take control of Ituri’s administration and rich natural resources of gold, diamonds and uranium, to keep the region out of the hands of the central government in Kinshasa.

This inclusive coalition never took shape and the UPC, which has close ties to Uganda’s arch rival Rwanda, stormed back into Bunia in early May, when hundreds of people died in clashes and massacres.

The UPC had previously controlled the town between August last year and March 2003.

Late last month, the French-led force in Bunia, mandated to protect the town and population and to support long-term efforts to reach a political settlement after years of tribal blood-letting, ordered UPC leader Thomas Lubanga to pull all his militiamen out of the town, except for 30 bodyguards.

The order was issued under a broad operation to rid the town of all armed men, whatever their factional allegiance. Dubois said that Ngabu had accepted this condition and that the faction’s headquarters would be established once all parties — the FNI, the EU force and a separate United Nations mission in DRC, called Monuc — agreed on its location.

Ituri has continued to be riven by fighting despite a peace accord taking effect for DRC in April. Hundreds of people have died in ethnic unrest in the northeastern region in the past few months.

On Monday, DRC President Joseph Kabila named an interim government for DRC as provided for in the peace pact, and urged the Congolese people to put aside their ethnic differences and work towards uniting the vast nation. – Sapa-AFP