DRC: Renegades battle govt forces

Renegade troops battled with government forces on the outskirts of the strategic city of Bukavu on Monday, exacerbating a crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that threatens the peace process that ended five years of war in the country.

The fighting erupted after the government’s regional military commander, Brigadier General Mbuza Mabe, attempted to return to Bukavu, said Colonel Jules Mutebutsi, one of two renegade leaders who seized the city last week.

Mutebutsi troops fought with government forces about 2,5km outside Bukavu in a bid to prevent Mabe’s advance.

The crisis in the eastern DRC has posed the biggest threat yet to the cohesiveness of the country’s power-sharing government. The transitional administration took office last June after a devastating five-year war in the DRC that drew in at least six foreign armies.

An estimated 3,3-million people perished in the war, mainly through disease and famine.

Mutebutsi and a second renegade commander — Brigadier General Laurent Nkunda — seized Bukavu on Wednesday, forcing Mabe and his troops to flee.

Nkunda pulled out of the city on Sunday, saying he had accomplished his objective. Mutebutsi and his forces remained quartered in camps in Bukavu, an important trading centre on the border with Rwanda.

United Nations troops have taken over security in the city to protect civilians, but have not intervened to stem the fighting between the armed factions.

The government soldiers ”came down the hills … and were heading to our position while others were marching on the city centre,” said Mutebutsi. ”We fought them and pushed them back, but they are still coming to attack.”

On Sunday, Nkunda warned that his troops would return to Bukavu if Mabe attempted to retake the city.

The crisis has further strained already poor relations between the DRC and Rwanda, with the government in Kinshasa, the DRC’s capital, accusing its neighbour of backing the uprising.

Rwanda has strongly denied the accusation. On Sunday, it closed its border with the DRC to all but refugees of any fighting, and said the frontier would remain closed pending an international probe of the DRC’s charges.

Congolese residents have also blamed the 10 800-strong UN mission in the DRC for failing to prevent the fall of Bukavu.

UN spokesperson Hamadoun Toure said that some staff and dependents of the UN mission were evacuated on Sunday as anti-UN tensions rose.

The families of ”several” UN staffers were evactuated to Brazzaville, capital of the neighbouring Republic of Congo, Toure said on Monday, declining to say how many people had been taken out.

In previous days, 50 UN staffers in the east also were evacuated to Uganda, Toure said.

No evacuation of non-essential staff was under way, he added.

”It’s one of the options,” Toure said. ”The UN has given us the green light, but it’s up to us to decide.”

Violent demonstrations targeting UN staff and installations broke out in cities across the country on Thursday last week.

UN forces at one point fired directly into a crowd of rioters that had overrun its logistics base in Kinshasa. Three of the rioters were killed.

Thursday and Friday’s violence in the capital, the worst since 1997, killed at least 12 people and injured 88 others. No UN staff were reported to have been harmed.

During the civil war, Nkunda and Mutebutsi were commanders in the main rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy, which joined the transitional government when it was established.

Both were integrated into the national army, but later fell out with their commanders. They say they launched their assault on Wednesday because Mabe — who was appointed by Kinshasa — was persecuting members of a Tutsi community, the Banyamulenge. Both renegade commanders are members of the DRC’s Tutsi community.

Rwanda backed the Congolese Rally for Democracy during the civil conflict and sent thousands of troops into the DRC when the war erupted in August 1998.

Rwandan soldiers pulled out in November 2002 after a series of peace deals took hold.

Rwanda first sent troops into the DRC to pursue former members of the Rwandan army and Hutu extremists who carried out the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which killed more than 500 000 people.

Rwanda accused the DRC government of harbouring the Rwandan rebels, who set up bases in eastern DRC.

Rwandan Hutu rebels have in the past few days kidnapped 60 civilians from the DRC and were holding them for ransom, a United Nations official said on Monday.

”According to information we have, 60 civilians have been kidnapped from Sange, around 30km north of Uvira, by the the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, [FDLR]” said Timothy Reid, an official for the UN’s Bukavu mission.

The FDLR was asking ”$100 ransom for each person”, he said.

The FDLR is made up of Rwandan Hutu rebels who fled to east DRC after the 1994 genocide.

The war that broke out in the DRC in 1998 was only resolved last year, at the cost of about 2,5-million lives, lost either directly in fighting or through disease and hunger.

Despite peace being restored to most of the DRC since last year, the east and northeast have continued to be riven by conflict.

Last week, dissident soldiers seized Bukavu sparking violent protests around the country and raising fears that the peace process would unravel.

”We have been told that because of the attacks [on Bukavu by the leader of the dissident troops, General Laurent Nkunda], the army pulled out of this zone and the FDLR took advantage and made incursions,” said Reid.

Uvira lies south of Bukavu, and is separated by the waters of Lake Tanganyika from the Burundian capital, Bujumbura. The border region between Burundi, DRC and Rwanda is highly volatile, and civilians there are often kidnapped by Rwandan or Burundian rebels. – Sapa-AP