Renegade ex-general Laurent Nkunda said Monday that his troops had launched an ”active offensive” against the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) army in the east of the country.
”We are rejecting the ceasefire” between the two sides agreed a month ago under pressure from the United Nations mission in the DRC (Monuc), which said earlier that sporadic firing could be heard from various places in Nord-Kivu province.
Nkunda, contacted in one of his strongholds, said the regular army was shelling villages in the Masisi region, about 30km to 40km west of the provincial capital of Goma, on the border with Rwanda.
”We were on the point of routing them and in revenge they are bombarding these villages. We will open a new front line anywhere they attack us,” Nkunda warned.
An officer in the DRC armed force (FARDC) confirmed that fighting had broken out again in the Masisi highlands, where Nkunda is a powerful local warlord and claims to protect local people against the army and hostile ethnic communities.
Speaking by telephone, FARDC Major Cristin Paluku said: ”We are at the front line. The villages of Bwirunde, Muremure and Kiluku will soon be under our control.”
”The battle will continue. We will soon be in Mushaki and Karuba,” he added before hanging up quickly as the sound of gunfire in the background grew closer.
Nkunda said he was ”launching an active offensive to protect the population” — referring to his self-proclaimed role as defender of the minority Tutsi Congolese.
More than 70 rebel fighters have been killed in recent days in Nord-Kivu, according to the army, with fighting spreading at the weekend to a gorilla reserve in a national park.
”Sporadic firing is still signalled from various locations,” said Major Prem Tiwari, a military spokesperson for Monuc, on Monday.
”Nine FARDC troops were reported injured by the army. We don’t know for the other side,” Tiwari added. ”Fighting between the rebels and army was heavy yesterday [Sunday] afternoon around Rumangabo before stopping at the end of the afternoon.”
Rumangabo is in the Bukima and Kokwe hills, 25km north of Goma.
Over the weekend the two sides clashed heavily in the hills of the Virunga National Park, which is home to the endangered Congolese mountain gorilla.
Ten mountain gorillas have been killed and two have gone missing in the park since January. Only 700 remain in the wild, most of them in the hill forests of the eastern DRC, Uganda and Rwanda.
On Sunday, an ally of Nkunda warned that the renegades were on the brink of launching a massive offensive against the army, which had tried to incorporate them into its ranks as part of an ethnic mixing policy before many defected.
Bwambale Kakolele said: ”We have waited for the opening of a dialogue with the government of Kinshasa for a long time, but they are still fighting us.”
According to the army, 38 Nkunda rebels were killed on Saturday, in addition to a further 35 who died last Thursday.
Almost daily clashes between the army and rebel groups have taken place in the eastern DRC since the September 6 UN-brokered ceasefire collapsed at the end of the month.
The government has refused to negotiate with Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi who accuses the army of collaborating with Rwandan Hutus who have been in the eastern DRC for 13 years.
Some of these, with their own politico-military movement, are accused by Rwanda of taking part in its 1994 genocide, when Hutu troops and militias rounded up and slaughtered about 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Since December 2006, fighting between the rebels and government forces have displaced about 370 000 civilians in Nord-Kivu, according to the UN. Heavy clashes between August 27 and September 6 alone displaced more than 90 000.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) warned on Friday that rebel groups in Nord-Kivu had taken advantage of the lull in violence since then to build up their forces, and were reportedly recruiting child soldiers.
”We fear new clashes would lead to thousands of people being displaced, plunging the province into an even worse humanitarian disaster,” the UNHCR’s office added. — Sapa-AFP