VirungaNews.com - EU envoy urges Congo rebel to be flexible for peace.

Nouvelles en bref

RDC: Gen. Ntaganda is only a pawn in a wider game.

Joseph Rwagatare

07/05/12

When strangers wail louder than the bereaved, you must be on your guard. Something is not quite right. They are hiding something, probably some involvement in the cause of the bereavement. Or they are plotting something sinister against the grieving people or their neighbours.

The wailing is very often unnaturally loud that it must surely be contrived. Other times it is so vicious you can’t distinguish between the loud cries and baying for blood.

This seems to have been the case in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the last several weeks.

RDC: Kinshasa impose une nouvelle guerre face à la revendication des mutins du Kivu.

El Memeyi Murangwa

07/05/12

Contrairement aux déclarations rusées du général FARDC, Didier Etumba, de suspendre les opérations militaires contre la mutinerie, Joseph Kabila est décidé à en découdre avec les mutins qui en majorité sont des ex-militaires du Congrès national pour la défense du peuple, mouvement politico-militaire qui dans un récent passé n’a cessé de donner du fil à retordre à la garde prétorienne de Kabila présentée au front comme l’armée de la république.

RDC: 80 nouvelles défections de soldats ex-rebelles, dont un proche de Ntaganda.

AFP

04/5/12

GOMA (RDCongo) - Environ 80 soldats de l'armée congolaise ont fait défection jeudi dans l'est de la RDC, dont le colonel Sultani Makenga, qui fut adjoint du général Bosco Ntaganda dans l'ex-rébellion du Congrès national pour la défense du peuple (CNDP), a-t-on appris de source militaire.

Le colonel Makenga et le lieutenant-colonel Masozera ont fait défection dans la nuit de jeudi avec leurs hommes, dans la ville de Goma, capitale de la province instable du Nord-Kivu (est) frontalière avec le Rwanda, a déclaré à l'AFP un commandant des Forces armées (FARDC).

Nous avons récupéré 80 tenues avec bottines dans le cimetière du quartier Bujovu, a indiqué cette source, qui a requis l'anonymat.

Le général Ntaganda était numéro 2 du CNDP, et le colonel Makenga était son adjoint dans cette rébellion intégrée en 2009 dans l'armée.

RDC: L’irresponsabilité du gouvernement central à la base de l’insécurité grandissante au Kivu.

El Memeyi Murangwa

5/03/12

De par la volonté des dirigeants irresponsables, le Kivu est entrain de vivre une situation de plus confuse engendrée par le non-paiement de la solde aux militaires et le non-respect des engagements exprimés à travers le communiqué rendu public le 16 janvier 2009 et l’accord politique signé à Goma le 23 mars 2009. Le processus de paix semble revenir à la case départ, et cette fois ci l’agresseur n’est autre que l’Agent payeur (Gouvernement).

Une armée chosifiée

L’armée nationale de la RDC, connue sous le diminutif « FARDC » jadis fierté de l’Afrique Centrale se trouve être la plus misérable du continent africain. Réduite en une bande des pilleurs et violeurs attitrés, les militaires congolais vivent sur le dos d’une population paupérisée par une classe dirigeante préoccupée plus à mener une vie ostentatoire avec les revenus de l’Etat.

Congo's 'Terminator': Kabila calls for Ntaganda arrest.

BBC

4/11/12

President Joseph Kabila has said ex-rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda, wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes, must be arrested.

But Gen Ntaganda must be tried in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the president says. Mr Kabila had previously refused to call for the arrest of the man known locally as "The Terminator".

Dernières Nouvelles

Populaire

EU envoy urges Congo rebel to be flexible for peace.

Joe Bavier

11/12/08

KIWANJA, Congo, Dec 11 (Reuters) - A European Union envoy urged Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda on Thursday to show flexibility to advance faltering U.N.-backed peace talks aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

EU Development and Aid Commissioner Louis Michel met renegade Tutsi General Nkunda near Kiwanja, a rebel-held town in North Kivu province where human rights groups say 150 civilians were massacred by rebel and militia fighters in early November.

"I urged some flexible proposals with Nkunda," Michel told reporters. He flew to meet the rebel chief after a U.N. mediator complained that Nkunda's demands were delaying progress in talks with Congo's government aimed at forging a lasting peace.

Nkunda's fighters have routed the government army and captured large swathes of North Kivu since August, sending around a quarter of a million people fleeing for their lives.

He has demanded direct negotiations with Kabila, who won 2006 elections, on Kabila's leadership and on Congo's future.

"We must concentrate first of all on the problems in the east of Congo and not try to discuss everything," Michel said, indicating he had passed on this message to Nkunda from U.N. mediator Olusegun Obasanjo.

"President Kabila is legitimately elected. There is a parliament that is elected democratically. Those who want to contest that legitimacy have to wait until the next elections," Michel said.

Obasanjo, a former Nigerian President, chaired peace talks this week in Nairobi, Kenya between representatives of Nkunda and Congo's government. But he complained that progress was slow because the rebel negotiators lacked authority to make decisions and were making demands beyond the scope of the talks.

A rebel-declared ceasefire in North Kivu seems to be holding, but aid workers say a humanitarian emergency is still raging and many families are out of reach of aid workers in zones controlled by Nkunda's rebels or pro-government militias.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said on Thursday most of the Nov. 4-5 killings in Kiwanja were carried out by Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) rebels.

Nkunda's CNDP has denied killing civilians but said it cleared out Mai-Mai militia from the town.

APPEAL FOR EU FORCE

A U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo, at 17,000-strong the largest in the world, has failed to halt the violence in North Kivu and aid workers have been clamouring for additional foreign military protection to be able to extend their work.

But U.N. reinforcements are not due to arrive for months.

Relief agencies, backed by international personalities, have appealed for a rapid reaction from the European Union, but EU divisions mean no decision has been taken yet.

"EU troops would free up U.N. peacekeepers to strengthen bases in more remote areas, such as Kiwanja, and help prevent further atrocities," Human Rights Watch's senior Africa researcher Anneke Van Woudenberg said in a statement.

The Nairobi meetings are the first face-to-face talks since Nkunda launched his rebellion in 2004, initially to protect fellow Tutsis in eastern Congo from attacks by Rwandan Hutu rebels who crossed into Congo after Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

Having routed Kabila's weak and chaotic army in weeks of fighting, Nkunda now talks of a broader rebellion and has threatened to march on the distant capital, Kinshasa.

A draft report from a U.N. panel of experts accuses Congo's Tutsi-led neighbour Rwanda of backing Nkunda's rebels.

Rwandan Foreign Minister Rosemary Museminali denied the charges. "We are not supporting CNDP. We are not sending forces, we are not sending arms," she told reporters in Kigali.

Nkunda's CNDP also denied the allegation.

"If we had Rwandan government support, we would already be in Kinshasa," CNDP rebel spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa said.

The U.N. experts also accused Congo's army of supporting Rwandan Hutu militia in eastern Congo. The 15-nation U.N. Security Council is expected to discuss their report on Monday. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/) (Additional reporting by Themis Hakizimana in Kigali and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Writing by Pascal Fletcher)

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