DRC News Update: President Kabila Makes Promise Of Peace For 2009

President Joseph Kabila on cover that reads "La Revue". The Democratic Republic of Congo has seen a spike in rebel fighting over the last two months.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

KINSHASA 1 January 2009 Sapa-AFP

DR CONGO PRESIDENT MAKES PROMISE OF PEACE FOR 2009

Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila vowed to bring peace to his war-ravaged country before the end of 2009 in a rare televised address to the nation.

"Our objectives for 2009 will be and remain those given to the government when it was formed: first and foremost is the consolidation of peace and security, in particular in the east of the country," Kabila said as the New Year was about to dawn.

"Our determination is undeniable and all options will be looked at to this effect," the Congolese president said.

Kabila has rarely spoken out in public since fighting began between the army and rebels led by Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda at the end of August.

Talks opened between the government and the rebels earlier in
December in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. Since then, fighting between the two sides has subsided and they are set to meet for another round of talks on January 7.

"For our country, as well as the world, the past year has been difficult," Kabila said.

"It has shown that peace is only possible with the full, sincere cooperation of everybody involved and that, without good faith, even the best agreements are rendered useless," he added.

Kabila also launched a stinging attack on Ugandan rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), describing them as "enemies of peace."

The LRA has been accused by the UN and the Congolese government of killing civilians in the north east of the country. More than 400 people have died in the isolated Orientale region of the country since Christmas.


KINSHASA 2 January 2009 Sapa-AFP

DRCONGO REBELS ACCUSES UN OF LYING OVER TROOP MOVEMENTS

Rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo Friday accused the United Nations of lying about movements of government forces in areas covered by a truce.

They said that the alleged reoccupation of the zones put a question mark on talks between the government and the rebel National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), led by renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda, set to resume on January 7.

The rebels said they wanted mediators on the ground in the disputed areas before the Nairobi talks resume.

On Wednesday the UN mission in Congo, or MONUC, rejected charges by Nkunda that government forces had reinforced their positions along the main Goma-Kibati front north of Goma, the provincial capital of Nord-Kivu.

CNDP spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa condemned what he called "lies" and "deliberate untruths" on the part of MONUC which "thus strengthened the logic of war."

"The presence of the government coalition" on the axes in question "is of a size such that a spark would be enough to relaunch the war," the rebel statement said.

Bisimwa called for light to be shed on "the reoccupation by units of the coalition government of zones" along the front line of fighting from which the rebels had pulled out at the end of October in Nord-Kivu.

"Against all the evidence, MONUC continues to maintain that no presence of government forces has been observed along the three axes of Goma-Kibati, Kabasha-Kiwanja-Kanyabayonga and
Nyanzale-Ishasha-Kiwanja."

Since talks between the government and rebels began in Nairobi last month under the chairmanship of UN-designated mediator, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, the situation in the eastern Congo has been calm if tense.

Rebel troops are still at the gates of Goma but say they pulled back 40 kilometres (25 miles) along another front in November as a "sign of goodwill" and to allow for the creation of buffer zones.

The rebels said MONUC "was in charge of the protection of the
aforesaid separation zones and today is quite simply refusing to admit its inability to fulfil its task."

Pro-government groups, Mai Mai militias and Rwandan Hutu rebels, hard sometimes to tell apart, have taken up positions in the zones in question which are difficult to supervise, AFP reported in mid-December.


BRUSSELS 2 January 2009 Sapa-dpa

BRUSSELS CONDEMNS LRA CONGO MASSACRES

The European Union's executive on Friday condemned the massacre of hundreds of Congolese civilians by members of the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), demanding that the rebel group sign and stick to an earlier peace deal.

The European Commission "strongly condemns" the massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo of an estimated 200 to 400 civilians by LRA militias, a statement released in Brussels said.

It "demands that the LRA sign the final acts of the Juba peace accords and abide by them," it said.

The massacre jeopardizes the stability of the entire Central African region, including southern Sudan and the Central African Republic, EU Aid Commissioner Louis Michel said in the statement.

The massacres between December 24 and 26 saw LRA troops break into a number of Congolese villages, killing men, women and children with machetes, swords and clubs, according to aid agency reports.

Initial estimates put the death toll at at least 200, but German Catholic charity Caritas on Tuesday said that the number of victims was at least 400.


KINSHASA 2 January 2009 Sapa-AFP

LRA REBELS FLEEING TOWARDS CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

Remnants of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army are fleeing towards Central African Republic having been routed by a three-nation military operation, a Congolese official said Friday.

The Ugandan rebel force, which is being tracked down by Congolese, Ugandan and Sudanese troops, has suffered heavy losses in fighting that has uprooted tens of thousands of people, Joseph Bangakya, deputy governor of the northeastern Orientale province, told AFP.

"The LRA has been routed," said Bangakya, whose vast and isolated province spanning the Ugandan and Sudanese borders has been the target of the military operation that began in mid-December.

Blamed for widespread atrocities over the years, the LRA stands accused of killing hundreds of civilians in several parts of the Orientale region during the Christmas holidays - some 400 according to the Catholic NGO Caritas, and at least 271, according a preliminary estimate by local authorities.

A Ugandan spokesman for the military operation said there had been no contact with the rebels over the past few days.

"What we know is that the LRA have suffered serious casualties and lost their food stock plus equipment," Captain Chris Magezi told AFP by telephone.

The military had also picked up a grenade launcher near regional LRA headquarters they bombed December 14, Magezi said.

"If they can abandon such key war materials and food, it tells us these people are just fleeing," he added.

The latest clashes add to a host of troubles plaguing this vast, impoverished, conflict-wracked central African country with local authorities estimating they have displaced some 68,000 people in just over two weeks.

"The humanitarian situation remains very critical," Bangakya said, adding regional officials were eagerly awaiting medical and other supplies promised by Kinshasa.

On Wednesday, President Joseph Kabila's government vowed to smash the LRA rebels just after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned their alleged role in massacres here and in southern Sudan.

The rebels have denied any responsibility for the killings, blaming the three-nation military force that is hunting them down.


KINSHASA 3 January 2009 Sapa-AFP

UN URGES DRCONGO REBELS TO RETURN TO PEACE TALKS

The United Nations urged rebels in the east of the Democratic
Republic of Congo on Saturday to return to peace talks scheduled to resume in Nairobi on January 7.

In a statement, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) said it had "fully noted" claims by the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) that government forces had been reinforcing front-line positions in breach of a truce.

The rebels, led by renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda, on Friday accused MONUC of "lies" and "deliberate untruths," and demanded that mediators check the state of forces on the front lines.

But MONUC said it had not seen "any redeployment of FARDC
(government) forces north of Goma," the capital of Nord-Kivu province, after the ceasefire unilaterally declared by the rebels at the end of October came into effect.

It "rejected completely" rebel claims that it was strengthening "the logic of war." On the contrary, it said, it was continually "trying to fulfil its mandate as a peacekeeping mission."

The rebels have demanded that UN forces take up position in two areas where there is a ceasefire to halt any advance by government forces and allied local militias and Hutu rebels.

"MONUC points out that no party has the authority to impose on it the obligation of unilaterally monitoring the areas defined," the statement said.

It added that it remained ready to help the parties to implement any agreed disengagement plan and repeated that it was available to work with all parties to reduce tension.


KINSHASA 3 January 2009 Sapa-AFP

UGANDAN REBELS, DRCONGO ARMY CLASH NEAR SUDAN BORDER

Ugandan rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army have clashed with government forces in a national park in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, local officials said Saturday.

"About 50 LRA rebels attacked Magero, home of the chief station of the Garamba park wardens, Friday evening," Joseph Bangakya, deputy governor of the northeastern province of Orientale, told AFP by phone.

"They wanted fresh supplies but they did not know that elements of the FARDC (regular Congolese army) were there," he said.

"Fighting went on for almost three hours and the FARDC succeeded in repelling the militias who retreated into the jungle."

He said he had no details of casualties but no civilians had been hurt as far as he knew.

Troops from Congo, Uganda and South Sudan have been involved since mid-December in a major joint operation against the LRA in the region, which extends along Congo's borders with Sudan and Uganda.

Over the Christmas period at least 400 civilians were massacred by the LRA, the aid group Caritas has alleged, while the provincial authorities put the total at 271 with many bodies still to be found.

The LRA rebels have retreated to the north of the Garamba park on the Sudanese border, the local authorities say.

The United Nations mission in DR Congo (MONUC) has said the LRA attacks on civilians follows the December 14 joint military operation by the three countries.

The operation follows the repeated refusal of LRA leader Joseph Kony, who is believed to be accompanied by several hundred supporters, to sign a peace deal with Kampala.

The agreement, endorsed by Uganda, was the culmination of a peace process begun in July 2006.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and nearly two million displaced in Uganda in two decades of fighting between the Ugandan government and the LRA. The group is notorious for abductions of children for use as soldiers and sex slaves.

LRA forces have been seen in the Ango region, on the border with Central African Republic (CAR), Bangakya said.

For several days ther authorities in Orientale province have been warning that small groups of rebels have been moving west of the Garamba park towards the CAR.

But the CAR government in Bangui has said it had received no alert as to the presence of the rebels.