DRC general threatens war
2004-06-14 21:09
Cyangugu, Rwanda - The clock ticked down on Monday towards a deadline set by dissident Democratic Republic of Congo General Laurent Nkunda, who has threatened the government with war unless it investigates alleged crimes against his ethnic group.
Members of the former rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), who since last year have been part of the country's transition government, were meeting in Kinshasa to discuss Nkunda's ultimatum, the dissident general said.
"They asked us to wait. I am waiting for the results of today's meeting," said Nkunda, a day after he threatened to declare war on Kinshasa as of Monday if an investigation was not immediately launched into alleged atrocities in the east against his Banyamulenge ethnic group - Congolese Tutsis with closer ties to Kigali than Kinshasa.
"Things are evolving very well" added Nkunda, who said he was in Minova, on the border between eastern DRC's Nord- and Sud-Kivu provinces.
"You will know the big news tomorrow," he said.
Nkunda and the government officials involved in the talks in Kinshasa are drawn from the RCD, the Rwandan-backed group that spearheaded a devastating five-year war in DRC in 1998.
Under accords enacted last year to end the war, the RCD's leadership was given key positions in a national unity government, including one of four vice presidencies, while its soldiers were supposed to be integrated into a new army.
Nkunda was one of two former RCD military officers who led ex-rebel fighters into the eastern town of Bukavu early this month and held the town, capital of Sud-Kivu province, for one week before giving it up without a fight to the army.
He justified the seizure of Bukavu with the claim that his fellow Banyamulenge were being massacred there by regular troops.
The fall of Bukavu on June 2, and Nkunda's threats to declare yet another war in DRC sparked fear in the east of the country, where the vast nation's two most recent rebellions-turned-wars have begun.