DRC rebels accuse UN of lying
2009-01-03 11:02
Kinshasa - Rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on 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 spokesperson 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 40km 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.