DRC's army campaign to expand
2007-10-23 08:50
Goma - Congolese government forces are preparing to expand their military campaign in the east of the country to include another front against a local militia in addition to an ongoing fight against a renegade Tutsi general.
The Democratic Republic of Congo's army had been fighting rebels loyal to Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda in North Kivu province since August, after his men abandoned a January peace deal and pulled out of mixed government brigades.
The clashes had displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
Colonel Delphin Kahimbi, operations commander of government forces in North Kivu, said on Sunday that a local Mai Mai militia group, which said it was working alongside the army, was in fact hindering his plans to deal with Nkunda, and that he was now ready to act against them too.
Thousands forced to flee
He gave the group 48 hours to go to army integration centres and disarm or faced military action.
A Mai Mai assault at the weekend on rebel-held Bunagana, a border town on DRC's eastern frontier with Uganda, triggered a series of counter-attacks by Nkunda loyalists against government troops.
The violence forced thousands more civilians to flee and wore out the army's patience with the militia group. Colonel Kahimbi said: "I received the order to give them 48 hours", adding that he was ready to act against the Mai Mai.
He said: "With the time needed to prepare, I think we can get on with it by Wednesday morning."
Former senior army officer Kasereka Kabamba, leading the Mai Mai militia group, rejected that ultimatum on Monday, saying Nkunda's men must lay down their weapons first.
He said: "If Nkunda chooses to go to the centres, then we go. If we go first, he can go on killing our people." North Kivu, a vast province bordering Uganda and Rwanda, had long been a hotbed of violence in the region.
800 000 Rwandans killed
Nkunda accused the Congolese government of supporting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), another rebel group including Rwandan ex-Hutu militia fighters and Rwandan soldiers responsible for that country's 1994 genocide.
The Mai Mai fighters under Kabamba had carried out operations with the FDLR against Nkunda.
Rwanda had twice invaded the DRC in pursuit of Hutu rebels it blamed for the 1994 genocide, in which 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.
The second invasion triggered a 1998-2003 war in the DRC, which killed at least four million people, mostly from disease and hunger caused by the fighting.
The United Nations estimates around 370 000 people had fled fighting between government soldiers, Nkunda's rebels, local militia, and Rwandan Hutu rebels in North Kivu since the beginning of this year.
UN peacekeepers had deployed in support of the Congolese army in an effort to prevent Nkunda's fighters from trying to reach the provincial capital Goma, and UN attack helicopters overflew the flashpoints on Saturday.