Rebels fighting over DRC's gold

2000-11-20 15:19

Kigali, Rwanda - Two rebel groups fighting to overthrow Democratic Republic of Congo President Laurent Kabila have exchanged gunfire near a northern gold mine in what appeared to be a fight over access to the country's minerals, rebel leaders said on Monday.

Fighting began on Saturday when forces of the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy tried to take Banalia, 100km north of the Congo River port of Kisangani, but were repulsed by the Congolese Liberation Movement, a rival group that controls northwestern DRC, MLC leader Jean-Pierre Bemba said.

There were conflicting reports on casualties, and it was not clear what sparked the fighting. The Rwandan and Ugandan armies, which back the RCD and the MLC respectively, were not involved in the fighting which leaders of both groups described as "a Congolese affair".

"It is true, and it is unfortunate, but it's a minor thing," RCD leader Adolphe Onusumba said from RCD headquarters in Goma in eastern DRC.

The RCD has maintained troops in Kisangani since the Rwandans and Ugandans fought violent clashes there in June, then withdrew from the city under international pressure.

Bemba, speaking from the Ugandan capital, Kampala, demanded that the RCD pull back from Banalia to Kisangani and claimed the town was under the MLC's jurisdiction.

RCD spokesperson Kin-Kiey Mulumba said from Goma that both sides were faced off in the town that is the site of several gold mines. Both rebel groups have signed lucrative contracts with foreign gold and diamond buyers who pay hefty taxes to whomever controls the minerals.

The rebellion against Kabila began in August 1998, but the original rebel group soon split in a dispute over the control of rebel-held territory in eastern DRC.

Rwanda backs the RCD in southern and southeastern DRC, while Uganda supports a splinter of the RCD as well as the smaller MLC, which is fighting government troops in the northwestern Equateur Province.

Meanwhile, fighting has intensified in southern DRC where the Rwandan army and the RCD made gains around Pepa and Pweto, near the southern end of Lake Tanganyika, forcing thousands of Congolese soldiers to flee to neighouring Zambia.

Mulumba said the RCD had appealed to Zambia to disarm the DRC soldiers and send them back across the border to join the rebels. Zambian authorities gave no response.

Although Zambia is neutral in the DRC conflict that has drawn in five African nations, its territory has been used by Kabila's staunchest ally, Zimbabwe, to transport troops, armour and boats into southern DRC.

The Zimbabwe Independent newspaper reported on 17 November that DRC had purchased 15 boats that were transported through Zambia to Mpulungu, a Congolese port at the southern end of Lake Tanganyika.

Kabila is backed by the armies from Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia. Although all sides signed a peace accord in Lusaka, the Zambian capital, last year, fighting has not ceased, and Kabila continues to refuse to authorise the deployment of a 5 537-strong UN mission with a mandate to oversee a cease-fire and the withdrawal of foreign troops from DRC.

- SAPA