Fighter jets fly over DRC town

2003-06-11 14:38

Bunia - French fighter jets flew low over the powerkeg town of Bunia in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Wednesday, as a international rapid reaction force took shape on the ground, an AFP journalist reported.

Also on Wednesday, United Nations security council ambassadors on an official visit to Kinshasa described the unrest in northeast DRC as "unacceptable" and warned that war criminals would be brought to book.

The warplanes overflying Bunia, Mirage 2000 ground attack jets, are providing close air support for operation Artemis, a 1 500-strong French-led military mission backed by the UN and European Union and aimed at protecting civilians and UN personnel in the town, where inter-ethnic clashes have claimed hundreds of lives in recent weeks.

The planes are flying sorties from bases in Libreville in Gabon and Ndjamena in Chad and can be refuelled in mid-air.

"The planes are equipped with bombs, rockets and guns," explained Colonel Daniel Vollot, the Bunia commander of a separate UN mission in DRC, called Monuc.

Potential targets can be "lit up" by ground troops.

"They have lots of possibilities. I hope we won't have to use these weapons, they are of course a deterrent. If the population sees the effect of the weapons these planes have it would be very interesting," said Vollot.

Under insistence from Paris, the security council has authorised the troops serving in Artemis to use lethal force if necessary to protect lives in Bunia.

The leader of the UN delegation touring the Great Lakes region, French ambassador Jean-Marc De la Sabliere said shortly after arriving in Kinshasa: "The situation in Ituri is unacceptable and poses a threat to the whole peace process" in the DRC, where war broke out in 1998.

Faction leaders who authorised atrocities in Ituri, where about 50 000 people have been killed since 1999, "know that they must take us seriously and they could be facing an international tribunal," one envoy said.

About 200 Artemis troops, mainly French soldiers, had arrived in Bunia as of Wednesday, and some of them began to take up strategic positions around the town, as others beefed up perimieter security at the town's airport, mission spokesperson Colonel Gerard Dubois said.

Asked what the troops would do if fighting broke out again, Dubois said, "If what happened on Saturday happens again, the force will not stay at the airport, that's clear."

Some 40 people were reportedly killed Saturday when fighters of an ethnic faction tried to take control of Bunia.

The 100 or so advance troops of Artemis then at the airport did not intervene.

Bubois went on to stress that his troops would not be leaving the confines of Bunia town and its airport, even if fighting was reported in other parts of Ituri region.

"The mandate of the force is very clear - Bunia and the airport - and the force has been scaled for this mission," he said.

"The responsibility for the violence or security is, I would say, shared by all the actors in the conflict. I remind you that all these countries, the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, support the deployment of this force," he said.

Rwanda and Uganda also support a variety of DRC rebel groups.

Also Wednesday, leaders of half a dozen of Ituri's armed groups were due to meet in Bunia under the auspices of Monuc to try to move forward on moribund agreements to disarm and demobilise their fighters.

- AFX