DRC mutineers on the march

2004-06-05 20:20

Bukavu, - Cracks in Democratic Republic of Congo's fragile peace process deepened on Saturday when army mutineers who have already overrun a key eastern city marched towards the interior and reports emerged of former rebels chasing a rival armed group from a nearby town.

The unfolding crisis prompted Louis Michel, the foreign minister of former colonial power Belgium, to announce an "urgent" trip to DRC in a bid "to restore peace and security".

Columns of the dissident troops led by renegade General Laurent Nkunda, who seized the Sud-Kivu capital Bukavu on Wednesday, were heading along key roads to other towns in the east, witnesses and UN sources said.

In one of these towns, Walikale, 150km northeast of Bukavu, former rebels in DRC's theoretically integrated new army clashed on Friday with militia fighters, chasing them out of the town, according to an aid worker there.

These militia, collectively known as Mai Mai, fought against the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) during the country's devastating 1998-2003 war and are also now meant to be part of the army.

Nkunda was a key figure in the RCD, which is now a partner in a transitional government.

Asked if his men had anything to do with the Walikale fighting, Nkunda said: "We are close but it was not a concerted action."

The Bukavu spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping mission in DRC (Monuc), Sebastien Lapierre, confirmed there had been fighting between the Mai Mai and RCD in Walikale, but was unable to specify the outcome.

The aid worker in Walikale, however, told reporters by phone that Friday's fighting "lasted two hours, then the Mai Mai fled for the forests and the RCD took control of the town".

"Many RCD men are converging on Walikale from the surrounding area," he said.

During the war, Walikale, which lies on the road to Kisangani, the capital of Orientale Province, was held by the RCD, which has been reluctant to cede control of the vast swathes of the east it once occupied to the new unity government in Kinshasa.

"If the news is confirmed, the situation could be considered as serious, very serious, because it would be a very serious threat to the transition process in DRC and for the central African region," said Monuc's spokesperson in Kinshasa, Hamadoun Toure.

One of Nkunda's officers said that another group of the dissident troops was heading west towards the town of Walungu, 65km southeast of Bukavu.

The regular army forces which Nkunda's men chased out of Bukavu were on Saturday positioned at Walungu, according to a reliable source in Bukavu.

"We have received unconfirmed reports from various sources saying troops close to Nkunda were heading to other areas in Sud-Kivu, notably Walungu, Uvira and Bunyakiri." he added.

On Thursday, Nkunda promised Monuc he would pull his men right out of Bukavu but this withdrawal did not go according to Monuc's understanding of the agreement and Nkunda left some of his men inside the town.

- AFP