Rebel troops still in Bukavu

2004-06-04 20:21

Bukavu - Dissident troops who this week overran the east Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) town of Bukavu failed to honour a pledge to completely withdraw on Friday, according to UN peacekeepers.

Also on Friday, DRC President Joseph Kabila launched another broadside against neighbouring Rwanda, accusing it, through its alleged backing of the dissidents - a charge rejected by Kigali - of working to prevent the reunification of DRC in the wake of a five-year war in which the two countries fought on opposite sides.

"The withdrawal is not complete. There are still (dissident) troops in town," Sebastien Lapierre, the spokesperson for the Monuc peacekeeping force in Bukavu told AFP.

On Thursday, the renegades' commander, General Laurent Nkunda, who took control of this capital of Sud-Kivu province the previous day, promised the peacekeepers he would pull his men "well outside" of the town, according to Monuc.

"We have had reports of (dissident) troop movements away from the town, but we have not seen an organised withdrawal," said Lapierre.

"As far as we are concerned, the deal is still that they pull out of the town," he said.

Not exactly, according to Nkunda himself.

"We have finished pulling out. We have left the town centre," the told AFP.

Witnesses told AFP however that they had seen some of Nkunda's men patrolling the streets of central Bukavu, which is home to some 800 000 people.

A meeting due on Friday between Monuc and the dissidents to discuss the modalities of the withdrawal was postponed to Saturday, Nkunda said.

Earlier on Friday, Nkunda said his men were gathering at sites inside the town and in its environs, including near the airport, a Monuc-held facility 30km to the north.

"They are going to positions where the enemy might attack us," said Nkunda.

Nkunda has said he took Bukavu to get rid of the "bad" military authorities in place there and to protect the Banyamulenge ethnic community from "massacres."

Kabila showed himself unconvinced on Friday by Rwanda's denial of involvement in the actions of Nkunda, who served not only in the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy during DRC's 1998-2003 war but also alongside Rwandan President Paul Kagame when he fought his way to power in the first four years of the 1990s.

Kabila told a national TV audience that Rwanda wanted to prevent "the effective reunification of the country (DRC) and the re-establishment of state authority across the national territory".

"As guarantor of the nation and supreme commander of our armed forces, I cannot accept that the destiny of our people is taken hostage by another country," he said, telling the dissidents to lay down their arms and alleged Rwandan invasion troops to leave DRC territory.

- AFP