Rebels advance on strategic eastern DR Congo town
Nov 14, 2008 Africa, World Events
Taken from AFP news.
GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) — Rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo swept to the outskirts of a strategic crossroads town Thursday where hundreds of government troops and UN peacekeepers stood in their way.
“We are at the entrance of Kanyabayonga,” Bertrand Bisimwa, spokesman for the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) led by renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda, told AFP by telephone.
Two independent sources said the rebels, as of Wednesday night, had advanced to about 10 kilometres south of the town, which is around 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of the Nord-Kivu capital Goma.
Peacekeepers with the UN Mission in the DR Congo (MONUC) and FARDC government forces had “reinforced their positions at Kanyabayonga,” MONUC’s military spokesman Jean-Paul Dietrich said.
“As far as the FARDC are concerned, we’re talking about several hundred men,” said Dietrich, adding that the government army was “consolidating its command structure.”
Government soldiers went on a looting rampage in Kanyaboyanga and surrounding towns earlier this week, apparently unhappy after being ordered to fall back from positions nearer the front line.
A government spokesman said soldiers responsible for looting and brutality against the local population would be punished.
Dietrich confirmed that FARDC forces had “begun to arrest looters” but said there “were still some problems” Wednesday.
The rebels said they had advanced on the town without a fight, as government troops had fled.
“The situation is calm,” Bisimwa said. “We can see that the adversary is still fleeing.”
Kanyabayonga is the meeting point of main roads in Nord-Kivu, making it a point of control over the north of the conflict-stricken province.
The rebels commanded by renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda already control Mirangi village, the last community on the way into Kanyabayonga, one of the independent sources said.
For the past two weeks, the rebels have been surrounding Goma, eastern DR Congo’s main city, forcing the UN peacekeepers to send reinforcements to protect the city and its population of an estimated half a million.
Amid fears the conflict could spill over into neighbouring countries, the African Union’s Peace and Security Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra will hold talks with the presidents of DR Congo and Rwanda over the next two days.
Lamamra will meet in Kinshasa with DR Congo President Joseph Kabila and Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito as well as MONUC chief Alan Doss on Friday.
He will then move on to Kigali to meet Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Kigali on Saturday, said the AU spokesman in Kinshasa, Traore Brehima.
Around 2,000 people have fled into Uganda since Tuesday, bringing to 12,000 the number of people who have taken refuge in the neighbouring country since fighting erupted in late August, said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
And around 20,000 people currently living in the Kibati camp, just north of Goma, would be relocated “as soon as possible” for security reasons, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees told AFP.
“Kibati is a disaster. You can’t have people there, so close to the front line,” said David Nthengwe, a spokesman for the UN agency in Goma.
“The military are always going through the camp, in and out, and knowing the behaviour of the army, anything can happen.”
There have also been reports of drunk soldiers disturbing the camp’s population, as well as looting.
“I think probably 90 percent of them will want to move,” he said. “Some will not move because they will fear they are being moved further away from their homes. So that will be a factor to consider.”
The country’s Roman Catholic archbishops said the fighting had reached “untenable levels” and threatens to “destablise the whole sub-region,” while “a real humanitarian tragedy” was unfolding in Nord-Kivu.
Oxfam: Nations failing on Congo crisis
Nov 14, 2008 Africa, World Events
(CNN) – Nations are abdicating their responsibility by failing to provide enough military aid to the U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo as it struggles to stop brutal violence, the head of Oxfam International in the Congo said Thursday.
“There appears to be no urgency in the international community’s talks on the crisis, but this is a deeply urgent situation. The world is failing in its responsibility to protect the Congo’s innocent civilians,” Juliette Prodhan said in a written statement.
“There has been an increase in incidents of forced labor, rape and widespread brutality,” according to assessments carried out by the humanitarian group over the past week, Prodhan said. “Armed men from all sides prey upon those who have sought ’sanctuary’ from the fighting in North Kivu (province).”
Fighting broke out in the province at the end of August between government forces and rebels led by Gen. Laurent Nkunda.
The fighting was spurred by lingering tensions over the 1994 slaughter of ethnic Tutsis by majority Hutus in neighboring Rwanda. Nkunda says his forces are trying to defend Congolese Tutsis from Hutu militants who escaped to Congo.
In the past week, Oxfam workers visited camps and communities in Kibati, just north of the city of Goma; Sake and Minova, south of Goma; and Kanyabayonga, north of Rutshuru, Prodhan said.
“Findings reveal that civilians continue to face widespread brutality after they have fled from the heart of the fighting.”
In Kanyabayonga, 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of the conflict’s front line, increasing numbers of armed men are raping, looting and harassing people, she said. More than 66 cases of rape were treated in area clinics last week, Prodhan added.
In the Kibati area, and further south toward Sake and Minova, forced labor and sexual violence is escalating, with residents forced to carry water and firewood for armed men. Women are threatened with rape in Kibati, and have been attacked when seeking food in the banana fields or collecting firewood, according to her.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization reported Thursday that it has launched an anti-cholera operation after cases have tripled in some areas to 150 a week, the agency said in a news release.
In North Kivu, at least 997 cholera cases were reported from early October to early November, with most recorded in Rutshuru (466), Goma (263) and Karisimbi (145). In South Kivu during that same period, 855 cholera cases have been reported, it said.
Cholera is mainly transmitted through contaminated water and food and is linked to poor sanitation. It is characterized by diarrhea and vomiting and, untreated, can quickly prove fatal.
The U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo, known by its French acronym, MONUC, has been unable to stop the violence, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the European Union to send 3,000 troops to the province.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday he didn’t know whether EU countries could be persuaded to send more troops to Congo, which already has a foreign force of 17,000 soldiers. France holds the EU’s rotating presidency.
Some of the most intense fighting since Nkunda declared a unilateral cease-fire October 29 took place earlier this week. Since Nkunda’s declaration, both sides have accused the other of violating the cease-fire in skirmishes that the United Nations and the Congolese government say have killed hundreds of people.
The number of people displaced after weeks of fighting is putting enormous constraints on humanitarian groups, Chris Black, another Oxfam spokesman, told CNN Thursday.
More than 250,000 people have been displaced by the conflict — adding to roughly 800,000 already driven from their homes by past violence, the United Nations says.
Cholera has been sweeping through one camp holding about 20,000 people, Black said. Vaccinations are being given, but sanitary conditions are poor and there is little clean water, he said.
The people face physical and emotional suffering, he added, and Oxfam is partnering with other organizations to provide help.
“It’s a traumatized population of people who didn’t have very much,” he said. “They’ve been on the road now for weeks, and they’ve lost everything they have, and they’re in a very vulnerable situation.”
Qaeda stung by U.S. pressure in Pakistan-CIA chief
Nov 14, 2008 Afghanistan, Asia, World Events
By Randall Mikkelsen at Reuters
WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - U.S. pressure on al Qaeda near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan has put the group “off balance,” but the region remains the biggest terrorism threat to the United States, the CIA’s chief said on Thursday.
Agency Director Michael Hayden also told a Washington think tank he and the head of Pakistan’s intelligence service, Lt.-Gen. Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, shared in a meeting last month common views on how to contain the militant threat.
This was despite heated Pakistani protests over U.S. military strikes inside Pakistan aimed at stopping al Qaeda and Taliban cross-border attacks in Afghanistan.
“There’s a lot more commonality on how the threat should be dealt with than many people seem to assume,” Hayden told the Atlantic Council of the United States.
There may be Taliban elements the United States could talk to, he said, to fracture its alliance with al Qaeda — a view also expressed by advisers to President-elect Barack Obama.
The United States in recent months has stepped up drone-carried missile strikes against militants inside Pakistan, and in September launched a commando ground attack across the border.
Washington has shrugged off protests from Pakistan, but some experts fear the raid may have undermined Pakistan’s fragile democracy and cooperation with the United States.
Hayden, without acknowledging the strikes or the U.S. role in them, said several veteran al Qaeda fighters and commanders had died over the past year, “by violence or natural causes.”
‘FEELING SOME HEAT’
This has shaken al Qaeda’s sense of security, he said. “When we and our allies take terrorists like this off the battlefield … those that remain are feeling some heat,” Hayden said.
“We force them to spend more time and resources on self-preservation. And that distracts them … from laying the groundwork for the next attack. We keep al Qaeda off balance.”
Still, he said, the border region remained the base of al Qaeda’s leadership, which had developed a more durable structure and a deep reserve of skilled operatives.
“Al Qaeda operating from its safe haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas remains the most clear and present danger to the safety of the United States,” Hayden said.
The hunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden “is very much at the top of CIA’s priority list,” Hayden said.
“Because of his iconic stature, his death or capture clearly would have a significant impact on the confidence of his followers,” he said.
Hayden said it was unclear whether al Qaeda will remain united after losing bin Laden, who now appears isolated from the group’s day-to-day operations and is spending significant energy on his own security.
The United States has been frustrated by Pakistan’s inability to eliminate the militants, but Hayden said it deserved credit for a fierce campaign against them in the border area’s Bajaur region.
As the war with al Qaeda continued, veteran enemy fighters were leaving Iraq, where the group is “on the verge of strategic defeat,” and heading for Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. Others have attempted to plot against the United States.
Al Qaeda has gained strength in North Africa, Somalia and Yemen while suffering deep setbacks in Saudi Arabia and Southeast Asia as well as Iraq, Hayden said. (Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
Tags: Afghanistan, al Queda, Pakistan
