Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) – Congolese president Joseph Kabila and Special Representative of the UN for Congo, Alan Doss, have decided not to participate in the 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations that is taking place at the UN Headquarters Building in New York, in light of the serious situation in the country’s eastern provinces.
There are currently two main troublespots. In North Kivu, on the border with Rwanda, the Congolese Army is fighting alongside the MONUC (the UN mission in Congo), trying to stop the offensive attack being launched by the guerrillas of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CDNP), led by Laurent Nkunda. The other hotspot is in the Eastern Province, on the border with Sudan, where Ugandan guerrillas from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have kidnapped nearly 90 children, on a series of raids on three towns in the area (see Fides 23/9/2008).
According to a spokesman from the MONUC in North Kivu, following a brief ceasefire, at the beginning of the week fire opened once more between the army and the rebels in various parts of the zone. At the same time, the UN representative says, in South Kivu as well the people are living in insecurity due to the spread of gangs that loot and rob the towns.
In the Eastern Province, the MONUC announced that they will be sending reinforcement for the Congolese Army in their fight against the LRA, and said that four of the Ugandan rebels handed themselves in to authorities in Kinshasa.
Rebels from the Patriotic Resistance Front for Ituri (FRPI), a local group that on September 15 attacked a position of the regular army.
In order to show his sympathy for the local population, suffering from the conflict of recent weeks and for years of war and insecurity, and in order to give renewed vigor to the talks with Nkunda, the President will remain almost a week in Goma (capital of North Kivu). President Kabila promised that “no effort will be spared in protecting the population suffering from the war” and said that the road to peace must pass through the full implementation of the “Amani Plan” which was signed by the government and all the armed groups of the region (including Nkunda himself) at the end of the Goma Conference in January of this year (see Fides 24/1/2008). In the meantime, there is widespread concern for the humanitarian emergency being caused by the war. Thousands of people have been forced to take refuge in provisional camps, where there is shortage of food and medicines. The government has organized urgent shippings of food, in response to the situation. (LM) (Agenzia Fides 25/9/2008)
