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Kinshasa (Fides Service)- “They are isolated persons risking an all out attempt. Unless they are backed by some foreign power they will not achieve much or go very far. The majority of the Banyamulenge disapproves of this attempt to increase tension”. This statement was made after 8 RCD-Goma Union Congolese for Democracy walked out of the National Assembly, by Congo MP Enoch Sebineza a member of the Banyamulenge Tutsi group of Rwandan origin which settled in Congo decades ago.
In a letter to the RCD leader, the 8 MPs write: “Until there are new orders we will not take part in the activity of the interim national assembly.”
“The RDC stands to lose from peace and now it is trying to blackmail the government” local sources told Fides. “A lost battle unless they are backed by someone from abroad” Sebineza affirmed.
The RCD formed mainly of Banyamulenge is the main rebel group in the eastern Congo region of Kivu. Last year the RCD signed a peace treatment and sent its representatives to the government, to paliament and to join the new unified national army. Recently however some RCD military commanders took up arms again to protect, they claimed, Banyamulenge people from violence. In fact in their letter the 8 MPs complain of discrimination against the Banyamulenge and that the Banyamulenge previously in Bukavu the main town of southern Kivu have all disappeared.
“This is not true, we have seen at least two Banyamulenge commanders at the military headquarters in Bukavu” local sources in Bukavu told Fides. “And you see Banyamulenge shopping on the streets. There is strong resentment against Banyamulenge it is true, but this was provoked by the RCD extremist wing itself. People had already forgotten the violence committed during the second Congo war (1998-2003) and wanted only to live in peace” local sources told Fides.
The Banyamulenge group is divided into those who want to increase tension so as not to lose what was obtrained with the war and those who want only to live in peace side by side with the rest of the Congolese. This division is also regional. “These 8 MPs come from northern Kivu, where the situation is not clear. But I doubt that they will find support here in southern Kivu because the majority of Banyamulenge here want peace” Sebineza told Fides. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 14/7/2004 righe 37 parole 455)
