Kinshasa (Fides Agency) - Fighting still goes on in Kalehe, a place 40 km north of Bukavu, the district capital of Southern Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. “We heard of fighting between the forces of the regular army and the rebels of Nkunda” local Bukavu sources told Fides Agency. Nkunda is the head of a group of rebel military forces, guerrilla soldiers belonging to the hardest faction of the RCD-Goma (Congolese Union for Democracy), the main guerrilla group in the area, mainly made up of Banyamulenge, Tutsi originally from Rwanda, who have lived in northern and southern Kivu for decades.
“At Kalehe there is a base of the regular government army. The rebels probably attacked by surprise, striking against the troops from Kinshasa” say Fides sources. “For days, actually, rumour had it that the regular army would have made its move. The soldiers had simply decided to wait for the state exams which are taking place in these days to finish, in order not to create too many difficulties to the civilians. If the exams were to be cancelled because of the fights, the students would lose their school year”.
The fighting broke out again just now that the RCD and the Banyamulenge community are split. According to Fides sources the 8 members of the transition parliament that were the RCD-Goma’s share, who abandoned their place in protest against the alleged Banyamulenge genocide, were substituted (see Fides July 14th, 2004). This piece of news was rejected by the representatives of the Banyamulenge community, by United Nations reports and by human rights groups (see Fides June 23rd and 16th, 2004).
The RCD-Goma accepted to take part in the peace process and in the process of national unification: its soldiers should become part of the new regular Congolese army, born by joining together the different armed forces which faced one another during the 1998-2003 civil war. Its representatives now sit in the transition government and parliament, but there are still extremist tendencies within the movement, which threaten to undermine the peace process.
“The situation is still fluid” our sources say. “The government has summoned all the commanders of the military regions, to assess their degree of reliability”.
In Bukavu, which remained completely isolated from the end of May to the beginning of July this, business has started once again, improving the general conditions of the local population. (L.M.) (Fides Agency 21/7/2004 33 lines, 409 words)