Fighting in eastern Congo clouds new government
By Dino Mahtani
KINSHASA, July 4 (Reuters) - Government-backed rebels battled tribal fighters in eastern Congo on Friday, casting another cloud over the difficult creation of a new government meant to end four years of war in the vast nation.
The fighting broke out in the key commercial town of Butembo, near the Rwandan border, between the government-backed rebel RCD-ML and Mai-Mai militia fighters.
The violence was the latest blow to a shaky peace process and came as the country's main rebel group said it would not yet send ministers to join a new power-sharing government because of fears for their security in the capital, Kinshasa.
The new government was named four days ago, and is meant to steer the Democratic Republic of Congo to elections after a war that killed millions, mainly from disease and hunger.
"We were woken up early this morning by heavy gunfire which lasted 12 hours, but the fighting has stopped and RCD-ML remain in control of the town," Etienne Muhindo, a United Nations radio reporter in Butembo, told Reuters.
Mai-Mai fighters, who are loosely allied to the government but often switch sides, were seen marching through the town, wearing the magic amulets which they believe protect them from bullets. Officials did not give a death toll from the clashes.
The violence came as a U.N. mission in Congo monitored the withdrawal of government troops and the main rebel RCD-Goma faction from the mineral-rich area around Butembo.
The withdrawal was agreed last month, and allowed talks to progress on forming the new transitional government.
The coalition shares posts among President Joseph Kabila's supporters, rebels, the civilian opposition and civil society groups. It aims to shepherd Congo to its first multiparty elections since independence from Belgium in 1960.
But the RCD-Goma group said on Friday its ministers were afraid to take up their posts in Kinshasa.
"We have a question of security. We don't believe that there is enough of it in the capital," Kabasele Tshimanga, an RCD-Goma spokesman told Reuters from the eastern town of Goma.
Members of the second-largest rebel group, the Ugandan-backed MLC, have already arrived in Kinshasa.
Tshimanga said the RCD-Goma wanted at least 3,000 neutral troops in Kinshasa, where a U.N. mission currently has fewer than 1,000. A spokesman for the U.N. force said its commander had gone to Goma to reassure the rebels.
07/04/03 14:51 ET
