NewsWire |
27/08/2004 |
DRC: Radicals
in ex-rebel group may be gaining control |
IRIN
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[ This report does not necessarily
reflect the views of the United Nations]
GOMA/KINSHASA, 26 Aug
2004 (IRIN) - A battle is looming in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
over who will control a key rebel group-turned-political party. How the
battle plays out could determine whether the peace process remains on
track.
The leader of the Rassemblement congolais pour la
democratie (RCD-Goma), Azarias Ruberwa, who has been one of the four
vice-presidents, left the capital, Kinshasa, last week for Goma, his
stronghold in the east, and then this week announced that he was
suspending his participation in the country's one-year old transitional
government of national unity. But party members are divided over the
decision and Ruberwa, himself, seems deeply ambivalent about the action he
has taken.
"The situation at the moment is tense and fragile,"
Jacqueline Chernard, a UN information officer in Goma, said. "This is a
difficult period and indeed some hard-line elements might seize the
opportunity to continue rebelling," she told IRIN.
The current
crisis was precipitated by a massacre on 13 August of 160 Congolese
Tutsis, known as Banyamulenge, who in June had fled across the border into
neighbouring Burundi. Ruberwa, who is also a Banyamulenge, described the
massacre as "a genocide" and said the transitional process needed to be
paused and re-assessed.
Divisions within RCD-Goma largely follow
ethnic lines and reflect one of major fault lines in the country's
on-going conflict. Other Congolese see the Banyamulenge as foreigners
since they originally came from Rwanda over a century ago.
Ruberwa
said he suspended his participation in the transitional government because
the peace accord that brought it about may need to be redesigned. However,
according to Information Minister Henri Moya Sakanyi, President Joseph
Kabila has said renegotiating the agreement was "out of the question".
Moya Sakanyi said the signatories of the accord had met earlier this year
and agreed that the accord should stand.
Senior MPs in RCD-Goma
based in Kinshasa and the majority of RCD-Goma members are also opposed to
withdrawing from the transitional government. "We feel that pulling out of
the institutions of the republic at this time is not going to resolve any
of the contradictions we are denouncing," Emile Ilunga, a former chairman
of the RCD who is the deputy speaker of parliament, said.
"We
should rather go to the elections," Ilunga said of the nation's first
ever-democratic elections scheduled for 2005. "It's from the inside that
we can influence the course of events rather than being on the outside."
But the massacre in Burundi has hardened the position of
hard-liner Banyamulenge within the RCD-Goma who have long opposed the
transitional government and who now accuse the Kinshasa government of
supporting the massacre.
Already in June, renegade commander Gen
Laurent Nkunda led his troops into southern Kivu town of Bukavu saying
that the Banyamulenge there were being persecuted. His troops are accused
of committing widespread looting and human rights abuses in the week they
occupied the town.
In an interview with IRIN following the recent
massacre, Nkunda vowed to invade Bukavu again. "If the peaceful means of
solving the problem have failed we shall resort to forceful measures," he
said. "Unless our demands are met of protecting our people, then we will
certainly pick up our guns and fight on."
Now, according to a
number of officials in Goma, a coalition is emerging between Nkunda and
former foreign affairs minister Bizima Karaha who was among eight RCD-Goma
MPs in the interim parliament who failed to take up their seats recently
when the assembly went into session.
Many observes say that
Ruberwa is caught between showing his colleagues in Kinshasa that he is
serious about the peace process and showing his fellow Banyamulenge in
Goma that he will stand up for them.
Reflecting the competing
pressures Ruberwa is under, one of his last acts as vice-president was to
issue a decree calling for Nkunda's arrest. Then, the next day, he
announced his withdrawal from the government, a position that effectively
supported Nkunda.
One official within RCD-Goma told IRIN that
Ruberwa had wanted to return to Kinshasa but had been overpowered by
elements opposed to the transition. An expatriate in Goma agreed. "Ruberwa
is seen as a traitor from both sides no matter which decision he takes,"
he said.
Ruberwa openly
admitted the dilemmas he faces when speaking last week at
the memorial service in Goma for the Banyamulenge massacred in Burundi.
"We are divided at the
moment," he said of party members. "Some are for Karaha, others for Ruberwa, others for
Nkunda. If we do not unite and speak as one, then we will
perish."
Ruberwa's pullout will result in a slow
down in the Kinsaha's ability to expand its authority to the east as well
as a halt in economic reunification and the reintegration of the armed
forces. It also reduces the effectiveness of the parliament and the
senate.
Heightened tensions also make the job harder of the
10,800-strong UN peacekeeping force currently spread throughout a country
the size of Western Europe.
An international committee supporting
the transition called on RCD-Goma to lift its suspension. In a communiqué
on Tuesday, it stated that there was no viable alternative to the
transition process. The committee is made up of the ambassadors of Angola,
Belgium, Britain, Canada, China, France, Gabon, Russia, South Africa, USA,
Zambia, the European Union, African Union and the UN mission in the DRC.
Many observers say that war is again a
possibility. "This is a stark reminder that events could spiral into
large-scale war again at nearly any time," says a UN
official in Goma. A South African diplomat in the Rwandan capital, Kigali,
agrees. "The position taken by RCD-Goma is
definitely a terrible blow to the peace process and could lead this
country into renewed war," he said. South Africa brokered
the peace agreement that led to the formation of the power-sharing
transitional government.
In a letter addressed to the UN Security
Council, the International Crisis Group appealed to Western countries to
act to save the DRC from being plunged into a new war.
Most
dangerous are the threats, accusations and counter-accusations between the
governments of the DRC and its eastern neighbours, Burundi and Rwanda.
Both Rwanda and Burundi blame Hutu and other armed groups in
eastern DRC for the massacre in Burundi. Burundi's Chief of Staff said his
forces would consider invading the DRC to hunt down the perpetrators of
the massacre. Rwanda threatened that "the status quo cannot be
maintained."
Many in Kinshasa say RCD-Goma has backing from
Rwanda, although the Kigali government denies communicating with party's
leadership before it made the decision to pull out of the transitional
process.
South African President Thabo Mbeki is scheduled to
arrive in Kinshasa on Saturday, to try to get the peace process back on
track.
A Kinshasa-based newspaper, La Reference Plus, offers
various possible scenarios for how events could unfold. One is that
RDC-Goma members simply rejoin the transition, said the paper. Another is
that pressure from RCD-Goma's hardliners could force a restructuring of
the country's army. Or South Africa's efforts could fail and the RCD-Goma
could re-band as a rebel groups. The worst scenario, says the paper, is
that the radicals seek to create a new state out of eastern
DRC.
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