RCD-Goma severs links to Kinshasa, Bukavu reported "calm but tense"

The Rwandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) has suspended relations with the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo following the capture of the eastern city of Uvira on Sunday by Mayi-Mayi militias who, the RCD alleges, were backed by Kinshasa forces. "We are suspending all contact with Kinshasa until the retreat of the forces of Joseph Kabila and his allies," Adolphe Onusumba Yemba, the RCD-Goma leader, said in a communique issued on Monday. [Complete statement] He said the Kinshasa government was responsible for the expansion of war. Government spokesman Kikaya Bin Karubi and the DRC general commissioner for the Great Lakes region, Vital Kamerhe, denied the accusations during a news conference on Monday in Kinshasa, and called on the Mayi-Mayi and RCD-Goma to cease hostilities immediately. "With the ongoing withdrawal of foreign armies from the DRC on one hand, and the important advances made to date in the search for a global and inclusive peace accord on the other, the Congolese people do not need another useless fratricidal war which would do nothing but lengthen the already very long list of innocent victims," Kikaya said. Kamerhe called the RCD-Goma decision to cut ties a "mistake", noting that negotiations between Kinshasa and the rebels had made great progress. A meeting of military experts from both sides was due to take place this week in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, but this has now been cancelled. Kamerhe accused Rwanda of having anticipated such a scenario following the withdrawal of its troops from the DRC. "We have learned that troops have gathered along the DRC borders with Burundi and Rwanda," Kamerhe said. "The Rwandan troops have been waiting for someone to provoke the other in order to come commit massacres afterwards." A source in the eastern city of Bukavu told IRIN on Tuesday that many of the Rwandan Patriotic Army troops withdrawn from eastern DRC were positioned just across the border. The source added that many RCD leaders were reportedly in the Rwandan capital, Kigali. Mayi-Mayi forces under the command of Gen Joseph Padiri Bulenda, meanwhile, have accused the RCD of "provocation". "We denounce the deployment of RCD troops not only along the Kamanyola axis with the objective of recapturing the city of Uvira but also the attack they launched this morning [Monday] on our positions in Miti, located 27 km from Bukavu," Constantin Muhondosi, a Padiri representative, said on Monday. No reliable figures regarding the number of displaced, injured and killed are yet available. The seizure of Uvira was the latest in a series of military setbacks for the RCD in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, and in the northern part of Katanga Province in the southeast. Uvira, a city of some 130,000 inhabitants on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika, is of strategic importance, as it will enable the Mayi-Mayi to channel in supplies from points in the DRC and Burundi, which borders the northeastern shore of the lake. "Our objective is to continue on to Bukavu and then Goma. We are going to chase the RCD from all the territory it controls," Paganura Katshwa, a Mayi-Mayi spokesman, told IRIN from Uvira on Sunday. On Tuesday, several sources informed IRIN that Bukavu, some 125 km to the north of Uvira, was calm but tense. One NGO reported that "contrary to the panic that gripped the city on Monday, the situation was calm on Tuesday morning", with no gunfire heard and no readily apparent RCD troop movements. It added that most businesses were open, as were schools - although many parents were keeping their children at home as a precautionary measure. Humanitarian personnel have been advised to stay on the alert, and to stock food, water and medical supplies in their homes and offices to last for at least a week. A source in Bukavu told IRIN that the RCD had announced its intention to retake all the territory lost since the departure of the Rwandan troops, but noted that military observers in the region considered this "very unlikely". However, the source said that the RCD seemed determined to try to hold on to Bukavu. Military observers also said they expected Mayi-Mayi forces to arrive close to Bukavu in force within days. One Mayi-Mayi contingent was reported to be at Kalehe, some 50 km north of Bukavu, on the western shore of Lake Kivu, awaiting orders to move. While the situation in Uvira was also reported as calm on Tuesday, Radio Burundi reported that over 4,500 refugees fleeing fighting in Uvira had arrived in Burundi, fleeing ongoing fighting between Mayi-Mayi and RCD combatants. It said that in Cibitoke in the northwest, provincial authorities had registered 4,589 refugees as at Monday. In a statement issued in Kinshasa on Monday, the United Nations Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, strongly deplored renewed fighting. MONUC warned that the clashes were putting at risk the ongoing peace process at a time when the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country should be leading to the resumption of the inter-Congolese dialogue. The renewed fighting, which involved elements of the Mayi-Mayi, as well as various rebel groups, was having "incalculable humanitarian consequences", with many civilians fleeing the towns where the fighting was occurring, MONUC said. It called on all parties to end the violence immediately and reaffirmed its willingness to help them return as soon as possible to the path of dialogue.