Human rights minister taken hostage near Bunia

Luaba Ntumba, the human rights minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was taken hostage on Thursday evening by an ethnic Hema militia near the northeastern city of Bunia. Together with three others - Thomas Lubanga, the leader of the Union des patriotes congolais, a splinter faction of the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Kisangani-Mouvement de liberation, Lola Bile, Ntumba's press officer, and Nicaise Kibelbel, editor of the "Les Coulisses" newspaper - he is being held in Madro, some 12 km outside Bunia.

According to the United Nations mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, the hostage-takers are demanding the release of 10 members of their militia being held in the DRC capital, Kinshasa. The four hostages were part of a mission to the region to persuade traditional leaders to participate in an Ituri regional peace conference under way in Kinshasa since 26 August.

A number of diplomatic initiatives have already been undertaken in an effort to free the four hostages. A DRC government mission arrived in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on Friday morning to seek the intervention of President Yoweri Museveni, whose army backs several rebel movements in the DRC. The MONUC spokesman, Hamadoun Toure, said the UN was also involved in efforts to free the hostages.

Although Uganda has begun a final withdrawal of its remaining troops from the DRC, Kampala and the UN have agreed that Uganda will continue to maintain a military presence in Bunia in an effort to prevent further violence among the rebel factions it supports and various ethnic groups.

Bunia, with a population of about 300,000, is less than 50 km from the Ugandan border.

The latest round of fighting erupted on 6 August when ethnic Hema militias, supported by the Ugandan army and the Union des patriotes congolais, seized control of Bunia and took charge of local government. Humanitarian sources reported that over 110 civilians were killed.

[A useful background document produced by Human Rights Watch on conflict in the northeastern DRC region can be found at:
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/hemabckg.htm]

Two of the ethnic groups in the region, the Hema - a traditionally pastoral people - and the Lendu, a traditionally agricultural people, have frequently clashed over leadership in the region.

However, the UN envoy to the DRC has said that ongoing conflicts in Bunia are not simply ethnic in nature, but rather that they are motivated by underlying political and economic interests.

"Everyone is convinced that this is not only an ethnic problem but also a political matter fuelled by economic interests," Ambassador Amos Namanga Ngongi, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative to the DRC, told a news conference in Kinshasa last week.