RCD claims UN “bias” a threat to peace

The Congolese rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD), though it did not carry out a threat to refuse to allow the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) dock its ‘peace barge’ in the northeastern city of Kisangani on Tuesday, has warned that alleged UN bias threatens to undermine peace efforts. RCD Mayor of Kisangani Pierre Bakoy said the UN had failed to denounce government ceasefire violations in Katanga Province, southeastern Congo, and was giving preferential treatment to the regime of President Joseph Kabila (who succeeded to power in Kinshasa after the assassination of his father, Laurent-Desire Kabila, in January), Reuters news agency reported on Wednesday. “Our friends [the government forces] managed to bomb and even capture certain locations” around Manono, in Katanga province, Reuters quoted Bakoy as saying. “We asked MONUC to denounce these ceasefire violations ... but they have not. There is a certain complicity on the part of the west,” he added. MONUC and the international community threatened to undermine the peace process by legitimising Kabila’s rule in Kinshasa, according to Bakoy. “With Kabila’s overtures, the international community said: ‘This is someone with whom one can collaborate’. But this is an imbalance,” he said. “They are giving their support to Joseph Kabila. One should not see him as being a legitimate government [sic]; otherwise, the war will never end,” he added.