Newly appointed provincial governors sworn in

Newly appointed governors for the 11 provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were sworn in on Wednesday in the capital, Kinshasa, at a ceremony attended by President Joseph Kabila and two of his four vice-presidents.

The minister for internal affairs, Théophile Mbemba, described the swearing-in ceremony as "a step towards the reunification of the country".

"The governors and vice-governors are from a variety of [political] entities, but are about to become components of an overall territorial entity," Mbemba explained. "They will be there [in their posts] to represent the president and the government in the provincial framework. We are counting on these newly appointed governors to reinforce the restoration of state authority," he added.

The appointment of the 11 governors is intended to entrench the transitional government's authority in areas that it has only loosely controlled since its installation on 30 June 2003.

In provinces such as Katanga, North Kivu and Kasai-Oriental, governors representing several armed groups had assumed control.

"We are excited, because this is what we were waiting for from the government," said Thomas Lubanga, the leader of the Union des patriotes congolais (UPC) - a militia operating in the northeastern district of Ituri. "There still remains the task of appointing district commissioners so that the restoration of state authority can extend even to the smallest entities," Lubanga added.

Ituri has been the scene of violent militia clashes, despite the presence of more than 4,800 UN peacekeepers. Some 50,000 people have died and 500,000 others been displaced in Ituri since 1999.

"We have asked the government to restore state authority. We can no longer fight, because we are bound by an act of engagement that we signed two weeks ago," Lonu Lomela, an official of the Front des nationalistes intégrationnistes militia group, said from Bunia, the main town in Ituri.

The swearing-in has been criticised by several opposition parties, as well as the Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie/National (RCD-N) militia. "The RDC-N denounced and continues to denounce the trickery of the state summit," Roger Lumbala, the minister of commerce and leader of RCD-N, told IRIN. Lumbala boycotted the swearing-in ceremony.

RCD-N also accused another former rebel group, the Mouvement de libération du Congo, of nominating its governors and vice-governors in the province of Kasai-Oriental while ignoring RCD-N candidates.

"No meeting took place to appoint opposition members to the provincial authority," said Alphonse Lupumba, an opposition member loyal to Etienne Tshisekedi, who leads the country's main unarmed opposition.

Mbemba said: "We still have to appoint district commissioners, and it's [the nomination of opposition members] a possibility that we will take it into account."