Radicals in ex-rebel group may be gaining control

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.