Security in east improves as UN mission cleared for more troops

Armed with an expanded mandate and an increase in troop strength, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) may now be better placed to capitalise on the slight improvement in the security situation in the east of the country. Although UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan only received UN Security Council authorisation to raise the troop strength by 5,900 from 10,800, he said the newly approved troop ceiling of 16,700 would "contribute to improving the mission's operational capabilities, which are severely under resourced". [Full story] Whether or not that capability would translate into troops able to respond rapidly to flashpoints in eastern and northeastern Congo is unclear. What seems probable is that although Annan failed to get the minimum 23,900 troops and 507 police ceiling he requested, the Council left the door open for more troops by deciding to review his request regularly. Annan's request was contained in his 16 August report to the Council. It followed the seizure in June of the eastern town of Bukavu, South Kivu Province, by national army renegades Gen Laurent Nkunda and Col Jules Mutebutsi, and growing tension between the army's 8th and 10th military regions. Military action Troops of the 8th and 10th regions, headquartered in North and South Kivu respectively, had refused to coordinate their military action against Nkunda and ended up fighting each other over control of some localities near the village of Minova, Nkunda's old stronghold in South Kivu. Such was the potential for an even greater rift within the military that the commander of Congo's land forces, Maj-Gen Sylvain Buki rushed to the east on 27 September. [Full story] He then summoned brigadiers general Mbuza Mabe, commander of the 10th, and Obed Rwibasira of the 8th, to a meeting in the South Kivu village of Minova where both men agreed to work as a team in the same army. A similar meeting was held on 4 October 2004 in Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province, between the commander of the 8th military region and that of the 9th in Orientale Province; whose commander is the "old" Mayi-Mayi militia chief, Maj-Gen Padiri Bulendo. It ended with Buki ordering both men to end their fighting and coordinate their military operations. Buki also toured the Masisi High Plateau region, in North Kivu, to meet the protagonists within the army of that area. This region, near Walikale, is some 150 km northwest of Goma. The plateau had been the scene of recent fighting among elements within the 8th Military Region. The present Congolese army, known as the Forces armees de la Republique democratique du Congo, has reported being attacked by unidentified military groups from Masisi. The commander of the army's 14th Mobile Brigade at Walikale, Col Sheka Sikila, said his men had been fighting, until 21 September, in the villages of Ndingala, Behusi and Musi, some 100 km northwest of Goma, against Nkunda's forces who had retreated to Masisi. Sikila said Nkunda's followers were Rwandaphone-army dissidents who had helped him occupy Bukavu, in South Kivu, for one week in June. "The problem pits the Rwandaphones who dominate this Masisi region and the Mayi-Mayi led by a major known as Akilimani," Sikila said. Divisions have also surfaced within the 8th Military Region between the former elements of the Rassemblement Congolais pour la democratie (RCD) and the Mayi-Mayi, who have accused the soldiers from the former armed branch of RCD - called the Armee national Congolaise - of being in complicity with the dissidents. Fighting continues Since 1998, the Mayi-Mayi, a traditional militia, had been fighting the Rwandan presence in the east of the country and against their former rebel RCD allies; this despite the RCD's entry in the national transitional government and into the army, after the global and inclusive accord signed in South Africa in April 2003 to end the country's five-year war and set up the current government. Despite the agreement, fighting continued between different groups in the east and has created a situation of insecurity that humanitarian actors have described as worrying. "The fighting increased the number of displaced in Mangrodjibi, in Beni forest, in Walikale where nearly half of the population has fled," Jahal de Meritens, the head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in DRC, said on 22 September. Even after Nkunda's departure, he added, there were approximately 50,000 known displaced people in South Kivu and in North Kivu "and there are many other unregistered displaced in inaccessible areas". According to OCHA-Goma, almost half the population of the territory of Walikale had fled, just from hearing reports of fighting. "Two weeks before the fighting, Walikale, which had a population of 15,000 to 17,000, seemed to have been emptied of its inhabitants who are now in the forest," Patrick Lavand'Homme, head of OCHA in Goma, said. The same scenario existed in the north of South Kivu where the regular army regained control around mid-September. According to the spokesman of the 10th Military Region, Kasanda Wa Kasanda, unidentified forces from Masisi attacked army troops who reached Numbi on 18 September. Some of Nkunda's loyalists were concentrated in Numbi, 90 km northwest of Bukavu. Presently, neither the army nor MONUC know Nkunda's whereabouts. In Mangulujipa and Bunyatenge, two North Kivu localities west of Lubero, some 100 km north of Goma, Mayi-Mayi forces that have refused to be integrated into the army have been fighting each other and causing people to flee, Lavand'Homme said. The Mayi-Mayi had looted villages, he added, and some 19,200 people who fled this fighting had arrived in Butembo, a town some 200 km northeast of Goma. However, just after mid-September, the UN World Food Programme started food-aid distributions facilitated by German Agro Action. Security also poor in northeast The security situation has remained precarious in the northeast in the district of Ituri and Orientale Province, where armed groups occasionally attack civilians, leading to massive civilian-population displacement. The most recent attack was on 4 October in the locality of Debomala in Ituri, where an unidentified armed group attacked a village of the Bira people. "We have no casualties, but the local school and 85 huts were burned and about 130 inhabitants of the village rushed to take refuge that night at a camp for UN Nepalese peacekeepers," Mamadou Bah, a MONUC spokesman in Kinshasa, said. But the most serious recent attack in the district occurred on 20 September in the locality of Lengabu, 10 km southeast of Bunia. The MONUC spokesman in Bunia, Rachel Eklou, said a group of Ngiti men from the village of Medu killed 15 Bira people with whom they had not had any previous problems. Eklou said the fighting was caused by an argument over the control of a tax office.