By Julius Mucunguzi & Agencies
The Monitor (Kampala)April 15, 2000
Kampala - As another cease-fire agreement was shot down yesterday, Minister for Regional Co-operation Amama Mbabazi, who is the chairman of the Political Committee for the pacification of DRC, told The Monitor that they were working out measures to punish violators. "The Joint Military Commission and UN Mission in Congo are working out sanctions to impose on those who violate the cease-fire," Mbabazi told The Monitor on phone last evening.
The cease-fire, signed in Kampala last Saturday, should have formally taken effect at midnight GMT Thursday, April 13. Instead, rebel leaders accused government forces Friday of breaking it. There have been reports of all sides stockpiling arms and weapons in the days leading to the cease-fire. Jean-Pierre Bemba of the Uganda-backed MLC told AFP in Kigali that his Movement for the Liberation of Congo rebels had been attacked by government troops in Imese in Equator province, 600 kilometres (360 miles) northeast of the capital Kinshasa. "Fighting has been continuing since yesterday and we have three wounded on our side and there are at least 10 enemy dead," said Bemba, speaking from the regional capital Gbadolite. He said the discrepancy in terms of casualties was due to rebel troops being "in their trenches and defending themselves."
Meanwhile, Jean-Pierre Ondekane, leader of the main rebel group Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), said forces loyal to DRC President Laurent Kabila had attacked rebel positions in south-Kivu province in eastern DRC. "Kabila's troops, backed by Burundian Hutu rebels have been attacking us since before yesterday in south Kivu," Ondekane told AFP by telephone from the provincial town of Bukavu. "The attacks continued this morning at Sange, Katshungu and Minembwe" areas of the province, which borders Burundi.
Enemy forces "had crossed Lake Tanganyika out of Tanzania and arrived at Ubwari (south of Bukavu) in order to attack us", he said. "These clashes have already left two dead and four injured on our side, and we have been able to count at least seven dead on the enemy's side," Ondekane said. The latest cease-fire comes 20 months after war broke out between government forces and three rebel movements and their backers, Rwanda and Uganda. A previous cease-fire was signed in Sirte, Libya, in April 1999, and another in the Zambian capital Lusaka in July and August 1999, but neither truce held. Earlier on Friday, a DRC spokesman in Kinshasa told AFP that the government forces were abiding by the terms of the cease-fire and accused the rebel groups of massing troops in the northwest, centre and east of DR Congo.
