Global Policy Forum

By Jean Baptiste Kayigamba

A peace deal aimed at ending the three-year war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is on the verge of collapse, a Congolese rebel leader said Wednesday. Adolphe Onusumba, leader of the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), accused Congolese President Joseph Kabila of sending arms and supplies to militia groups operating behind rebel lines, undermining a cease-fire deal. In Kinshasa, the government denied the accusations, which it described as ``maneuvers to destabilize the peace process.''

``Enough is enough,'' Onusumba told Reuters in an interview in the eastern Congolese town of Goma. ``We are fed up with Kabila's hypocritical and malicious seduction of the international community pretending the cease-fire is holding, while he is setting the whole of eastern Congo ablaze,'' Onusumba said. ``Patience has a limit. We will be obliged to respond in kind by taking the war back to his own territories.'' The peace deal signed in Lusaka in 1999 appeared to have stalled until Joseph Kabila took over from his murdered father in January this year.

Since then he has helped revive the peace process by allowing in United Nation military observers and agreeing to dialogue between Congo's government and the opposition. The head of the U.N. mission in Congo, Kamel Morjane, said in Kinshasa that he was worried the rebel allegations could damage the peace process. ``We are exploring possible action to calm passions, to try to avoid a return to the kind of obstructions we had last year,'' he said in a statement.

KABILA'S GOVERNMENT DENIES BACKING MILITIA

Onusumba said Kabila's government had stepped up support for militia groups from Rwanda and Burundi as well as Congo that are fighting the RCD behind the front lines, especially in the provinces of North and South Kivu. ``The activities of destabilization of these two provinces, as well as the coastal areas along Lake Tanganyika, have more than doubled or tripled compared to what they were under his father (Laurent Kabila),'' Onusumba said.

Kabila's communication minister, Kikaya Bin Karubi, said in a statement the government categorically denied ``giving any kind of backing to armed groups.'' He charged that heavily armed Rwandan troops had crossed into Congo and deployed to north Kivu throughout this month in violation of disengagement agreements, and called for the United Nations to speed up the deployment of peacekeepers in rebel-held areas. Onusumba's movement occupies huge swathes of eastern Congo but is disliked by many ordinary Congolese, who see it as a puppet of Rwanda. In the past the RCD has threatened to intensify its military campaign, not always with the support of its Rwandan allies.

Meanwhile, senior rebel officials said they had recaptured the strategic airfield of Kilembwe, about 100 miles south of the town of Bukavu in the province of South Kivu. Rebels said Kilembwe, which lies well behind the nominal front line in this complex and chaotic war, had been used by government forces for well over a year to supply arms, food, money and supplies to militia groups fighting the RCD.

War broke out in Congo in 1998 when Rwanda and Uganda invaded the eastern part of the country saying their security was threatened. They were largely responsible for setting up the RCD and another rebel group opposed to the Kinshasa government. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia have sent in thousands of troops to back Kabila's forces.