December 13, 2001
Renewed tribal killings and the redeployment last week of Ugandan troops in parts of Congo have sent out alarming signals that the problems of Congo are not about to be solved.
The clashes, which have been going on for three weeks, have claimed up to 100 lives. President Yoweri Museveni declared last week that Bunia - where the clashes have been taking place - was too close to Uganda for Kampala to allow it to degenerate into insecurity. The redeployment was preceded by a letter from the Ugandan army commander, Maj Gen James Kazini, to the UN Military Observer Mission for Congo (Monuc), warning that areas which Uganda had quit and handed over to the UN were degenerating into anarchy.
Mr Kazini said the failure of Monuc and Congolese rebel groups to secure the area was likely to encourage Uganda's enemies to take them over.
Assessments by Ugandan military and intelligence officials indicate that Uganda prematurely vacated some towns, particularly Banalya and Bafwasende, and considerably reduced its presence in eastern towns like Buta and Bunia.
Military officials told The EastAfrican that since Kampala's relations with Rwanda were fragile, it was likely that the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) and its RCD-Goma allies would take them over.
It would then be possible for anti-Uganda elements to train in the Congo and secure a passage to the Rwenzori Mountains, from where they would launch attacks on Uganda. Uganda sent troops to Congo in 1998 to destroy camps of the Allied Democratic Front (ADF) and cut off their supplies lines from Sudan.
Army sources said that Uganda's current fears were strengthened by reports that a rebel group led by Ugandan dissidents Col Samson Mande and Lt Col Anthony Kyakabaale had four training bases in the Congo - at Kabaya, Kibumba and Kanyabayonga and near Goma.
Ugandan officials blamed the escalation in the fighting in Congo to rivalries among Congolese rebel groups supported by Kampala. Last week, the presidential advisor on defence, Lt Gen David Tinyefunza, called to Kampala the three top leaders of the RCD-Kisangani group - Prof Wamba dia Wamba, Mr Atenyi Tibasiima and Mr Mbusa Nyamwisi - to try to iron out their differences and ensure peace in the area.
This was blamed for the escalation in the latest tribal clashes.
Another group supported by Uganda, Jean Pierre Bemba's Congolese Liberation Front (CLF), pulled some 1200 troops from eastern Congo last week, saying it did not want to be involved in the clashes. The troops had been deployed as part of Uganda's efforts to merge the rebel groups and assure security in parts of Congo it was withdrawing from.
"There is a total security vacuum in eastern Congo now," a Ugandan military source said. "The RCD-Kisangani is not capable of keeping peace so there must be some other force to fill the vacuum."
Eastern Congo is still teeming with a number of militias and rebel groups. These include remnants of the Ugandan National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU), the Allied Democratic Forces, the Rwandese interahamwe militia and former soldiers of the Habyarima regime in Rwanda. There are also the Congolese Mai Mai militia, as well as Burundian rebels.
Under the Lusaka accord meant to return peace to the DRC, these groups are supposed to be cantoned, disarmed and relocated. But no efforts have been made in this regard. The UN, observers and regional leaders say, has only committed a few troops and logistics, which cannot be sufficient to resolve the issue of the militia.
As the Uganda, Rwandese and Burundian armies went to Congo to destroy these security risks, it is unlikely that they will leave the Congo when the armed groups are still operating from there.
Major Shaban Bantariza, the spokesman of the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) says Ugandan troops in Congo had been confined to securing airports but were not deployed in other areas. The airports were named as Gbadolite, Buta, Bunia and Beni.
At the end of October the UN special envoy to Congo, Mr Amos Namanga Ngongi, said Rwandan and Ugandan armies were reinforcing their troops in eastern Congo despite calls for withdrawal.
There were reports last week that the RPA had also beefed up its presence in the DRC. President Paul Kagame's government has accused Congolese leader Joseph Kabila of working with the Interahamwe militia and former soldiers in the Habyarimana regime.
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