CONGO-DEM.REPUBLIC 17/6/2004 10:19 CRISIS IN SOUTH KIVU: ARMY SENDS REINFORCEMENTS AGAINST æEBEL?SOLDIERS Politics/Economy, Standard Tension remains high in the eastern province of South Kivu, which has been the scene of fighting between two groups of renegade soldiers and the new unified Congolese army for over two weeks. MISNA sources report that at least 2,000 regular troops from Lake Tanganika arrived in Uvira this morning and, after commandeering all the vehicles available in the city, they headed towards Kamanyola, the village half way between Uvira and Bukavu (capital of South Kivu), which has been controlled by the æebel?colonel Jules Mutebusi and his men, protagonists together with the troops loyal to General Laurent Nkunda of the violence that has rocked Bukavu since 26 May. The regular forces arrived in Luvungi, 40 kilometres from Kamanyola, in the afternoon and there are rumours that they might launch a heavy attack to resume control of the town and arrest Mutebusi and his men over the next few hours. Meanwhile, Bukavu remains divided between the desire for normalcy and the fear of becoming a battleground once again. The schools in the city have finally reopened and the end-of-year exams have also got under way after being postponed in early June. Residents all fear the return of General Nkunda, who travelled south from Goma at the end of last month to flank Mutebusi with the aim of defending the rights of the Banyamulenge (the Congolese Tutsis of Rwandan origin living in this part of the country), whom he alleged are the victims of an authentic genocide. Though UN officials and representatives of MONUC (UN Mission in DR-Congo) have denied these claims, the dissident general has threatened to march on Bukavu once again and to declare war against Kinshasa. æf the international community is unable to accept what is happening, we will fight for the Congolese Tutsis,?Nkunda told the British news agency æeuters? Meanwhile, MISNA sources stress that the 20,000 refugees (30,000 according to other sources) who have crossed the border into Burundi and Rwanda to flee the fighting are not just Banyamulenge. æany people of different ethnic groups fled as soon as they got wind of what was happening, leaving the rural villages in particular. These people still remember vividly the suffering experienced during the earlier Congolese wars and they opted to flee,?explains a MISNA source in Bukavu. Congo is trying to emerge from a complicated conflict that began formally in 1998 and ended (after the death of 3.5 million people) with the peace accords of 2002 and the creation of a government of national unity the following year.[LC]
