ICC renews call for Ugandan LRA rebel leader Kony's arrest

Copy of AFP report via MONUC Monday, 06 October 2008 - ICC renews call for Ugandan rebel leader Kony's arrest:

THE HAGUE, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court renewed calls Monday for the arrest of Lord's Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony following attacks by the Ugandan rebel group on Congolese citizens.

"In the light of serious and converging information on attacks by the LRA against civilians in the DRC, ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo calls for renewed efforts to arrest LRA leader Kony and his top commanders," said a statement issued in The Hague.

"The criminals remain at large and continue to commit crimes and they are threatening the entire region. Arrest is long overdue."

The prosecutor claimed the LRA attacked villages in the Haut Uele district of the Democratic Republic of Congo on September 17.

"These attacks all follow a similar method with markets surrounded and looted, students abducted from school, properties burned and dozens of civilians killed, including several local chiefs," said the statement.

"Tens of thousands have now been displaced.

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Kony and two other top LRA commanders, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen, in 2005.

They are accused of raping and mutilating civilians, enlisting child soldiers and massacring thousands.

In July, southern Sudanese lawmakers urged the ICC to defer the indictments to encourage the rebel leaders to sign a Sudan-mediated Ugandan peace agreement.

Kony has so far refused to sign the accord on the basis of the ICC arrest warrants.

"Kony -- just as he has many times in the past -- uses the peace talks to gain time and support, to rearm and attack again," said the prosecutor's statement.

"The price paid today by civilians is high."

Moreno-Ocampo's office urged regional and international organisations to support DR Congo and Uganda in planning and executing the arrests.

A semi-literate former altar boy, Kony took charge in 1988 of a regional rebellion among northern Uganda's ethnic Acholi minority.

Twenty years of fighting between the rebels and government forces have left tens of thousands dead and displaced two million people, mainly in northern Uganda.

monuc.org © 1999-2006 United Nations - MONUC

UN attack helicopters went into action in E. DRC after Ituri Patriotic Resistance Front (FRPI) rebels opened fire at UN reconnaissance planes

Thursday 02 October 2008 – United Nations attack helicopters firing rockets went into action in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today after rebels attempting to advance against the Government opened fire on UN reconnaissance planes.

The UN action was the latest in a series of strikes against the rebel Ituri Patriotic Resistance Front (FRPI) in Ituri province, and comes less than two weeks after peacekeepers from the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) sent in combat helicopters against another rebel group in North Kivu province, to the south.

“MONUC is intervening with all the means at its disposal, including attack helicopters, to protect the civilian population which is in imminent danger,” the mission said in a news release. “Moreover MONUC is cooperating with the DRC armed forces to re-establish state authority over the whole of Ituri.”

Residual FRPI elements launched attacks on Monday against the army, capturing two camps and advancing towards the village of Aveba before they were repulsed by MONUC.

Full story at UN News Centre 02 October 2008 - UN helicopters respond to rebel attack in eastern DR Congo

Related reports

Sapa-AP report Friday 03 Oct 2008 by Eddy Isango: Bullets hit UN chopper during clash

AP report Thursday 02 Oct 2008: UN helicopters fire rockets at east Congo militia

1,200 Congolese flee from DR Congo into southern Sudan to escape brutal attacks by Ugandan rebel group LRA

About 1,200 Congolese have sought shelter in southern Sudan in recent days to escape brutal attacks by members of the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) that have included the abduction of children and the torching of homes, the United Nations refugee agency reported today [Wednesday, 01 October 2008].

The Congolese arrived on foot in the Sudanese villages of Gangura and Sakure after a four-day journey, telling local authorities and aid agencies about savage attacks on six separate villages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The refugees said they fled to Sudan because the LRA, which has waged war against Ugandan Government forces for two decades, sometimes from bases in remote areas of the north-eastern DRC, had blocked all other routes out of the region.

“From what we have learned in speaking to the refugees, the attacks were ferocious and unremitting,” said Geoff Wordley, the assistant representative for UNHCR operations in southern Sudan, adding there are unconfirmed reports of bodies seen floating in local rivers.

“Many refugees being treated in the MSF [Médecins Sans Frontières] clinic showed wounds from machetes and bullets.”

Full story: 01 October 2008 UN report: Hundreds of Congolese flee attacks by notorious rebels – UN refugee agency

DRC rebel General Laurent Nkunda 'to expand rebellion'

Renegade Congolese General Laurent Nkunda says he wants to "liberate" the whole of DR Congo, expanding his rebellion from the east.

Gen Nkunda has told the BBC he is now fighting to "liberate" the whole of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Until now, he had always claimed to be protecting his Tutsi people against Rwandan Hutu armed groups in the east.

Gen Nkunda said he was walking out of a January peace deal. Recent fighting between his troops and the army has led more than 100,000 people to flee.

DR Congo Defence Minister Chikez Diemu said his statement was "irresponsible".

Gen Nkunda says he wants to expand his theatre of operations for his CNDP forces from eastern DR Congo to the whole country.

The BBC's Africa analyst Joseph Winter says this is a definite change of tone from a man who has always portrayed himself as a defender of his Tutsi people.

"I am calling on the people of Congo to stand up for their liberty, for their freedom," he said.

He says they are under threat from some of those who carried out the genocide of their fellow Tutsis in neighbouring Rwanda 14 years ago.

Such fighting talk will not go down well hundreds of kilometres away in the capital, Kinshasa, where President Joseph Kabila was largely elected on his promise to bring peace to the county after many years of war, says Joseph Winter.

There are some 17,000 United Nations peacekeepers in DR Congo, who will no doubt do their best to prevent the conflict from spreading any further.

The UN helped broker a peace deal in January in the east, which held, more or less, for seven months.

Source: BBC News Thursday 02 October 2008 - Congo rebel 'to expand rebellion'

DRC's PM resigns - DRC is a country the size of Western Europe & contains a third of the world's cobalt and 4% of global copper reserves

Bloomberg report by Franz Wild September 25, 2008 Congo's Prime Minister Resigns, Citing Health Reasons (Update 1) - excerpt:

Democratic Republic of Congo Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga resigned for health reasons, his spokesman Patrick Muyaya said.

The 82-year-old leader's resignation means the entire Cabinet will have to be replaced, Muyaya said in a telephone interview today from the capital, Kinshasa. Gizenga is a member of the Unified Lumumbist Party, known by its French acronym Palu, which is the second-largest party in the governing Alliance for the Presidential Majority.

Congo held its first democratic elections in four decades in 2006, a key step in the central African nation's transition after civil wars between 1996 and 2003 killed more than 4 million people. The country, the size of Western Europe, contains a third of the world's cobalt and 4 percent of global copper reserves.

Hat tip Friends of the Congo

YouTube video from The Frontline Club: "Demystifying the Congo"

Note this multimedia presentation on DR Congo for Frontline Club, London, UK:



Added to YouTube by Frontline Club on April 28, 2008
542 views, as at September 24, 2008.
URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnW3ZnU3mSo

Hat tip Ali M (The Malau) of The Salon

Frontline's membership is drawn from the most talented photographers, cameramen and writers in independent news gathering. It also embraces people from the wider media, NGOs and individuals who care about press freedom and the world's conflicts and struggles. See more at http://www.youtube.com/user/FromTheFrontline

Bookmark the Frontline's website: http://www.frontlineclub.com

University of Bergen in Norway is searching for Congolese musicians who perform Congolese music (Update 2)

Email just received:

From: maria DOT glenna AT student DOT uib DOT no
Subject: Congolese musicans
Date: 23 September 2008 09:29:01 BST
To: ingrid DOT jones AT virgin DOT net

Dear Madam.

I'm a student at the University of Bergen in Norway. Some fellow
students and I are interested in human rights issues in The Democratic
Republic in Congo and especially women and children.

We plan to arrange a concert and are looking for Congolese musicans,
hopefully whom are interested in the same issues. We have searched the
internet for such a musician, but have not been successful. We therefore
contact you to ask if you have any suggestions of Congolese musicians
who perform Congolese music.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Best regards,
Maria Glenna
- - -

UPDATE (1) - THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 25, 2008

Thanks to Ndesanjo Macha, Saharan Africa Editor at Global Voices, for picking up on above post. Check out comment already received at Ndesanjo's Global Voices post - D.R of Congo: Searching for Congolese musicians - by Ira Simmons:

Ndesanjo Macha,
I’m working with several of the most popular Congolese musicians based in Kinshasa.
When would you like them to come to Norway?
(Papa Wemba, JB Mpiano and Fally among others)
Ira Simmons

Note, Ndesanjo is a Tanzanian blogger, journalist, lawyer and digital activist interested in finding ways to amplify voices from non-English speaking parts of the world. He mostly blogs in Kiswahili at Jikomboe and at Digital Africa and can be reached at: africa AT globalvoicesonline DOT org

P.S. This is more proof of the power of blogging. In my experience, ask a blogger anywhere in the world a good question and you get feedback within hours. I love bloggers and blogging! One of the reasons I have a network of blogspots (100 in all) is to show how any person in the world, no matter what their circumstances, situation or health, can become a blogger and start blogspots such as this site, Congo Watch, without it costing a penny via the wonderful Blogger.com and free photo hosting at Flickr, not to mention free news readers (I use NetNewsWire) and super easy to use SiteMeter for traffic counting and statistics (also used by Instapundit). One day, I'll post some graphs of Congo Watch traffic stats courtesy of SiteMeter.

Here's another tip, whenever anyone I know is thinking of buying, renting or borrowing a computer, I highly recommend any Apple Mac because they are fabulous to use and, unlike personal computers and Windows software, get no hassle with viruses. I have adored Apple Macs ever since I started using one at work, for desktop publishing, in 1988. Not sure if they still do it, but each week on a certain day, Apple online advertise refurbished Macs for sale at knock down prices.

P.P.S. Where's Louis and Ali et al? Must find out. I've missed our little bunch of original Congo Watchers. I'm working on some posts to try and unearth them. Of course, I could email them but this way is much more interesting fun.
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UPDATE (2) - THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 25, 2008

Email just received from Maria Glenna at University of Bergen, Norway:

From: maria glenna
Subject: Congolese musicans
Date: 25 September 2008 13:00:05 BST
To: ingrid jones

Good Afternoon Ingrid.

I have contacted you about Congolese Musicians. There is a special
reason why this is so important to me and to my fellow students in Bergen.

This morning at 10 a.m. local time the Laureate of the Rafto Prize 2008
was announced. The 2008 Professor Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize is
awarded to Pastor Bulambo Lembelembe Josué for his dedication to end the
plight of the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The prize ceremony will take place Sunday 2nd of November.
Traditionally musicians whom relate to that particular human rights issue will
perform at the prize ceremony. We are therefore looking for Congelese
musicians who relates to the human rights issues Pastor Bulambo has been
working hard to promote.

You can read more about the Rafto Foundation here:
http://www.rafto.no/?page=20

The English press release is attached to this email.

Best regards,

Maria Glenna
On behalf of the Rafto Foundation.
- - -

PRESS RELEASE - September 25, 2008

The 2008 Professor Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize is awarded to Pastor Bulambo Lembelembe Josué for his dedication to end the plight of the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).



Photo: The 2008 Rafto Prize Laureate Pastor Bulambo Lembelembe Josué outside the office of Communauté des Eglises Libres de Pentecôte en Afrique (CELPA) in Bukavu, eastern Congo. Photo taken: August 28, 2008. Photo: Tor Magne Kommedal/the Rafto Foundation

The 2008 Rafto Prize awarded to Pastor Bulambo Lembelembe Josué ‐ DRC Church leader brings hope to eastern Congo

The Board of the Rafto Foundation for Human Rights awards the 2008 Rafto Prize to Pastor Bulambo Lembelembe Josué for his dedication to end the plight of the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). His work brings hope for peace, reconciliation and human dignity to a people that have suffered from the deadliest conflict since World War II.

The most frequent targets of this hidden war are women. In the last ten years in Congo, hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, many in excessively brutal gang rapes.

Pastor Bulambo’s message is clear and simple: “We can no longer accept that our daughters, our sisters and our wives are raped. It should be possible for women to be safe. It is our responsibility to make life safe.”

The DRC faces a grave humanitarian crisis resulting from what has become known as the First African World War.

The war in the Congo is significantly linked to the Rwandan genocide. Many African countries and countless militia groups are involved.

Since 1998 more than 5 million people have lost their lives, and ordinary civilians are disproportionately affected by the conflict.

The Eastern Congo region is particularly unstable. Law and order has broken down, the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate and fears are rising that the hostilities will escalate.

Women have been systematically abused and raped as a strategy of war. Children are kidnapped and forced into service as child soldiers and as sex slaves. The scale of the atrocities has created a society in which the norms of conduct have been broken down and women and children live in constant terror of brutal assault.

From this turbulent environment, Pastor Bulambo Lembelembe Josué emerges as a visionary church leader with high personal integrity and a unique ability to turn strategies into concrete action. He works ceaselessly and selflessly at the grassroot level to help the people of his country help themselves. Pastor Bulambo is also a team builder and has recruited competent local leaders who, under the most challenging of circumstances, run schools, support programs for child soldiers and survivors of rape.

Pastor Bulambo Lembelembe serves as Vice President of the Protestant Council of Churches, the Eglise du Christ au Congo (ECC), in the DRC’s South Kivu province. His prominence as a church leader has allowed him to preach democratic ideals in an effort to quell rising tensions between ethnic groups in the region.

Bulambo Lembelembe Josué is also the Vice President of Héritiers de la Justice, a human rights organization he helped to establish in 1991. The organization works to raise awareness of human rights, assists victims of human rights abuses and stop impunity from sexual violence. Bulambo stresses that no amnesty should be given to perpetrators of sexual violence.

As the president of the Pentecostal church (1995‐2005), Communauté des Eglises Libres de Pentecôte en Afrique (CELPA), Pastor Bulambo initiated a rehabilitation program for women victims of rape (CAMPS). The program offers medical and psychological treatment, in addition to training and assistance to enable the women to start their own businesses and become valuable members of their society. A special focus is placed on building respect and dignity for women who suffer from the social stigma attached to victims of sexual assault.

Through CELPA, Pastor Bulambo Lembelembe Josué also established a program to help child soldiers. Approximately 40 per cent of these are girls, many of whom have been subjected to sexual violence in addition to traumatizing experiences as soldiers.

Bulambo Lembelembe Josué has shown a remarkable ability to organize and implement programs that have helped to relieve the suffering of civilians in the face of war. Furthermore, he has worked actively to create peace. He initiated, and is currently leading, a dialogue project that works at the local level to disarm and repatriate groups linked to the Rwandan genocide.

The international community has, despite a wide‐ranging engagement, not yet succeeded in putting an end to the horrific acts of violence in the DRC. However, Bulambo Lembelembe Josué through his example and achievements is a source of hope that the Congolese themselves, through rebuilding their civil society, step by step can achieve reconciliation and secure the respect for human rights and human dignity. The Rafto Foundation calls on the international community to support their efforts.

The 2008 Rafto Prize is awarded at the National Venue of Theatre (Den Nationale Scene), in Bergen, Norway on Sunday 2 nd of November at 18.00‐19.30

Break the Silence Benefit CD "Congo's Angels" for Congo Week Oct 19-25

Irma Thomas, Neko Case, and Susan Cowsill Join Prominent Women Singers, Songwriters and Poets on Break the Silence Benefit CD for Congo Week

Excerpt from a Press Release just received from Friends of the Congo:

Washington, DC - September 19, 2008 - Grammy winner Irma Thomas, Americana singer Neko Case, and pop icon Susan Cowsill join forces with noted women singers, songwriters and poets to benefit rape victims in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Contributors include Eliza Gilkyson, Caroline Aiken, Karen Protti-Bailey, Claire Holley, Kim Carson, Theresa Davis, Mary LaSang, Ruby Rendrag, Gospel Gossip, Sonia Tetlow, Herman Put Down the Gun, Karen Garrabrant, Dede Vogt, Caroline Herring, Janet Bean, and Leilani Rivera Bond

Women singers, songwriters, and poets have joined forces and donated 20 tracks for a limited edition compilation CD to raise awareness about violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo. "Congo's Angels" is scheduled for release during Break the Silence Congo Week, October 19-25. Congo Week is a global initiative led by students throughout the globe to raise awareness about the escalating violence against women and children in the Congo and provide support. Students and community organizers in at least 100 countries and 1,000 campuses are expected to organize an activity or event in solidarity with the people of the Congo.
 
On Monday, September 22, 2008 from 10 AM, a press conference will be held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC to launch the countdown to Congo Week.
 
All proceeds from the sale of "Congo's Angels" will go directly into a special account, designed to offer transparency in accounting. Friends of the Congo (www.friendsofthecongo.org), a U.S. based tax-exempt non-profit, will manage this account. No monies, except minimal distribution costs, will be taken from sales.

Friends of the Congo, 1629 K Street, NW, Ste 300, Washington, DC 20006
www.friendsofthecongo.org

Map of attacks and LRA base - DR Congo's army has sent 200 troops to Dungu, DRC

Earlier this month, the Democratic Republic of Congo's army and the UN began a military operation to try to contain the activities of Ugandan LRA terrorist group leader Joseph Kony.



Source: BBC News 'Rebel leader targeted in DR Congo' report dated Monday, 8 September 2008. Excerpts:

The campaign follows failed attempts to negotiate an end to the rebellion by his Lord's Resistance Army.

Congo's army has sent 200 troops to the northern town of Dungu, where hundreds have sought refuge from the LRA.

The LRA fought a 20-year war against the government in northern Uganda. Some two million people were displaced.

Note, the report says Mr Kony is thought to have been rebuilding his forces.

Also note, as stated here many times before, the USA treats the LRA as a terrorist organisation and, in my view, rightly so.

One wonders about the financing and arming of the LRA over the past 20 years. How come, in this day age, the sources of funding, armaments and munitions for African rebel groups manage to remain such a secret over past twenty years? I wish professional journalists would tell us because it would help make sense of what is going on in and around Africa and why.

[Cross posted to parent site Sudan Watch and sister sites Uganda Watch and Niger Watch]

Rebels rearming and clashing with army in east of DR Congo near gorilla park - UN has 17,000 peacekeepers in DR Congo

Friday August 28, 2008 (BBC) report - excerpts:

Rebels and army clash in DR Congo

Clashes have erupted between fighters loyal to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda and the army in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN says.

Both sides have blamed each other for starting the fighting, which lasted several hours.

The UN mission told the BBC 18 rebels had been admitted to hospital, while AFP news agency said 50 government soldiers were also receiving treatment.

It is the heaviest fighting in the east since a January peace deal.

Earlier this month, US and European Union diplomats warned that the situation in eastern DR Congo was becoming increasingly tense and that all sides were rearming.

"They are mutually claiming the other side started it. At the moment it's very difficult to confirm who has started it," UN mission spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jean Paul Dietrich told the BBC.

Lt-Col Dietrich said the UN believed that Mr Nkunda - a renegade general - was trying to expand the rebels' zone of influence.

Reports earlier this month indicated that Gen Nkunda was touring his area, strengthening his defences and recruiting fresh forces.
The UN has 17,000 peacekeepers in DR Congo.

Full report 'Rebels and army clash in DR Congo' (last updated at 16:21 GMT, Thursday, 28 August 2008 17:21 UK) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7586617.stm
- - -

Friday August 29, 2008 news report - source unknown (hat tip XXPANTHAXX at assatashakur.org forum) -

Congo rebels, army clash near Congo gorilla park

KINSHASA, Congo - Rebels and the army fought one of their fiercest battles in eastern Congo this year on Thursday, exchanging machine-gun and mortar fire all day outside a national park that is home to some of the world's last mountain gorillas. U.N.-funded Radio Okapi reported at least four people were killed and several wounded. At least one of the dead was an army soldier, it said. The U.N. mission told the British Broadcasting Corp. that 18 rebels were injured.

Despite a January cease-fire deal, rebels led by Laurent Nkunda fought army units in the village of Matebe, as well as Gasiza and Kalomba, both located on the outskirts of Virunga National Park, U.N. spokesman Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich said.

"Almost the entire population of the area has fled," Dietrich said, adding that army forces had put attack helicopters into the skies and were reinforcing their positions.

Army spokesman Col. Delphin Kahimbi confirmed the army was organizing a counteroffensive. He blamed rebels for starting the latest conflict. Rebels could not be reached for comment.

Nkunda's fighters have occupied the southern sector of gorilla-inhabited Virunga National Park for about 12 months, keeping rangers from patrolling the area.

Emmanuel de Merode, who directs Virunga National Park for the Congolese Wildlife Authority, said in a statement that the "latest escalation of the conflict undermines our efforts to resume our work in the gorilla sector."

"It is almost one year to the day since this conflict started, but we are as determined as ever to get back in," Merode said, adding that mortar and grenade explosions have boomed around the park since before dawn. "It is critical that we know the status of the mountain gorillas."

Though sporadic gunfights have broken out in North Kivu province this year, much of the area has been calm since a January peace deal ended a wave of major skirmishes in the same region late last year.

"The fighting has been tied for weeks to the desire to control certain areas of land by one party or another," Dietrich said. Nkunda's rebels "are trying to expand their zone of influence" and the army is trying to stop them, he said.

Congo held its first democratic elections in more than four decades in 2006, and is still coping with the effects of a 1998-2002 war and Rwanda's 1994 genocide, which saw millions of hungry refugees — including Rwandan militias who remain today — spill across the border. Despite its vast mineral wealth, most people remain deeply poor and desperate, and the gorillas in the Virung reserve are competing with local villagers for land.

Nkunda's fighters, believed to have close ties to neighboring Rwanda, first rose up against the government after the broader war ended in 2002. He claims they fight to protect minority Tutsis from Hutus and other groups.

Only about 700 mountain gorillas remain in the world, an estimated 380 of them in a range of volcanoes straddling Congo's borders with Uganda and Rwanda. Only 72 are believed to live on the Congo side of the border. Ten of them were killed last year.

Nkunda's rebels have been accused by wildlife officials of attacking gorillas in the past, but since last year they have taken tourists and some journalists on unauthorized visits to the rare animals.

Virunga National Park is located in a lawless swath of eastern Congo that the country's government has struggled to bring under control for years. Established in 1925 as Africa's first national park, it was classified as a U.N. World Heritage Site in 1979. 

Source: http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/
afrikan-world-news/32861-congo-rebels-army-clash-near-congo-gorilla-park.html
- - -

Copy of Gorilla Protection blog post and photos published by gorilla Thursday August 28, 2008:

War erupts around the Gorilla Sector

Heavy fighting broke out at 3.30am today between rebels and the army around the Gorilla Sector, specifically near the patrol post of Bukima and going down toward Rumangabo park station. The situation had been calm for some months but all this has just changed.

This is Samantha. I was at Rumangabo this morning with Diddy, Innocent, Balemba, Pierre and others and you could hear the mortars being fired not so far away and reverberating through the hills.



This is taken from the main house at Rumangabo station. In the distance (just) you can see 2 buildings - that is a military camp that the rebels are targeting. Beyond the buildings is Sabinyo, a volcano that straddles DRC, Rwanda and Uganda. It is towards the buildings and to the right that the fighting is taking place.

It is not clear who attacked who first - ie the rebels attacked the army first or vice versa. But one thing is for sure, the army is sending in major reinforcements.

When we left Rumangabo heading toward Goma we came across a convoy of military vehicles carrying all kinds of heavy weaponry and soldiers. Weapons are not my area of expertise, but there was definitely a wide array on display of all shapes and sizes - and also something called Stalin’s organ, a weapon with multiple tubes that looks like an organ and presumably fires a rocket from each hole.



This was one of the tanks we passed on our way back.

I just spoke to Diddy and the bombing continues as I write. There is one thing for certain though. If we can hear the bombing and mortars, so can the gorillas. If human populations around this area feel threatened, so do the gorillas. I will keep you up to date.

Source: gorilla.wildlifedirect.org/2008/08/28/
war-erupts-around-the-gorilla-sector/

UN peacekeepers deployed to east DR Congo after Ugandan LRA attacks

Aug 20, 2008 (UN News Centre Africa) report - 'DR Congo: UN peacekeepers deployed to east after rebel attacks' - excerpt:

United Nations peacekeepers and soldiers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have been jointly deployed in the eastern provinces of Ituri and Orientale to protect civilians after attacks by the rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

A spokesman for the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC), Michel Bonnardeaux, told a press briefing today that the Ugandan rebel group had attacked and robbed villages around Duru over the past week. He said the Ituri Patriotic Front had also launched sporadic attacks in the Irumu area, and remained a serious threat.

MONUC went on to report further unrest in eastern DRC, including continued regrouping and recruitment by the Mayi-Mayi in North Kivu.

Aid agencies say that eastern DRC continues to be plagued by serious human rights abuses, seven months after the signing of peace accords at the Kivus conference in January.



Photo: MONUC backs DRC campaign to disarm national and foreign armed groups (caption & file photo/UN News Centre)

Full story: UN News Centre - Africa 20/8/08 06:00
www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27768&Cr=monuc&...

[Cross posted today at Uganda Watch http://ugandawatch.blogspot.com]

Last week, south Sudan troops attacked Ugandan LRA terrorists on DR Congo border?

At an African Union summit in Egypt last month, the top US diplomat for Africa warned that Ugandan LRA leader, Joseph Kony, was re-arming.

Source: Aug 24, 2008 Reuters report, copied here below:

Uganda rebels accuse south Sudan of attack

Sun Aug 24 2008 KAMPALA (Reuters South Africa)

A spokesman for Uganda's fugitive northern rebels accused south Sudanese troops of attacking guerrilla positions on Sunday on the Congo border, preventing a peace meeting.

Officials from the South Sudanese Liberation Army (SPLA) could not immediately be reached for comment, and there was no independent confirmation of the clash.

"Sometime last week there was a skirmish after SPLA attacked our positions," David Nyekorach-Matsanga, a spokesman for Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, said by telephone from the south Sudanese capital Juba.

"We thought that was a mistake. But today they repeated it when they attacked LRA at Nabanga."

He gave no other details, but said a planned meeting in the area between LRA representatives and their elusive leader Joseph Kony had been cancelled.

A two-decade civil war in northern Uganda forced 2 million people from their homes and also destabilised neighbouring parts of oil-producing south Sudan and mineral-rich eastern Congo.

Kony is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Two years of peace talks collapsed in April when he failed to appear on the border to sign a final peace deal.

At an African Union summit in Egypt last month, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa warned that the LRA leader was re-arming.

(Reporting by Frank Nyakairu; editing by Daniel Wallis and Tim Pearce)

Source: http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnWAL471739.html
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Map showing Sudan/DR Congo border



Map courtesy Google news/Aug 2008 archive http://sudanwatch.blogspot.com

(Cross posted today at sister sites Uganda Watch http://ugandawatch.blogspot.com
and Sudan Watch http://sudanwatch.blogspot.com)

New Ebola cases seen in DR Congo

Another nine cases of the deadly Ebola virus are confirmed in DR Congo, where 174 have already died. - BBC September 22, 2007. Excerpt:

The World Health Organisation says nine further cases of the deadly Ebola virus have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

At least 174 people in the country's West Kasai region have died so far in the current outbreak.

Symptoms of the epidemic - high temperature, bloody diarrhoea and visible haemorrhaging - were first seen in the region on 27 April.

There is no known cure for Ebola, which is fatal in around 80% of cases.

Photo source: www.nlm.nih.gov

Gorilla guardians in DR Congo

For pictures of a park ranger's life in lawless eastern DR Congo, see today's article at BBC News online entitled "Gorilla guardians, Protection".

DRC: militia threaten to kill rare gorillas

May 21 2007 Reuters AlertNet report by Joe Bavier:

KINSHASA, May 21 (Reuters) - Congolese militia are threatening to slaughter rare mountain gorillas in Congo's Virunga National Park after they raided the eastern reserve at the weekend, killing a wildlife officer, officials said.

Up to three more local wildlife workers were injured in the attacks early on Sunday by Mai Mai militia fighters on three conservation and tourism camps in the park, in Democratic Republic of Congo's violence-torn North Kivu province.
Officials in Virunga, Africa's oldest national park established in 1925, said on Monday the attackers looted the three sites, seizing arms and communications equipment.

The area attacked is only two hours walk from a unique and isolated population of gorillas, according to WildlifeDirect, an organisation involved in conservation in Virunga, which is home to half of the 700 mountain gorillas that remain in the world.

"This was an unprovoked attack on our Rangers and other wildlife officers who protect Virunga's wildlife. And the Mai Mai said that if we retaliate, they will kill all the gorillas in this area," Virunga's Park Director Norbert Mushenzi said in a statement distributed by WildlifeDirect.

During the raids, 13 other local wildlife workers were taken hostage by the militia fighters but were subsequently released, WildlifeDirect said.
Despite the end of a 1998-2003 war in Congo and historic elections held last year in the former Belgian colony, renegade militia and rebel groups still operate in the east of the country, raiding villages and terrorising civilians.

Conservationists also accuse the Mai Mai of slaughtering hundreds of hippos with machine guns on the southern shores of Lake Edward in late 2006.

ILLEGAL SQUATTERS

Lunpali Adanbert, communications officer for the World Wildlife Foundation in the provincial capital Goma, told Reuters the wildlife officer killed on Sunday had been gathering data for the WWF from villagers.

Park officials believe the attacks may also have been motivated by a long standing conflict between conservationists and local people living illegally within the Virunga reserve, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Besides mountain gorillas, it is also home to eastern lowland gorillas and chimpanzees.

"The assailants said they would continue this kind of violence, if the local people continue to be chased out of the park," said Benoit Kisuki Mathe, an official with the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation.

The institute said wildlife rangers were tracking the militia and local army units were also being sent to the area.

In January, WildlifeDirect accused rebel fighters loyal to a renegade Congolese army general of butchering two silverback gorillas -- adult males so called because of their grey colouring. But the rebel fighters of General Laurent Nkunda later agreed to stop killing the rare primates.

Richard Leakey, Chairman of WildlifeDirect and credited with ending the slaughter of elephants in Kenya in the 1980s, said that since the beginning of armed conflict in eastern Congo more than 150 wildlife rangers have been killed on active service.

Violence in North Kivu province has been on the rise in recent months due to failing efforts to integrate rebel fighters into the ranks of the national army. Civilians say abuses have increased, often by these "mixed" army units.

Indian Army aviators head for Congo on UN deployment

Mar 5 2007 Malaysia Sun (IANS) report:

Seventy Indian Army aviators leave here Sunday for the Congo for deployment as UN peacekeepers in the country's restive Katanga province on what has been described as a 'dangerous and important' mission.

'You are going on a dangerous and important mission. It is important for you to maintain high standards of discipline and professionalism,' Lt. Gen. K.S. Jamwal, who heads the Indian Army's Kolkata-based Eastern Command, said at the flagging off ceremony of the contingent here Monday.

'It is a matter of pride that you should have been chosen for this challenging assignment,' he added.

Jamwal is the colonel commandant of the Army Aviation Corps to which the 12 officers, six junior commissioned officers, and 52 other ranks of the Congo-bound ninth (Independent) Reconnaissance and Observation Flight belong.

'We have a heavy responsibility on our shoulders. It will be our endeavour to give of our best,' the contingent commander, Lt. Col. G.S. Sheokand, told IANS.

The contingent, which will operate four Cheetah light helicopters, will replace a similar number of personnel who have been serving in the Congo for the last six months. It will be under the command of the 301 Infantry Brigade that also includes three army battalions and an Indian Air Force element of about a dozen Mi-17 and Mi-35 attack helicopters.

'We will be operating in close coordination with the IAF on reconnaissance and observation. We will also serve as the pathfinders for the air force attack helicopters if the situation warrants that they go into action,' Sheokand said of the mission.

Unlike UN peacekeeping operations in other hotspots of the world, the Congo deployment is termed a chapter seven mission under the UN charter. This means the troops are authorised to go into action if the situation so warrants.

The other deployments are termed chapter six missions, meaning that the troops can open fire only in self-defence.

Currently, some 9,000 armed forces personnel serve worldwide under the UN flag. Of them, 8,265, including 26 women, are from the Indian Army, and 500 are from the Indian Air Force.

Of the army troops, 3,707 serve in the Congo, 2,385 in Sudan, 971 in Ethiopia/Eritrea, 835 in Lebanon, and 172 on the Golan Heights. This apart, the army has also deployed 169 officers and observers at different UN missions.

In addition, 125 women troopers of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) have been deployed in Liberia.

India's involvement in UN peacekeeping operations began in 1950, when a brigade was deployed to enforce an armistice on the Korean peninsula. Since then, India has contributed 85,000 soldiers for 43 missions worldwide, but the current deployment is the largest at any given time.

India is the third largest contributor to UN peacekeeping missions after Bangladesh and Pakistan.

DRC troops jailed for war crimes

Feb 20 2007 BBC report excerpt:

Thirteen soldiers have been jailed for life after the discovery of mass graves in the north-eastern Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A military court found them guilty of killing about 30 civilians found buried in the graves in November last year.

The soldiers who were tried came from the army's First Brigade - one of several made up of fighters from factions who fought in DR Congo's 1998-2003 war.

Note, the report also tells us, in a separate trial in Bunia, four members of the same unit were jailed for life for the murder of two UN military observers in 2003. Two others were given jail terms of 10 and 20 years.

New government formed in DR Congo

A new government has been announced in the Democratic Republic of Congo after last year's landmark elections.

Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga - appointed in December by President Joseph Kabila - has named a cabinet consisting mostly of Kabila supporters.

Former rebel leader Mbusa Nyamwisi gets the foreign ministry, Denis Kalume remains interior minister and Nzanga Mobutu is the new agriculture minister.

Full story BBC 6 Feb 2007.

ICC: Global Court to Rule on Charges For First Trial

Jan 29 2007 Reuters report (via CFD):

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was due to rule on Monday whether there was enough evidence against a Congolese militiaman for recruiting child soldiers to launch the new court's first trial.

Confirming charges against Thomas Lubanga is eagerly anticipated as it would trigger the first trial at the ICC, set up as the first permanent global war crimes court in 2002.

The Coalition for the International Criminal Court, a network of organisations supporting the work of the ICC, said moving towards a trial would be an "historic decision" for the court that is now supported by 104 nations.

The court could also throw out the charges, request further evidence and investigations, or ask prosecutors to consider amending a charge. Some victims' groups want the charges expanded to include crimes such as killings, rape and torture.

The Democratic Republic of Congo -- rich in gold, diamonds and timber -- was the battleground for rebels, local factions, tribes and several neighbouring countries in a 1998-2003 war in which 4 million people died, mainly from hunger and disease.

Prosecutors say Lubanga, the founder and leader of one of the most dangerous militia in Congo's Ituri district, trained children to kill, made them kill and let them be killed.

The 46-year-old, who holds a degree in psychology, has denied the charges. His lawyer has accused the prosecution of withholding information he needs to prepare the defence.

Lubanga is the only suspect to be delivered so far to the court that issued its first arrest warrants in 2005 for leaders of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), who have led a 20-year insurgency that has killed tens of thousands.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo also plans to charge suspects soon for atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region, which the U.N. Security Council asked him to investigate in 2005.

The United States has fiercely opposed the ICC, fearing it would be used for politically-motivated prosecutions of its soldiers and citizens, but its hostility to the court is waning and it abstained when the Security Council voted on Darfur.

Lubanga, leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), an ethnic militia now registered as a political party, is accused of using children to kill members of the Lendu ethnic group.

Ethnic violence in the Ituri region between the Hema and Lendu and clashes between militia groups vying for control of mines and taxation have killed 60,000 people since 1999.

Up to 30,000 children were associated with Congo's armed groups during the height of the war, according to estimates.

The ICC prosecutors' indictment said the children, who often joined the militia because of their desperate need for food or desire to avenge their murdered families, were subject to systematic military training and severe discipline.

DR Congo first stop of UN Secretary General's African tour - BBC

BBC report via Kuna Jan 27 2007:

The United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Saturday began his African tour, aimed at bringing peace to the troubled Sudanese province of Darfur, by arriving to the Congolese capital, Kinshasa.

According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the UN Secretary's tour, which would take him to Ethiopia and Kenya, would focus on promoting peace in the African continent.

As for choosing Congo as first stop, Ban stated that the African country would act as neutral ground to launch peace talks regarding Darfur, adding that Congo hosts the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world with about 17, 000 soldiers deployed.

The UN official also pointed out that Congo still needed international support to strengthen democracy, revealing that he would discuss this issue with senior officials, namely President Joseph Kabila.

During his visit to Addis Ababa, the UN official will attend the African Union's (AU) summit to be held next Monday and meet with Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir.

On his meeting with Al-Bashir, Ban pointed out that it was not scheduled on his tour agenda but stated that he would use seize the chance to express his deepest concern concerning the Darfur crisis.

He indicated that he would demand Al-Bashir reveal his intentions and stance vis a vis the idea of a UN-AU peacekeeping force, following initial reports that the Sudanese President approval of such a plan in principle.

DR Congo leader issues ultimatum

Nov 23 2006 BBC report says the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila, has given the forces of his presidential rival 48 hours to leave Kinshasa.

Mr Kabila has been declared the provisional winner of recent polls.

However, his rival, Jean-Pierre Bemba, has complained of fraud. The Supreme Court is to rule on the claims shortly.

DR Congo court burnt in poll protest

Nov 21 2006 BBC report Congo court burnt in poll protest - excerpt:

The Democratic Republic of Congo's Supreme Court has been set on fire during protests over alleged fraud in the presidential run-off.
Supporters of Jean-Pierre Bemba, the ex-rebel leader who says he was cheated of victory, clashed with police.

Police used tear gas and UN peacekeepers fired shots in the air, with two vehicles burnt by protesters.

The violence led the Supreme Court to suspend its hearing into Mr Bemba's claims he was cheated of victory.

Mr Bemba's party has condemned what it called "acts of vandalism" against the court, and said it would have no reason to try to derail court proceedings.

President Joseph Kabila was last week declared the winner, with 58% of the vote against 42% for Mr Bemba.

The elections are supposed to draw a line under a five-year conflict in which some four million people died.

European military to reinforce DRC presence

Oct 19 2006 Sapa-AFP report via IOL

Kinsasha - A European Union military force deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) ahead of landmark elections will augment its number to almost 1 500 men at the weekend, it announced on Thursday.

EUFOR spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Thierry Fusalba said 200 Dutch and German soldiers currently based in Gabon will fly to the DRC capital Kinshasa between on Friday and the start of next week.

"This doesn't mean EUFOR has received intelligence leading to fear of trouble," Fusalba said. "It's a precautionary measure to be sure we're ready for anything."

Voters in the huge central African country will go to the polls on October 29 for the last round of a presidential election in which the incumbent Joseph Kabila faces a strong challenge from former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba. The poll is the culmination of a difficult transition to democracy.

Violent confrontations between Kabila and Bemba supporters have taken place daily, leaving at least half a dozen people injured, in different towns across the nation since the final part of the campaign began last weekend.

The EUFOR operation currently consists of about 1 200 troops in Kinshasa and a standby force of roughly the same number in Gabon. They were deployed with a UN mandate to keep the peace in the capital, easing the burden of the UN Mission in DRC (MONUC).

EUFOR troops did intervene in Kinshasa when heavy fighting erupted between armed supporters of Kabila and Bemba on August 21 in the capital after results of the first round were issued.

Those clashes claimed 23 lives and German reinforcements were flown in from Gabon, but they took 24 hours and Fusalba said that operation was too long. The extra troops were coming to "shorten the delay in intervention".

The MONUC force is the largest UN mission in the world and includes 17 600 troops, 80 percent of whom are now deployed in the more volatile east of the DRC, where mobile operational bases have been reinforced.

MONUC has been monitoring and supporting a drawn-out peace process in the country since before it emerged in 2003 from the last of successive conflicts. The 1998-2003 war drew in the armies of more than half a dozen countries and directly or indirectly claimed more than three million lives.

DRC: More money needed for displaced persons, Egeland says

IRIN Interview 8 Sep 2006.

CONGO: 30,000 ex-fighters ready to disarm, reintegrate

IRIN Special report on Congo (not DRC) 31 Aug 2006.

MSF aid workers pull out of Gety, DRC

Aid workers have fled Gety, in the Ituri District of DRC, after attacks by armed gangs. They have retreated to Bunia, the district capital, 60 km northwest, and are trying to find a way to continue assisting more than 40,000 displaced people, an official said.

Full story IRIN 1 Sep 2006. Excerpt:

"We were attacked by armed groups and it could happen again at any time," Patrick Albert, the head of Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Gety, said on Friday.

"The health of the displaced people there is terrible and they now have grossly insufficient food," he said.

"Many only recently emerged from the forest where they had been hiding for up to four months," he said. "They are fragile and the mortality rate is high."

At least 10 people are dying every day in displacement camps in Gety, the UN Office for Humanitarian Coordination (OCHA) said in August. "It's higher than the norm," Modibo Traore, the head of OCHA in Bunia, said.

Top UN aid official to visit DRC, Uganda and southern Sudan

UN News Centre report 31 Aug 2006 - excerpt:

Although the troubled eastern half of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has made some progress recently, there have also been serious setbacks and donor funding falls way below local needs, the United Nations' most senior humanitarian official said today.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland told reporters at UN HQ in New York that the humanitarian needs in the eastern DRC are probably greater than anywhere else in the world as he announced he would visit central Africa next week.

Mr Egeland will then travel to Uganda before finishing his tour in Juba, southern Sudan, where peace talks involving the Ugandan Government and the rebel LRA are taking place. Last weekend the LRA and Uganda signed a cessation of hostilities agreement to end their 20-year conflict in the north of the nation.

DRC: Guns silenced with a ceasefire

Bodies are still lying in the streets of Kinshasa and pillaging continues in some neighbourhoods but a ceasefire reached late on Tuesday between President Joseph Kabila and Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba seems to be holding.

Full report IRIN 23 Aug 2006.

EU boosts DRC force amid battle

Some 400 extra European Union troops are being flown into DRC capital, Kinshasa, in an attempt to quell gun battles.

The Dutch and German peacekeepers were on standby in nearby Gabon in case of violence during last month's elections. - BBC

UN peacekeepers in DRC rescue trapped envoys

UN peacekeepers in the DRC have rescued several foreign ambassadors trapped in a house in Kinshasa by heavy shooting.

"They're out and they'tr coming to UN headquarters. Everyone's safe," a spokesman for the UN force said, after the diplomats were rescued. - BBC

Diplomats flee DR Congo shooting

Several foreign ambassadors in the DRC have sought shelter in the house of an opposition leader after heavy shooting, BBC reported today:

They include the UK envoy and the head of the UN mission, a UN official said.

He said the UN, which has the world's largest peacekeeping force in DR Congo, has sent armoured vehicles to the area.

The gunfire follows Sunday's clashes between forces loyal to President Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba, rivals in October's election run-off.

UN spokesman Jean-Tobie Okala said the situation was confused, but confirmed that the envoys had sought refuge in Mr Bemba's residence in the city centre.

The ambassadors from the permanent five members of the UN Security Council - the UK, France, Russia, the US and China - were due to have been meeting Congolese politicians nearby although it is not yet clear which of them is trapped there.

Breaking News: Gunfight pins down envoys in DRC capital

This is terrible: just in, from The Salon Breaking News: DRC:

Gunfight pins down envoys in Congo capital - Yahoo! News: "KINSHASA (Reuters) - Soldiers loyal to Congo's President Joseph Kabila opened fire on Monday around a house where U.N. officials and ambassadors were meeting his main political rival Jean-Pierre Bemba, witnesses said.

They said the presidential guard used at least one tank and heavy machine guns in a gunfight with Bemba's armed supporters around his riverside house.

The gunfire erupted for a second day, hours after electoral officials announced a presidential run-off vote between Kabila and Bemba following July 30 elections.

'The entire CIAT (foreign donors' group) is in Bemba's house having a meeting with him. Kabila's people are firing on the area,' a U.N. source, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

A western diplomat said the ambassadors were pinned down in a safe room in the house.

A Reuters correspondent saw plumes of thick, black smoke rising from the area of the residence.

The shooting followed gunbattles on Sunday between soldiers loyal to Kabila and armed supporters of Bemba. The two are due to face off in a second-round vote on October 29."

DR Congo election outcome forces run-off

President Kabila wins DR Congo's landmark poll, but fails to secure 50% of the vote, forcing a second round.

Full story: BBC

DRC elections: final results expected Aug 20

President Joseph Kabila has taken 90 percent of the vote in the eastern provinces of North Kivu, Maniema and Katanga.

But he managed only 16 percent in the capital, Kinshasa, where his chief rival, Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, appears to have swept the board.

The results betray Congo's deep divisions. Bemba is a former rebel.

Read full story by David blair 9 Aug 2006.



Photo: Joseph Kabila with his wife, after voting in Kinshasa (David Blair)

Aug 7 2006 Telegraph Blogs: David Blair: Congo's election drags on - excerpt:

All the votes cast on July 30 are supposedly being counted at the moment. But reports from around the country suggest this process is degenerating into a shambles. A counting centre holding about one quarter of all the votes cast in the capital, Kinshasa, mysteriously caught fire last week.

All across Congo, reports have emerged of ballots being taken to counting centres and then dumped in large piles and ignored. Others seem not to have made it to counting centres at all. Used ballot papers have been mixed with blank or spoiled ones. Meanwhile, the local media have busily reported "unofficial" results - apparently leaked from the counting centres - suggesting that President Joseph Kabila is sweeping eastern Congo but trailing behind his main rival, Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba in Kinshasa and the west.

While in Kinshasa, I wrote that the key question for the election was whether the three vice-presidents who are running for the top job will accept the outcome of the poll. One of them, Azarias Ruberwa [pictured here below], has now announced that he will challenge the result when it emerges. Another, Arthur Z'Ahidi Ngoma, denounced the contest even before voting began.



This election was intended to give Congo its first legitimate government for 45 years. But if the count is a mess and the result bitterly disputed, it could have exactly the opposite effect and provide Congo with yet another spur to conflict and division. Final results are now expected on August 20, but a second round between the top two presidential candidates - probably Kabila and Bemba - will almost certainly take place in October. At present, the prognosis looks bleak.

Iran tried to import uranium from Lubumbashi mines in DRC

Ali at The Salon picks up on a story about Iran trying to import uranium from DRC: the shipment was intercepted in Tanzania, The Sunday Times reported, citing a senior Tanzanian customs officer.

Here is a copy of the Sunday Times report - Iran's plot to mine uranium in Africa - by Jon Swain, David Leppard and Brian Johnson-Thomas Aug 6, 2006:

IRAN is seeking to import large consignments of bomb-making uranium from the African mining area that produced the Hiroshima bomb, an investigation has revealed.

A United Nations report, dated July 18, said there was "no doubt" that a huge shipment of smuggled uranium 238, uncovered by customs officials in Tanzania, was transported from the Lubumbashi mines in the Congo.

Tanzanian customs officials told The Sunday Times it was destined for the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, and was stopped on October 22 last year during a routine check.

The disclosure will heighten western fears about the extent of Iran's presumed nuclear weapons programme and the strategic implications of Iran's continuing support for Hezbollah during the war with Israel.

It has also emerged that terror cells backed by Iran may be prepared to mount attacks against nuclear power plants in Britain. Intelligence circulating in Whitehall suggests that sleeper cells linked to Tehran have been conducting reconnaissance at some nuclear sites in preparation for a possible attack.

The parliamentary intelligence and security committee has reported that Iran represented one of the three biggest security threats to Britain. The UN security council has given Iran until the end of this month to halt its uranium enrichment activities. The UN has threatened sanctions if Tehran fails to do so.

A senior Tanzanian customs official said the illicit uranium shipment was found hidden in a consignment of coltan, a rare mineral used to make chips in mobile telephones. The shipment was destined for smelting in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, delivered via Bandar Abbas, Iran's biggest port.

"There were several containers due to be shipped and they were all routinely scanned with a Geiger counter," the official said.

"This one was very radioactive. When we opened the container it was full of drums of coltan. Each drum contains about 50kg of ore. When the first and second rows were removed,the ones after that were found to be drums of uranium."

In a nuclear reactor, uranium 238 can be used to breed plutonium used in nuclear weapons.

The customs officer, who spoke to The Sunday Times on condition he was not named, added: "The container was put in a secure part of the port and it was later taken away, by the Americans, I think, or at least with their help. We have all been told not to talk to anyone about this."

The report by the UN investigation team was submitted to the chairman of the UN sanctions committee, Oswaldo de Rivero, at the end of July and will be considered soon by the security council.

It states that Tanzania provided "limited data" on three other shipments of radioactive materials seized in Dar es Salaam over the past 10 years.

The experts said: "In reference to the last shipment from October 2005, the Tanzanian government left no doubt that the uranium was transported from Lubumbashi by road through Zambia to the united republic of Tanzania."

Lubumbashi is the capital of mineral-rich Katanga province, home of the Shinkolobwe uranium mine that produced material for the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

The mine has officially been closed since 1961, before the country's independence from Belgium, but the UN investigators have told the security council that they found evidence of illegal mining still going on at the site.

In 1999 there were reports that the Congolese authorities had tried to re-open the mine with the help of North Korea. In recent years miners are said to have broken open the lids and extracted ore from the shafts, while police and local authorities turned a blind eye.

In June a parliamentary committee warned that Britain could be attacked by Iranian terrorists if tensions increased.

A source with access to current MI5 assessments said: "There is great concern about Iranian sleeper cells inside this country. The intelligence services are taking this threat very seriously."

Ed Rackley's Rackleyed blog covers Congo

Just received an email from Dr Edward B Rackley in Washington, DC, USA telling me he works in Congo regularly and other African countries as well.

Ed has worked in conflict and post conflict countries for most of the last 15 years. His work involves setting up emergency aid programs, running them, or evaluation them.

Across the divide: analysis & anecdote from Africa is a blog he started earlier this year as a critique from within the international aid industry; political commentary from a number of African countries. He covers Congo fairly regularly. I've not yet had a chance to read Ed's blog but will do later on, after I've added it to my newsfeed.

Thanks Ed! It's always a pleasure to hear from readers. Here's looking forward to following your blog entries. I did a quick scroll and was pleased to find this image of DRC's flag. I wonder if it is DRC's latest flag. I've had trouble finding an image of the new flag. The only one I could find is in the sidebar here - click on its image for more details.

DR Congo wins UN praise for general calm as it holds first free elections in 45 years

Secretary-General Kofi Annan led a chorus of UN voices today in congratulating the DRC for the largely peaceful manner in which the vast African country has held its first free and fair elections in 45 years.

Full story UN News Centre 31 Jul 2006.

BBC's DRC election reporters' log

For regular updates on the election, visit Ali's blog The Salon. Ali is a young Congolese chap living in America. His mother works for the UN.

A team of BBC reporters is covering the polls and journalists are sending their observations. Keep an eye out for updates at Congo election reporters' log.

Daily Telegraph's Africa Correspondent David Blair visits DRC

David Blair, the Daily Telegraph's Africa Correspondent, has just returned to Johannesburg from a week in DR Congo. See his latest blog entries, great photos and his blogroll - my blogs on Sudan, Congo and Uganda are listed... thanks David!

Jul 24 2006 re the search for water: Congo looks to the future - On Sunday, Congo will hold its first contested elections in 46 years. The importance of this event is hard to exaggerate. Congo is arguably the most important country in Africa, endowed with more mineral wealth than anywhere else in the continent ...

Jul 25 2006 re Joseph Kabila, an international player: The man for the job? - Sitting in Kinshasa the other day, I jotted down the key facts about the Democratic Republic of Congo's election. Here's what you need to know ...

Jul 26 2006 re Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and a place called the "Inner Station": Kisangani marks the spot - Kisangani, where Conrad spent three unhappy months...

Jul 28 2006 re being arrested by soldiers of Congo's elite presidential guard: Arrested on board a dugout canoe - River travel isn't always this tranquil...

DR Congo: The trickiest election ever?

Election workers in Democratic Republic of Congo are putting the finishing touches to possibly the most complex and challenging elections the world has ever seen.

Helicopters, canoes, motorbikes and porters have been used to transport election material to almost 50,000 polling stations across a country two-thirds the size of western Europe, with just 300 miles of paved roads.

Behind the barbed wire which surrounds the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) headquarters in the capital, Kinshasa, officials were scurrying around with just hours to go before the polls open at 0600 (0500GMT) on Sunday. Full story BBC 29 July 2006.

DRC: Police disperse anti-poll demonstrators

Police used teargas to disperse thousands of placard-carrying demonstrators, who vowed to disrupt general elections, in Kinshasa, capital of the DRC, on Tuesday. Full report IRIN 25 July 2006.

DRC: Lead-up to elections - backgrounder

NAIROBI, 24 Jul 2006 (IRIN) via VOGP - The general elections due on Sunday in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are billed as the first fully democratic vote to be held in the country since Patrice Lumumba became prime minister in 1960. Beginning with his murder a year later, and the coup in 1965 staged by Mobutu Sese Seko, who introduced a one-party system, the past 40 years have witnessed the systematic impoverishment of one of the potentially wealthiest countries on the African continent.

Turning the country around is vital for the continent as a whole, not just because of its sheer size - 2.5 million square kilometres, bordering nine countries - but because of its mineral wealth; it holds one-third of the world's cobalt reserves; two-thirds of its coltan, used in mobile phones; and one-tenth of its copper; as well as diamonds, gold, oil, silver, timber, uranium and zinc. Its river system could power the entire continent and the country contains 50 percent of Africa's forests. And yet, the DRC is one of the world's poorest countries, ranked 167 out of 177 in the 2005 United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) human development index.

The potential rewards of peace and stability are high. But so are the risks. While human rights groups have accused some foreign companies mining in the DRC of exploitation and corruption, encouraging investment is not straightforward in a country whose physical infrastructure is virtually non-existent - of 145,000 km of roads, only 2,500 km are asphalt - and poor governance is endemic.

Indeed, the weakness of state institutions, in particular the security forces, courts and parliament, and the fact that the Congolese state has suffered from corruption before and after independence in 1960, means that restructuring the economy and addressing issues of capacity-building are of particular importance if the new government is to effect meaningful change for its population.

Poor governance is of particular concern to aid agencies as the impact is severe in humanitarian terms: corruption means revenue losses, so state employees, such as soldiers, go unpaid and intimidate and harangue civilians, often brutally; continued fighting over mineral rights and cross-border raids result in displaced civilians. UN agencies and NGOs estimate that at least 1,000 people continue to die every day in the DRC as a result of non-existent health services and preventable diseases.

The legacy of Mobutu's 32-year Western-backed rule extends beyond endemic corruption; to offset potential political opposition his rule was absolute, with the 1974 constitution granting him authority over the executive, legislature and judiciary branches of government. Furthermore, he maintained a system of patronage while maintaining the loyalty of the police and army, all of which required money. By 1990, the country was US $14 billion in debt. With the end of the cold war, Mobutu was no longer of any use to the US in its fight against Soviet influence in Africa, and his lines of credit were cut off.

The first war was prompted by an invasion of Rwandan and Ugandan troops in a bid to flush out Hutu militia - at the same time capitalising on popular discontent to oust Mobutu. However Laurent-Desire Kabila's coup in 1997 did little to change the prevailing political and economic climate. He banned political activity, issuing laws by presidential decree. By 2000, inflation was 511 percent and GDP $100 per capita, compared with a rate of $259 at independence. When Kabila attempted to limit the influence of Rwanda and Uganda on the economy, a second war opened up in what has been called Africa's first world war. This involved Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe on Kabila's side against Uganda and Rwanda. A study by the International Rescue Committee in December 2004 estimates that 3.8 million people died, nearly half of them children, from disease, famine and violence, mainly in the east. An additional three million are in acute need of assistance, according to the UN.

The first peace accord was signed in 1999 and foreign armies agreed to withdraw troops but a power-sharing agreement between the rebel factions was not implemented until 2003. The resulting transitional government comprised three main factions: the DRC government (PPRD supported by Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia), the RCD-Goma (Rwanda) and the MLC (Uganda). Fighting, however, continues in eastern DRC.

The present incumbent, Joseph Kabila, 35, who took over from his father, Laurent-Desire Kabila, who was assassinated in January 2001, is the favourite to win the presidential vote, which is being contested by 33 candidates. Another 9,000 politicians are vying for 500 parliamentary seats. However, security remains a problem, despite the presence of the largest UN peacekeeping mission in the world, comprising 17,000 troops, which will be backed up by 2,000 EU forces over the election period. In addition, 5,000 national and 500 international observers will oversee the polls.

Etienne Tshisekedi, 73, the veteran opposition leader, originally boycotted the polls only to change his mind - but too late to be included in the electoral process. His withdrawal means millions of his traditional supporters will be effectively disenfranchised.

Campaigning is a logistical nightmare in a country with poor transport facilities; most of the 50,000 voting stations are deep in the forest or along the river and accessible to officials only by air. The budget for the elections is put at $500 million, most of it donated by the UN, EU and others. While the results will not be known until September, analysts are concerned that international interest will wane once the immediate goal of successful elections is achieved. Programmes in support of good governance and strengthening state institutions and helping to repair the country's infrastructure need to be backed up by increased aid if a return to conflict is to be avoided.

Every day 1,200 people die from violence, disease in the DR of Congo: UNICEF

July 24 2006 UN News Centre report, excerpt:

Every day 1,200 people, half of them children, are killed in the conflict-hit Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) because of violence, disease and malnutrition, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a report issued today.

The report, Child Alert: DRC, also states that more children under age five die each year in the African country than in China - a country with 23 times the population. It draws attention to the to the appalling fact that the total countrywide death toll every six months is similar to that for the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 230,000 people in 12 countries.

Despite such grim statistics, the author of the report, UNICEF UK Ambassador for Humanitarian Emergencies Martin Bell, says that Sunday's landmark elections in the war-ravaged country could be a turning point.

"It is easy to be overwhelmed by what has happened in DRC because of the sheer scale of it. But we owe it to the children to give them the future they deserve and these elections may be the opportunity of their lifetime."

UNICEF says that around four million people have been killed in the almost decade-long conflict in the DRC, making it the world's deadliest, humanitarian crisis, but despite the scale of the suffering it has not received the attention it deserves.

"Children bear the brunt of conflict, disease and death, but not only as casualties," said UNICEF DRC Representative Tony Bloomberg, who attended the report's launch in London. "They are also witnesses to, and sometimes forced participants in, atrocities and crimes that inflict physical and psychological harm."

"While DRC has experienced death rates like that of the tsunami every six months, it has not received the attention it deserves, either from the media or the public. UNICEF issued this report to call attention to this hidden emergency and its impact on children. We stand ready to work with the elected government and all other actors to begin immediately improving the lives of Congo's children."

Cross your fingers for DR Congo election July 30 - Rwanda's Shadow, From Darfur to Congo (NYT Lydia Polgreen)

Cross your fingers for DR Congo.

On 30 July 30 2006 one of the largest countries of Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, is due to hold what should be its first free presidential election. The country has known mostly dictatorship or war for more than a century, first under colonial rule and then under African rule.

Please note, the New York Times report here below, relates to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) not Republic of Congo (Brazzaville).

Democratic Republic of Congo: A vast country with immense economic resources, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) has been at the centre of what could be termed Africa's world war. This has left it in the grip of a humanitarian crisis. The five-year conflict pitted government forces, supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, against rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda. Despite a peace deal and the formation of a transitional government in 2003, the threat of civil war remains.



Congo (Brazzaville): Brazzaville, the political capital of Congo, is routinely appended to the country's name so as to distinguish it from the much larger Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire) next door.

Most of the posts at this blog relate to DR Congo.



Photo: Neena Ngosi, 3 months old, in a looted hospital with her mother, Ngava. They were displaced by the rampant fighting in Congo (Lynsey Addario NYT)

Rwanda' Shadow, From Darfur to Congo by Lydia Polgreen New York Times July 23 2006. Excerpt:

The crisis in Darfur, long neglected, finally burst into the world's consciousness. Congo remains largely forgotten. It is hard to understand why. Four million people have died in Congo since 1998, half of them children under 5, according to the International Rescue Committee. Though the war in Congo officially ended in 2002, its deadly legacy of violence and decay will kill twice as many people this year as have died in the entire Darfur conflict, which began in 2003.

But such numerical comparisons belie a deeper truth. Darfur holds the world's gaze because of that magic word, genocide. The word, implying that there are clear criminals and clear victims, has been perhaps the single greatest attention-getter for efforts, however feeble, to end the fighting and organize relief efforts, even though the fighting has lately turned in directions that indicate the situation was never so clear-cut.

The conflict in Congo, by contrast, long ago descended into a free-for-all with many sides. Instead of Darfur's seeming moral clarity, it offers a mind-numbing collection of combatants known by a jumble of acronyms. And that has been a particularly cruel fate, since the long-lasting war there in fact had its roots in the greatest mass killing since the Holocaust - the unambiguous genocide of 800,000 mostly ethnic Tutsis in neighboring Rwanda in the spring of 1994.

After Rwanda's civil war ended, Hutus who had carried out the genocide fled into Zaire, as Congo was then known, followed by their Rwandan enemies, bent on revenge. The rest of the world, wracked by guilt because it stood by as Rwanda bled, did not intervene in Rwanda's Congolese conquests. This fighting touched off the next decade of killing. Rwandan military leaders, with help from Uganda, decided to enrich themselves at Congo's expense, and rival home-grown militias soon joined the fray.

"A lot of the killings and horrors were in large part overlooked, either deliberately or not," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch for Congo. "The Rwandan genocide was initially why there was limited criticism of Rwanda and Uganda coming in."

Nearly a decade later, the memory of how little the world did to stop the slaughter has been invoked in efforts to end the newest atrocities, in Darfur.

Darfur seemed to present a clear moral choice. The crisis began in 2003 with a rebellion that sought to end the marginalization of non-Arab tribes by the Arab-dominated government. The Sudanese government's brutal military response, aided by murderous Arab militias, turned into a campaign that killed more than 200,000 people and drove millions from their homes.

In taking up the cause, many activists and politicians made the conflict into a morality play -- a clear example of genocide in which one group, the Arabs, was determined to slaughter another, Africans. The Bush administration, which had already intervened to end the Muslim-led government's suppression of Christians, describes the killings in Darfur as genocide. [edit]

On July 30, Congo will hold an election, the first real chance for the people to choose their own leaders since 1965. The world hopes this event will finally draw a line between the tragic past and an unknown future. The journey from mass murder to peace, by way of a gruesome civil war, has been long and deadly.

- - -

See Mar 18 2005 The savagery in the Congo is beyond imagination

EU force shows muscle ahead of Congo polls

Photo: French and Portuguese troops from a European Union Force perform military exercises in the Congolese capital Kinshasa July 20, 2006. The EU has sent some 1,000 soldiers to the Democratic Republic of Congo ahead of this month's presidential and parliamentary elections aimed at ending more than a decade of conflict in the central African nation. Reuters/David Lewis

July 20, 2006 Reuters report by David Lewis [via The Salon]

A European Union military force sent to Congo showed off its firepower and technology on Thursday, saying it was ready to help U.N. peacekeepers maintain security during this month's elections.

Soldiers parachuted into their Kinshasa base from helicopters before special forces teams performed a simulated hostage rescue and the force illustrated how it could quickly deploy men and armoured vehicles.

Congolese politicians, military personnel, as well as foreign and local media were also shown the unmanned surveillance planes and weaponry the force has as its disposal.

"We have tried to show you that we are credible and ready to fulfil our mission," German General Karlheinz Viereck, commander of the EU mission, told the audience after the display at N'Dodo airport.

The EU has sent some 1,000 soldiers to the Democratic Republic of Congo, meant to act as a deterrent against anyone disrupting or challenging the result of the elections.

The July 30 polls are the cornerstone of peace deals that ended Congo's 1998-2003 war, which has killed some four million people, and are billed as the former Belgian colony's first free and fair elections in over 40 years.

Despite the world's biggest U.N. peacekeeping force, voting will take place amid tension. Thousands of rebels operate in Congo's east, many candidates say the process is unfair and opposition parties are calling for demonstrations and boycotts.

"At the end of the month, my men will be ready to fulfil their task of securing the elections if there is trouble and the UN cannot deal with it," Viereck added.

FOUR-MONTH MISSION

The EU force has a four-month mission, starting the first day of voting, but will only intervene if the Congolese police and army, as well as the U.N. are unable to control violence.

Some 33 presidential candidates and nearly 10,000 parliamentary candidates will contest the polls, which are costing the international community over $400 million and are the most complicated the U.N. has ever helped organise.

Commanders have been reluctant to give details on what sort of operations the European soldiers would carry out, stressing however, that they were not in Congo to support any candidate and would do more than just evacuate expatriates.

During the demonstration, French and Portuguese special forces teams simulated a rescue mission, roping down from helicopters to free hostages in a bus before airlifting them to safety.

A Hercules C130 transport plane then flew in soldiers and armoured trucks, showing how the EU could deploy men equipment across the vast country, which is the size of Western Europe, at short notice.

Meanwhile, Belgian surveillance drones and an array of sniper rifles, machine guns and mortars were put on display.

The EU has a reserve force of 1,200 soldiers stationed in nearby Gabon but, with only one company of combat troops in Kinshasa, analysts say a successful mission would be one that does not have to act.

Some Congolese, however, believe the international community is tacitly backing incumbent President Joseph Kabila while others fear the Europeans have come ready to fight a war.

"Don't speak about war," Viereck told local journalists. "We have just showed a few options for dissuasion."

Illegal uranium mining at shuttered Congo site-UN

July 21, 2006 Reuters report by Irwin Arieff [via The Salon]:

Uranium is being mined illegally at a site in Congo that provided the radioactive material for the U.S. atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, U.N. experts reported on Thursday.

The Shinkolobwe mine in mineral-rich Katanga province in southwestern Congo was ordered shut down by U.N. investigators in 2004 who found it unsafe to operate.

The investigators, sent in after a partial collapse of the mine killed eight people that year, concluded it was likely to collapse further and miners were in danger of chronic exposure to radiation.

But a team of experts monitoring a U.N. arms embargo on the Democratic Republic of Congo said they found ample signs of "artisan mining" by small groups of private individuals during a recent visit.

Local police and residents told them "local agents of the mining police and of the National Intelligence Agency not only encourage but also charge fees from the miners," the experts said in a report to the U.N. Security Council.

"These observations stand in stark contrast to the assurances given to the Group of Experts by officials of the Ministry of Mines and of the National Intelligence Agency," the experts said.

"They assured the group that the mine is secured and that no artisan mining is taking place," their report said.

Some 14,000 miners, mainly youths under 18 living in the adjacent village of Shinkolobwe, once earned their living in the mine. The United States used uranium from the site to make the first nuclear weapons used in warfare.

The Congolese authorities destroyed the village in August 2004, at the same time the U.N. investigators ordered the mine closed.

But the U.N. experts said they found seven villages within a few miles of the mine, with a total population of nearly 10,000 people. They said they were able to drive their all-terrain vehicles right up to the mine and encountered "no barriers or even simple warning signs."

Part of the experts' work is to advise the Security Council on how to prevent Congo's rich supply of natural resources from being used to fuel internal conflict that has long plagued the vast central African nation.

DRC: Thousands flee army-militia showdown in Ituri

BUNIA, 3 Jul 2006 (IRIN) - Thousands of civilians have fled advancing militiamen who have now retaken the town of Tcheyi in the northeastern district of Ituri in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a United Nations local humanitarian official said on Monday.

"UN helicopters located a column of displaced people heading towards Geti, north of Tcheyi; and others heading to Bukiringi, about 12 km southeast of Tcheyi," Arsene Kirero, the liaison officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in Bunia, the main town in Ituri.

"We do not have the actual figures of the displaced as there are no humanitarian actors in the militia-occupied areas," he added.

To the west of Tcheyi, all of Nyankunde's 5,000 panic-stricken residents fled on Saturday to Marabo, 40 km south of Bunia, Kirero said. Most of the residents of Aveba also fled.

On Monday, the army spokesman in Ituri, Capt Olivier Mputu, said: "We have killed about 100 militias in Aveba although we have counted 12 dead and 33 wounded. Each time we attack the militias, they take away their dead; it is therefore difficult to get an exact count."

He said fighting was still raging in Songolo, a village northeast of Tcheyi.

The militias, thought to be members of the Forces nationalistes et intégrationnistes (FNI), took advantage of the country's independence day festivities on Friday to launch their attack on Tcheyi and Aveba.

On 22 June, OCHA had identified 938 people displaced by previous fighting in Tcheyi, 305 of whom are children; and another 6,788 people in Aveba, 100 km south of Bunia.

Ituri has remained volatile due to continued militia activity. The latest fighting continues as the country gears up towards the first democratic elections in 45 years, scheduled for 30 July.

In an effort to crush the militias and secure the district for the elections, the army recently appointed Gen Mbuayama Nsiona as the commander for Ituri.

At least 2,000 militiamen had surrendered by Friday, at the end of a government and UN ultimatum for the militias to disarm voluntarily and join a disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programme.

As DR of Congo election campaign begins, UN Council extends expanded force

Saying that armed groups in eastern DRC still threaten elections in the vast central African nation where political campaigns officially kicked off today, the UN Security Council today decided to extend until 30 Sep its authorization for a strengthened peacekeeping force in the country.

The Council, through a unanimously adopted resolution, stressed the temporary nature of the increase in military and police strength of the UN Organization Mission in the DRC (MONUC), and once again called on all Congolese institutions and parties to ensure that the elections are free, fair, peaceful and timely.

The poll, slated for 30 July, is the largest and most expensive electoral assistance operation the UN has ever undertaken, and the Security Council in October 2005 authorized an increase of MONUC military personnel by 300 staff. - UN News Centre 30 June 2006.

DRC: An Update by UN's Ross Mountain

Committee on Conscience publishes an update on the humanitarian situation in DR of Congo.

[via Voices on genocide prevention, with thanks]

Congo militia threaten to execute UN peacekeepers

June 26, 2006 Reuters report from Kinshasa by David Lewis:

Congolese militia linked to gunmen holding seven Nepalese U.N. peacekeepers hostage on Monday threatened to order their execution after clashes last week.

But some U.N. sources questioned whether the group of gunmen holding the peacekeepers would take orders from the militia issuing the threat.

The men were taken hostage last month during clashes between the U.N. and gunmen, highlighting the insecurity in eastern Congo one month before historic elections are due to be held.

Militiamen loyal to Ituri warlord Peter Karim have issued a range of demands, including ransoms and the release of fellow militia fighters being held by the government, but the U.N. has called for the unconditional release of their men.

The Revolutionary Movement of Congo (MRC), a loose coalition of gunmen in the lawless northeastern district, issued the execution threat on Monday following clashes between government forces and militiamen late last week.

"If there is another such attack, the ... MRC will feel obliged to order the pure and simple execution of these hostages," the MRC said in a statement.

The MRC, which was set up in neighbouring Uganda last year and brought together various ethnic groups, said the clashes took place when the U.N. and government forces tried to rescue the hostages.

ETHNIC VIOLENCE

But a U.N. spokesman denied any operation to rescue the hostages had taken place and said he understood it was the militia who had attacked the Congolese government positions and no U.N. peacekeepers were involved.

"Negotiations (to free the hostages) are ongoing," Major Hans-Jakob Reichen, spokesman for U.N. forces in eastern Congo, said on Monday.

"During this period U.N. forces will not conduct actions that could endanger the success of these negotiations. (But) this time of negotiations can't be considered a time of impunity," he added.

Ituri has been a bloody corner of Congo where ethnic violence and clashes between militia groups vying for control of mines and taxation have killed 60,000 people since 1999.

Long accused of not doing enough to protect civilians and prompted by the killing of nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers, the U.N. tried to crack down on the militia groups last year, launching joint operations with government forces.

Thousands of gunmen signed up to a disarmament programme but abuses by government forces sent to Ituri and the failure to offer former fighters new opportunities has allowed militia numbers to swell again.

Both Hema and Lendu ethnic fighters joined the MRC but alliances in Ituri are fluid and some U.N. sources questioned whether Karim's men would obey orders from the MRC.

Ituri is just one of several parts of eastern Congo where violence continues despite three years of official peace and the presence of the U.N.'s largest peacekeeping mission.

The July 30th presidential and parliamentary polls are meant to draw a line under Congo's 1998-2003 war, which sucked in six neighbouring countries and has killed four million people, mostly from hunger and disease.