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.