Monday, January 12, 2009

Kony's Ugandan LRA is a well-ordered fighting force, whose senior officers have been trained by Sudan, Iran and Iraq

Defectors held in the Ugandan capital Kampala say Kony – who claims to receive his instructions directly from God – had no real intention of laying down his weapons. Instead he used the ceasefire to rearm, recruit and stockpile food donated by well-meaning charities and supporters abroad.

For the first time they have given an insight into a well-ordered fighting force, whose senior officers have been trained by Sudan, Iran and Iraq.

Read more in the following LRA feature from Doruma, Democratic Republic of Congo by ROB CRILLY. On 16 December 2008, the day that a cut down version of the feature appeared in The Times, Rob kindly emailed me the full 2,000 word piece to use on my blog, along with a link to photographer Kate Holt's website kateholt.com.

As a backgrounder, I am prefacing the piece with this excerpt from Rob's blog post at From The Frontline December 10, 2008:
Earlier this year photographer Kate Holt and I chartered a plane to fly from Dungu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the tiny village of Doruma which was recovering from repeated attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army. We found people living in fear of the next assault, as LRA raiding parties roamed the jungle looking for sex slaves, porters and fighters.

We uncovered evidence that Joseph Kony was cynically using a halt in hostilities - called to allow peace talks - in order to rearm, recruit and reorganise. With food distributed by aid agencies and satphones delivered by the Ugandan diaspora, his fighting force was more efficient that ever. And one his key aides, a recent defector, told us that Kony would never sign up to peace.
With many thanks to Rob, here is the feature and photos by Kate Holt.

Rob Crilly

ROB CRILLY
Doruma, Democratic Republic of Congo

FOR eight days Raymond Kpiolebeyo was marched at gunpoint through the steaming Congolese jungle, not knowing whether he would live or die. For six nights he slept with eight other prisoners pinned under a plastic sheet weighted down with bags and stones to prevent escape. Their sweat condensed on the sheeting inches above their faces before dripping back and turning their plastic prison into a stinking, choking sauna.

He was a prisoner of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a cult-like band of brutal commanders and their brutalised child soldiers.

“They told us that if one of use tried to escape we would all be shot,” said Raymond, a 28-year-old teacher from the town of Doruma, close to the border with South Sudan.

He had been captured by a raiding party looking for porters, sex slaves and soldiers to continue the LRA’s 20-year struggle to overthrow the Ugandan government.

Yet the war is supposed to be over. After two years of negotiations, the LRA’s reclusive leader, Joseph Kony, was expected to sign a final peace deal in April. He failed to show up and his aides first said he was suffering from diarrhoea before announcing that he would be not be signing at all.

Negotiators still hold out hope that a war that forced two million people into squalid aid camps is close to an end. Many of the war’s victims in northern Uganda have slowly begun leaving the sprawling shack cities where one generation was born and another died.

But in the border towns of the Democratic Republic of Congo a different picture emerges, one where slaving parties slog through the dense jungle snatching children barely big enough to carry AK-47 rifles. Mothers keep children close to their simple homes of mud and thatch.

And defectors held in the Ugandan capital Kampala say Kony – who claims to receive his instructions directly from God – had no real intention of laying down his weapons. Instead he used the ceasefire to rearm, recruit and stockpile food donated by well-meaning charities and supporters abroad.

For the first time they have given an insight into a well-ordered fighting force, whose senior officers have been trained by Sudan, Iran and Iraq.

This year his fighters have roamed through Southern Sudan, the Central African Republic and the DRC kidnapping more than 300 children, and turning a Ugandan war into a regional conflict.

After walking 10 hours a day for six days with a sack on his back and another balanced on his head, Raymond arrived at a well-ordered camp filled with children – some the offspring of women kept by commanders while others were being trained with guns.

“They were mobile. All the time they were organising,” he said, sitting in the office of Doruma school where he teaches primary age children. “Some were leaving for other villages and others were arriving.”

Kony is thought to have settled in the DRC two years ago, disappearing deep into Garamba National Park far in the north-east of the country. It was part of a gentlemen’s agreement with the Congolese government: he was offered a safe haven from which to begin seeking peace; in return his troops would steer clear of locals.

Raymond said the camp was a bustling town. Thatched huts stood in neat rows, while labourers farmed sweet potato, maize and beans.

At night a solar-powered television set would be brought out and the young soldiers would cheer as they watched noisy American war films. Anything starring Chuck Norris was a big hit.

After six nights living in Kony’s jungle headquarters Raymond had the chance of escape.

He was woken by a tap on the head from another prisoner. It was the signal to leave. The two tiptoed over sleeping soldiers before breaking for the thick bush around the camp.

He was one of the lucky ones. Five families in Doruma have had children snatched this year with little hope of seeing them returned.

Sitting on a low bamboo bench in the shade of a mango tree Christine Kutiote described how her 13-year-old niece, Marie, was taken as she tried to cross the river for a visit.

Now, she keeps her own four children close to home.

“I’m a Christian and I pray for them and that security will get better,” she said in the local Zande language, as a priest translated her words into French.

Her low, simple home told a different story. Its mud walls bore a pattern of white spots used by witchdoctors to ward off evil. They have little else to protect them. There is no army, the handful of police officers is unarmed and help can only arrive by plane or motorcycle, bumping for six hours along swampy tracks from Dungu, where the United Nations has a base.

Villagers are trickling in from the surrounding region seeking security but even Dungu offers little protection.

Burned-out buildings bear the scars of previous attacks by Kony’s followers. A hospital has few drugs and no anaesthetic.

This is a region well used to conflict. Uganda, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola all sent soldiers and support for a five-year civil war that claimed at least three million lives by the time it ended in 2002. Once again the tropical jungle here is being used for someone else’s war.

Governments in the region are slowly waking up the problem. Later this month the Congolese army will deploy 1000 soldiers to Dungu.

A secret intelligence document compiled by the United Nations mission to the DRC, known as Monuc, spells out the scale of the threat. It says the LRA cynically used the peace talks to organise itself into a more effective fighting force. The 670-strong band of fighters now has more than 150 satellite telephones, many bought with cash meant to aid communications during the talks.

“Simply put, Kony now has the ability to divide his forces into very simple groups and to reassemble them at will. When put together with his proven mastery of bush warfare, this gives him new potency within his area of operations,” says the report.

They were given tons of food by a charity, Caritas Uganda, to discourage the looting of villages, and sacks of dollars by Southern Sudan’s new leaders, whom they once fought.

Kony is stronger than ever, concludes the report: “Recent abduction patterns suggest that he is now in the process of perfecting the new skill of recruiting and controlling an international force of his own.”

Kony has long been something of an enigma. His use of child soldiers, tight control over his lieutenants and frequent movement meant few details of his life leaked out of the jungle. Commentators had to join the dots between a handful of disputed facts to form a fuller impression.

He was the altar boy who grew up to be a guerrilla leader. He was the wizard who used magic to protect his brainwashed adherents. And he was the deluded man from the bush who wanted to rule Uganda according to the 10 Commandments.

When he emerged blinking into the media glare two years ago for a meeting with the United Nations most senior humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, his wild, staring eyes and rambling words suggested a man with little grasp on reality.

Yet those who know him best say the simple picture of a crazed, self-proclaimed prophet is far from the mark.

“To describe him is very difficult for me. He is not mad,” said Patrick Opiyo Makasi, who was Kony’s director of operations until last year when he simply walked out of the jungle. “But he is a religious man. All the time he is talking about God. Every time he keeps calling many people to teach them about the legends and about God. Mostly it is what he is talking about and that is how he leads people.”

Colonel Makasi tells his story in soft, polite tones stumbling over the English language which he stopped learning when he was snatched from his home in Gulu, northern Uganda, at the age of 12. He was handed a Kalashnikov rifle and his school lessons were replaced by in by instruction in anti-tank mines, surface-to-air missiles and machine guns.

During the next 20 years he rose to become one of Kony’s must trusted confidantes.

Back then he was only a frightened little boy, missing his father and mother. His fellow child soldiers became his family and the process of brainwashing began.

“We stayed together and became like family. Even those who were in the bush were like your brothers,” he said in a non-descript café in a Kampala suburb, his words monitored by a government minder. “Because you are young you see some commanders like fathers. Things are happening fast and you need the others to help you. You follow what the commander says because there is no-one else to listen to.”

He impressed his superiors, eventually being given the nickname Makasi. He only learned later that the word means “difficult to break” in the Congolese language Lingala.

He insisted civilians were not his target. He waged war on the Ugandan People’s Defence Force, he said.

Yet the LRA has always needed civilians, stealing food, children and women at will.

Captured children were forced to beat escapees until they died. Once their hands were stained with blood they were told they could never leave – they would be killed by the UPDF.

Anyone suspected of badmouthing Kony had their lips sliced from their face; anyone caught riding a bicycle was liable to have their legs cut off for fear cyclists would raise the alarm as the LRA approached.

The abuses earned Kony the title of Africa’s most wanted man. The International Criminal Court in the Hague issued arrest warrants against Kony and four senior commanders in 2005.

A year ago Makasi simply strolled out of Kony’s camp, knowing that no-one would suspect the LRA’s director of operations of defecting. A day earlier Kony had murdered Vincent Otti, the LRA’s second-in-command, and Makasi knew the death of a key negotiator meant peace talks hosted by South Sudan were doomed.

Kony would never emerge from the bush he told senior commanders, and was becoming increasingly paranoid that he would face the death penalty for his crimes.

“He said the ICC was a very bad thing and if he went to the Hague he would die,” said Makasi.

For five days he struggled through the thick bush, skirting around lions, elephants and buffalo before arriving in Dungu.

He brought with him details of a staggering array of weaponry supplied by the Sudanese government in Khartoum, who once used the LRA as a proxy army in a doomed attempt to put down southern rebels.

Makasi said the LRA was given crates of AK-47s, mines, heavy machine guns and even surface-to-air missiles by the Sudanese armed forces.

“I know that because we were staying with them around their camp and we were the ones who would collect them from their lorry,” he said.

It took Makasi’s comrades eight months to bury the booty in caches dotted across Southern Sudan. They are now being excavated as Kony returns to war.

Makasi said senior officers also used to visit Khartoum for instruction. Some were flown on to Iran and Iraq to learn leadership skills, tactics and training on new weapons.

For all his bizarre beliefs and brutish tactics, analysts now believe Kony is acting with the rational behaviour of a cornered man.

“Political theorists have an expression ‘gambling for resurrection’ and that seems to be what he is doing,” said a military source. “He still thinks he can become president of Uganda, running the country as some sort of theocracy so it seems as if he is digging in.”

For Makasi though the war is over. Today he is part-prisoner, part-guest of the Ugandan government which he fought for two decades.

He said he wanted to continue his education and find work helping people. Something normal after a life lived in Kony’s alternative reality. He knows the LRA conducted staggering acts of brutality yet cannot quite bring himself to admit responsibility.

“I cannot say sorry because it was not my hope that my life was like this,” he said. “I was taken and forced to fight. It was not my will.”
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Here is a copy of the cut down version

From The Times
December 16, 2008

Lord's Resistance Army uses truce to rearm and spread fear in Uganda

Once seen as a ragtag brigade, the guerrilla force that claims divine leadership is organised and ready to renew fighting

Congo Durama 1

Christine Kutiote, whose niece was abducted by the LRA in March, with her remaining children at her home in the north east of the DRC (Kate Holt/eyevine)

Rob Crilly

For eight days Raymond Kpiolebeyo was marched at gunpoint through the Congolese jungle, not knowing whether he would live or die. At night he slept with eight other prisoners, pinned under a plastic sheet weighted down with bags and stones to prevent escape. Their sweat condensed on the sheeting, inches above their faces, before dripping back and turning their plastic prison into a stinking, choking sauna.

He was a prisoner of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a band of pitiless commanders and their brutalised child soldiers. “They told us that if one of us tried to escape we would all be shot,” said Raymond, 28, a teacher from Doruma, close to the border with southern Sudan. He had been captured by a raiding party looking for porters, sex slaves and soldiers to continue the LRA's 20-year struggle to overthrow the Ugandan Government.

His experience deep in the bush and interviews with one of the LRA's most senior defectors offer an extraordinary insight into the workings of the world's most bizarre guerrilla movement. The LRA is now in the world spotlight, as southern Sudan, Congo and Uganda have mounted joint operations to force it to negotiate or, failing that, wipe it out

This war is supposed to be over. After two years of negotiations, Joseph Kony, the LRA's reclusive leader, was expected to sign a peace deal in April. He failed to show up; his aides said that he was suffering from diarrhoea, before announcing that he would not be signing at all.

Negotiators still hope that a war that has forced two million people into squalid aid camps is close to an end. Many of its victims in northern Uganda have slowly begun leaving the sprawling shack cities where one generation was born and another died.

The border towns of the Democratic Republic of Congo tell a different story; one where slaving parties slog through the jungle, snatching children barely big enough to carry AK47 rifles. In the past few months an estimated 75,000 people have been forced from their homes in a fresh wave of attacks.

Defectors in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, say that General Kony - who claims to receive his instructions directly from God - never had any intention of laying down his weapons. Instead, he used the ceasefire to rearm, recruit and stockpile food donated by well-meaning charities and supporters abroad.

For the first time they have described a well-ordered fighting force, whose senior officers have been trained by Sudan, Iran and Iraq.

This year his fighters have roamed through southern Sudan, the Central African Republic and Congo, kidnapping more than 300 children and turning a Ugandan war into a regional conflict.

After walking for ten hours a day for six days with a sack on his back and another balanced on his head, Raymond arrived at a camp filled with children. “They were mobile. All the time they were organising,” he said, sitting in the office of Doruma school where he teaches primary-age children. “Some were leaving for other villages and others were arriving.”

General Kony is thought to have settled in Congo two years ago, disappearing into Garamba National Park in the far northeast of the country. It was part of a gentlemen's agreement with the Congolese Government: he was offered a safe haven from which to begin seeking peace, and in return his troops would stay away from locals.

Raymond said that the camp was a bustling town. Thatched huts stood in neat rows; labourers farmed sweet potato, maize and beans. At night a solar-powered television would be brought out and the young soldiers would cheer as they watched noisy American war films. Anything starring Chuck Norris was a big hit.

After six nights in General Kony's jungle headquarters Raymond had the chance of escape. He was woken by a tap on the head from another prisoner. It was the signal to leave. The two tiptoed over sleeping soldiers before breaking for the thick bush around the camp.

He was lucky to escape the LRA. Others have not been so fortunate.

Sitting on a low bamboo bench in the shade of a mango tree in Doruma, Christine Kutiote described how her 13-year-old niece, Marie, was taken as she tried to cross the river for a visit.Now, she keeps her own four children close to home.

“I'm a Christian and I pray for them and that security will get better,” she said. But her simple home told a different story. Its mud walls bore a pattern of white spots used by witchdoctors to ward off evil.

This is a region used to conflict. Uganda, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola all sent troops for a five-year war that claimed at least three million lives by its end in 2002. Once again the Congolese jungle is being used for someone else's war.

An intelligence document compiled by the United Nations mission to Congo, known as Monuc, spells out the scale of the threat. It says that the LRA cynically used the peace talks to organise itself into a regional fighting force. The 670-strong band of fighters now has more than 150 satellite telephones, many bought with cash meant to aid communications during the talks. “Simply put, Kony now has the ability to divide his forces into very simple groups and to reassemble them at will,” the report says. “When put together with his proven mastery of bush warfare, this gives him new potency within his area of operations.”

They were given tonnes of food by a charity, Caritas Uganda, to discourage the looting of villages, and fistfuls of dollars by southern Sudan's new leaders, whom they once fought.

General Kony is stronger than ever, the report concludes: “Recent abduction patterns suggest that he is now in the process of perfecting the new skill of recruiting and controlling an international force of his own.”

The general has long been an enigma. His use of child soldiers, tight control over his lieutenants and frequent movement mean that little is known of his life.

He was the altar boy who grew up to be a guerrilla leader. He was the wizard who used magic to protect his brainwashed adherents. And he was the deluded man from the bush who wanted to rule Uganda according to the Ten Commandments.

Yet those who know him best say that the picture of a crazed, self-proclaimed prophet is far from the mark. “To describe him is very difficult for me. He is not mad,” said Patrick Opiyo Makasi, who was General Kony's director of operations until last year when he walked out of the jungle. “But he is a religious man. All the time he is talking about God. Every time he keeps calling many people to teach them about the legends and about God. That is how he leads people.”

Colonel Makasi was snatched from his home in Gulu, northern Uganda, at the age of 12. He was handed a Kalashnikov and his school lessons were replaced by instruction in anti-tank mines, surface-to-air missiles and machineguns. Over the next 20 years he rose to become one of General Kony's most trusted confidants.

Then, a year ago, Colonel Makasi strolled out of the Kony's camp, knowing that no one would suspect the LRA's director of operations of defecting. A day earlier General Kony had murdered Vincent Otti, the LRA's second-in-command. Any chance of peace was finished.

Colonel Makasi brought with him details of an array of weaponry supplied by the Sudanese Government in Khartoum, which once used the LRA as a proxy army in a doomed attempt to put down southern rebels. The LRA had been given crates of AK47s, mines, heavy machineguns and even surface-to-air missiles.

The colonel's comrades spent eight months burying the booty in caches dotted across southern Sudan. They are now being excavated as General Kony returns to war. Senior officers also used to visit Khartoum for instruction, he said. Some were flown on to Iran and Iraq to learn leadership skills, tactics and training for new weapons.

Now the general is displaying the behaviour of a cornered man. “He still thinks he can become President of Uganda, running the country as some sort of theocracy, so it seems as if he is digging in,” a military source said.

Africa's most bizarre and brutal war seems no closer to a conclusion.

Congo Durama 2

Photo: Raymond Kpiolebeyo, a primary school teacher who was abducted by the LRA but managed to escape (Kate Holt/eyevine)

Congo Durama 3

Photo: Patrick Opio Makas. A former LRA commander, he deserted after being abducted when he was just 12 years old (Kate Holt/eyevine)

Congo Durama 4

Photo: A young boy sits crying on a bed while his mother undergoes a caesarian operation in the hospital in Dungu. The boy and his mother travelled 100 km to get to the nearest hospital (Kate Holt/eyevine)

Congo Durama 5

Photo: An old woman lies dying surrounded by family in the hospital in Dungu. Aid organisations withdrew from the region because of frequent attacks and abductions carried out by the LRA (Kate Holt/eyevine)

Have Your Say - A reader's comment

"Africa's most bizarre and brutal war seems no closer to a conclusion."
Indeed, without the involvement of the Khartoum regime in both times of peace and war; this enigma would continue probably unabbated for a while. I thought regional effort would involve the Bashir's Sudan as well.
BOB ACELLAM, HOIMA, UGANDA

Copyright 2008 Times Newspapers Ltd.
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Rob Crilly is a freelance journalist writing about Africa for The Times, The Irish Times, The Daily Mail, The Scotsman and The Christian Science Monitor from his base in Nairobi. Currently, after spending Christmas in Somalia and seeing in the new year on a Mexican safari while helping to build an earthbag house, Rob is travelling in the USA and writing a book about the war in Darfur, Western Sudan.

Some posts at Rob's blog From The Frontline'
11/12/08: Who'd Have Thought It? Certainly not Tony Blair, Paul Kagame’s new best friend and adviser, who has said Rwanda does not control Laurent Nkunda and his rebel army

15/12/08: So my brief guide to African beers appeared in The Times this morning. Crilly's Cool Ones...

16/12/08: Finding Peace in Northern Uganda, Southern Sudan, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic

21/12/08: My African Predictions for 2009
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Further reading

Moonlight in Dungu, N.E. DR Congo

Photo: Two young children stand outside their hut in the moonlight in Dungu, in North Eastern DR Congo, on 19 June, 2008. (Kate Holt) Ref. Sudan Watch 14 Dec 2008: Govts of Uganda, Sudan and DR Congo today launch joint offensive against Uganda LRA rebels in DRC, Uganda says.
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DR Congo: Dungu, Orientale Province Situation Report No. 4
From United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) 29 Dec 2008 - excerpt:
According to unsubstantiated information, the LRA controls seven villages around Doruma: Batande (7km North East of Doruma), Manzagala (5km North East of Doruma), Mabando (7km of North East of Doruma), Bagbugu (8km South East of Doruma), Nakatilikpa (12km East of Doruma), Nagengwa (8km North East of Doruma) and Natulugbu (6km North of Doruma). The population of these villages is moving towards Watsa, Banda and Ango (Bas Uélé).
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(Cross posted today to this site's sister blog Uganda Watch and parent blog Sudan Watch)

Sunday, January 11, 2009

100 LRA fighters attacked market town of Sambia in north-eastern DR Congo killing 8

Report from APA-Kinshasa DR Congo - Sunday 11 January 2009 - Latest Ugandan rebel incursion into DR Congo kills 8 - excerpt:
The Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) incursion Saturday night into Sambia, 130 km in the north-eastern province of DR Congo, has killed 8 people, APA learnt on Sunday from UN sources.

Those killed in the incursion were mostly civilians, and an intervention by the DR Congo Armed Forces forced the rebels to withdraw to the bush after six hours of fighting.

The attack by the LRA was confirmed by the UN Mission in DRC (MONUC)-sponsored Radio Okapi.

Humanitarian and civil society organisations are said to have been expressing grave concerns over the plight of civilians in the localities attacked by the rebels.
- - -

Report from Reuters Kinshasa by Joe Bavier Sunday 11 January 2009 - Ugandan LRA rebels kill 22 in Congo raids - excerpt:
Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels killed 22 people during weekend raids in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo, a local official said on Sunday.

Around 100 LRA fighters attacked the market town of Sambia at about 2 a.m. on Sunday, killing six civilians and a soldier, said Joseph Bangakya, deputy governor of Orientale province.

On Friday the rebels launched a similar assault on the village of Kana. "They killed 15 people there, among them two women. There were no soldiers deployed there, so they attacked the civilians," Bangakya said.

According to one LRA abductee, who survived an airstrike, the rebels had advance notice

Congolese troops failed to deploy to civilian areas to stave off retaliatory attacks. According to one LRA abductee, who survived an airstrike, the rebels had advance notice.

"We'd heard that there might be an attack," said the young woman, 20, who was kidnapped in early 2008 from her village in Central African Republic. Now eight months pregnant, the woman, whose name was withheld for her protection, narrowly escaped because she was fetching water when Ugandan helicopters attacked.

Her "husband" and other LRA fighters had left the camp earlier in the day, leaving behind abductees and children who were being forced to tend nearby crops.

"There were many people in the camps when it was bombed," she said.

Source: Los Angeles Times. Here is a copy of the report in full:

Uganda's conflict spreads to Congo, where LRA rebels massacre villagers

Photo: Lord’s Resistance Army rebels who have set up base in northern Congo hacked at Bertra Bamgbe’s face with a machete, cutting off half his left ear. Behind him is Kelele Annibetibe, who suffered a dozen stab wounds. Congolese villagers say Congo officials have failed to protect them in the face of a multination crackdown on the rebels. (Edmund Sanders / Los Angeles Times)

Uganda's conflict spreads to Congo, where LRA rebels massacre villagers

Rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army have killed about 250 Congolese in a string of attacks after their camps were bombed in a joint campaign by Congo, Uganda and Sudan.

By Edmund Sanders
January 11, 2009

Reporting from Doruma, DR Congo -- The rebels targeted churches on Christmas Day.

Men were killed first, often stripped of shirts and pants, and then bound with their arms behind their backs. Rather than waste bullets, the attackers hacked victims in the back of the neck with machetes or shattered their skulls with sticks.

"It happened step by step," said Joseph Kpayajadia, 58, a farmer who hid in the grass and saw his son being killed. "They held everyone together in a group and then took people five or six at a time into the bush to kill. Then they came back for more."

By the time the rampage ended, 254 people were dead in nine villages in a string of attacks that lasted several days, officials in Doruma estimate.

This troubled area of northeastern Congo, where regional conflicts have left 5 million people dead over 12 years, is now home base for one of Africa's longest-running and most insidious rebel movements: the Lord's Resistance Army, a fearsome group from neighboring Uganda that claims to demand strict adherence to the Ten Commandments.

A surprise joint offensive last month by the armies of Uganda, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo had sought to crush the rebel militia, notorious for preying on children, in its Congo hide-out.

But rather than kill the LRA's elusive leader, Joseph Kony, airstrikes against half a dozen rebel camps in the dense forests here appear to have only given new life to an old conflict, turning Uganda's civil war into a growing regional crisis.

After a lull in attacks over the last two years, the rebel army -- estimated at 600 fighters -- has split into small bands, scattering in different directions and terrorizing civilian populations with the most brutal massacres by the militia since 2004.

Humanitarian groups worry this pocket of northern Congo is witnessing the same type of catastrophe that northern Uganda did a decade ago. Congolese victims say the military offensive has put them in the cross hairs of a neighbor's war.

The rebels picked Christmas Day to launch their retaliation because they knew they'd find large groups of people celebrating.

Women and children were not spared. The father of a 4-year-old girl, lying stiffly on a filthy hospital mattress, said the attackers tried to break her neck and then threw her atop the corpses of her mother and two siblings. In nearby beds, other survivors, still shaking in pain and fear, were so traumatized that they had been unable to speak since the attack, hospital officials said.

Across the region, at least 500 people have been killed and 100,000 displaced in the last four months, mostly in Congo, but also in southern Sudan and Central African Republic. Officials say the death toll might be as high as 1,000, but it's difficult to tally because of the inaccessibility of Congo's dense forests and the unsafe conditions. In some villages, bodies still lie where they fell because villagers have been too afraid to return.

LRA representatives denied responsibility for the massacres in Doruma and other villages, saying they had been carried out by a rogue unit of the Ugandan army in an attempt to smear the rebels.

"On the one hand, the Ugandan military says the LRA has been wiped out, so how can LRA come back and kill in these areas?" rebel negotiator David Matsanga said.

Kony's lofty aspirations about religious revolution and fighting for Uganda's marginalized northerners faded long ago, and his group is best known now for kidnapping more than 20,000 Ugandan children in the last 22 years, turning them into killing machines and sex slaves through a combination of brainwashing, intimidation and drugs.

In 2005, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Kony. In the last two years, the guerrilla leader has flirted with signing a peace treaty, but talks stalled over his demand for immunity.

During most of that time, Kony's forces have been hiding in Congo's Garamba National Park, keeping a low profile and only occasionally attacking local populations. But in September, LRA gangs stepped up their attacks in several villages near the Sudanese border, kidnapping 90 children, including 50 from the same school.

About 350 children have been kidnapped in Congo so far, most of them taken after the Dec. 14 offensive, aid groups said. In some Congolese villages, frightened children refuse to go to school and they leave their homes at night -- preferring to sleep alone in the bush.

"They feel that if they are more dispersed, they can't be as easily targeted by the LRA," said Genti Miho, head of UNICEF's office in Bunia.

So far, the multinational campaign has received praise from the United Nations, United States and others in the international community, who say they've grown tired of Kony's broken promises.

But Congolese say they are suffering as the Ugandans pursue a longtime foe, and blame their own government for failing to provide better security.

"We are innocent," said Bertra Bamgbe, 35, a farmer from Faradje who was hacked in the face with a machete. He lost half his left ear and has a 4-inch gash in his cheek. "Why isn't anyone protecting us?"

Felicien Balani, a civic leader in Dungu, where many displaced families have gathered, said the LRA is "a Uganda problem. So why are the Congolese dying? The governments didn't plan this very well and we are the ones paying the price."

Prospects for a quick military success appear to be dwindling after some initial missteps. Ugandan forces did not follow the bombing of the rebel camps with ground troops for more than a week, giving LRA fighters time to flee.

Congolese troops failed to deploy to civilian areas to stave off retaliatory attacks. According to one LRA abductee, who survived an airstrike, the rebels had advance notice.

"We'd heard that there might be an attack," said the young woman, 20, who was kidnapped in early 2008 from her village in Central African Republic. Now eight months pregnant, the woman, whose name was withheld for her protection, narrowly escaped because she was fetching water when Ugandan helicopters attacked.

Her "husband" and other LRA fighters had left the camp earlier in the day, leaving behind abductees and children who were being forced to tend nearby crops.

"There were many people in the camps when it was bombed," she said.

Her story underscores the need for military restraint, aid workers say, because most LRA fighters are abducted children who have been forced into battle.

"The perpetrators here are also the victims," said Margarida Fawke of the U.N.'s refugee agency

Ugandan army spokesman Maj. Paddy Ankunda defended the campaign, saying it had netted LRA weapons caches, food stocks and other supplies. "We have been able to deny the LRA's capacity to make war," Ankunda said.

But the campaign has left Congolese villagers bitter and bewildered. Most had never even heard of the LRA and were unaware of the airstrikes until the rebel group turned its anger on them.

Leontine Imipavulu was bathing her week-old son on Christmas Day when a gang of men in uniforms descended upon her family's mud hut. She cowered in the bush a few yards away, clutching the infant to her breast to keep him from crying out, as the strangers killed her parents and husband with an ax.

"I was the only one in my family to survive," she said quietly. "Just me and the baby now. I still don't really know who they were or what they wanted."

edmund.sanders@latimes.com

LRA terminate negotiating team - Kony pleads with Chissano for ceasefire?

From Sudan Tribune Saturday January 10, 2009 (PARIS) - LRA terminate negotiating team - excerpt:
A statement purporting to come from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), the cultic guerrilla force that negotiated during two years with Kampala without siging the final peace deal, announced the immediate termination of its negotiating team.

LRA negotiator David Nyekorach-Matsanga

Photo: LRA negotiator David Nyekorach-Matsanga

The LRA ended all contacts with David Matsanga, Miss Abalo and Justine Labeja. Matsanga had already once before been dismissed by LRA leader Joseph Kony before allowing him to resume his activities. [...]

Matsanga had even previously in July 2008 been accused of plotting Kony’s death. The UK-based negotiator was arrested in South Sudan in April 2008 carrying a letter from Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to Kony and $20,000.

It is not clear that Matsanga would currently have any ease in contacting Kony at this point anyway. Kony’s forces have been driven to part of Garamba National Park in northeastern DR Congo, where they were attacked in late December. [...]

The supposedly LRA statement noted, that the negotiators’ removal “means they no longer speak for LRA, or peace talk negotiating delegates and must not engage in any form of negotiations.”

“The decision was reached in support for peaceful end to the conflicts in Uganda and the Great lakes Region,” claimed the text.

“This ruling is also communicated to United Nations, African Union, Non-governmental Organisations, UN appointed delegate Mr Chissano, President Joseph Kabila Republic du Congo, President of Republic of Kenya, Government of Southern Sudan President Kiir, President of Central African Republic, Uganda Government and international observers.”
- - -

From The New Vision, Uganda by Henry Mukasa and Justin Moro, Sunday 11 January 2009 - Kony pleads with Chissano for ceasefire - excerpt:
UNDER heavy fire from a joint military offensive, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader, Joseph Kony, has intensified his appeal for a ceasefire.

The LRA spokesperson, David Nyekorach Matsanga, led a delegation to Maputo over the weekend to deliver a letter to the UN envoy to the LRA-affected areas and former Mozambique president, Joaquim Chissano.

“I have just delivered a special message from General Kony to president Chissano. We want a halt in fighting. We are calling for a ceasefire. We are for peace,” Matsanga said on telephone from Mozambique yesterday. [...]

The LRA letter addressed to Chissano, who was a key player in the Juba peace talks, was also copied to presidents Yoweri Museveni, Joseph Kabila (DRC), Mwai Kibaki (Kenya), Salva Kiir (South Sudan), Africa Union chairman, Jakaya Kikwete (Tanzania), the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon and the chief peace talks mediator, Dr Riek Machar.

Matsanga declined to state the content of the letter and what response his team had received from Chissano.

However, in a copy of the letter seen by the New Vision, the LRA says the call for a truce was based on the past failure of the army to defeat the rebel group rather than feeling the heat of the operation.

“That’s why the LRA peace delegation has been left with no option but ask you to convene an urgent meeting,” Matsanga wrote.

He singled out the International Criminal Court warrants of arrest for Kony and his top commanders as the biggest stumbling block to signing the peace agreement.

“The matter of the ICC warrants has overshadowed the very nerve centre of our peace process since inception in 2006,” he wrote.

President Museveni’s press secretary Tamale Mirundi said the rebels were given one option by the President, to assemble at Ri-Kwangba.

“By the time the Government took the decision of the military offensive, the President had realised that these people were not for peace. They continued to kill and abduct civilians,” Mirundi noted.

On Matsanga’s assertion that the operation will not crush the LRA, Mirundi asked the Matsanga not to waste his breath.

“In wrestling, someone on top cannot call out to be separated. It’s the person suffocating who cries out,” Mirundi explained.

This is the second time the LRA is pleading for a ceasefire since the military offensive was launched. On December 31, Kony appealed to President Museveni to declare a cessation of hostilities.

Meanwhile, according to The Sudan Tribune, of January 10, a statement purporting to come from the LRA, announced the immediate termination of its negotiating team. [...]

UPDF troops in DRC jungle find LRA bodies floating on rivers and buried in mass graves

“We have found mass graves. Our soldiers found the bodies decomposing but we could not establish if any of the top LRA commanders are among those because they were rotten,” Brig. Kankiriho replied when asked if LRA top leaders were among the dead.

‘UPDF uncovers bodies in mass grave’
January 11, 2009 Sunday Monitor report from Kampala by Grace Matsiko:
The UPDF troops combing DRC jungles have found decomposing bodies of LRA rebel fighters buried in mass graves, the operations top military commander, has said.

Brig. Patrick Kankiriho, the UPDF overall commander for Operation Lightning Thunder, told Daily Monitor last evening that the troops also discovered bodies of rebel fighters floating on rivers.

“We have found mass graves. Our soldiers found the bodies decomposing but we could not establish if any of the top LRA commanders are among those because they were rotten,” Brig. Kankiriho replied when asked if LRA top leaders were among the dead.

“After checking the graves, we have covered them, this shows the operation caused substantial damage even when they were able to carry away the dead and later bury them.”

But Brig. Kankiriho said because of the state of the bodies, the army could not give the numbers of the dead. “The rebels we have captured say some of the dead were killed during parade and others died later because of wounds,” he added.

The UPDF, alongside South Sudan and the DRC troops on December 14 launched air strikes on the LRA bases in Garamba National Park.

Brig. Kankiriho said they have so far destroyed gardens of food crops, uncovered dry ration, captured communication gadgets, recovered guns and an assortment of war materials including documents.

“On January 5, we rescued abductees, one was from Central African Republic, we recovered a computer monitor and a gun,” Brig. Kankiriho said.

He appealed to Ugandans to be patient as the army pursues the rebels. “Ugandans should know that the place where we are there are no roads. It is almost the size of Uganda. These are forests but we are doing our best,” he added.

The latest army report could not be independent from the LRA leaders as for days their satellite telephone contacts have been switched off.
+ + + R.I.P. + + +

Saturday, January 10, 2009

UPDF's Ankunda says commander of Operation Thunder Lightning is in contact with some LRA commanders

Brig. Patrick Kankiriho, the commander of operation against the rebels, is in touch with some LRA commanders who want to come out. Kony might remain alone.

The Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, on Friday told the MONUC commander, Gen. Bubacar Gaye, that the allies would deploy more forces to exert pressure on rebels.

LRA commanders want to surrender
Sunday Vision report by Henry Mukasa Saturday, 10 January 2009:
THE UPDF is in touch with some top Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commanders who are fed up with war and want to surrender.

The UPDF spokesperson, Maj. Paddy Ankunda, currently in the Democratic Republic of Congo said the development shows that the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, is increasingly becoming isolated and vulnerable.

“Brig. Patrick Kankiriho, the commander of operation against the rebels, is in touch with some LRA commanders who want to come out. Kony might remain alone,” Ankunda told Sunday Vision on telephone from Congo.

A joint force comprising Uganda, Congo and South Sudan is engaged in the military offensive against the rebels in northeastern Congo and parts of South Sudan.

The offensive, code-named Operation Lightning Thunder, with its tactical headquarters in Dungu, Congo, was launched on December 14, after Kony refused to sign the final peace agreement reached in Juba, the South Sudan capital.

The lightning surprise attack which started with air bombardment by helicopter gunships and fighter planes obliterated the rebel’s bases in the Garamba forest. Since then the rebels and their commanders, including Kony, have been wandering in the vast jungle with no shelter and food.

According to Ankunda, rebels who have surrenderd and those captured had also informed UPDF that most of the LRA fighters were tired of the war and wanted to return home.

Asked whether the captured fighters had also stated that Kony was still in charge of the central command of all his fighters scattered Ankunda replied: “Yiko wapi? (Where is it?). Kony ran on his own just like other commanders did after the UPDF air force bombardment.”

Ankunda said the rebels who surrender and the captured are taken to the child protection centre managed by UNICEF, Save the Children and United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in the Congo (MONUC).

At the centre the returnees are given psycho-social support and rehabilitation. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) will arrange their repatriation.

Meanwhile, the Congolese forces clashed with and repelled LRA rebels who had invaded Faradge town and ransacked homes, shops and gardens for food.

The Congolese army rushed to the town after learning about the marauding rebels from residents. A shoot out ensured but the number of casualties had not been established by press time.

“Our allies of FARDC (Congolese army) engaged the rebels in the north of Faradge. They made them drop food they had stolen,” Kankiriho said.

He said the rebels had also attacked Duruma and when the allies command was informed, the UPDF swung into action and beat them back into the densely forested park.

Ankunda observed that the UPDF and allies were “on top of the situation. If someone comes to your house, kicks you out, destroys your food and you are starving, you are as good as finished”.

“They are more vulnerable than ever before. They are running around for food and we have kept the pressure on them,” he stressed.

The Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, on Friday told the MONUC commander, Gen. Bubacar Gaye, at External Security Organisation offices in Kampala that the allies would deploy more forces to exert pressure on rebels who, during the Christmas period, killed 400 civilians in Congo.

Petition calling for MONUC to arrest Laurent Nkunda - Gandhi Salt March: 1930 (Update 1: Nkunda arrested)

A few months ago, I signed a petition calling for MONUC to arrest Laurent Nkunda. I signed the petition because I am against people using violence to get what they want. As stated in my blogs many times before, my political compass is that of the late great Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi's great Salt March (see here below) was far more powerful than any army. Who knows if petitioning works? It's worth a try. It's not right that criminal law does not apply to everybody.

Here is a copy of an email received today:
Thank you for signing this petition !!!

Dear signer of the petition:
 
Thank you for supporting calls to end  impunity, sexual violence, and other war crimes in the Democratic Republic Of Congo.
 
Our records show that you're one of the 1027 people who have already signed the on going petition calling for the Mission of the UN in Congo (MONUC) to immediately arrest the war crminal Nkunda now.
 
Please help us to inform other people regarding this campaign by forwarding the petition to at least 10  friends and acquaintances and kindly ask them to do the same thing after signing the petition also. http://www.gopetition.com/online/23604.html

Again we sincerely thank you to signing this petition and for sending it to your friends and acquaintances.  http://www.gopetition.com/online/23604.html
 
Merci d'avoir signé cette pétiti 

EN FRANCAIS 
IN FRENCH 
 
Cher signataire de la pétition:
 
Merci de soutenir les appels à mettre fin à l'impunité, la violence sexuelle, et d'autres crimes de guerre en République démocratique du Congo.
 
Nos informations indiquent que vous êtes l'une des 1027 personnes qui ont déjà signé la pétition en cours, qui appelle à la Mission de l'ONU au Congo (MONUC) à arrêter immédiatement la guerre de Nkunda crminal maintenant.
 
S'il vous plaît, aidez-nous à informer d'autres personnes au sujet de cette campagne en envoyant la pétition au moins à 10 amis/connaissances et leur demander de bien vouloir faire la même choseaprès avoir signé la pétition également.  http://www.gopetition.com/online/23604.html

Encore une fois, nous vous remercions sincèrement d'avoir signé cette pétition et de l'envoyer à vos amis et connaissances. http://www.gopetition.com/online/23604.html

For More Information Please Visit Our Other Websites
 
Official web site of MJPC: http://www.mjpcongo.org/
Why the U.N must arrest the notorious war criminal Nkunda now: http://www.arrestnkundanow.org/
Online Museum of victims of war in Congo: http://www.yoursilenceoncongo.org/
Our Blog:  http://www.yoursilenceoncongo.org/
- - -

Gandhi Salt March: 1930

Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi's biographer, Louis Fischer, once said that his greatness "lay in doing what everyone could do but doesn't". Gandhi's Salt March to Dandi in 1930 can be examined as a version of this message (Source: A Living Sermon/Tom Weber)

On 12th March 1930 Mahatma Gandhi, then aged 61, started walking from Sabarmati Ashram with a band of 78 handpicked volunteers. Their destination was a beachhead 241 miles to the south, Dandi. On the 5th of April 1930, when Mahatma Gandhi and his band of followers reached Dandi, thousands had joined him en-route; the eyes of the world were riveted on this tiny and as yet insignificant beachside village in South Gujarat.

The Salt March is today worldwide acknowledged as the one event that shook the British Empire to its core. The year 2005 was the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Great Salt March.

To commemorate this historic event on an international scale the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation proposed to organise a re-enactment of the Salt March. Click here for a report of the Salt March Event. (Source: saltmarch.org.in)

Gandhi Salt March: 1930

Photo: Gandhi on the Salt March. The Salt Satyagraha was a campaign of non-violent protest against the British salt tax in colonial India which began with the Salt March to Dandi on March 12, 1930. It was the first act of organized opposition to British rule after Purna Swaraj, the declaration of independence by the Indian National Congress. Mahatma Gandhi led the Dandi march from his Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt tax free, with growing numbers of Indians joining him along the way. When Gandhi broke the salt laws in Dandi at the conclusion of the march on April 6, 1930, it sparked large scale acts of civil disobedience against the British Raj salt laws by millions of Indians. (Photo/caption source: Wikipedia)
- - -

Birth place of Mahatma Gandhi

Birth place of Mahatma Gandhi

Porbandar on India's west coast is famous for being the birthplace of India's independence leader Mahatma Gandhi.

Sadly, many of Gandhi's dreams have disappeared.

There is another facet of Gandhi's vision which has disappeared from the land of his birth.

He believed in economic self-reliance, with the village as the centre of economic production.

That ideal appears to have disappeared in the smoke that belches out of the cement and soda-ash factories that dot Porbandar.
- - -

The Pebble Pond

Pebble Pond

Extract from a piece by Gandhi's grandaughter:
"I was once told by my mother, who along with Father spent all her life working for nonviolent change, that there is a big difference between throwing a pebble in a pond and throwing a big rock. The pebble causes gentle ripples that go a long way. The rock makes a big splash that quickly disappears."
- - -

Mahatma Gandhi Autobiography - The Story of My Experiments With Truth

Source: Gandhi photos/text from the archives of my personal blog ME AND OPHELIA
- - -

UPDATE 23 January 2009: Laurent Nkunda arrested

"Ex-general" Laurent Nkunda was arrested on Thursday, January 22 at 2230 hours while he was fleeing on Rwandan territory after he had resisted our troops at Bunagana with three battalions," a Congolese-Rwandan official statement said.

Source: BBC report published 06:34 GMT, Friday, 23 January 2009:
DR Congo rebel leader 'arrested'

Gen Laurent Nkunda, the leader of the main rebel group in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, has been arrested, the military says.

He was arrested as he fled into Rwanda while trying to resist a joint Rwandan-Congolese military operation, the operation's joint command said.

Some 3,500 Rwandan troops crossed the border to help Congolese forces disarm Rwandan Hutu FDLR rebels there.
Gen Nkunda has been leading the rival CNDP Tutsi insurgency.

"The joint operations command... informs the public that the ex-general Laurent Nkunda was arrested on Thursday, January 22 at 2230 hours while he was fleeing on Rwandan territory after he had resisted our troops at Bunagana with three battalions," a Congolese-Rwandan official statement said.

Gen Nkunda is being detained in Rwanda, and is expected to be handed over to Congolese authorities soon, the BBC's Karen Allen reports from Goma in DR Congo's North Kivu province.

The CNDP launched a major offensive in August, which displaced more than a quarter of a million people in North Kivu and raised fears of a wider regional war.

Gen Nkunda and his group says they are fighting to protect the Tutsi community from attack by Rwandan Hutu rebels based in DR Congo, some of whom are accused of taking part in the 1994 genocide.

The Congolese government has often promised to stop the Hutu forces from using its territory, but has not done so.

However, others see the CNDP as a Rwandan proxy and the biggest reason why DR Congo is yet to benefit from landmark elections in 2006 intended to draw a line under decades of conflict.

Human rights group have accused CNDP forces, along with those of the government, of numerous killings, rapes and torture.

Talks in Kenya aimed at ending the conflict became deadlocked last month, with UN mediator Olusegun Obasanjo complaining that the CNDP's negotiators lacked the authority to make concessions.
- - -

Snapshot of Google's newsreel 23 January 2009 19:00 hrs GMT

DR Congo warlord Laurent Nkunda seized by Rwandan army
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - 54 minutes ago
A rebel leader who inflicted misery on the Democratic Republic of Congo, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, has been arrested after losing ...

Congo rebel arrest offers a glimmer of hope
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - 2 hours ago
David Blair says that the arrest of Laurent Nkunda is a genuinely optimistic moment for Congo and central Africa. By David Blair, Diplomatic Editor Laurent ...

Questions, answers about Congo rebel leader
The Associated Press - 2 hours ago
The surprise arrest of Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda by his former Rwandan allies raises many questions. Here are some answers. ...

Congolese rebel general calls himself man of peace
The Associated Press - 4 hours ago
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Gen. Laurent Nkunda is a career soldier who describes himself as a man of peace and Christ. But his force's reputation for killing ...

UN special envoy: Nkunda's arrest not to affect mediation in DR Congo
Xinhua, China - 4 hours ago
LAGOS, Jan. 23 (Xinhua)-- The arrest of DR Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda does not in any way affect the work of the United Nation, Special Envoy on ...

Video: Nkunda arrested in Rwanda; Kinshasa demands extradition
france24english - 4 hours ago
IN THE FIELD: Congolese Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda has been arrested in Rwandan territory by the Rwandan army. The former army general, ... Show video



Video: An alliance between congolese and rwandan armies
france24english - 4 hours ago
WEB NEWS: The Congolese and Rwandan armies had realized a military operation against the Hutu rebels. The Brazilian blogosphere identify for Gaza habitants. Show video

Profile: Laurent Nkunda
guardian.co.uk, UK - 5 hours ago
Laurent Nkunda, the Congolese warlord with a penchant for sunglasses and crisp uniforms, is generally described as a "rogue general" but experts, ...

Rwanda: why former military hero was disowned after rampages in Congo
guardian.co.uk, UK - 5 hours ago
Laurent Nkunda: had become an embarrassment to Kigali Photograph: AP Tony Blair happened to be in Rwanda at the time the Tutsi rebel general, Laurent Nkunda ...

Video: Former Rwandan allies arrest Tutsi leader Nkunda - 23 Jan 09
AlJazeeraEnglish - 5 hours ago
Rwanda and Congo have announced the arrest in Rwandan territory of Laurent Nkunda, the Congolese Tutsi rebel leader, during a joint military operation on ... Show video

Congo rebel chief arrest: Your views
BBC News, UK - 5 hours ago
Gen Laurent Nkunda, leader of the strongest rebel group in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, has been arrested in Rwanda. He crossed the border after ...

Nkunda's spectacular fall
BBC News, UK - 6 hours ago
By Peter Greste By almost any measure, it has been a spectacular reversal of fortune for General Laurent Nkunda. Two weeks ago, he was widely regarded as ...

DR Congo seeks stability in cooperation with neighboring countries
Xinhua, China - 6 hours ago
by Xiao Lingjun NAIROBI, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Battered by domestic conflicts, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) are seeking cooperation with its ...

Congolese Rebel Leader Nkunda Captured in Rwanda
Bloomberg - 6 hours ago
By Franz Wild Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic Republic of Congo renegade General Laurent Nkunda, who led a rebellion against the government that extended ...

DR Congo requests extradition of Nkunda from Rwanda
AFP - 7 hours ago
KINSHASA (AFP) — The authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo want Rwanda to extradite Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda, who they have captured and ...

Profile: Laurent Nkunda, the Tutsi rebel leader toppled from power
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - 8 hours ago
News of the arrest in Rwanda of Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda confirms a spectacular reversal of fortune for the former general, who only months ago was ...

DEM. REP. CONGO: LEADER OF TUTSI REBELS NKUNDA ARRESTED
Agenzia Giornalistica Italia, Italy - 8 hours ago
(AGI) - Kinshasa, Jan. 23 - The leader of the Congolese Tutsi rebels, general Laurent Nkunda, was arrested last night in Rwanda, as announced by the chief ...

Analysis: 'Butcher of Kisangani' Laurent Nkunda seems to have lost ...
Times Online, UK - 8 hours ago
Depending on who you talk to, General Laurent Nkunda has either spent four years protecting his Tutsi tribemates from Hutu genocidaires or he is a ...

WORLD BRIEFING
Los Angeles Times, CA - 10 hours ago
A joint Rwanda-Congo force converged Thursday on Nkunda's stronghold in the Congolese town of Bunagana on the Ugandan border, said Capt. ...

Rebel Leader Nkunda Arrested in Rwanda
Washington Post, United States - 11 hours ago
Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda was arrested in Rwandan territory after he tried to resist a joint Rwandan-Congolese military operation in eastern Congo, ...

Congo rebel leader arrested in Rwanda
International Herald Tribune, France - 12 hours ago
HONG KONG: Laurent Nkunda, the feared and flamboyant Congolese rebel leader, was apprehended Friday by a joint force of Rwandan and Congolese army troops, ...

Concerns Grow in DRC as Joint Operation With Rwanda Continues
Voice of America - 20 hours ago
By Derek Kilner Rwandan and Congolese troops are trying to disarm a Rwandan-Hutu militia in a joint operation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. ...

Congo says Rwandans could open fire on militias
eTaiwan News, Taiwan - 22 hours ago
By EDDY ISANGO AP AP Rwandan troops deploying in Congo this week are part of an effort to peacefully demobilize Rwandan militias, but they will fight if ...

Kabila decision to embrace Rwanda angers Congolese
AFP - Jan 22, 2009
KINSHASA (AFP) — President Joseph Kabila's decision to allow Rwandan troops into eastern DR Congo for a joint military operation to rid the region of armed ...


Bloody history, unhappy future

Economist, UK - Jan 22, 2009
NO ONE doubts the scale of the war in Congo. Ten African countries dispatched troops there in 1998. Two, Uganda and Rwanda, were trying to overthrow their ...

UN force demands role in Congo anti-rebel push
Reuters - Jan 22, 2009
By John Kanyunyu GOMA, Congo, Jan 22 (Reuters) - United Nations peacekeepers in Congo demanded on Thursday to be given a role in joint military operations ...

Rwandan, Congolese troops heading for Nkunda stronghold
AFP - Jan 22, 2009
RUTSHURU, DR Congo (AFP) — Congolese and Rwandan troops in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo are on Thursday heading towards the stronghold of Tutsi ...

UN peacekeepers not involved in military offensive against armed ...
Xinhua, China - Jan 21, 2009
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The joint military operation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) against a Hutu militia does not involve UN ...

UN: Rwandan troops in Congo for joint operation
CNN International - Jan 21, 2009
(CNN) -- Rwandan troops have crossed into the Democratic Republic of Congo to prepare for a joint operation with Congolese forces against a Hutu militia, ...

The World
TIME - Jan 21, 2009
By Harriet Barovick Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2009 1 | Congo Cooperation Amid Chaos Nearly 1500 Rwandan troops have joined the Congolese army to hunt down Hutu ...

Christian Science Monitor Will Rwandan troops help in Congo?

Friday, January 09, 2009

Peter Eichstaedt's book on the LRA, First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army

A few days ago, an anonymous reader going by the name of Steve sent me the following comment at a recent Sudan Watch post (LRA's Kony is in the fringes of Garamba, North of Maridi but in the Sudan territory)
January 07, 2009
Steve said...
Ingrid: Any thoughts on the LRA's predilection for massacre of civilians? I understand the murder of noncombatants has become a hallmark of low-intensity warfare, particularly in Africa, but I was hoping to get some feedback on the LRA's strategic logic in pursuing such vile tactics. Simply, WHY?
Yesterday I replied, saying this:
January 08, 2009
Steve: Mind altering substances? Not knowing or trusting who is who, uniformed or not? How to identify who is a civilian or not? Psychos pretending to be LRA so that the LRA are blamed? Are the LRA disciplined enough to use strategic logic? Voodoo? brainwashing? I really have no idea. The savagery is beyond my comprehension.
What do you think?
In the report posted here, Joseph Bangakya said. "Most were killed with machetes. (The LRA) are trying to save their ammunition."
Soon I shall be publishing here an exclusive 2,000 word report by Rob Crilly (a British freelance journalist writing about Africa for The Times) that helps shed more light on the LRA. Meanwhile, if any readers here have any thoughts on the LRA, please do share in a blog post or in the commenting facility here at Congo Watch - or email me. Thanks.

Note: Peter Eichstaedt recently posted a comment here at Congo Watch with information of a book he had written on the LRA entitled: First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army.

After publishing this post, I shall respond to Peter's comment with a link to this post in the hope that he might enlighten us as to why the LRA have a predilection for the massacring of civilians.

Sorry for the delay in responding to comments. Google's Blogger email notification of comments is not working so it takes a day or two or longer if I don't visit my Dashboard.

"First Kill Your Family"

See Peter Eichstaedt's blog at http://www.petereichstaedt.blogspot.com

Peter's book is available at:

Amazon.com
firstkillyourfamily.com.
barnesandnoble.com
24hour-books.com.

Here are some reviews and photos extracted from those websites:

Synopsis

“Richard Opio has neither the look of a cold-blooded killer nor the heart of one. Yet as his mother and father lay on the ground with their hands tied, Richard used the blunt end of an ax to crush their skulls.  He was ordered to do this by a unit commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group that has terrorized northern Uganda for twenty years. The memory racks Richard’s slender body as he wipes away tears.”
 
For more than twenty years, beginning in the mid-1980s, the Lord’s Resistance Army has ravaged northern Uganda. Tens of thousands have been slaughtered, and thousands more mutilated and traumatized. At least 1.5 million people have been driven from a pastoral existence into the squalor of refugee camps.
 
The leader of the rebel army is the rarely seen Joseph Kony, a former witchdoctor and self-professed spirit medium who continues to evade justice and wield power from somewhere near the Congo~Sudan border. Kony claims he not only can predict the future but also can control the minds of his fighters. And control them he does: the Lord’s Resistance Army consists of children who are abducted from their homes under cover of night. As initiation, the boys are forced to commit atrocities—murdering their parents, friends, and relatives—and the kidnapped girls are forced into lives of sexual slavery and labor.
 
In First Kill Your Family, veteran journalist Peter Eichstaedt goes into the war-torn villages and refugee camps, talking to former child soldiers, child “brides,” and other victims. He examines the cultlike convictions of the army; how a pervasive belief in witchcraft, the spirit world, and the supernatural gave rise to this and other deadly movements; and what the global community can do to bring peace and justice to the region. This insightful analysis delves into the war’s foundations and argues that, much like Rwanda’s genocide, international intervention is needed to stop Africa’s virulent cycle of violence.

"First Kill Your Family"

Publishers Weekly

Eichstaedt (If You Poison Us) offers a heartfelt if sometimes lopsided look at the consequences of prolonged civil war. Northern Uganda has been under siege by the rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, for 20 years, leading to death tolls rivaling those in Darfur, Sudan, which has garnered considerably more media attention. The LRA is known for employing brutal techniques, including mutilating community members who inform on them, kidnapping children to serve as male child soldiers or female "brides," sex slaves for rebel soldiers.

Interviewing victims of these crimes, as well as perpetrators, government officials and non-governmental actors, Eichstaedt weaves a story of a decimated culture caught between merciless violence and the chaos of refugee camps. The result is a close analysis of this underreported crisis, which has only recently shown signs of abating. However, some of Eichstaedt's conclusions seem uninformed at best, including his one-sided look at religious views in Uganda, which prompt his remark, "There is no moral center of gravity here, no spiritual compass that one can hold against the horizon to escape the clamor and chaos."

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Biography

Peter Eichstaedt is the Africa editor for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting in The Hague. He is a veteran journalist who has reported from locations worldwide, including Slovenia, Moldova, Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, and Uganda, and a former senior editor for Uganda Radio Network. He is the author of If You Poison Us: Uranium and Native Americans.

Kirkus Reviews

Veteran journalist Eichstaedt (If You Poison Us: Uranium and Native Americans, 1994) blows the lid off atrocities in East Africa involving alarmingly young war recruits. After working with the Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in the Hague to successfully establish an independent news agency in Afghanistan, the author in 2005 went to Uganda to do the same. The nation had been racked by civil war for 20 years, and nearly 95 percent of its citizens lived in refugee camps. But the desperate situation received little international media coverage.

Eichstaedt's attention soon focused on Uganda's northern region, ravaged by the Lord's Resistance Army. This guerrilla group, formed in rebellion against the government, was comprised mainly of children. The author personally interviewed eyewitnesses to the LRA's slaughter of Ugandan citizens, its own high-ranking officers and the child soldiers themselves.
Their tales of savagery repulsed him. "That humans were capable of doing such things for years on end was hard to fathom," he writes.

Dense, in-depth reporting showcases LRA leader Joseph Kony, a self-proclaimed witch doctor and prophet whose adoption of the name Lord's Resistance, and of the Ten Commandments as a "moral guide," was bitterly ironic in light of his tactics. The LRA kidnapped thousands of young male soldiers and child "brides," forcing them into military service and sexual servitude.

The young soldiers' first assignment was often to kill their family members. Interviews with former LRA members give an intimate spin to this concentrated narrative; those who managed to escape frequently returned home to find themselves ostracized by their families for the violence they had done. A shaky truce has been established between warring factions, Eichstaedt writes, but the LRA and the elusive Kony remain formidable obstacles to lasting peace. A chillingly lucid report on a terminally tragic catastrophe. Agent: Michele Rubin/Writers House

"First Kill Your Family"

What People Are Saying

Desmond Tutu
You must read this powerful book. Peter Eichstaedt has given voice to the victims of the largely unheard-of tragedy of Uganda. This story calls out to our very humanity.

Mac Maharaj
A book filled with haunting images that leave one groping for answers. (Mac Maharaj, South African author and activist)

Douglas Farah
This fine firsthand account should be read by anyone seeking to grapple with the challenges of war and peace in coming decades. (Douglas Farah, author, Merchant of Death and Blood from Stones)

John Dau
This book is a call to action to help our brothers and sisters in Africa that we can no longer ignore. (John Dau, president, John Dau Sudan Foundation, and coauthor, God Grew Tired of Us: A Memoir)

"First Kill Your Family"

Some Customer Reviews

December 28, 2008
For two decades, a bizarre guerrilla movement called the "Lord's Resistance Army" - part Christian-animist cult, part ethnic uprising, part simple banditry - has plagued northern Uganda and the adjoining areas of Sudan and the Congo. Its chieftain, Joseph Kony, is a former witch doctor who claims to be "fighting for the Ten Commandments". Its principal method of recruitment is the abduction of pre-teenagers, who are compelled to serve as porters, concubines and soldiers. Its trademark atrocity is cutting off the lips and noses of captives who are not pressed into service. Though its numbers have never been large, it has disrupted life throughout its area of operations. Casualties are estimated at 100,000 dead and nearly two million displaced into refugee camps.

Journalist Peter Eichstaedt's account of this long conflict is disjointed, pedestrian and overloaded with platitudes, but not ineffective. Interviews with memorable figures, ranging from former boy soldiers to Catholic missionaries to rebel and government leaders, are interspersed with the author's travelogue through a desperate land. The montage manages to convey the horror and hardship suffered by the war's victims, both those killed, maimed or abducted by the LRA and those forced into overcrowded, unhealthy and ill-defended camps by the dubiously competent Ugandan government. (Many refugees believe that the southern-dominated regime welcomes the excuse to debilitate traditionally hostile northern tribes, a view whose merits the author has trouble evaluating.)

As the book proceeds, the prospect nears of a happy ending. Community militias organize an effective resistance to the LRA. It loses the tacit backing of the Sudanese junta and is forced back to an enclave in the Congo. Peace talks begin. They never quite reach fruition, however. Again and again, the sides reach ostensible agreement, Kony announces that he will appear to sign the final accords, and then he reneges at the last minute. (Another round of this fandango took place after the book went to press, leading to a joint Ugandan-Sudanese-Congolese offensive that may (emphasize "may") be on the verge of dismantling the LRA at long last.)

A couple of morals are quite plain, though the author not only doesn't see, but actively denies, them: First, in dealing with enemies on the fringes of rationality, an ounce of military effort is worth many pounds of peace-making initiatives overseen by cosmopolitan do-gooders. Second, the International Criminal Court, which has brought formal charges against Kony and several of his top lieutenants (its very first indictments, in fact), can accomplish nothing. In this case, it may be hindering the attainment of peace, since the LRA's commanders are, not too surprisingly, unwilling to give themselves up for trial and have demanded the quashing of the indictments as a condition for signing peace terms. Useless at best and counterproductive at worst, the ICC nonetheless has Mr. Eichstaedt's whole-hearted support, perhaps because, as he reveals in a throwaway paragraph, he hopes to see American leaders someday facing "justice" before it.

Americans pay far too little attention to Africa. Therefore, books like this one can be commended to the importance of their subject and the excellence of their intentions, if not for the quality of their execution.
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December 24, 2008
This is a chilling book about the strife in Africa. I couldnt put this book down. Parts of it made me ill, seeing the souls of the worst people that have ever existed in history. A hundred thousand little Stalins and a bad idea. It sent chills up my spine knowing some of these murderers have immigrated.
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December 18, 2008
This courageous book is dedicated to the people of northern Uganda who lost their lives or suffered at the hands of the Lord's Resistance Army. Peter Eichstaedt has given voice to the child soldiers and other victims of the largely unheard-of tragedy of Uganda. We rarely hear about this on the evening news!

I highly recommend this firsthand account of events that are taking place in our lifetime for anyone seeking to understand the state of the world. We are all connected. "First Kill Your Family" should be read by the young people of our country as soon as they are old enough to comprehend the content, so that they can begin to understand the challenges humanity is faced with.

The book opens with a quote by Martin Luther King Jr.:

"Man's inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad, it is also perpetrated by the vitiating inaction of those who are good."

--Suza Francina, yoga teacher, author, activist and volunteer with Global Resource Alliance (GRA),an organization based in Ojai, California, that is dedicated to improving the quality of life for the people of Africa. www.globalresourcealliance.org.
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December 18, 2008
 "First Kill Your Family" is the story of one reporter's journey to Uganda and examination of the "Lord's Resistance Army" or the LRA. The author goes to different parts of Uganda to find out the effects of the long war that the LRA has waged in northern Uganda. It is fascinating reporting - but each chapter is a story in and of itself. The next chapter is usually only tangentially related to the previous one. The only common theme is the effects of the LRA on Uganda.

While a similar subject, "A Long Way Gone" is much more readable because it is the story of one captured boy soldier and his experiences as a boy soldier in Sierra Leone. It is still worth a read if you are interested in this particular war, but it reads much better if you think of it as a collection of news reports from the battlefield in Uganda.
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Product Details
ISBN: 1556527993
ISBN-13: 9781556527999
Format: Hardcover, 336pp
Publisher: Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Pub. Date: February 2009

POSTSCRIPT FROM CONGO WATCH
Afterthought - 5 minutes after publishing this post: What is this about I wonder? (I have highlighted it in red): "Many refugees believe that the southern-dominated regime welcomes the excuse to debilitate traditionally hostile northern tribes"
Note to self to find out more.

(Partial copy cross posted today at Sudan Watch and Uganda Watch)

Thursday, January 08, 2009

In South Sudan since Christmas: LRA killed around 40, mostly in Mundri and Maridi

January 08, 2009 report via MONUC - Ugandan rebels kill 40 in south Sudan: top official:
JUBA, Sudan, Jan 8, 2009 (AFP) - Ugandan rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have killed at least 40 people in south Sudan since Christmas, an official said on Wednesday.

The rebels attacked villagers, looted houses and burnt huts in the Western Equatoria region of Sudan, as fighters fled attacks on their jungle bases across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"They have killed around 40, mostly in the Mundri and Maridi districts," said Colonel Joseph Ngere Paciko, deputy state governor for Western Equatoria.

"One or two they may have shot, but mostly they have hacked people with machetes, or just clubbed them to death."

Troops from Congo, Uganda and south Sudan launched a joint operation in mid-December against the rebels in the northeast DR Congo -- an isolated region near the Ugandan and Sudanese borders.

"Where I am now, they have killed three more with machetes," Paciko said, speaking by satellite telephone from the field.

"Some huts have been burnt, but mostly they are looting -- taking food and medicines."

Tens of thousands of people have also been killed and nearly two million displaced in Uganda in two decades of fighting between the LRA and Ugandan government forces.

Blamed for widespread human rights violations over the years, the LRA is accused of killing hundreds of civilians in northeastern DR Congo -- at least 400, according to Catholic aid group Caritas -- during the Christmas period.

"They are desperate because they are running away from their bases that have been attacked," Paciko added. "But they are also angry with the people of south Sudan, because they think it is these people who have betrayed them."

He was not able to give precise figures on the numbers of fighters in the area, but said several groups are active.

"They are moving in small groups of 15 to 20 fighters -- classic guerilla tactics that are causing havoc to the region," he added.

The joint offensive was launched after LRA leader Joseph Kony repeatedly refused to sign a peace agreement with Kampala aimed at ending one of Africa's longest conflicts.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

UNHCR visits Congolese towns attacked by LRA

Tuesday, January 06, 2009 UNHCR report by Margarida Fawke in Bunia, Democratic Republic of the Congo:
UNHCR staff have taken part in a joint assessment mission to an area of north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo) hit by deadly attacks in recent weeks by a rebel Ugandan group.

A UN team, gathering members of UNHCR and sister agencies, met local officials, representatives of local non-governmental organizations (NGO), and displaced civilians during last weekend's visit to the towns of Tadu and Faradje in Orientale province.

The rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) attacked Faradje, some 100 kilometres west of the border between the DRC, Sudan and Uganda, on December 25-26, leaving at least 70 people dead and forcing some 37,000 to flee.

According to initial estimates, LRA fighters have killed up to 500 Congolese civilians in various attacks in the region since the launch on December 14 of a joint Congolese, Sudanese and Ugandan military operation against the rebels. The UN estimates more than 50,000 people have been displaced since mid-December, which is in addition to the 50,000 displaced during an earlier escalation of violence between September and November last year.

The latest rebel attack came on Monday in the Orientale village of Napopo. According to a sketchy report received by UNHCR, up to eight people were killed and houses set ablaze. An unknown number of people were reportedly kidnapped. Two days earlier, rebels attacked the village of Nagero, 24 kms north-west of Faradje, killing at least eight people and displacing some 3,500.

Meanwhile, the joint UN team found that most of those displaced by the LRA's Christmas attack on Faradje and its surroundings were still hiding in the bush. Some of the displaced moved towards Tadu, 37 kms south of Faradje where more than 1,000 displaced people have been registered, mostly women and children.

According to the displaced from Faradje and local NGOs, 225 people, including 160 children, have been kidnapped by the LRA and more than 80 women raped. The mission reported that people in the area were shocked and traumatized by the brutality of the attacks.

UNHCR team members said Faradje had been pillaged and destroyed by fire. More than 800 houses, three schools, government buildings and medical facilities were burned down. Most of Faradje's households lost their annual rice harvest in the fires.

Displaced children in Tadu, DRC

Photo: Internally displaced children in Tadu on Saturday. © UNHCR/M.Fawke

Registration of the newly displaced population is under way in Tadu, Faradje and neighbouring villages. The population is in dire need of food, shelter, medicine, clothes and other aid items. However, the area remains highly volatile and insecurity is a key obstacle for access by UNHCR and other aid agencies. The refugee agency is working with the local authorities and others to find ways of managing assistance in these inaccessible areas.

Ugandan army recovered military equipment from LRA bases in Garamba, DRC

Army recovers more items from LRA
January 05, 2009 New Vision Uganda report by Barbara Among:
The Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) have captured more military equipment and food from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels.

During yesterday’s cordon-and-search operation, the troops recovered the items from rebel bases in the west of Garamba Forest.

The items include 1,000kgs of sugar, four sub-machine guns with 60 rounds of ammunition, a radio communication charging system with three batteries, two Codan manpack radios, two frequency military radios, a satellite phone and one Mageran Global Positioning System.

“The rebels become more vulnerable as they lose the will and means to make war,” said army spokesperson Maj. Paddy Ankunda.

“The operation against the rebels will continue unless (LRA leader) Joseph Kony signs the Juba peace agreement and assembles at Ri-Kwangba,” he added.

On Sunday, the army recovered a grenade launcher near Camp Swahili. This is the rebel group’s main camp.

Other items captured at the start of the operation were passports, communication equipment and 30 machine guns.

Ankunda said the joint forces were working together to protect civilians. Meanwhile, the army extended condolences to families that lost their loved ones to the rebel attacks during the festive season.

Forces from Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan launched a joint operation against the LRA in north-eastern part of DRC on December 14.

As the rebels fled, they massacred over 400 civilians in Dungu. UN, Congolese and Ugandan officials said the rebels split into small groups.

Yesterday, there were reports that some of the rebels were seen in the Ango region heading towards the Central African Republic (CAR). In February and March last year, the rebels crossed over Congo’s border with CAR, where they attacked villages and abducted over 150 people.

It is said the abducted people were used as porters, sex-slaves and child soldiers. Despite claims of early success and the unanimous backing of the UN Security Council, the offensive has failed to find Kony.

The military operation follows Kony’s refusal to sign a peace deal since July 2006. He demands that the International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued against him and his top commanders be dropped.

CNDP ousts its leader Laurent Nkunda

Laurent Nkunda

Photo: Laurent Nkunda has been accused of committing war crimes (BBC)

DR Congo rebels 'oust Gen Nkunda' - Jan. 05, 2009 BBC report excerpt:
Officers in the main rebel group in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo say they have ousted their leader, Gen Laurent Nkunda - a claim he denies.

CNDP officers told the BBC they had removed Gen Nkunda because of what they described as "bad governance".

But a spokesman for Gen Nkunda then told the BBC that this was not true.

The decision to remove Gen Nkunda as leader of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) reportedly came after a meeting of the rebel group's military high command on Sunday.

In a statement sent to the BBC and signed by Brig-Gen Bosco Ntaganda, the rebels' chief of staff, the high command said Gen Nkunda's "bad leadership" and "bad governance" had distracted the CNDP from undertaking its normal activities and was dangerous for the Congolese people.

The high command had also resolved to set up an ad-hoc "transitional council" to run the group until further notice, the statement said.

A spokesman for the high command, Kamanzi Desire, said the council would ensure that the peace process continued.

"The new leadership has pledged before CNDP members, the Congolese people and the international community to create favourable conditions for peace to return to eastern DR Congo with the help of the international community and Monuc (UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo)," he told BBC Afrique.

But a spokesman for Gen Nkunda then told the BBC by phone that the rebel leader had not been ousted - and during that phone call what appeared to be the voice of Gen Nkunda could be heard in the background.

The general had called a meeting of senior rebel leaders to take place on Tuesday, the spokesman said.

In recent weeks, Gen Nkunda has reportedly been in Rutshuru, a town in North Kivu, along with a battalion of his troops.

The reports indicate that a power struggle may be taking place within the CNDP.

If the CNDP splits, it could just mean another rebel group is added to a deadly cocktail of armed militias, correspondents say.

CNDP troops