RDC: Les rebelles du M23 promettent un retrait total de Goma sous 48 heures

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Dernière modification : 27/11/2012 

- RD Congo - Rwanda

 

Les rebelles du M23 promettent un retrait total de Goma sous 48 heures

© AFP

Les rebelles du M23 ont accepté de se retirer de Goma, la capitale du Nord-Kivu, d'ici à jeudi. Un peu plus tôt, les insurgés avaient conditionné leur retrait à l'ouverture de négociations avec le président Joseph Kabila.

Par FRANCE 24 (texte)

 

Les rebelles congolais du Mouvement du 23-Mars (M23) se sont engagés, mardi 27 novembre, à un retrait total et "sans conditions" d'ici à jeudi 29 novembre midi de Goma, capitale de la province du Nord-Kivu située dans l'est de la République démocratique du Congo (RDC), a affirmé le chef d'état-major ougandais, Aronda Nyakairima.

Décryptage RD CONGO M23, Kabila, Kagame, Monusco : le who's who de la crise au Nord-Kivu

"Ce retrait sera achevé en 48 heures", a indiqué ce dernier avant de préciser que, conformément à un accord de sortie de crise scellé samedi par les dirigeants des pays des Grands Lacs, le M23 conserverait 100 hommes à l'aéroport de Goma. Les chefs d'état-major des États de la région devraient, quant à eux, se réunir vendredi 30 novembre dans la capitale du Nord-Kivu pour s'assurer du respect des accords de démilitarisation dans et autour de la ville.

Un peu plus tôt, mardi 26 novembre, le chef militaire du M23, Sultani Makenga, déclarait que ses troupes auraient quitté Goma d'ici vendredi, ville qu'elles occupent depuis une semaine. "Demain ou après demain [...] au plus tard dans trois jours, on va quitter Goma [...] On nous avait demandé de nous retirer à 20 kilomètres et nous allons le faire, il n'y a pas de problème", avait assuré à l'AFP le général.

Retrait conditionné ?

Lors d'une conférence de presse organisée à Goma à la mi-journée, le chef politique du M23, Jean-Marie Runiga, avait quant à lui affirmé que le mouvement ne se retirerait de la ville qu'une fois remplies certaines conditions. Les rebelles exigeaient l'ouverture de négociations nationales avec le président congolais, Joseph Kabila, la libération de prisonniers politiques et la dissolution de la commission électorale. Si le chef de l'État accédait à ces demandes, le départ se serait effectué "rapidement", avait précisé Jean-Marie Runiga.

Les hommes du M23 sont d'anciens rebelles ayant été intégrés aux Forces armées congolaises (FRDC) à l'issue d'un accord de paix avec les autorités de Kinshasa. Estimant que les modalités de l'accord n'étaient pas respectées, ils ont fait défection au printemps. Selon Kinshasa et l'ONU, les mutins sont soutenus par le Rwanda et l'Ouganda, ce que nient catégoriquement ces deux pays.

Leur mutinerie a provoqué cette année une nouvelle flambée de violences dans l'est chroniquement instable de la RDC ainsi qu'a la frontière avec le Rwanda.

Heurts à la frontière, Kigali dénonce les rebelles hutu des FDLR

De son côté, l'armée rwandaise a affirmé que des combats l'avaient opposé, mardi matin, à "plus de cent" rebelles hutu rwandais des Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR), venus au Rwanda depuis l'est de la RDC où ils sont basés.

La difficile cohabitation entre l'armée et les habitants de Minova Par Stéphanie BRAQUEHAIS, envoyée spéciale en RD Congo

Les FDLR, accusées par Kigali d'être constituées d'anciens responsables du génocide rwandais de 1994, ont multiplié durant des années les incursions au Rwanda, mais aucune attaque en territoire rwandais n'avait plus été signalée depuis une dizaine d'années.

"Les forces armées du Rwanda combattent des éléments FDLR qui ont attaqué dans les secteurs de Cyanzarwe et Bugeshui, dans le district de Rubavu", a indiqué à l'AFP le porte-parole de l'armée rwandaise, le général Joseph Nzabamwita. Les éléments FDLR ont traversé la frontière depuis la RDC [pour entrer] au Rwanda".

Le gouvernement rwandais a accusé dans un communiqué les FDLR de tenter de "tirer avantage de l'instabilité dans l'est de la RDC", assurant toutefois que cette attaque ne nuirait pas aux efforts de paix menés par la Conférence internationale sur la région des Grands Lacs (CIRGL).

FRANCE 24 avec dépêches

http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2012/nov/27/congo-rebels-defy-order-goma

 Tuesday 27 November 2012 09.43 EST

Congo rebels loot central bank in Goma

M23 fighters are seen surrounding bank and loading bags into cars after refusing to withdraw from city

The M23 spokesman Bishop Jean-Marie Runiga. Photograph: Phil Moore/AFP/Getty Images

Pete Jones in Goma

Congo rebels have looted the central bank in Goma after refusing to withdraw from the city they captured last week.

M23 fighters surrounded the bank early this afternoon, and were seen loading white bags into cars. The rebel soldiers looked nervous and ordered the Guardian to leave the area.

"They're looting the bank," a UN source said.

Earlier on Tuesday the rebel leader Bishop Jean-Marie Runiga said M23 would refuse to obey a call by regional leaders of the International Conference of the Great Lakes to leave the capital of North Kivu province to pave the way for peace talks.

A withdrawal would be the result, not a precondition, of negotiation, Runiga said.

"I demand the following of [the Congolese president] Joseph Kabila, if M23 is to withdraw [from Goma]," he said at a press conference in Goma, before outlining a series of conditions. Notably, he demanded freedom for the opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi and other political prisoners, the dissolution of the electoral commission, and an investigation into the attempted murder of Dr Denis Mukwege.

"If [Kabila] does this then there is no problem, we can talk immediately about leaving the town," said Runiga.

A spokesman for the Democratic Republic of the Congo government, Lambert Mende, told Reuters these conditions were a farce. "It's a farce, that's the word," he said. "There's been a document adopted by the region [to move towards negotiations]. If each day they're going to come back with new demands it becomes ridiculous. We're no longer in the realms of seriousness."

The army spokesman Colonel Olivier Hamuli said his forces would take action against the rebels. "If they will not leave Goma then war will continue," he said. "We must recapture the territory that the rebels have taken."

Meanwhile there were reports of an attack by the extremist rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), who are enemies of the M23, over the border in Rwanda. Brigadier General Joseph Nzabamwita, the Rwandan army spokesman, told Reuters 150 rebel fighters attacked villages in Rwanda near the Congolese border. FDLR denied their involvement.

Runiga accused the Congolese army of collaborating in the operation, a claim denied by the Congolese army.

"M23 control the border [with Rwanda]. Where are we supposed to have crossed?" asked the Hamuli, the army spokesman.

There were reports of fighting between the Congolese army and M23 near the village of Shasha about 21 miles (35km) west of Goma overnight between Monday and Tuesday. A UN source said that neither the army nor M23 had significantly changed their positions after the clash.

M23 is a reference to 23 March, the day in 2009 when the Congolese government signed a peace deal with various rebel groups operating in the east of the country. M23 wants to discuss these accords which, it says, were not adhered to by the government. However, Runiga on Tuesday said their demands now went further than simply revisiting the three-year-old peace deal.

"Between 2009 and 2012 many things have happened. There are many problems in Congo which persist," he said. "We want negotiations, but only on the condition that we re-evaluate [the 2009] accords and also deal with fundamental questions about the life of the nation." Corruption, infrastructure, education, health, security and democracy were all on M23's agenda for discussion, Runiga said.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8AQ0GE20121127?irpc=932

Rwanda says FDLR rebels attacked villages, rebels deny this

(Reuters) - Rwanda said on Tuesday its troops clashed with Rwandan FDLR rebels who attacked three villages on its border with Democratic Republic of Congo, but a spokesman for the FDLR denied its fighters had been involved.

Rwanda has in the past used the presence of the FDLR as a justification for intervening in neighbor Congo. But the rebel group, which experts say has dwindled in strength, has not mounted a significant attack on Rwanda in years.

Rwandan defense forces spokesman Brigadier General Joseph Nzabamwita said about 150 fighters of the FDLR, a Rwandan Hutu rebel group operating in eastern Congo, attacked the villages at dawn in Rubavu district in Rwanda's Western province which borders Congo's North Kivu province.

"The RDF (Rwandan Defence Forces) has been engaging them. Some fled back to the DRC and others dispersed into Rwanda in small groups and the RDF is still engaging them," he said.

He said four FDLR fighters had been killed in the clashes but no civilians had been hurt.

The FDLR, which opposes the Tutsi-led government in Kigali and includes Hutu soldiers and militia suspected of participating in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, denied it had been involved in any fighting.

"Up to now, there is nothing to confirm there was an attack by our forces against Rwanda," FDLR rebel spokesman La Forge Fils Bazeye said.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUSCO) reported fighting north of North Kivu's provincial capital Goma, which since last week has been held by Tutsi-led rebels of the M23 movement, which has driven back the U.N.-backed Congolese government forces of President Joseph Kabila.

"There is fighting with heavy artillery going on north of Goma," MONUSCO spokesman Mounoubai Madnodje said.

But he could not say who was involved in the fighting.

No independent confirmation was available of the alleged FDLR attacks on the border villages.

Asked whether the FDLR had fighters in the area of the reported fighting, Bazeye said: "That's an area controlled by M23, we can't live side by side with M23."

Congo and U.N. experts accuse Rwanda of backing the M23 group in eastern Congo, a charge vehemently denied by Rwandan President Paul Kagame who has long complained that Kabila's government and U.N. peacekeepers have not done enough to drive out the FDLR from that area.

Heads of state from the Great Lakes states at the weekend called on M23 to halt its war against Kabila's government and to withdraw from Goma. Uganda's military chief said on Tuesday that an M23 leader had agreed to withdraw from Goma.

(Reporting by Jenny Clover in Kigali and Jonny Hogg and Richard Lough in Goma; Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Pravin Char.

James Kabarebe still commanding rebels in Congo

This is not the first time Rwandan minister of defense James Kabarebe commanded rebels in Congo. M23 is just a remix youtube.com/watch?v=mECN7J…

U.S. Sends Top Africa Diplomat For Congo Peace Talks

By Dana Hughes

@dana_hughes

Devin Dwyer

@devindwyer

Nov 26, 2012 6:54pm

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/11/u-s-sends-top-africa-diplomat-for-congo-peace-talks/

U.S. Sends Top Africa Diplomat For Congo Peace Talks

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White House and State Department officials confirmed that the Obama administration has dispatched the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Johnny Carson, to Central Africa this weekend to help negotiate an end the latest crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"I can tell you that Assistant Secretary Carson is in the region working on this issue," White House Spokesperson Jay Carney told reporters. "The president is updated through the Presidential Daily Briefing on the developments there in the Congo and is obviously very concerned about the violence and the loss of life." .

Last week the rebel force M23 seized Eastern Congo's financial capital, Goma, throwing the country and the region into chaos and uncertainty. For months the group has been advancing on the eastern part of the country, exchanging fire with the Congolese army and committing atrocities such as rape and murder in its campaign. With evidence of involvement from regional neighbors Rwanda and Uganda, the crisis is threatening to turn into a war, similar to the last Congolese war, which lasted over a decade and killed more than an estimated three million people.

Aid organizations such as Oxfam and UNICEF say the latest crisis with M23 has already caused nearly 100,000 people to flee their homes. Other humanitarian groups are struggling to get supplies and food in to help the nearly half a million Congolese who were already living in camps in the area, displaced from decades of violence.

The Obama administration has come under fire for what some have called a lack of engagement on the issue. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did meet with Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Congo's President Joseph Kabila at the UN General Assembly Meeting in New York in September to urge them to find a peaceful solution to not only M23, but the underlying issues that were fueling the rebel group.  The administration also suspended $200,000 in military aid to Rwanda, the staunch U.S. ally, who United Nations investigators say is funding the rebel group. But human rights groups say last week's actions by M23 are proof that not enough has been done diplomatically.

"The US government's silence on Rwandan military support to the M23 rebels can no longer be justified given the overwhelming evidence of Rwanda's role and the imminent threat to civilians around Goma," said Tom Malinowski,  the Washington director of Human Rights Watch in a statement. "The US government should support urgent sanctions against Rwandan officials who are backing M23 fighters responsible for serious abuses."

The Rwandan government continues to deny it is supporting the rebel group. State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland confirmed that Carson will meet with President Kagame while in the region, but she declined to explicitly name Rwandan as a supporter of the militia.

"We've been very clear that we want to see all outside support for M23, for any of these groups, come to an end," said Nuland, who also said Secretary Carson is working with leaders from Rwanda, Congo and Uganda to negotiate a cease-fire and withdrawal of the rebels before the violence escalates.

"We want to see a cease-fire. We want to see a pullback to July lines," said Nuland. "We want to see a sustainable process of negotiation and discussion of the status of the eastern Congo with all the stakeholders."

Actor Ben Affleck, who founded the Eastern Congo Initiative, a humanitarian organization working in Eastern Congo with local leaders for peaceful, long-term solutions to the country's problems, told George Stephanopoulos onABC's This Week, that the administration could be applying more pressure to all the parties involved to bring peace to the region.

"We have a lot of levers there. We can engage in the kind of high-level, shuttle diplomacy that you saw be so effective in Gaza," said Affleck, who pointed out that the United States contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to the 17,000 UN peace keeping force in the country. "With the United States when we had issues that were important to us, we sent John Kerry to Sudan, we sent Bill Richardson, we sent — I think it was North Korea — General Powell, folks like that.  That's a level of engagement that I think we need to step up to."

ABC's Bazi Kanani contributed to this report.