D.R. CONGO

RDC: l’ONU «reste préoccupée par les arrestations arbitraires»

Source: RFI

6 Mai 2015 - En RDC, le militant du mouvement lutte pour le changement (Lucha), Fred Bauma, a finalement été déferré au parquet et transféré à la prison le mardi 5 mai, après 50 jours de détention par les services de sécurité et sans accès à un avocat. Il n'a pas encore été notifié les charges qui pèsent contre lui, tout comme pour Yves Makwambala, un autre militant arrêté lui aussi à la mi-mars. Le chef du bureau des Nations unies pour les droits de l'homme au Congo, José-Maria Aranaz, appelle les autorités à mettre fin au recours à la détention arbitraire en RDC.

RFI : quelle est votre réaction après l’annonce du transfert de Fred Bauma à la prison centrale de Makala ?

José-Maria Aranaz : Le transfert de Fred Bauma au parquet judiciaire, après cinquante jours de détention en isolement, sans accès à la justice et sans supervision judiciaire est une bonne nouvelle. Même si nous restons encore préoccupés par l’utilisation de l’arrestation arbitraire et sans accès à la justice contre les membres de l’opposition, membres de la société civile et les défenseurs des droits de l’homme.

Est-ce que c’est un point que vous avez soulevé auprès des autorités congolaises ?

Oui, on a insisté beaucoup dans toutes nos réunions et dans le processus de dialogue avec les autorités sur le fait qu’il faut en finir avec les arrestations arbitraires sans accès à la justice. La détention arbitraire sans accès à la justice est une violation des droits de l’homme et il faut mettre tous les détenus, le plus tôt possible, à la disposition des autorités judiciaires.

DRC army in fierce fight with Uganda rebels

Source: Reuters

Kinshasa, 5 May 2015 - The army of Democratic Republic of Congo killed 16 Ugandan Islamist rebels over the weekend in fierce fighting, a military spokesperson said on Tuesday, part of a campaign to drive the militants from the country's volatile eastern region.

Congolese forces launched Operation Sukola I early last year against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), who are accused of massacring some 300 villagers near the town of Beni in North Kivu province between October and December.

Four Congolese government soldiers were also killed in Sunday's fighting, which took place in Kokola, about 40km north of Beni, according to Major Victor Masandi, an army spokesperson for the operation.

"The toll from the battle is 16 ADF killed, six AK-47s recovered," he said.

The ADF was formed in the 1990s to fight the Ugandan government but it has transformed into a secretive Islamist group that now operates on the Congolese side of the border, where it is active in the illicit trade in timber and gold.

Overnight attacks on civilians blamed on the rebels have declined since the army stepped up operations against the group late last year, though dozens of civilians have still died this year in similar massacres.

The Congolese government said last week its forces had killed the group's third highest ranking commander.

The ADF's leader, Jamil Mukulu, was also reported arrested in Tanzania last week, but the Ugandan government told Reuters it was still trying to verify whether Mukulu was in fact in custody.

Army spokesperson Masandi said the ADF had been significantly weakened by pressure from the operation. He said the group had been reduced to about 50 fighters operating in isolated clusters, well below a recent United Nations estimate of around 500 combatants.

He blamed the ADF for an attack on Monday targeting a helicopter belonging to Congo's UN peacekeeping mission, known as Monusco.

In a statement on Monday, Monusco said the helicopter was able to land safely, attributing the attack to unidentified armed men.

Eastern Congo, where a 1998-2003 conflict resulted in millions of deaths, remains plagued by dozens of armed groups that prey on the local population and exploit its vast reserves of gold, tin and diamonds.

4 UN peacekeepers found in east Congo after ambush attack that killed 2 others

Source: AP

Kinshasa, 6 May 2015 - A spokesman for the U.N. mission in Congo says four missing U.N. peacekeepers have been found following an attack that left two others dead.

Felix Prosper Basse told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the four Tanzanian peacekeepers who went missing during the attack have been located.

Basse said it still wasn't clear which of the many armed groups in eastern Congo was responsible for the killings, though others have said that members of a Ugandan rebel group may have carried out the attack.

The ambush came a day after gunfire hit a helicopter carrying the mission's force commander in the same region.

Mineral-rich eastern Congo has been plagued by a number of armed rebel groups since the Rwandan genocide two decades ago.

30 killed in ethnic clashes in DR Congo

Source: http://news.videonews.us/30-killed-ethnic-clashes-dr-congo-0711340.html

7 May 2015 - At least 30 indigenous Pygmies were killed in an attack by members of the ethnic Bantu majority in the northern part of Katanga region southern the Democratic Republic of Congo, a source said Wednesday.

Bienvenu Kalunga, the head of the NGO Coalition of Indigenous Peoples, said that Bantu members had attacked Nyunzu locality in Katanga with blunt weapons, killing 30 members of the Pygmy minority and then escaped.

Bantus are yet to comment on the attack.

“We feel sorry for such an attack,” Kalunga said, going on to call for intervention of the Congolese army UN troops.

The Congolese army said, meanwhile, that it did not plan to take any action against the attack.

“The army prefers not to resort to force at present,” army chief of staff Gen. Kifwa told The Anadolu Agency.

He said the army would wait until negotiations between Bantus and Pygmies come against a hard wall.

“Using force at the present time will only increase the number of victims,” he added.

The UN mission in Congo known as MONUSCO has not reacted to the attack yet.

Mission head Martin Kobler has recently vowed to work to bring an end to conflicts in the southern region and to deploy a large number of troops in the region, home to more than 5,000 refugees now.

UN reinforces east DR Congo troops after peacekeepers killed

Source: AFP

7 May 2015 - The United Nations has sent reinforcements to its Democratic Republic of Congo peacekeeping force near the eastern town of Beni after two soldiers were killed and 13 others wounded in an ambush on Tuesday.

“This morning [Wednesday, 6 May 2015] we sent reinforcements to the Beni area -- a rapid response unit to back up those caught in ambush,” Felix Prosper Basse, spokesman for the UN’s MONUSCO DR Congo mission, told AFP a day after two Tanzanian peacekeepers and two civilians were killed near Beni.

The attack was the second within 48 hours on UN personnel in the country. On Monday, a UN helicopter carrying MONUSCO’s military leader, Brazilian General Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz, was fired upon by unknown gunmen and forced to make an emergency landing.

Basse added that Santos Cruz would also travel to Beni -- a trading hub in an area regularly targeted in attacks by Ugandan rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).

Santos Cruz’s objective, Basse said, was to coordinate “robust measures” against members of the ADF suspected of staging Tuesday’s deadly ambush.

The shadowy ADF, which launched an insurgency in neighbouring Uganda against President Yoweri Museveni in the mid-1990s, is accused of killing more than 260 civilians in and around Beni between October and December last year.

In addition to the two Tanzanian peacekeepers killed in the ambush, 13 other UN troops of unknown nationality were shot and wounded, MONUSCO said.

On Wednesday, Ugandan police announced they had requested the extradition of ADF boss Jamil Mukulu, who was arrested last month in Tanzania. He is wanted on suspicion of a range of crimes, including terrorist acts and murder.

Last month, the ADF’s third most senior figure, Kasada Karume, was killed in fighting with Congolese troops, the national army said.

A further 28 ADF fighters have been killed, 22 wounded, and eight captured in battles in the region since the weekend, according to civil society sources.

“Today, despite what one might think... the ADF has never been so weak,” said General Jean Baillaud, deputy commander of the MONUSCO mission.

He added the process of “eradicating” the rebels had reached a “crucial phase.”

The slain Tanzanian soldiers were members of a 3,000-strong UN intervention brigade, itself part of a broader 20,000 MONUSCO force struggling to quell violence by scores of armed groups operating in the east of mineral-rich DR Congo.

The UN Security Council condemned the attack and reiterated that targeting peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law.

The members of the Council also expressed deep concern at the “security crisis” in eastern DR Congo, which they blamed on “ongoing destabilizing activities of foreign and domestic armed groups.

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BURUNDI

Burundi crisis talks in bid to end political violence

Source: AFP

Bujumbura, 6 May 2015 - Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza faced growing pressure Wednesday over days of deadly protests triggered by his bid for a third term in power, with the UN voicing concern and the opposition demanding the presidential poll be delayed.

The head of the UN's refugee agency, Antonio Guterres, said he was "extremely worried" by the exodus sparked by the crisis.

Tens of thousands have fled the small central African nation.

While the government and opposition held talks, protesters defied calls to end demonstrations after more than a week of street battles, in which over a dozen people have been killed.

Nkurunziza, a former rebel leader from the Hutu majority who has been in power since 2005, has come under intense international pressure to withdraw from the June 26 election.

"This is a last chance... they have to come up with concrete solutions so that elections can be held in acceptable conditions," a diplomat said of the talks, warning international funding for the polls could be cut if a deal was not struck.

But the main opposition leader Agathon Rwasa said the crisis had already gone too far, demanding a delay because the "credibility of the electoral process is already in doubt" and calling for the ruling party's youth wing, a powerful militia called the Imbonerakure, to be disarmed.

He also criticised the police, who have fired live rounds at protestors.

On Wednesday, the police arrested a leading activist, Audifax Ndabitoreye, for "insurrection," an AFP journalist witnessed.

The arrest of the dual Burundi and Dutch national, who has played a key role in the demonstrations, came a day after he called for further protests.

East African foreign ministers, from neighbouring Rwanda and Tanzania as well as Kenya and Uganda, met in the capital Bujumbura Wednesday, where at least 16 people were wounded in further clashes, according to the Red Cross.

Regional leaders will hold a crisis meeting on May 13 in Tanzania, the ministers said.

The government and opposition also held talks, after furious protesters rejected a constitutional court ruling allowing Nkurunziza to stand again.

The court's vice-president fled the country after refusing to sign the judgement.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday he was "deeply concerned" about Nkurunziza's decision to run again, which he said "flies directly in the face of the constitution".

- 'Enough crises' -

Burundi's foreign ministry declared that "peace and security reigned" across the country, apart from "a few districts of the capital... shaken by illegal demonstrations and violence triggered by certain political opponents."

Vice-President Prosper Bazombanza pleaded for the protests to end, offering to release demonstrators who had been arrested, lift arrest warrants issued for key activists and reopen independent radio stations -- provided "protests and the insurrection stop".

Burundi, where a 13-year civil war between Tutsis and Hutus ended only in 2006, has been rocked by violent protests since the ruling CNDD-FDD nominated Nkurunziza to stand for a third term.

Critics say his candidacy violates the constitution and the Arusha accords that ended the civil war.

Nkurunziza's supporters counter that he is eligible to stand again since his first term in office followed his election by parliament -- not directly by the people, as required by the current constitution.

Over 35,000 Burundians have already fled to neighbouring nations, mainly to Rwanda.

Expressing concern at the situation, UNHCR chief Guterres said: "We thought Burundian refugees were something we would never have to discuss again, unfortunately we are back to having a significant outflow of Burundians."

"It must stop. We have enough crises in the world," Guterres said in Kenya.

Rwanda has warned Burundi it must protect civilians and said it has received reports linking the violence to ethnic Hutu rebels from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), who fled Rwanda into Democratic Republic of Congo after the 1994 Rwandan genocide of mainly Tutsis.

Rwanda has previously sent troops into DR Congo to tackle the rebels.

Burundi's foreign ministry dismissed the reports, saying such forces would not be "tolerated on Burundian territory."