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DRC WAR OF AGGRESSION: WAS TANZANIA ALWAYS IN THE FRAY?
Par A.R.Lokongo, Sptember 2000
Despite the peace deal signed in Pretoria, South Africa, between Rwanda and Congo, arms have not fallen silent. The "90-day time span" allocated for the withdrawal of Rwanda's Tusti-led army from the Democratic Republic of Congo in exchange for Kinshasa's demobilisation, disarmament and repatriation (DDR) of thousands of Hutu militia accused of being responsible for the 1994 genocide, is dangerously drawing to a close. In fact, a full scale war has resumed both in the eastern and north-eastern parts of Congo.
In the north-eastern, Ugandan troops are said to have been withdrawn from Gbadolite and Beni (Congo has just sighed another peace agreement with Uganda) but still concentrating in Bunia and siding with the Hema tribesmen (Tutsi-like pastoralists) fighting the Lendu ( Bantu hunters and cultivators) and their respective rebel allies. These "ethnic clashes" that continue to claim scores of lives of innocent Congolese civilians, prompted Ntuba Luaba, Congolese Minister for Human Rights to visit the region and invite all the protagonists to a peace conference. He was held hostage for two days by Hema militia and was released only after a representative of the UN Mission in Congo (Monuc) pleaded with the Ugandan government to exert its influence over the militia and have the minister freed. Upon his release he described how civilians were subjected to amputations and bore machete scars, familiar scenes in Sierra Leone.
L'Avenir, a Kinshasa-based daily revealed on 5th September 2000, that hundreds of Hema youth are being trained to use fire arms by Rwandan, Ugandan and Tanzania instructors at Mandro-Katoto camp where the minister was held hostage, adding that, arms were dropped on daily basis by a plane fairing from Tanzania.
L'Avenir said: "On appearance, Congo is in very good terms with Tanzania. But we have always denounced that country's covert involvement in the war of aggression that our country has been subjected to since 1998. All the wealth looted in Congo usually pass through Tanzanian ports. It is no surprise that we called Benjamin Mkapa's country, 'the fourth aggressor of Congo that dares not tell its name'.
"Can Mkapa really resist the pressure from the Anglo-saxon powers who are sponsoring this invasion if they asked him to fulfil his part of the duty? Absolutely not. We have always known that Canadian and British marines were training Tanzanian troops. It is a matter of putting your money where your mouth is."
Elsewhere, Monuc has confirmed that Rwanda is not only pouring in fresh troops and Tutsi population (30.000 in total) into north and south Kivu, but also conquering all the territories that have supposedly been evacuated by Ugandan troops, including Mungbere, Gombari and Lubero and are pushing in towards Watsa. UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, in a letter to Paul Kagame denounced this forced implantation.
But so far Kinshasa is still silent. And Zimbabwe, the biggest of its ally is in the process of withdrawing almost all its troops. Silent until when?
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