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The war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC - formerly called Zaire, under President Mobutu Sese Seko) is the widest interstate war in modern African history. Congo has become an environment in which numerous foreign players have become involved, some within the immediate sub-region, and more worrisome in fact, some from much further afield. That only serves to complicate the situation and to make peaceful resolution of the conflict that much more complex. The war, centered mainly in eastern Congo, involved nine African nations and directly affected the lives of 50 million Congolese.
The International Rescue Committee says that since 1998 up to three-million people have been killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Millions more have become internally displaced or have sought asylum in neighboring countries.
American aid spending on sub-Saharan Africa were at high levels through the mid-1980s due to the global competition with the Soviet Union. As the competition with the Soviet Union began to fade, and as efforts to reduce the US budget deficit intensified, there were overall reductions in assistance to the region. Policymakers increasingly focused on human rights and economic reform performance in making decisions on aid allocations. Aid to some African countries that had been major Cold War aid recipients -- notably Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Liberia, was sharply reduced. The reductions took place almost entirely within the security-oriented programs: military assistance and especially the Economic Support Fund (ESF). Overall aid to sub-Saharan Africa did decline in FY1996 and FY1997, but a recovery began in FY1998.
The Congolese people are made up of around 200 separate ethnic groups. These ethnic groups generally are concentrated regionally and speak distinct primary languages. There is no majority ethnic group - some of the largest ethnic groups are the Luba, Kongo and Anamongo. The various ethnic groups speak many different languages but only four indigenous languages have official status - Kiswahili, Lingala, Kikongo and Tshiluba. French is the language of government, commerce and education. Societal discrimination on the basis of ethnicity is widely practiced by members of virtually all ethnic groups and is evident in private hiring and buying patterns and in patterns of de facto ethnic segregation in some cities. In large cities, however, intermarriage across ethnic and regional divides is common.
The Tutsi/Hutu conflict has spanned centuries, with both ethnic groups present in Rwanda and Burundi as well as in eastern DR Congo. Uganda is involved also as its western ethnic groups spill over into eastern DR Congo. The whole area is an unfortunate legacy of European colonialism. Since the start of the current conflict in 1998, Tutsis have been subjected to serious human rights abuses, both in Kinshasa and elsewhere, by government security forces and by some citizens for perceived or potential disloyalty to the regime. By 2001, the Government no longer followed a policy of arresting and detaining members of the Tutsi ethnic group without charge and merely on the basis of their ethnicity. Approximately 300 Tutsis who voluntarily entered a government protection site at the National Social Security Institute in Kinshasa remained there at the end of 2001 awaiting resettlement or reintegration into the community. Human rights abuses committed against Tutsis significantly decreased during 2002 but human rights groups have complained that discrimination against persons perceived to be of Tutsi ethnicity and their supporters has continued.
The main domestic human rights organisations operating in the country include Comite Droits de l'Homme Maintenant, a national network of human rights organisations; la Voix des Sans Voix (VSV), an active Kinshasa-based organisation; Group Jeremie and Groupe Amos, two Christian-inspired group that have focused on human rights and democracy issues; CODHO, a human rights monitoring group; Toges Noires, an international association of lawyers and judges involved with human rights and Association Africaine de Defence des Droits de l'homme (ASADHO).
International human rights organisations operating in Kinshasa include the International Human Rights Law Group, the International Foundation for Elections Systems, Search for Common Ground, Avocats Sans Frontiers-Belgium and the National Democratic Institute. Representatives of other international human rights and democracy NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch Africa and the National Endowment for Democracy, visited the country during 2002.
In areas not in government control, there are fewer domestic and international human rights NGOs than in government-controlled territory. The NGOs that are active in in rebel-held areas have been subject to harassment, arrests and torture by rebel forces in an attempt to obstruct their reporting. Domestic human rights organisations operating in rebel-held areas include SEDI, a human rights NGO monitoring violations in South Kivu; PAIF, a woman-led NGO monitoring violence against women in the Kivus; RODHECIC, a human rights NGO network active in South Kivu; ARC, a human rights NGO focusing on abuses against religious groups and women and Groupe Lotus, Amis de Nelson Mandela and Justice and Liberation. These NGOs monitor human rights abuses in Kisangani.
One of the most perplexing issues in the DRC conflict remains that of the continued exploitation of the DRC’s natural resources. It has long been established that the exploitation of these resources, including coltan, gold, and diamonds in eastern Congo, and diamonds, copper, cobalt, and timber in central DRC, contributed to and exacerbated the conflict in the DRC. Concerned with reports of pillaging of resources by the foreign forces, the UN Security Council mandated an independent panel to investigate these allegations. The panel has produced a series of reports, detailing the circumstances of this exploitation.
Most of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) was ruled by President Laurent Desire Kabila, whose Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL) overthrew the authoritarian regime of Mobutu Sese Seko by armed force in 1997. The country's dilapidated transportation and communications infrastructure impaires central Government control.
President Joseph Kabila's cabinet and office staff is geographically and ethnically diverse but a significant amount of political influence remains in the hands of individuals (both inside and outside the Government) from the Luba Katangan ethnic group of the president's father, former president Laurent Kabila. Katangans in the FAC are substantially more likely to be promoted and to be paid more than persons from other regions. The leadership and armed forces of the rebel MLC continue to be dominated by Congolese from the Equateur Province. The RCD-G leadership continues to be dominated by Tutsis.
Former members of the Rwandan army fled to the DROC after the fall of the Hutu-dominated government of Rwanda in 1994 in the wake of ethnically motivated massacres by the Hutus that left some 800,000 people dead. The former Rwandan military mounted attacks on DROC insurgents opposing the government of President Laurent Kabila.
The war began on 02 August 1998, when Laurent Kabila tried to expel Rwandan military forces that had helped him overthrow Mobutu. Congolese Tutsis as well as the Governments of Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda, all relied on the Rwandan military presence for protection against hostile armed groups operating from the eastern part of the country. A few months later another front was opened in the Northeast of the DRC. Zimbabwe, Angola, Chad and Namibia deployed their troops in the DRC to join forces with the loyalist army, while Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi sponsored the different rebel movements (the Congolese Rally for Democracy and the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo) with a view to toppling Kabila.
By the end of 1998, the Government had lost control of more than one-third of the country's territory to a rebel organization, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), dominated by members of the Tutsi ethnic minority. Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi were behind the rebel movement that tried to topple Congolese President Laurent Kabila. The rebellion started in early August 1998, when Kabila tried to expel from the country Rwandan military forces that had helped him overthrow Mobutu, and upon which the Congolese Tutsis and the governments of Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi all relied for protection from hostile nongovernmental armed groups operating out of the eastern part of the country. These groups included:
In the ensuing civil war, elements of the armed forces of Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda operated inside the country in support of the rebels; elements of the armed forces of Angola, Chad, Namibia, and Zimbabwe operated inside the country in support of the Government; and the nongovernmental armed groups mentioned above operated inside the country on the side of the Government, often as guerrillas inside RCD-occupied territory. Uganda sought to stop attacks by rebels sponsored by Sudan and operating through eastern Congo while Rwanda and Burundi were out to stop the incursion of Hutu insurgents into their territories. None of the three countries felt inclined to back a cease-fire agreement that did not address their border securityconcerns.
In a ceremony in Lusaka on 21 August 1999, all elements of the Congo's rebel forces signed the Lusaka peace agreement. The truce was signed by representatives of the different factions of the divided Rally for Democracy whose rival factions are backed by Rwanda and Uganda respectively and who have been seeking to overthrow President Kabila's government since August 1998. The ceasefire was part of a Zambia-brokered agreement reached on 10 July by the six nations involved: DRC, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Uganda and Rwanda. On 10 November 1999, agreement was reached on the deployment of United Nations technical survey teams in 13 rebel- and government-held territories. The survey teams will assess the areas for the eventual deployment of UN military liaison officers who will monitor the ceasefire conditions.
Under the Lusaka agreement a regional multinational force would be comprised of troops from belligerent and possibly non-belligerent countries and would be controlled by a regional Joint Military Commission (JMC) consisting of belligerent nations and established by the Lusaka agreement to work out mechanisms for the tracking, disarming, cantoning, and documenting of all armed groups in the DRC, especially those forces identified with the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The JMC force would be in addition to the agreement-implementing group of up to 90 military liaison officers the U.N. Security Council has begun to deploy to the DRC, Lusaka, and the warring capitals to help in implementing the Lusaka cease-fire agreement signed last August.
Each side in the conflict repeatedly accused the other of violating the Lusaka accord, which seemed to exist only on paper. As of late December 1999 the deteriorating military and security situation suggested that the slightest incident could trigger large-scale organized attacks against civilians, especially ethnic Tutsis. Given the threat to the Congolese Tutsi community, they themselves could trigger an anti-Tutsi offensive through violent actions against their neighbours.
In June 2000, the President of the UN Security Council requested the UN Secretary-General to establish a Panel of Experts on the illegal exploitation of the natural resources and other forms of wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to follow up on reports and collect information on all activities of illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including in violation of the sovereignty of that country; and to research and analyse the links between the exploitation of the natural resources and other forms of wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the continuation of the conflict.
On 16 January 2001, President Laurent-Desire Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was gunned down by one of his bodyguards, plunging the war-torn country into a period of uncertainty and speculation. Kabila was widely regarded as an oppressive but ineffectual ruler. He had been actively supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Western powers, including the US disliked him but have reluctantly backed his continuance in power lest his ouster prove a stimulus for the dismemberment of his sprawling and strategically central country. His 31 year-old son Major-General Joseph Kabila assumed the mantle of president and supreme commander of the armed forces.
The commander of the UN peacekeeping force told media 31 March 2001 that all forces had substantially withdrawn from Katanga Province in the south. These include the troops of the Kabila government and its neighboring allies (Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe) as well as opposing insurgent guerrillas and the troops of their foreign backers (Rwanda and Uganda). Similarly, pullbacks had begun in Equateur Province, although one rebel group balked at withdrawing from some areas because they claim that government forces will move in to wreak retributions on remaining civilians who have backed the rebels.
Africans alone achieved, perhaps for the first time, the production of the Lusaka Peace Accord. As they could not raise the necessary funding for its implementation, the international community tended to take over. Cost considerations gave the international community the right to set conditions for the organization of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue [ICD]. The latter has to be reduced to fewer participants and focalized on short term considerations and patterned along a model putting at the center “might is right” i.e., the belligerents as the core of the process and the non-armed opposition as accompagnement The target of the negotiations became: cessation of hostilities and peace as absence of war through the compensation principally of belligerents.
On 22 July 2002 Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo reached a peace deal after five days of talks in South Africa. The talks centered on two issues. One was the withdrawal of the estimated 20,000 Rwandan troops in the DRC. The other was what the rounding up and dismantling of the ex-Rwandan soldiers and Hutu extremist militia known as Interahamwe, which took part in Rwanda's 1994 genocide and continues to operate out of eastern Congo. Rwanda had an estimated 20-thousand troops in the DRC and had refused to withdraw them until the Interahamwe militiamen are dealt with.
Zimbabwean troops begun on 13 September 2002 to pull out of the key diamond-mining town of Mbuji-Mayi in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo. The withdrawal from Mbuji-Mayi was significant because, for years, Zimbabwe had controlled activities in what is considered Congo's most important mining center. Zimbabwe had been accused of extracting some of Congo's vast mineral wealth in exchange for supporting the Kinshasa government during its four-year battle with rebels. By them, Zimbabwean officials claimed only three-thousand troops were left in Congo. This withdrawal followed that of Uganda, which, the previous month, pulled out most of its troops from the country.
Under the July 2002 Pretoria accord, Rwanda and Uganda agreed to withdraw their forces from Congo-Kinshasa, in return for a promise by the Kinshasa government to apprehend, disarm, and repatriate Hutu militiamen menacing their borders. The troop withdrawals began in mid-September 2002.
Despite this, conflict continued between the government and rebel forces in the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) despite committing themselves on December 16, 2002, to a ceasefire and agreeing on transitional arrangements intended to set the stage for the holding of free and fair elections. Forces from the Congolese Rally for Democracy-National/Congolese Liberation Movement (RCD-N/MLC), joined possibly by those from the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), had failed to heed calls by the UN Security Council on 24 December to cease all hostilities and settle their differences peacefully. As of December 27, 2002, reports indicated that tens of thousands of civilians had fled their homes as military forces continued to fight over territory in the east. In addition, RCD-N/MLC forces were supposedly poised to take over the town of Beni, the center of the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Kisangani (Liberation Movement).
On 17 December 2002 the Congolese parties to the Inter Congolese Dialogue (Kinshasa government, MLC, RCD, RCD-ML, RCD-N, Political Opposition, the Civil Society and the Mai Mai) signed a global and inclusive agreement for a consensual running of the transition. The agreement ordered a cessation of hostilities and committed the country along a political transition process path that should lead to legislative and presidential elections within a period of two years starting from the time the transition government is put in place.
The persistent civil conflict continues to adversely affect the agriculture and food situation throughout the country. In the Kasai Oriental Province, an intensification of fighting between Mayi-Mayi militias and the “Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Goma” rebel movement along the western bank of the River Lomami since late 2002, had resulted in over 30,000 new internally displaced people by January 2003. Following repeatedly looting and burning of crops, these populations had been forced to abandon their farms and seek refuge in the areas around Tshumbe, Wembonyama, Lubefu and Katako Kombe. Fighting in late February in the northeastern province of Bunia, bordering Uganda, also resulted in fresh waves of internally displaced populations. In the Kivu provinces, insecurity coupled with a late start of the rainy season has resulted in another reduced 2003 first season foodcrops. The nutritional situation of large numbers of internally displaced in eastern parts of the country gives cause for serious concern.
On December 31, 2002, the three – the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC), the Congolese Rally for Democracy-National (RCD-N) and the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement (RCD-ML) – agreed to immediately stop all fighting in the Isiro-Bafwasende-Beni-Watsa quadrangle. The United Nations was to deploy military observers to the area immediately. All three groups also agreed to guarantee the freedom of movement of the civilian population and humanitarian organizations. The Gbadolite Agreement provided for an immediate cease-fire, the cessation of all troop-movement in the axis leading to Beni, Bunia, Butembo, Bafwasende and Watsa. It also guaranteed the freedom of movement to the civilian populations from one area to another.
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) delegates signed a historic "final act" 02 April 2003 to end more than four years of brutal warfare and set up a government of national unity. The signing in the luxury casino resort of Sun City in northwestern South Africa was witnessed by South African President Thabo Mbeki and the heads of state of Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Mbeki praised the delegates who had spent 19 months involved in the torturous Inter-Congolese Dialogue (ICD) negotiations.
The agreements will see President Joseph Kabila remain as head of state during a transition period of two years, extendable to three, leading to the first democratic elections since those on independence from Belgium in 1960. He will share power with four vice presidents -- one from each of the two main rebel movements, one from the government and one from the political opposition. Ministries will be divided up, and former rebel fighters will be integrated into the army and police force.
The Northeastern part of the Congo is possibly the richest part of the DRC both in terms of mineral and agricultural resources, and therein may also lie the reasons for promoting conflicts. The region around Bunia has been the scene of intense fighting between two rival ethnic groups since early 2001. The area is extremely volatile following two-and-a-half years of civil war. Fighting between Lendu and Hema stems from an old conflict over land resources, but has been fuelled by the present conflict in the DRC. The Hema are traditionally pastoralists, while the Lendu are mainly farmers.
As of early 2003 the most significant foreign force in the DRC were the approximately 6,000 Ugandan troops in the Ituri region of northeastern DRC. Under an agreement signed in Luanda 06 September 2002, Uganda and the DRC agreed to form a group called the Ituri Pacification Committee to work out local administrative arrangements in preparation for the departure of the Ugandan forces.
After serious fighting in early March 2003 with an armed Congolese group known as the Union of Patriotic Congolese (UPC), a Rwandan-backed militia group of the ethnic Hema community, Uganda increased its military presence in Ituri from around 1,500 to 6,000 troops. Uganda and the DRC agreed that Ugandan troops would withdraw from the DRC by 24 April 2003, so long as a security mechanism for the Ituri region is agreed to by that time through the work of the Ituri Pacification Committee. Violence has been plaguing the northeastern province of Ituri since the beginning of May 2003, after Uganda withdrew its forces from the area.
The government and two rebel factions are working to implement the peace accord reached in Sun City in South Africa in February 2002. But in late May 2003, squabbling over the composition of the new national army stalled the preparations for a power-sharing government to lead the country to elections in two years. Both rebel groups, the Rally for Congolese Democracy [RCD-Goma], and the Movement for the Liberation of Congo [MLC], were upset over the government's plans to name the heads of the army, navy, and air force, and to retain control of six of Congo's 10 regions. The government had offered RCD-Goma the right to name the Defense Minister and control of one region. The MLC had been offered two regions, but it wanted its candidate installed in the top post in the army. The 52-day Inter-Congolese Dialogue at Sun City in South Africa was sent into disarray when the Kinshasa government and Jean-Pierre Bemba’s MLC movement announced they had struck a deal independently of the Sun City process. The agreement had Joseph Kabila remaining president while Bemba would become Prime Minister. The RCD, Congo’s biggest armed resistance movement, was belatedly offered control of parliament which it rejected outright. The secret deal also excluded important unarmed political parties such as Tshekedi wa Mulumba’s Democratic Union for Social Progress. The result was the formation of the Alliance for the Safeguarding of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue with Tshekedi emerging as president and the RCD’s Adolphe Onusumba and businessman Raphaël Katoto as the two deputy presidents.
Relations between RCD-Goma and the government were further eroded by reports of fighting between RCD-Goma forces and Hutu extremists supported by the government in the eastern province of North Kivu. RCD-Goma officials accused the government of undermining the whole peace process. Western analysts in Congo say the new fighting and the apparently deep disagreements over the new government, it is difficult to see how the Congo peace process can be put back on track, even with an international peacekeeping force on the way to try to solve one of the country's problems.
On 05 May 2003 firefights involving both light and heavy weaponry erupted in several areas of Bunia, targeting MONUC and other UN offices, and provoking panic among residents. The fighting took place between armed Lendu and Hema groups, which are vying for the control of the town in anticipation of the complete withdrawal of Ugandan forces. The Uruguayan peacekeeping contingent, which was in the Mission's local headquarters, returned fire when fired upon. The Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF), which had been reducing its presence in Ituri, retook control of Bunia and redeployed military police patrols, as did MONUC, reinforced by forces of the Congolese National Police
As of May 2003, preliminary discussions and preparation were underway to send an international peace-keeping force to the region. France, the EU, South Africa, and the UN, had all expressed interest in sending resources and troops to Bunia to supplement the 600 UN troops that were already there. Traditionally the area was under occupation by Ugandan troops, but in accordance with the Lusaka Agreement, Uganda withdrew its troops in 2002. In April of 2003, Uganda re-deployed limited forces to the Congo in response to massacres in the Ituri province.
In May 2003, 280 bodies were found in Bunia, the deaths resulted from fighting between the Hema and Lendu ethinc groups. The conflict between the two groups escalated in mid 2002, between July 2002 and March 2003 over 5,000 lives were reportedly lost in the fighting. The Union of Patriotic Congolese seized control of Bunia on 12 May 2003. In early June 2003 a large number of Lendu gunmen launched an assault on positions of the rival Union of Patriotic Congolese. Lendu recaptured Dele village, about 8km away and then advanced into Bunia from the south. About 700 unarmed U-N peoce keepers already in place have been unable to stop the fighting in Bunia, although they do provide refuge to terrorized civilians.
While an international force prepared to land in the war-torn northeastern Congo town of Bunia, new fighting broke out farther south between rival rebel factions involved in the Congolese peace process. The fighting was in North Kivu province, 250-kilometers south of Bunia, near the borders of Rwanda and Uganda. The fighting around the town of Lubero involved troops of the country's main rebel group, Rally for Congolese Democracy [RCD-Goma], and its splinter group RCD-ML, which is allied with the government. The RCD-ML claims to have captured Rwandan soldiers who were working with the RCD-Goma. Officials of RCD-Goma accused RCD-ML of being backed by government forces as well as Hutu extremists that were involved in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Although both sides vehemently denied the accusations, senior UN military officers confirmed the presence of forces loyal to the two groups operating north of Lubero, which violated their ceasefire.
French troops arrived in Bunia on 06 June 2003. The troops were assigned the task of evaluating the tactical situation, and preparing for the arrival of a 600 man EU force. The EU force was slated to stay until September 2003, at which time Bangladesh took over peacekeeping duties.
MONUC is now authorized, under certain conditions, to deploy up to a total of 8,700 personnel. These personnel will continue to carry out MONUC's responsibilities under the Lusaka Agreement and will also oversee the disarmament, demobilization, and repatriation (DDR) of as many as 40,000 mainly Rwandan Hutu rebels in the DRC. One or two robust task forces will undertake this process. South Africa has agreed to provide around 1,200 troops for the first task force.
In early June 2003 Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s second special report on MONUC recommended that the mandate of the Mission be extended for another year, until 30 June 2004, and that its military strength be boosted to 10,800 troops. Annan said the number of peacekeeping troops in northeastern Congo should be tripled to control tribal fighting and promote a peace deal to end the country's civil war.
On 30 June 2003 President Kabila announced the composition of the Government of National Unity and transition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. President Joseph Kabila has four vice presidents, two of whom were trying to oust him by force until they assumed office in July 2003. The agreement on the power-sharing of the army left the government with the top post, and rebels with control of the ground forces. The list of ministers for the new Congolese Cabinet, announced late Monday, marked an end to months of negotiations and political squabbling between the government of Joseph Kabila and the country's main rebel groups. The government took the ministries of the Interior and Finance, the Rwandan-backed rebel group The Rally for Congolese Democracy took the Ministry of Economy and Defense, and the Ugandan-backed rebels, The Movement for the Liberation of Congo took the Budget and Foreign Affairs postings. The civilian opposition was granted control of the Ministry of Mining, a significant post in the mineral-rich country.
Although negotiations between rebels and President Kabila's entourage started more than a year ealier, after the assassination of Mr. Kabila's father and then-president, Laurent Kabila, the talks had been undermined by clashes between government-backed militia and the Rwandan-backed rebels in the east of the country.
While the government is installed, the UN mission in Congo will begin a monitoring mission to ensure government-backed militia and rebel troops start their withdrawal from North Kivu province, following weeks of clashes. Though the political questions have been resolved, for the time being, Congo will have to turn its attention to demobilizing its thousands of militiamen, and ensuring that trade in its mineral resources, a principle reason for the war, is made transparent.
Despite the supposed cessation of hostilities, massacres continue in eastern Congo, where the United Nations peacekeepers are deployed. Several holdouts have not joined the transitional government in Kinshasa. These include three high-ranking rebel officers in Goma in eastern Congo, who have not responded to orders from their superiors in the Rally for Congolese Democracy to report to the capital. This led to fears that the war with Rwanda could flare up again. Reports from Bukavu, along Congo's border with Rwanda, indicated that Rwandan troops may have made incursions into Congo in September 2003.
In mid-November 2003 Congolese officials said hundreds of foreign troops had been spotted in the far west of the Democratic Republic of Congo, less than 400 kilometers from the country's capital Kinshasa. The fighters, who are believed to be Rwandan and Burundian Hutu extremists and Ugandan rebels, were all used as proxies by the former government in Congo's five-year war. Dino Mahtani reports from Kinshasa. Senior Congolese officials, including Congo's vice president in charge of defense and security, Azarias Ruberwa, confirmed reports of a large group of foreign fighters in the western town of Kikwit, in Bandundu province. The presence of one such group of foreign fighters raises fear that there may well be more such groups at large in the west of the country. The fighters, made up of Rwandan and Burundian Hutu extremists and Ugandan rebels, had been used by the former government during Congo's five year war. The war officially ended in July 2003. The former government of Laurent Kabila had used such fighters -- largely in the east of the country -- against Congolese rebel groups that are now part of the country's transitional government. The foreign fighter groups had been disbanded as the new government and former rebels embarked on the process of reconciliation. But some 750 foreign fighters have been spotted in Kikwit again in the first sighting of such groups this far west of the country in many months.
On 17 May 2004 representatives of armed militia groups from the embattled Ituri District in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) signed an agreement with the government to disarm and participate in the country's transitional process towards democracy, according to the United Nations mission in the country. The UN Organization Mission in the DRC (MONUC) reported that six armed groups operating in the eastern region of Ituri agreed to begin a disarmament process.
Congo's five-year war is officially over and a transitional government is trying to shepherd the vast African nation to elections next year, but the peace process has come to a halt, largely because of the continued presence of armed groups in the east. Fears of renewed hostilities in the region were raised in late November 2004 by threats from neighboring Rwanda to send its army into Congo to hunt down Rwandan Hutu rebels based in the east. The United Nations said it was almost certain that Rwandan troops already are in Congo, but Rwanda denied its men had crossed the border. Several thousand Rwandan-speaking Congolese in the border town of Goma protested the planned deployments of Congolese troops in the region, saying this would stir up anti-Rwandan prejudices and spark violence.
By early December 2004 rival units within Democratic Republic of Congo's supposedly unified national army clashed in eastern part of the country. Reports reaching the capital in Kinshasa suggested heavy fighting broke out on 12 December 2004, just south of the border town of Goma. The fighting was probably a continuation of in-fighting between elements of a local militia known as the Mai Mai, which has officially been integrated into the newly unified Congolese army.
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