Africa- DRC- Congo- UN Security council recognises crisis, plans to send in thousands more troops- Rwanda denies funding CNDP - Kivu Rebels,

(Social Justice South Africa; c.f. BBC World News 30/10/08)

Article by Marc Aupiais

The BBC reports- that the UN Security council has made a non-binding statement- condemning Nkunda's CNDP's violence, and calling for further troop deployment.

The rebels, who have consistently advanced against UN troops, are suspected to be funded and assisted by a regional foreign power. As the UN Security council asks Rwanda and the DRC to sort out their problems, and take concrete steps to create stability in the region- so hurt by the conflict- Rwanda is denying funding of the Rebels.

The rebels claim to be protecting Congolese from Rwandan rebels- who they claim aided the 1994 genocide. The Rwandan president was recently desired in a French court to face charges of murdering the man whose death sparked the genocide- his 1994 predecessor. Rwanda recently removed French from their official list of languages, and as a language in which children can be taught in schools, or people can contact the government. They have also pulled out of a group of French speaking nations, and since France asked for their president to appear in court have accused French soldiers, who were assigned by the UN to protect civilians in the region- of helping conduct the genocide. Others facing accusations, from the government whose leader has been accused by a French judge of murder- include the Catholic church.

The DRC Kivu rebels themselves have caused mass flights from towns whenever they have stormed different urban areas, have shot at UN MONUC troops, and of late have directly been fighting UN peacekeepers- who recently launched air attacks on the rebels who responded with anti-air fire.

The UN has noted that rape, and mutilation of sexual organs are a weapon of war in the DRC, and have asked for human shields to not be captured or used. Which side they are referring, on the second issue of human shields we have not been able to ascertain, as the government of the country has also began to lose control of their soldiers.

There was firing of weapons across the Rwandan border, and firing into the air- by Congolese defense force troops, whose government is gradually losing control of the terrified soldiers, as the rebels continue to take more ground.

Yesterday, the rebels- accused of kidnapping child soldiers recently- announced they wanted a peace treaty- having themselves broken the previous one at an opportune time, and are the cause of even further food insecurity in Congo- as villagers should now be planting crops. They are not however prepared to disarm, until "Rwandan Rebels", they claim are in the area- are "out" of the area.

Caritas Internationalis- from their position on the ground in the country are desperately looking for 1.5 million US dollars to help with immediate, basic needs. They were already desiring this when the number of refugees had not completely burst the capacity of refugee camps around Goma, a regional capital in Kivu.

The UN intervention may be needed to stop the constant loss of territory by the African UN task-force- and to possibly prevent what some (United Kingdom minister Mark Malloch-Brown- to Africa) are claiming could be a massacre on the scale of the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. This comes After calls by Caritas Internationalis for global action and immediate relief of some of this humanitarian crisis.