March 2001 Africa News Headlines

Thursday, March 15, 2001 - Web posted at 7:49:48 AM GMT

Renewed DRC fighting worries

UNUNITED NATIONS - UN Security Council members have expressed concern at fresh fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and urged all sides to respect a cease-fire just days before the expected deployment of UN peacekeepers.

The council's 15 member nations also urged the factions in the many-sided Congo war to comply with the timetable they agreed on in withdrawing their forces from the front, envoy Valeri Kuchynski of Ukraine, the council's current president, said in a statement read to reporters.

The UN mission in Congo, known as MONUC, said in the Congo capital Kinshasa on Monday that there had been a series of recent clashes in Equateur province in northern Congo between government forces and rebels from the Ugandan-backed Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC).

The latest fighting took place on Sunday, MONUC said, when rebels fired on a Congolese army supply ship on the Ikelemba River about 30 kms from the town of Bolomba, wounding some 20 government soldiers.

Security along Congo's rivers will be key to the success of the UN mission as some of the peacekeepers are expected to travel around the country on riverboats.

A Security Council resolution approved last month gives the warring parties two weeks starting today to pull back from the front lines, creating a buffer zone between them.

UN peacekeepers are to be deployed along the front as the forces withdraw.

Fighting has raged in Congo since 1998, when Rwanda and Uganda, which helped put the late Congo President Laurent Kabila in power in 1997, turned on him and backed rebels trying to topple his government.

Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola then sent troops to bolster the ragged Congolese army.

Both Uganda and Rwanda, which support rebel factions in the war against the Congolese government, have already begun withdrawing their troops in response to peace overtures from new Congolese President Joseph Kabila, Laurent Kabila's son.

Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia have backed Congolese government troops in the conflict's two and a half years.

- Nampa-Reuters

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