UN launches aerial attack on rebels in east Congo
ABOVE PHOTO: In this file photo taken on Oct. 23, 2012, M23 rebels conduct training exercises in Rumangabo, eastern Congo. The Rwandan-backed rebel group advanced to within 4 kilometers (2.4 miles) of Goma, a crucial provincial capital in eastern Congo, marking the first time that rebels have come this close since 2008. Congolese army spokesman Col. Olivier Hamuli said the fighting has been going on since 6 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, and the frontline has moved to just a few kilometers (miles) outside the city.
(AP Photo/Stephen Wandera,File )
By Saleh Mwanamilongo
Associated Press
KINSHASA, CONGO --U.N. attack helicopters targeted M23 rebels in eastern Congo on Saturday after fighting resumed following a months long lull in violence, a local official said.
Two army officers and 151 rebels were killed in a battle that began last Thursday and that the U.N. calls the worst clash between the M23 group and the military since July. Attack helicopters for the U.N. mission in Congo, known as MONUSCO, had been on standby.
"MONUSCO helicopters this morning bombarded the M23 positions in the city of Kibumba,'' said North Kivu governor Julien Paluku. He said the Congolese army had earlier retreated from Kibumba, which is 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of Goma, after thousands of Rwandans, who he says were backing the rebels, attacked early Saturday.
"The fighting was very violent between the Congolese military and the M23 rebels backed by the Rwandan army,'' he said. "Rwandan forces bombarded our positions in Kibumba since early this morning and an estimated 3,500 crossed the border to attack us.''
Reports by United Nations experts have accused Rwanda and Uganda of supporting the rebels. Both countries strongly deny any involvement and Uganda said if the charges continue it will pull its peacekeeping troops out of Somalia, where they are playing an important role in pushing out the Islamist extremist rebels.
At U.N. headquarters in New York, peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said the rebels were very well-equipped, including with night vision equipment, which allowed them to attack at 4 a.m. However, he said that "at this stage we are not in a position to confirm whether or not Rwanda was directly involved in those attacks.''
Earlier on Saturday, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon had called Rwandan President Paul Kagame "to request that he use his influence on the M23 to help calm the situation and restrain M23 from continuing their attack,'' Ladsous said.
The U.N. Security Council called for an immediate stop to the violence following a two-hour, closed-door emergency meeting. The council said it would add sanctions against M23 rebels and demanded that rebels immediately stop their advance toward the provincial capital of Goma.
"We must stop the M23'' because Goma's fall "would, inevitably, turn into a humanitarian crisis,'' said France's UN Ambassador, Gerard Araud. He added that U.N. officials would decide in the coming days which M23 leaders to target for additional sanctions.
The U.N. and the United States have both issued sanctions against the M23 leader, Sultani Makenga, who is accused of forcing children into the M23 ranks. The Congolese government said it welcomes sanctions against the M23 but estimates they are not sufficient.
Bosco Ntaganda, who also is thought to be leading the M23 rebellion, is under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for similar war crimes.
The council also warned that any attempts to "undermine'' the U.N. forces' mandate, which includes protecting civilians, "will not be tolerated.''
The M23 was created after officers from the Congolese army defected in April and May and launched a rebellion to demand better pay, armaments and amnesty from war crimes.
Direct fighting broke out last Thursday in Rugari, the town between the M23 and the Congolese army positions, only 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Goma, and around 15 kilometers (9 miles)from Kanyaruchinya, a camp where more than 60,000 people have already sought refuge from the fighting since June. Ladsous, said about 4,000 more people had been displaced by Saturday's fighting and were seeking refuge at the camp.
The army spokesman in North Kivu, Col. Olivier Hamuli, said Friday that two army officers were killed and seven were wounded in the fighting in the Kibumba area.
M23 spokesman, Col. Vianney Kazarama, denied the heavy casualties, saying that only two rebels were wounded.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo said it was the worst battle since July. Paluku said the country faces a humanitarian crisis as those displaced are moving toward Kanyaruchinya.
Since August, members of the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region have been holding talks in Kampala, Uganda, to try to find a solution to the conflict. There had been a de facto cease-fire during the mediation, but tensions mounted on the ground over the past two weeks as the talks seemed to be reaching a dead end.
+ Top Story
With the defeat of apartheid, a new Black leadership runs South African ministries, businesses, and schools but an abusive police force appears to have survived the cultural and social changes. Last year, five thousand complaints were lodged against the South African police...
One of Africa’s wealthiest nations, the home of Africa’s first woman billionaire, turned its bulldozers on the homes of some 5,000 people in an early morning raid close to the capital, Luanda, in an action fiercely condemned by international rights organizations.
The traffic is there, grinding life to a halt as the middle class pound out messages on BlackBerry mobile phones and worry about Facebook. The heat, the sweat and the daily tragedy of unclaimed bodies lying alongside roadways, passers-by hurrying past for fear of someone else's misfortune...
I’m moved to write about Tuskegee Airman Dabney Montgomery of Harlem, who celebrated his 90th birthday on April 18th. I first met him in 2004 at the Harlem Book Festival when a friend asked him about the Tuskegee Airmen, whose cap he wore so proudly.
A series of raids by Nigerian authorities in recent days has brought fear to Katangua Market in Lagos, where immigrant labor makes the market thrum amid piles of secondhand clothes, shoes, purses and other accessories that are laid along narrow dirt alleyways.
The British Prime Minister, known as the Iron Lady, was a warm friend of South African dictator PW Botha who was welcomed at No.10 Downing Street in 1984. With this, Botha became the first leader of the Apartheid regime accorded the privilege of a state visit to UK since 1961...
Thousands of people attended National Action Network’s (NAN) annual national convention April 3-6 in New York City including delegates from over sixty NAN chapters across the United States. The convention concluded with major announcement by Rev. Al Sharpton...
Nelson Mandela’s children have launched a court case against several longtime associates of the former president in a dispute over the control of two companies, a South African newspaper reported Wednesday.