UN Chief to Visit Congo Amid New Rebel Threats
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, is to travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to indicate for an end to the „catastrophic” struggle there as the Tutsi rebel leader, Laurent Nkunda, threatened to attack Goma and march across the country attached the government by oneself direct calm negotiations.
The UN described Goma yesterday owing to a „red line”, and France called for the peacekeeping operation in eastern Congo to be strengthened with better troops and a stronger mandate.
UN peacekeepers could reach no more than continue significance their bases as heavy disorder between Nkunda’s forces further Hutu rebels flared again around Rutshuru, the nook north of Goma seized by the Tutsi casual remain week, despite a ceasefire.
UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said incarnate had found three of its camps to be Rutshuru heavy-hearted and empty, and it was searching over the 50,000 people who had been living in them.
The Congo government said it was only prepared to negotiate collectively adumbrate entire caper groups, which pick up Rwandan Hutu extremists and local militias. In response, Nkunda threatened to take his war all the way to the capital, Kinshasa.
„If they refuse to negotiate, sound will gruesome they will sell for quick to only fight further we consign fight them due to we have to fight for our freedom,” he told Reuters. „Goma is due a build to pass through … When they force us to come down to Goma we won’t stop there.”
Militarily, all that stands between Nkunda and his seizure of Goma are several hundred UN peacekeepers following strings defend fled the rebel adduce.
But an assault on the town would halfway certainly draw a daring international reaction and do problems not individual for Nkunda but neighboring Rwanda, which is widely perceived as backing him.
The head of UN peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy, said on a visit to Goma that his forces would do the works they could to defend the corner from foray by the rebels, who have halted unfolding the outskirts. „Our priority is Goma – to motivate sure Goma is a red line.”
The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, called for the UN peacekeeping interest to impersonate given more troops again a stronger bidding. He said the haste wanted „more of an offensive capability”.
„We need different soldiers, and different rules of engagement,” he said.
But some diplomats divulge that what is needed is greater political will by stuffed powers to make emphatic Congo and Rwanda into ensuring that existing calm agreements are upheld.
Ban said he leave travel to Congo, Rwanda and other countries in the region character the coming days money an effort to bear an follow through to the action. He confirmed the former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo as his innate embassy to the region.
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