Africa News Digest
Freedom Day Celebrations in South Africa Include Beethoven's 'Fidelio'
The tenth annual Freedom Day celebrations in South Africa included a performance of Beethoven's opera "Fidelio" on Robben Island, the location of apartheid South Africa's most feared prison, where Nelson Mandela spent 27 years. The Cape Town Opera performed with an international and multiracial cast in late March, with Heinz Fricke of the Washington Opera conducting. The performance was filmed and then televised nationally on April 25.
Freedom Day, April 27, commemorates the day of South Africa's first democratic election, in 1994. President Thabo Mbeki's second inaugural was held on Freedom Day this year.
UN Admits Rwandan Troops Are Operating in DR Congo
Even the United Nations is now forced to admit (at gunpoint) that uniformed Rwandan troops have returned to DR Congo, as the Rwandan Army chief recently promised. (Of course, some troops had never left.)
* April 23: A UN source in South Kivu province, reached by telephone from Kigali, said, "Movements [of Rwandan troops] have been observed all along the frontier on the Rwandan side, as if Rwanda were preparing to attack on the two fronts, north and south," according to Digitalcongo April 24, apparently citing an Agence France Presse wire. However, the UN source and a European diplomat in Kigali, who asked not to be named, both denied the rumors of incursions into Congo by Rwandan troops.
They were, shall we say, poorly informed.
* April 24: Reuters reported that on April 21, UN troops in the Bunagana area were surrounded by 400 soldiers wearing Rwandan Army uniforms, who ordered them to return to their base. "A UN helicopter surveillance team estimated there were many hundreds more nearby." Rwanda, on April 24, denied its troops were in Congo.
In the Congo press, the attitude towards the UN troops is one of contempt and suspicioncontempt, because they ride around in big vehicles looking as if they are protecting the population, but in a fight, show little commitment (there are also too few of them to do much good in a fight); suspicion, because historically, the UN in Congo has interfered with Congolese sovereignty.
Army of DR Congo Attacks Some Armed Units of Rwandan Hutu Refugees
In eastern Congo, Army commanders loyal to Congo President Joseph Kabila have attacked some armed Rwandan Hutu refugees in what may be operations limited to groups guilty of lawlessness or incursions into Rwanda. But the picture is far from clear.
The Congo Army carried out an operation against the refugees around the town of Lemera, near the Burundi border (South Kivu province) on April 25, with casualties on both sides. Another operation was carried out over April 26-27 in forests near the Rwandan border in North Kivu province, with dead and wounded on both sides.
There are thousands of Hutu refugees from Rwanda living in eastern Congo forests. The UN troops were supposed to "repatriate" them to Rwanda, where they would have been promptly executed by the Kagame government. The Congo government of Joseph Kabila has left them alone until now, because they fought on the side of the Congo government during the five years of war against Rwandan occupation of eastern Congo that tapered off in 2003.
The Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) reported May 1, "The top commanders of the army units involved in the latest fighting are Kinshasa loyalists who support Kabila, but the rank and file and field commanders are drawn from Congolese guerrilla forces backed by Rwanda, army officers say."
An April 26 Reuters story, "Congo Attacks Rwandan Rebels," quotes an unnamed "analyst in Kinshasa" as saying that "the government seems to be turning on [the Hutus]." Since such a change in policy would weaken resistance against the Rwandan invasion and not appease Paul "Hitler" Kagame, the story may simply be disinformation.
The refugees are not being attacked in the Congo media; on the other hand, the Army actions of April 25-27, reported in some detail by the UN, Reuters, and the KBC, are not being mentioned in the Congolese media, either.
Leading Party of Treason in DR Congo Is on the Hot Seat
With the Rwandan Army operating openly in eastern Congo again, the leading party of (pro-Rwandan) treason in Congo is on the hot seat. When the General Secretary of the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD-Goma) held a press briefing in Kinshasa on April 28, it was expected that he would attempt to distance his Rwanda-backed party from the Rwandan invasion. Instead, General Secretary Francis Bedi Makhubu Mabele waffled, then asserted that the claim of the UN mission in Congo (MONUC)that Rwandan soldiers are in Congowas false. But everybody knew they were there, even when MONUC was still denying it.
Now RCD-Goma, long known in Congo as the leading party of treason, and its leader, Azerias Ruberwa, are on the hot seat. (Ruberwa is one of the country's Vice Presidentsthe one in charge of the Commission for Policy, Defense and Security.)
The General Secretary of the People's Party for Reconstruction and Development (PPRD), Tshikez Diemu, denounced RCD-Goma for "high treason" in an interview with Le Potentiel April 30. He is quoted as saying that the board of RCD-Goma has resigned; this has yet to be confirmed.
RCD-Kisangani (not fraternally connected to RCD-Goma) has called for RCD-Goma to make plain the nature of its military relations with Rwanda, "the perpetrator of atrocities in Congo," and to "make a choice" between Congo and Rwanda. Mbusa Nyamwisi, leader of RCD-Kisangani and Minister of Regional Cooperation, called on all members of government to drop everything to unite and deal with the Rwandan threat.
Finally, the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC), the sometime ally of RCD-Goma, was, as of April 30, about to issue a stinging rebuke against RCD-Goman. A "war" between MLC and RCD-Goma broke out when the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antoine Ghonda (of the MLC), officially informed the UN Security Council of the presence of Rwandan soldiers in eastern Congo.
Investigator: Murder of Habyarimana Intended To Provoke War
In an interview with Le Monde May 7, Andre Guichaoua, an investigator and witness before the UN tribunal for Rwanda, refined the existing picture of the motives of Paul Kagame and his adjutants in the so-called Rwandan Patriotic Forces (FPR) in 1993 and early 1994.
Guichaoua says that the assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana was preceded by the murder of political opposition figures, for the sake of promoting polarization. These murders were then blamed on death squads directed by the Presidency. Kagame wanted to make sure that elections were not heldsince they would be unfavorable to himand did so by provoking war.
According to Guichaoua, "For its part, the FPR actively prepared for a military outcome. According to internal sources, the scenario for the assassination of President Habyarimana had been planned from the end of 1993, as a preamble to a return to war. In February 1994, the FPR thought it could no longer sit on its hands. In the Presidential camp, the foundations of a planned genocide were then in place on the political, ideological and logistical levels"a reference to the extremist Hutus in the Habyarimana government, rather than to Habyarimana, a moderate. "The FPR leadership knew that the elimination of the President would unleash the most fanatical forces in the enemy camp."
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