U.N. to restart aid operations in east Congo
05:20 a.m. Jan 29, 1999 Eastern
By Matthew Bigg
NAIROBI, Jan 29 (Reuters) - The United Nations is to restart aid operations in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo almost six months after rebellion there forced it to pull out.
The U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said it hoped to staff an international office in Goma, a town on Congo's border with Rwanda, by the end of next week.
''We have international staff who are prepared to go into eastern DRC and we are hopeful that we may have international staff going in by middle to end of next week,'' said Everett Ressler, UNICEF regional emergency adviser, on Thursday.
The United Nations pulled out of eastern Congo last August for security reasons at the start of a rebellion by the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) fighting to oust President Laurent Kabila.
Congolese staff working for the U.N. remained there.
Immediately after the departure of international staff U.N. premises were looted and stripped bare. One estimate said 120 vehicles were stolen.
The civil war has divided Congo with rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda controlling much of the north and east and Kabila's government, supported mainly by Angola and Zimbabwe, in the west and south.
Since 1994, the United Nations and aid agencies have come under intense scrutiny for their work in eastern Congo and stand accused of falling prey to political manipulation as they struggled to deal with large-scale humanitarian need.
This time the need in eastern Congo does not warrant massive intervention, Ressler said.
''There is not a crisis in the sense of large numbers of people dying,'' Ressler told Reuters. ''But it becomes a quiet emergency. If you don't immunise people children die of things like measles, but not immediately.''
UNICEF is to fly a cargo plane of medical supplies into Goma early next week including vaccinations for measles, solutions for cholera treatment and high protein biscuits.
U.N. officials acknowledge the return to eastern Congo presents political and security problems. One preparatory measure has been the proposal of a set of seven principles for independent, neutral humanitarian action.
Kabila's government had ''accepted'' the need for humanitarian assistance in rebel-controlled territory, Ressler said.
The United Nations also insisted on the return of looted property -- much of which aid workers say was taken by Rwandan troops and taken back to Rwanda. Rwanda denies the charge.
Congo Rebels OK Tutsi Citizenship
By HRVOJE HRANJSKI Associated Press Writer
KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) - Rebels trying to oust Congo's president say they will grant Congolese citizenship to that country's ethnic Tutsi minority once they take power.
Monday's decision, an apparent attempt to end decades of political violence in Congo, came a day after clashes among Tutsi rebel soldiers and other rebels in Uvira, Congo, rebel leader Ernest Wamba dia Wamba said.
Rwandan troops stationed in Uvira, 120 miles south of the eastern rebel stronghold of Goma, intervened in violence that a senior Rwandan government official said stemmed from indiscipline among rebel troops. At least one person died in the clashes.
Former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and, increasingly, President Laurent Kabila have contested the right of Congolese citizenship for ethnic Tutsis, prompting them to take up arms twice in two years to demand land rights and political freedoms. The Tutsis' ancestors came from Rwanda and settled in eastern Congo in the last century.
On Monday, the rebel Congolese Democratic Coalition of ethnic Tutsis, disaffected Congolese soldiers and opposition politicians approved a measure to grant citizenship to anyone born in Congo before it became independent from Belgium in 1960. The same right applies to those born after June 30, 1960, whose parents were residents of Congo.
Wamba said the proposal would become law and take effect once the rebels take power in the central African country. The proposal does not mention Tutsis specifically, although they are the only one of Congo's 400 tribes whose citizenship has been in dispute since the early 1970s.
In 1996, ethnic Tutsis, backed by Rwanda, took up arms to topple Mobutu after the government threatened to expel them.
In August, Tutsi politicians allied with other Congolese opposition groups, accused Kabila, Mobutu's successor, of fomenting ethnic hatred and persecuting Tutsis. Backed once again by Rwanda and Uganda, the rebels have swept through the eastern half of Congo. |
