Three stories from the past few days:
(The Reuters and IRIN reports are from today; the BBC item is from Monday.)
From Reuters...
A renegade Tutsi general who led an uprising in Congo last year has broken months of silence and said the time had come to overthrow President Joseph Kabila.
General Laurent Nkunda rocked Congo's fragile peace process when he attacked and seized the eastern Congolese town of Bukavu in May last year, only pulling out under international pressure.
Kabila's office dismissed Nkunda's latest threats, which were made in a letter written on Aug. 25 and seen by Reuters.
"We believe that the moment has arrived to begin using all necessary means to overthrow this government and replace it with a power that is inclusive, non-conflictual and capable of restoring peace in the republic," Nkunda said in the letter.
"Congolese lives are priceless. Every man killed, every woman held hostage, raped or sold in public, and every child burned or buried alive goes to justify the offensive against Kabila's plan and the dismantlement of his clan," he added, referring to what he says are rights abuses by army soldiers.
Following a massacre of Congolese Tutsis in Burundi last year, Nkunda published a similar letter calling for military action but none was taken.
Kabila's office dismissed the rebel's latest threat. "We are not going to waste our time worrying about Nkunda," said presidential spokesman Kudura Kasongo.
Despite calls from donors and many Congolese for Nkunda's arrest, he remains at large in the North Kivu province, underlining the struggle Kinshasa faces in imposing authority over a country divided during a 1998-2003 war that sucked in six countries and killed nearly 4 million people.
Officials in the U.N. peacekeeping mission, which was widely criticised for failing to stop Nkunda seizing Bukavu, said it was monitoring the situation, especially given the risk of ethnic tension over voter registration ahead of 2006 polls.
"We are keeping an eye on things," a military source told Reuters. "He may not launch a big attack but he could try and spark a crisis so he is at the centre of attention again."
Kabila heads a transitional government that is charged with leading Congo to elections after five years of war but the polls have been delayed and critics accuse the government of dragging its feet to stay in power longer.
Congolese across the vast country are registering for elections, now rescheduled for mid-2006, but army integration has stalled and bands of armed men continue to roam the east, preying on civilians.
From IRIN...
The day after a dissident army leader in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) called for an insurrection, the 53rd Army Battalion and four companies of the 2nd Mixed Battalion in the east of the country went missing.
"We have launched an investigation into the whereabouts of the battalion and will arrest those who instigated the desertion," Adolphe Onusumba, the minister of defence, told IRIN on Tuesday.
He said the 500 men of the 53rd, commanded by Maj Innocent Kabundi, disappeared on Friday from their base in the village of Burungu, 45 km north of Goma, capital of North Kivu Province.
Gen Gabriël Amisi, who commands the 8th Military Region in North Kivu, said on Tuesday that the four companies of the 2nd Mixed Battalion, under assistant battalion commander Capt Faustin Muhima, deserted their base in the town of Kanyabayonga, 109 km north of Goma. He would not specify how many soldiers were in the four companies.
Most of the deserters are Congolese Tutsis. They are either from the former army that was overthrown in 1997 or combatants in a former eastern rebel group, the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD).
Armed groups from the country's civil war are supposed to have some of their fighters integrated into the new national army, in accordance with a 2002 peace agreement. Amisi said soldiers of the 2nd Battalion who deserted their base in Kanyabayonga had been resisting integration.
"They fled because they did not want to go to the centre for integration," Amisi said.
On Thursday, a 17-page communiqué attributed to a dissident army general, Laurent Nkunda, was secretly distributed in Goma. The communiqué called for the renewal of hostilities against the government in Kinshasa. However, evidence that the troops deserted to join Nkunda’s insurgency remains circumstantial.
From the BBC...
Renegade Congolese rebel leader Gen Laurent Nkunda has threatened to re-invade eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to bring "peace" to the area.
In June last year he jeopardised DR Congo's shaky peace process when he briefly seized the town of Bukavu.
In a 17-page letter, extracts of which were published in the Congolese newspaper Le Potentiel, he accused the government of promoting ethnic hatred.
Meanwhile, the army has confirmed some of its men in the east have defected.
Correspondents in the area say an estimated 1,000 soldiers, who speak Kinyarwanda - the language spoken by the ethnic Banyamulenge whom Gen Nkunda claims to be fighting for - have gathered in Masisi, North Kivu province.
Gen Nkunda said he invaded Bukavu last year to protect the Banyamulenge from being targeted and killed by the Congolese army, but the UN dismissed his claims that he was preventing a genocide.
'Not serious'
In his letter, seen by the BBC, Gen Nkunda said the transitional administration of President Joseph Kabila was corrupt and intent on promoting instability in the east.
He said the decision to stop more than 200,000 Congolese refugees living in neighbouring countries from returning home to Kivu to participate in the elections showed President Kabila's unwillingness to foster peace.
Elections were due before the end of June under the terms of the 2002 peace deal, but MPs have backed a six-month delay.
According to the BBC's Arnaud Zajtman in Kinshasa, the United Nations refugee agency has said it is not logistically feasible to organise the return of the refugees before the completion of the electoral registration process.
The UN mission in DR Congo has received a copy of the letter, but could not authenticate it, our correspondent says.
Given up
Gen Nkunda belonged to the Rwandan-backed RCD rebel group which fought the Kinshasa government in a five-year civil war
Under the peace deal, former rebel groups were supposed to be integrated into the new national army.
At the time of Bukavu's capture, President Kabila accused Rwanda of being behind the attack, but this was denied by Rwanda.
His ally, Col Jules Mutebutsi, has officially been granted refugee status in Rwanda after he and his men declared in writing that they had given up his armed struggle.
The Banyamulenge are ethnic Tutsis, who have lived in DR Congo for several generations but who retain ties to Rwanda.
An estimated three million people in DR Congo were killed during the five-year civil war, which drew in several neighbouring countries.
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