UN
United Nations Peacekeeping
6 Mar
2009
Press Review 22 December 2004
North Kivu crisis in Eastern DRC continues to dominate the front page of the local press, which mainly focuses today on MONUC's decision to establish a buffer zone around Kanyabayonga and the attempts for conciliation of the loyalist forces and the mutineers.
« North Kivu: fighting has stopped», L'Observateur announces on its front page. '' Only a few gun shots were heard Tuesday», Le Potentiel adds, quoting North Kivu governor, Eugène Serufuri as declaring that ''the mutineers have agreed to stop hostilities and to travel to Goma to explain to the joint commission, dispatched by the Kinshasa hierarchy, the motives at the root of their discontents.''
Within the framework of its mandate and under resolution 1565 of the Security Council, and after consultations with the chief of staff of the FARDC, the Kivus Brigade has decided to establish a temporary zone in the Kanyabayonga region, L'AVENIR and Le Phare recall following MONUC's communiqué published Tuesday. The 10-km buffer zone aims to separate the FARDC troops from the mutineers. «MONUC hopes that this zone will help stop the fights and facilitate access of humanitarian assistance, prevented from reaching displaced civilian population. »
L'AVENIR fears a humanitarian disaster among civilians. « The latter are fleeing towards North Butembo and the neighbouring forests», the paper indicates.
Besides alerting over the renewed fighting in Kanyabayonga on 13 December, MONUC, through Mr. William Swing the head of the mission, led a delegation including members of the International Committee for the Support of the Transition (CIAT) to Goma on Tuesday « to hear the different stakeholders involved in the conflict», L'AVENIR says. The mutineers have voiced their « precondition» to CIAT and the Inter Institutional Commission for conciliation dispatched to Goma headed by the Senate's Speaker, Bishop Marini Bodho, before ending hostilities: « the withdrawal of loyalist troops from North Kivu», L'Observateur says. « Unacceptable condition» for Kinshasa Government, from where the Defence Minister, Jean-Pierre Ondekane, echoed by Le Potentiel, has declared « that FARDC's redeployment should not be perceived by mutineers as a threat against the local population. It is a sovereign decision. » Moreover, for the Defence Minister: « The reasons put forward are baseless since the army is for the whole population without discrimination' » alluding to the Kinyarwanda speaking population, to whom the mutineers claim to belong to and to fight for.
The security situation in DRC was at the center of talks held in Pretoria Tuesday by the South African Development Commission (SADC), Le Potentiel announces « The talks focused on several issues: the creation of an African intervention force, the putting in place of a regional organism for peacekeeping (') The Congolese ambassador to South Africa, Bene M'Poko, was to report to the Ministers of South Africa, Lesotho and Namibia on the latest developments of the situation in the Kanyabayonga region as well as the Rwandan operations in DRC», the paper adds.
Within the framework of its mandate and under resolution 1565 of the Security Council, and after consultations with the chief of staff of the FARDC, the Kivus Brigade has decided to establish a temporary zone in the Kanyabayonga region, L'AVENIR and Le Phare recall following MONUC's communiqué published Tuesday. The 10-km buffer zone aims to separate the FARDC troops from the mutineers. «MONUC hopes that this zone will help stop the fights and facilitate access of humanitarian assistance, prevented from reaching displaced civilian population. »
L'AVENIR fears a humanitarian disaster among civilians. « The latter are fleeing towards North Butembo and the neighbouring forests», the paper indicates.
Besides alerting over the renewed fighting in Kanyabayonga on 13 December, MONUC, through Mr. William Swing the head of the mission, led a delegation including members of the International Committee for the Support of the Transition (CIAT) to Goma on Tuesday « to hear the different stakeholders involved in the conflict», L'AVENIR says. The mutineers have voiced their « precondition» to CIAT and the Inter Institutional Commission for conciliation dispatched to Goma headed by the Senate's Speaker, Bishop Marini Bodho, before ending hostilities: « the withdrawal of loyalist troops from North Kivu», L'Observateur says. « Unacceptable condition» for Kinshasa Government, from where the Defence Minister, Jean-Pierre Ondekane, echoed by Le Potentiel, has declared « that FARDC's redeployment should not be perceived by mutineers as a threat against the local population. It is a sovereign decision. » Moreover, for the Defence Minister: « The reasons put forward are baseless since the army is for the whole population without discrimination' » alluding to the Kinyarwanda speaking population, to whom the mutineers claim to belong to and to fight for.
The security situation in DRC was at the center of talks held in Pretoria Tuesday by the South African Development Commission (SADC), Le Potentiel announces « The talks focused on several issues: the creation of an African intervention force, the putting in place of a regional organism for peacekeeping (') The Congolese ambassador to South Africa, Bene M'Poko, was to report to the Ministers of South Africa, Lesotho and Namibia on the latest developments of the situation in the Kanyabayonga region as well as the Rwandan operations in DRC», the paper adds.
