The Guardian, Rutshuru, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE Congo
Peace accords that were to put an end to the conflicts that killed millions in the Democratic Republic of Congo were collapsing after a powerful renegade Tutsi general declared war on the government.
The UN has started airlifting thousands of government troops into the eastern Kivu region, which has endured two foreign invasions and more than a decade of civil war. As many as 4 million people have died in the conflicts.
Fighting has renewed after General Laurent Nkunda pulled thousands of his men out of the national army last week, just months after they were integrated under the peace accords and began attacking government troops whom he accused of collaborating with Hutu forces that fled into Congo after carrying out the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda.
Nkunda said he has gone back to war to protect the hundreds of thousands of Tutsis who live in the Kivu region and are still targeted by Hutu rebels. But the UN peacekeeping force in the Congo has thrown its support behind the government's claim that Nkunda is a "bandit," raising the prospect of another major conflict.
UN helicopters left Goma in relays carrying government soldiers to Masisi, where the army is under siege from a much larger and better trained force under Nkunda. Scores of men have been killed.
Nkunda told the BBC's Africa service that his forces captured members of the 7,000 strong Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) -- the Rwandan Hutu extremist rebel group that has been killing Tutsis in the region -- and handed them over to the UN.
"For me, it's a state of war ... we have prisoners of war from the FDLR who were attacking with the government troops," he said.
Congolese Defense Minister Tshikez Djemu said that if Nkunda does not lay down his arms he and his army will be considered bandits and attacked.
Thousands of civilians fled their homes in Masisi and from towns such as Rutshuru, where Nkunda has much of his 8,000-strong army. Soldiers at his local headquarters in Rutshuru had stripped off their government uniforms and changed into outfits similar to the Rwandan army's. Some spoke English, no?t French, suggesting they were Tutsis of Rwandan origin, raised in exile in Uganda or Tanzania.
The UN accused Nkunda's forces of killings and rapes in fighting with the FDLR that has driven up to 200,000 people from their homes in recent months.
Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Murigande was expected in Kinshasa yesterday for a rare high-level meeting between the two countries, which continue to have tense relations after two Rwandan invasions.
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