Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) President Joseph Kabila has replaced the head of his armed forces, a move aimed at bolstering their fighting capacity after a string of defeats during weeks of battles against eastern rebels, officials said.
General Dieudonne Kayembe was replaced as military chief of staff by General Didier Etumba, who was previously head of the navy and has also served as head of military intelligence, state television announced late on Monday.
Kabila’s army has been repeatedly routed in eastern DR Congo by Tutsi rebel fighters led by renegade general Laurent Nkunda. The violence in North Kivu province has displaced 250,000 people since the end of August, causing a humanitarian emergency and threatening a wider war.
Human rights groups have accused the rebels of committing war crimes and say retreating, ill-disciplined government soldiers have also looted, killed and raped.
“Kayembe has been removed. I guess the president wants to change the dynamics after the losses,” a presidential source said.
Congolese and international officials have repeatedly accused Congo’s military hierarchy of embezzling money meant for poorly paid and ill-equipped soldiers who are sent to the front.
Etumba was involved in the negotiations that ended DR Congo’s 1998-2003 war, which sucked in six neighboring countries and killed 5 million people through violence, hunger and disease.
He has also been involved in talks with Nkunda’s rebels and is a respected commander, a UN official said.
Nkunda’s rebels in North Kivu forced back army troops and advanced north on Monday despite their leader’s pledge to back a ceasefire and peace talks after a weekend meeting with former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, a UN special envoy.
UN peacekeepers at a base in Rwindi that was between the two sides said rounds flew overhead for more than an hour. Some exploded nearby, and one Indian soldier in a trench was wounded in the head by shrapnel, UN commanders at the base said.
By Monday morning, peacekeepers said they woke to find rebels in the town.
Monday afternoon, rebel fighters were already marching single-file by the side of the road north toward Kanyabayonga, which sits on a hilltop. Wearing crisp military uniforms and black Wellington boots, they carried rockets, generators and Kalashnikov rifles.
Halfway up the road that zigzags to the top of the densely forested mountain, an army soldier waved a car of approaching journalists to stop — his presence marking the front line.
Kanyabayonga itself was virtually deserted, except for handfuls of people still fleeing with everything they owned.
Women carried babies and plastic yellow Jerry cans and rolled mattresses on their backs. Children, doubled over under heavy loads, trekked behind.
Hundreds of soldiers could be seen in apparent retreat, walking down the same roads pushing wooden bikes laden with sacks, and carrying ammunition and bundles of belongings on their heads.
Hundreds of other troops stayed behind, though, scattered across the town of empty straw huts.
One soldier in flip-flops, Jerome Roger, said government troops had fled Rwindi on the orders of their unit commander. He said he did not know his army’s plans or strategy — he and his colleagues had no radios to communicate with other units.
“We retreated from Rwindi; maybe we’ll retreat from here,” Roger said, shrugging his shoulders and smiling wildly as marijuana smoke wafted through the air.
On a hill near the UN base in Kanyabayonga, fearful residents tethered plastic tents to the jagged coils of concertina wire surrounding it. Others jammed tree branches into the ground, trying to build shelters.
John Mbusa, 60, said he fled Kanyabayonga last week after an earlier round of fighting drew near. He moved north with his wife and eight children, sleeping outside.
Returning four days later, he found soldiers pillaging the town.
“We didn’t even stay home one night,” Mbusa said. “They took everything we had, mattresses, money. They were drunk. We left immediately.”
His next stop: the UN base.
Many residents had mixed feelings about the UN mission in Kanyabayonga.
“The UN does nothing,” Mbusa said. “When there is fighting, they don’t even come out. They stare at us.”
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