Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Wednesday postponed a meeting of their high command after an open challenge to Laurent Nkunda threatened to complicate the search for a solution to the conflict in the country’s east.
A move to oust Nkunda was launched by chief of staff Bosco Ntaganda, but their relative positions remained unchanged ahead of an emergency meeting of the rebels’ high command which was postponed until Thursday.
Ntaganda signed a statement on Monday that Nkunda had been dismissed as leader of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) for “poor leadership” and “bad governance.” The CNDP later denied that.
PHOTO: EPA
UN peacekeepers were alerted to the possibility of clashes between rival rebel factions, but no fighting was reported after apparent efforts to lower tensions inside the rebel camp.
“There’s little chance it will degenerate,” said Stewart Scott, Nkunda’s biographer. “The situation seems to have settled. Everyone now wants to calm things down.”
Ntaganda was accused of “high treason” for his affront to Nkunda, but despite this he remains the rebel chief of staff, a CNDP spokesman said on Wednesday.
Nkunda was expected to chair a delayed meeting of the high command in Rutshuru, north of Goma, scheduled for yesterday, to discuss the general’s fate.
“We are favoring dialogue,” deputy executive secretary of the CNDP Serge Kambasu Ngeve. “We have to listen to everyone to resolve the problem ... There are sentiments, discontent, that we cannot ignore.”
The rebels’ woes were being regarded with a mixture of suspicion and derision by the government in Kinshasa.
“If this malaise can change the nature of this armed movement into a political party, that would be significant,” government spokesman Lambert Mende said.
“But if it’s a maneuver to create a diversion, it will fail,” he said, adding that it mattered little to Kinshasa who was leader.
“We are not fighting the CNDP because it is being led by Nkunda, but because it violates the laws of the republic, is killing populations and has caused the exodus of thousands of displaced people,” Mende said.
Nicknamed “The Terminator,” Ntaganda had a previous scrape with Nkunda last October, when his signature appeared on a statement announcing that the rebel leader had died from a heart attack.
The authors of the statement remain unidentified, and Ntaganda was untouched. But this time, there seems little doubt about his open defiance of Nkunda, who founded the CNDP in 2006.
The general has become a focal point for internal opposition to Nkunda, an ethnic Tutsi.
Ntaganda, a hardliner, has the support of the Bagogwe Tutsi clan from the mountainous Masisi region, who have tired of the dominance of Nkunda’s Rutshuru-based Tutsis in the rebel leadership.
His move against Nkunda may have several motives, a UN source said, that include military distrust of the increasing role of civilians in the CNDP leadership and hostility to a strategy of greater openness toward rival Hutus.
REBUILDING: A researcher said that it might seem counterintuitive to start talking about reconstruction amid the war with Russia, but it is ‘actually an urgent priority’ Italy is hosting the fourth annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine even as Russia escalates its war, inviting political and business leaders to Rome to promote public-private partnerships on defense, mining, energy and other projects as uncertainty grows about the US’ commitment to Kyiv’s defense. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were opening the meeting yesterday, which gets under way as Russia accelerated its aerial and ground attacks against Ukraine with another night of pounding missile and drone attacks on Kyiv. Italian organizers said that 100 official delegations were attending, as were 40 international organizations and development banks. There are
The tale of a middle-aged Chinese man, or “uncle,” who disguised himself as a woman to secretly film and share videos of his hookups with more than 1,000 men shook China’s social media, spurring fears for public health, privacy and marital fidelity. The hashtag “red uncle” was the top trending item on China’s popular microblog Sina Weibo yesterday, drawing at least 200 million views as users expressed incredulity and shock. The online posts told of how the man in the eastern city of Nanjing had lured 1,691 heterosexual men into sexual encounters at his home that he then recorded and distributed online. The
TARIFF ACTION: The US embassy said that the ‘political persecution’ against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro disrespects the democratic traditions of the nation The US and Brazil on Wednesday escalated their row over US President Donald Trump’s support for former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, with Washington slapping a 50 percent tariff on one of its main steel suppliers. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threatened to reciprocate. Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly plotting to cling on to power after losing 2022 elections to Lula. Brasilia on Wednesday summoned Washington’s top envoy to the country to explain an embassy statement describing Bolsonaro as a victim of “political persecution” — echoing Trump’s description of the treatment of Bolsonaro as
CEREMONY EXPECTED: Abdullah Ocalan said he believes in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons, and called on the group to put that into practice The jailed leader of a Kurdish militant group yesterday renewed a call for his fighters to lay down their arms, days before a symbolic disarmament ceremony is expected to take place as a first concrete step in a peace process with the Turkish state. In a seven-minute video message broadcast on pro-Kurdish Medya Haber’s YouTube channel, Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), said that the peace initiative had reached a stage that required practical steps. “It should be considered natural for you to publicly ensure the disarmament of the relevant groups in a way that addresses the expectations
RSS