Hundreds of officials have de-scended on this eastern outpost to begin preparations for upcoming peace talks even as fighting continued in the tangled forests of eastern Congo.
Missing from the gathering was the warlord Laurent Nkunda, whose rebellion, staged from the jungles surrounding Goma, is at the heart of the spiraling conflict.
In a telephone interview on Thursday, his second in command said Nkunda had not yet been invited to the peace conference, which is scheduled to begin in Goma on Jan. 6.
"If we receive the invitation, we will be there -- no trouble. We are here for peace and not for war," said Bwambale Kakolele, the rebel leader's military commander.
But he said the government was continuing to attack Nkunda's positions as officials rolled into the provincial capital to discuss peace.
"Even this morning these people ... have attacked our troops in Rugari," Kakolele said. "We do not understand."
Vital Kamerhe, the president of Congo's National Assembly, said Nkunda will be invited to the conference and it is important that he be represented.
"I believe he has said that he will stop the war and he wants talks to take place, and that is an important declaration," Kamerhe said.
Kamerhe emphasized, however, that the talks are designed to start a dialogue between all parties to Congo's conflict -- not just Nkunda.
"The government has decided to talk about peace, security, and development. This is not a talk between the government and the CNDP ([he National Council for the Defense of the People, the political wing of Nkunda's militia]. It's a dialogue between all," Kamerhe said.
Fighting in eastern Congo has escalated dramatically since August, as rival rebel militias have clashed over the forested territory. Nkunda's army is one of the most powerful, comprised of more than a thousand men. In an effort to dislodge the warlord's army, the government of Congo at one point launched an offensive but was forced to retreat after two weeks.
An estimated 800,000 people have fled their homes this year as a result of the clashes. Rapes, including of infants, have become common, as has the raiding of schools by Nkunda's men to recruit child soldiers.
Sylvie Van Den Wildenberg, a UN spokeswoman based in Goma, confirmed that fighting had taken place on Thursday, but said government troops had defended a town from rebel infiltration. The UN, which has a 17,000-member peacekeeping force in Congo, has pressured the government to resolve the conflict in the east.
Humanitarian organizations say the situation is worse than any the country has seen since the end of a five-year civil war in 2003.
Kakolele, Nkunda's second in command, said the rebel leader was prepared to come to the talks.
"We must discuss. There are a lot of things that we can discuss. In the conference we are going to sit together with the government," he said. "We ask the government to share the problem together and share security together."
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS