coupures 25 juin 2007 (eng)

Congo-Kinshasa: Violence Hampering Aid Efforts in the East

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
22 June 2007
Posted to the web 22 June 2007
Nairobi
Attacks on civilians and clashes between Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwandan rebels have hindered efforts to reach affected populations in the east, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
The attacks were mainly perpetrated by the Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda (FDLR) rebels, who fled their country after the 1994 genocide and have continued to resist the Forces armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC).
According to Modido Traore, head of OCHA in South Kivu, the situation has meant populations are constantly on the move, sometimes leaving their homes at night only to return during the day.
In a report, OCHA said attacks against civilians reached a peak in March. Some calm prevailed thereafter, but a new wave occurred in May. One such attack left 18 dead in Nyalubuze, Muhungu and Cihamba, with 27 injured and four kidnapped. Leaflets were dropped giving warning of more trouble.
Tension was also high over reports of the Mayi-Mayi rebels regrouping, and the movement of FDLR fighters and displaced civilians from North to South Kivu.
In early June, the FDLR attacked Kalehe in Mule area, forcing local residents to flee their homes. Another attack the next day in Mamba area resulted in the deaths of several people, including the village chief.
OCHA, which has been coordinating assessment missions in the area, said an estimated 6,000 people displaced from Ufamando in the past three weeks were heading to Tushunguti. Another 2,000 displaced families had arrived in Lumbishi and Numbi.
Several attacks were also reported in early June: in Miti when FDRL fighters emerged from the forest to loot, plunder and rape; Kabare and Combo, and in Kajeje.
On 20 June, a visiting UN Security Council delegation called for increased efforts to end insecurity in the east. "It is necessary to address the problems of the east and in that regard, relations with Rwanda are essential," Jean-Marc de la Sablière, the leader of the delegation and French ambassador to the UN, told a news conference in Kinshasa.
A 15-member delegation was on a 24-hour visit to the DRC on the final leg of a five-nation African tour. "For each of the members of the Council it is ... an issue of great concern," De la Sablière said.
"We understand that the Congolese government has defined a strategy which will give priority to the search for a political and diplomatic solution," he added. "MONUC [the UN Mission in Congo] is ready to help the authorities to put such a strategy in place."
MONUC has so far assisted the DRC government in the formation of 15 integrated brigades mainly deployed to the east.
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations
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New army chief of staff takes over in DRC



Lieutenant-general Dieudonne Kayembe, new chief of the general staff of the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Friday officially assumed his duties at a ceremony organized at the defense ministry.
During the ceremony, the new chief of staff said he would dedicate himself to the defense of the independence of his country.
On June 14, Joseph Kabila, DRC's President and supreme commander of the army, promoted about a dozen senior army officers. In the same move, the president also named new heads of the army, police and intelligence services.
Born at Lubumbashi, eastern DRC in 1945, Kayembe, who is a former student of the prestigious Saint Cyr military academy in France, commands great respect within the army.
Formerly, he served in the defense and reconstruction ministries in the capacity of deputy minister. In 2002, he served as a director in the DEMIAP, the intelligence wing of DRC's armed forces.
Source: Xinhua
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INTERVIEW-Congo to cancel logging deals to protect forests
By Joe Bavier
KINSHASA, June 21 (Reuters) - Congo is ready to cancel more than half its timber contracts to protect the world's second biggest tropical forest but it wants more aid from foreign governments to help do so, the environment minister said.
Democratic Republic of Congo is carrying out a World Bank-sponsored review of 156 logging deals, most of them issued during the vast country's 1998-2003 civil war and a subsequent three-year transitional government.
Congo issued a five-year moratorium on new logging contracts in 2002 in an effort to stem rampant deforestation aggravated by the conflict. That measure went largely unheeded and companies continued to sign new deals.
Around three million hectares (7.4 million acres) of illegal concessions have already been cancelled by Congo's new government, which took office this year after historic post-war elections in 2006.
"We have between 24 and 25 million hectares still held by individuals and companies. I would say that I am capable of cancelling another 12 to 15 million hectares of contracts. That's the minimum," Environment Minister Didace Pembe told Reuters.
"Anyone who doesn't conform to the criteria, those that signed logging contracts during the moratorium and are unable to justify how, we are going to cancel their contracts," he said.
"All those who have forestry concessions but don't pay their taxes, we are going to cancel them," he said in an interview late on Thursday, without citing any companies or individuals.
Amongst the biggest timber firms operating in Congo are a subsidiary of Germany's Danzer Group, Siforco, and Portuguese-owned Sodefor, a unit of holding company NST. Together with a third company, Safbois, they account for over two-thirds of the country's capacity, researchers say.
G8 INITIATIVE
Congo hopes to receive up to $6 billion a year under an international conservation scheme which would provide financial incentives to preserve the forests in the future, the minister said.
At the G8 summit in Germany this month, leaders from the world's eight richest countries proposed a Forest Carbon Initiative to give developing countries financial incentives to combat global warming.
Cutting and burning tropical forests contributes 20 percent of the overall carbon emissions that are accelerating climate change.
Logging and land clearing for agriculture are eating away at the ecosystems of the Congo Basin forest, which are being degraded at the rate of more than 800,000 hectares every year.
The initiative would create a fund to compensate developing nations like Congo, with the world's second largest tropical forest after the Amazon, for not granting logging concessions.
"When we see the benefits this forest brings ... to the entire planet, it is about time the major world powers think about compensation for everything this forest does," Pembe said.
Fair compensation, he believes, could inject around $6 billion dollars a year into Congo's coffers -- a massive windfall for a country with a total proposed 2007 budget of just over $2 billion.
"That will be an enormous way for us to pull ourselves up," Pembe said. "You risk pushing us to destroy our forests because we need money. They say we are the second lung, but that second lung has to be taken care of."
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Congolese lawmaker killed in plane crash in south-east Congo
(DPA)

22 June 2007

KINSHASA/NAIROBI - A Congolese member of parliament was killed when a domestic passenger plane crashed in the south-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), reports said Friday.
Rescue workers at the scene Thursday had managed to pull 13 survivors from the wreckage out of 22 people on board.
It was unclear what caused the crash but UN-backed Radio Okapi said the plane was struggling at take-off and was found upside down in a swamp.
The Karibu Airways plane was flying from Kamina in the DRC’s mining state, Katanga, and heading to the provincial capital Lubumbashi.
The member of the country’s national assembly was on his was to give a lesson at Lubumbashi University.
The vast DRC - the size of Western Europe - has only 500 kilometres of paved road, and travellers often have no other choice but to fly between its provinces.
The central African country is notorious for unreliable and often deadly air travel.
All but one of the country’s 51 airlines are banned from flying in the EU.
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When our parents died, we were accused of sorcery



June 2007 (PlusNews)

KINSHASA, When David Kanyama's parents died six years ago, he and his four brothers went to live with their grandfather, but were soon chased from his home.

"My grandfather said that we were sorcerers; that we had killed his son through our sorcery and that we did not have the right to benefit from the property of a person whom we had sacrificed," said David, who is now 16 years old.

"Before our parents died, the little money they had was finished taking care of their illnesses; managing AIDS is overwhelming. My father's relatives also abandoned him during his illness.

Life became very difficult for us; so much so that we were forced to sell the minibus we had inherited from our father. Unfortunately, the small business we established with the money from the sale of the minibus soon went bankrupt.

Our grandfather then forcefully chased us from our parental home, thus beginning our life of destitution. With none of our relatives willing to take care of us, we lived in the streets for two years, sleeping and living in fear of violence and deprivation.

We were no longer going to school and on some days we had nothing to eat. At the same time we were afraid of suffering from the same illness [as our parents].

We were the objects of curiosity, the children whose parents had died of the 'scourge of the century', as AIDS is referred to here.

Five years later, three of us got assistance from an AIDS NGO [non-governmental organisation] (Action Communautaire Sida/Avenir Meilleur pour les Orphelins), enabling us to return to school.

My two older brothers did not continue with their studies. One is a commission agent while the other is running a business, which is not doing very well.

I dream of continuing with my studies so that I can take care of my family, and recover the house that our father left us. However, I am afraid that the assistance being offered by the NGO will cease one day and affect my education.

I would like to find an AIDS cure and help the people who are dying, leaving their young children to be mistreated and without hope."

ei/aw/kr/he


[ENDS]
[The above testimony is provided by IRIN, a humanitarian news service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.]

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