Guinea aide admits shooting junta leader Camara

A renegade soldier hunted by Guinea's authorities for trying to kill junta leader Capt Moussa Dadis Camara has admitted that he shot his boss.
Lt Toumba Diakite told French RFI radio that the army tried to blame him for a massacre of protesters in September.
He said he shot Capt Camara in the neck to avoid being arrested and because he felt "betrayed".
Capt Camara was flown to Morocco for treatment after the shooting on 3 December and has not been seen since.
Junta officials have given mixed messages about the seriousness of his condition - with some suggesting he could return to the country within weeks and others saying it could be a much longer period of time.
First interview
Lt Diakite, on the run since the shooting, said he had shot Capt Camara twice in the neck after being threatened with arrest.

"I categorically state that a bullet, around one or two bullets, hit the right-hand side of the back of his neck," he said in the Radio France Internationale interview - his first since the shooting.
"I shot him because at some point there was utter betrayal towards me, a complete betrayal of democracy, he tried to lay all responsibility for the events of 28 September on me."
The interview with Lt Diakite was recorded three days ago, and it was unclear whether he was still in Guinea or had fled the country.
Previous reports said he was on the run inside Guinea.
The military drew international criticism by opening fire on crowds in a Conakry sports stadium on 28 September - with rights groups claiming more than 150 people were killed.
The BBC's Mark Doyle, who recently visited Guinea, says Lt Diakite is known to have been commanding some of the troops who opened fire at the stadium.
Our correspondent says there were also other military units present, commanded by other officers.
'Massacre order'
Activists have blamed both Capt Camara and Lt Diakite for the massacre.
Capt Camara previously tried to distance himself from the incident by saying he was not in full control of the officers at the rally.
But in his interview, Lt Diakite blamed the whole incident on Capt Camara and said he "knew the reality on the ground very well".
"He also brought in 250 new recruits from the training school for the navy who were ordered to dress in civilian clothes and armed with knives and carried out large massacres," he said.
The military took over in Guinea after the death of long-time leader Lansana Conte last December, but their rule has been characterised by instability and violent crackdowns on dissent.
Since the shooting, soldiers have rounded dozens of people it suspects of being linked to Lt Diakite.

ICC continues to push for transfer of Bosco Ntaganda to the Hague

By Gema
KINSHASA, Dec.14 (Xinhua) -- During his six-day visit since Thursday in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the president of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Justice Sang-Hyun Song, reiterated the demand that the DRC government transfer Bosco Ntaganda to the Hague.
He revealed the concern of this institution on Thursday during a parliamentary conference on justice and peace in the Great Lakes region and Central African region which was being held in the Congolese capital.
The ICC president pointed out the importance of international justice system in the DRC, especially the cases concerning the heads of rebel movements who are also the troublemakers. He indicated that the question of justice and peace cannot be left to one individual alone and that the victims of very serious crimes are the ordinary people.
"It's a must that the perpetrators are held accountable for their actions," he said.
Justice Song, however, welcomed the changes witnessed in recent years.
"I am speaking of the contribution of the ICC to bringing justice to this country and in the two neighboring countries, meaning Uganda and the Central African Republic," he noted.
He said he was convinced that sooner or later, justice, whether delivered by the ICC or the national courts, will be able to bring peace back to the region.
During his stay, the president of the highest international court will meet with the DRC officials, members of the civil society and the communities affected by conflicts in the eastern Ituri district.
His mission involves a working meeting with the Congolese minister of foreign affairs, the head of UN in the DRC (MONUC), and the members of the diplomatic bodies.
After Kinshasa, Song will visit Bunia in Ituri where he will meet with the leaders of local authorities, the magistrates of local courts, members of local human rights organizations, the journalists, as well as the victims of the criminal activities which are currently being investigated by the ICC.
OVERVIEW OF BOSCO NTAGANDA.
Ntaganda is being sought by the ICC which suspects him of having proceeded to enroll children as young as 15 years old in the ranks of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UCP) of Thomas Lubanga, who is facing justice at the ICC.
After the arrest and transfer of Lubanga to the ICC, Ntaganda rejoined the Congolese National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) of Laurent Nkunda, where he became the chief of staff.
In January, he rejoined the Kinshasa government and was integrated in the armed forces of the DRC (FARDC) with the rank of general, angering the leaders of ICC who are still seeking his transfer.
The demand by the ICC president came after that of the special counsellor to the ICC prosecutor, Beatrice Lefrapere, who made the same request on July 5.
"It's high time the DRC government arrested Ntaganda and delivered him to the ICC," she indicated at that time.
But the Congolese minister for Communication and Media who is also the government spokesman, Lambert Mende, declared that everything will be done according to the schedule already given to the ICC.
Last month, Mende clearly stated that the DRC government "will conform to the requirements of the Rome Statute for which the DRC is a signatory. But for the moment, security of the eastern parts of the country is the priority." The same stand was voiced by in February by Congolese President Joseph Kabila.
Kabila, speaking on the issue of Ntaganda, said the choice is very clear: peace and security of North Kivu province comes before anything else.
Ntaganda's shift to FARDC dealt a heavy blow to Nkunda's CNDP, which was advancing in late 2008 and early 2009 to the gate of Goma, the provincial capital in North Kivu, posing a real threat not only to the DRC government, but the entire Great Lakes region, where the 1998-2003 Congo war sucked in several neighboring countries.
The CNDP was routed in a join military operation between the DRC and Rwanda, which arrested Nkunda after he fled across the border. The DRC has since defused the major flare in the troubled east although insurgents are still active in small groups.

Can Guinea avoid a violent power struggle?

While Guinea’s military ruler Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara recovers from an assassination attempt, other junta leaders rejected a regional proposal Monday to deploy troops to prevent violence.

Dakar, Senegal
Days after an assassination attempt by his own aide, Guinea’s military ruler Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara is reportedly making a recovery in a Moroccan hospital from a gunshot wound to the head.
Whether his small West African country can make a speedy recovery from the diplomatic isolation and from the uncertainty of an erratic and often brutal year of military rule is a question that remains to be answered.
The assassination attempt comes at a time of diplomatic pressure on Guinea’s military to step aside and hold national elections, as promised, and also as United Nations investigators have just finished a probe into a military massacre of some 157 opposition supporters attending a political rally in the capital, Conakry, on Sept. 28. (How did Guinea erupt into violence? Read more here.)
Capt. Camara has denied directing the massacre, saying that it was instigated by “uncontrollable elements” in the military. But human rights advocates say that Camara’s one-year rule has coincided with a rapid decline in political rights, and an increase in detention, torture, and murder of opposition activists. Now concerns of a violent power struggle are growing after Guinea's military leadership rejected a proposal Monday from a regional group to bring in foreign troops to prevent further violence, saying it would consider such a move an act of war.
“The Guinean military has a history of factionalism, and the potential for infighting could bring a bloody fight for control,” Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, based in Dakar. Human Rights Watch will issue a report on Guinea this Thursday.
The good news, she says, is that the current head of the military in Camara’s absence – General Sekouba Konate – has made a strong appeal for the military to remain unified and disciplined until the leadership crisis is sorted out, and he has also indicated that the military must prepare for a transfer of power to a civilian government.
“This is a country that sat by and watched two of its neighbors, Liberia and Sierra Leone, disintegrate in civil wars, and Sierra Leonean refugee amputees walking the streets in Guinea,” says Ms. Dufka. “Guineans get how devastating war is, and I don’t think they want to go that way, even the military.”
Transition to civilian rule?
Guinea has been in political turmoil since last Christmas, when Captain Camara came to power in a largely bloodless coup, following the death of longtime Guinean President Lansana Conte, himself a general who took power following the death of a president. The global economic crisis hammered Guinea, which is the world’s largest supplier of aluminium ore, but has done little to diversify its economy.
Strikes by trade unions and student groups have challenged Camara to abide by his promise to step down and hold elections, but with Camara making a slow recovery – he is reportedly able to feed himself and to talk – his subordinates seem ready to discuss holding national elections in January.

Influx of refugees from Rwanda raises doubts in DR Congo

KINSHASA, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- The arrival of about 12,000 families in the last few months in the territory of Masis and Rutshuru, in the province of North Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has aroused doubts about their origin and raised fear of infiltration of foreigners.
The authorities indicated that they may pose as Congolese refugees from Rwanda.
The coordinator of the national commission for refugees in North Kivu (CNR), Laingulia Njewa, told local radio this week that these people came in illegally through the border from Kibumba to around 20 km north of Goma along Ritshuru road.
Accompanied by their families and animals, they settled in a Congolese village and 80 percent of them said they came from refugee camps in Byumba and Kibuye in Rwanda, he pointed out.
Njewa asked the local population to be calm, pledging the government was thinking about the issue in order to identify these suspicious refugees, whose real figure had not yet been established.
The UNHCR also has doubt whether or not these people are Congolese refugees.
"We honestly do not know the history of these people. In any case, the majority did not have with them documents to prove that they were refugees and the authorities must now start the identification process to establish the origin of these people," Francesca Fontanini, administrator in charge of external relations of the UNHCR in the DRC said on Wednesday in Kinshasa after a mission in North Kivu.
"We compared the lists that the authorities gave us with our Rwandan UNHCR office, but they do not correspond with the names of the people who were in the Rwandan refugee camps. Therefore these people are not in our data base," Fontanini added.
"According to the UNHCR figures, today we still have 52,000 Congolese refugees living in Rwanda," she said.
During a press conference held on Thursday in Kinshasa, the Congolese minister for communication and media, Lambert Mende Omalanga, talked of some refugees coming from Rwanda through illegal routes, declaring that "the government was well aware of movements of people from Rwanda to the DRC."
"The DRC and Rwanda are having contacts over this issue and they are both monitoring the situation," he told reporters.
"What has happened was done in a more or less anarchical manner. But if they are Congolese, they have a right to stay in their country. If they are Congolese, we shall know them after verification. If they are foreigners, they will be repatriated to their country of origin," the Congolese government spokesman said.
Mende, who did not disclose the figure of illegal refugees, said it was difficult to establish the definite number of Congolese refugees in Rwanda by using only the UNHCR figures because the UNHCR only counts people who are living in camps.
"We know that there are refugees who are living with families. It's the work of the Congolese interior minister with his Rwandan counterpart and the UNHCR, which will begin this week. They will give us a report and in all honesty, we shall make this information public," he explained.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a national member of parliament from North Kivu expressed fear that the arrival of the refugees in the Congolese territories of Masisi and Rutshuru could become a new cause of tensions between Rwanda and the DRC.
"A number of these refugees are simply Rwandese nationals who will cause a lot of trouble when they will be told to go back to their country," he said.
He blamed the situation on the Rwandese government, indicating every time the DRC attempts to find peace, Kigali "provokes a situation that can lead to destabilization because it is aided by foreign powers."
The issue has led to a "sine die" of a meeting planned for Nov.23 between the UNHCR, Rwanda and the DRC on the repatriation of Congolese refugees.
The postponement of the tripartite meeting was confirmed on Wednesday by Fontanini.
"I think that the repatriation of Congolese refugees from Rwanda will begin next year," she declared.

DRC-CONGO: Needs unmet as refugees flee from Congo to Congo

BRAZZAVILLE, 9 December 2009 (IRIN) - Aid agencies have been unable to fully meet the needs of tens of thousands of people who have fled inter-communal clashes over natural resources in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). And according to the Humanitarian Affairs Minister in the neighbouring Republic of Congo, the refugees’ destination, time is of the essence. “We are also afraid of low water levels in the River Ubangi [which separates the two Congos],” said Emilienne Raoul. “From 15 December it will be difficult for boats to navigate the Ubangi,” she added. “There are now 77,488 refugees in Congo-Brazzaville,” said UNHCR’s crisis unit chief Ben Boubacar Diallo. “Given the number of refugees, the aid would appear to be insufficient. The needs are enormous,” he said, adding that the situation in DRC’s Equateur province had yet to improve. “We will keep supplying domestic kits [comprising mattresses, mosquito nets, blankets, basins and jerry cans] while mobilizing agencies,” said Diallo.
.We have not yet registered epidemics because agencies offering health services have been efficient and vigilant,” he said. So far the humanitarian response has involved: - The World Food Programme on 8 December sent a boat with almost 300MT of food and 1,500 litres of fuel up the Ubangi river to the northern Likouala region, where the DRC refugees are now living along a 160km stretch of riparian territory. Some 90 percent of the refugee sites can only be reached from the river. - The Italian government announced it has donated 300,000 euros (US$442,597) to help meet the most pressing needs of the refugees for the next six months. - The World Health Organization has made 2MT of medical supplies available to the Congolese government for delivery to the refugees. - Some 500MT of food is warehoused in the southern city of Point Noir but wagons are needed before they can be railfreighted to Brazzaville, from where they will be sent to Likouala.

Six DR Congo soldiers killed in Tutsi attack

AFP) – 2 days ago
KINSHASA — A Tutsi rebel group killed six soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo during a night-time attack, the UN mission in the DR Congo (MONUC) reported on Thursday.
"On Wednesday, around 4:30 am (O330 GMT), a group of rebels of the Federal Republican Forces (FRF) attacked an FARDC (army) battalion at Minembwe", in Sud-Kivu province, the MONUC military spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, told AFP.
The attack left six dead and four injured among the Congolese soldiers and "the toll would have been higher had it not been for the intervention of MONUC, which heard shooting and fired back with its armour," Dietrich said.
The FRF are mostly Congolese Tutsis, also known as Banyamulenge, who claim to defend the socio-economic interests of their tribe, based largely in the east of the DR Congo.
In 2008, the FRF was among several armed groups which signed an accord with Kinshasa, which provided for their integration into the army.
But they have refused to join the FARDC and instead pursued their sporadic attacks on civilians and the army.
The FRF is also listed among the armed groups that illegally exploit the mineral wealth of the eastern DR Congo.

Analysis: Guinea leader's wound may end junta rule

CONAKRY, Guinea — Even before Guinea's military strongman was wounded in an assassination attempt and airlifted to Morocco for emergency surgery, top diplomats were discussing how to force him out.
One option: Offer Capt. Moussa "Dadis" Camara a villa in another African country to get him to leave the nation he has terrorized for the past 11 months.
Now that Camara is in a Morocco hospital with a bullet wound to the head, some diplomats and experts say this is the best thing that could have happened to Guinea, offering the West African country a chance to rid itself of military rule. They say that even if the rogue leader does fully recover, the international community will pressure Morocco to keep him from returning.
"The international community was looking for a way to ease him out," said Africa expert Peter Pham, director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University. "When it became clear he didn't want to leave, they were even looking into the possibility of shelling him out. This turn of events has just made it a lot easier. Now he is out of the way."
A delegation of foreign diplomats, including a top U.S. State Department official, will meet Sunday to try to hammer out a plan to return Guinea to civilian rule. The meeting in neighboring Burkina Faso is the most recent in ongoing negotiations between the military junta and the country's opposition aimed at finding a solution to Guinea's political crisis.
The talks have so far failed to produce a clear timetable for when the military will step down. But those returning to the negotiating table this weekend say the dynamics have changed now that Camara appears to be incapacitated.
The 45-year-old has not spoken publicly since being shot in the head by his top aide on Dec. 3, leading many to speculate he is in a coma. The country's spokesman said he will return to Guinea "soon," but a doctor who saw Camara's CAT scan said the leader suffered a serious brain injury and is unlikely to return for a long time — if ever.
Camara seized power in a coup nearly a year ago, just hours after the death of the country's former strongman Lansana Conte. He promised to quickly organize elections in which he would not run. But within months it became clear that he did not intend to step down, prompting massive protests.
On Sept. 28, members of the presidential guard opened fire on unarmed demonstrators gathered inside the national soccer stadium, killing at least 157, according to human rights groups. Women were gang-raped by soldiers chanting slogans in support of Camara.
The shocking display of brutality prompted the European and the African Unions to impose sanctions on Guinea, including an arms embargo and a travel ban and asset freeze on top members of the junta.
Even before the massacre, diplomats had been negotiating exile for Camara, similar to the scenario initially offered to Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, who lived for several years in a posh villa in Nigeria before being arrested. A top European ambassador who asked for anonymity in keeping with protocol said he had even contacted his country's foreign ministry to see if the European nation could host Camara. A Malian diplomat in Guinea said his government had expressed a willingness to welcome Camara.
The four countries considered seriously, say two foreign diplomats involved in the discussions, were Libya, Burkina Faso, Mali — and Morocco.
Of the four, Morocco is an obvious choice because of the country's long-standing relationship with Guinea. Conte was treated in Morocco for the undisclosed illness that eventually killed him, Pham said.
But Camara was never interested in exile and repeatedly made it clear that he intended to hang on, including to U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa William Fitzgerald who came to Guinea and told Camara that he needed to step down after the stadium massacre, according to a non-U.S. diplomat who was briefed on the visit. Some diplomats even considered a cash payout.
"Say you give Dadis $50 million and a villa in Morocco," said a foreign diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press. "That's still a huge savings for the international community compared to the cost of a military intervention or a peacekeeping force — which will go into the hundreds of millions."
Several countries, including some of Guinea's neighbors who fear that instability in Guinea could spread, began to put out feelers about the possibility of a military intervention. Fearing for his safety, Camara imported Israeli security contractors to train an ethnic militia composed of men from his tribe in a bid to secure his power base.
It seemed like an impossible stalemate until Dec. 3, when the head of the presidential guard shot Camara. He was flown to Morocco the next day.
Mohammed Ibn Chambas, an official with the 15-state regional bloc representing West Africa, said shortly after Camara went into surgery that he was an "obstruction."
"The regional position is that we don't see Captain Dadis Camara as playing a constructive role," he told reporters at a London press conference. "No, he is quite frankly an obstruction. He is part of the problem not the solution. We would like to move on."
Chambas leads the international contact group that is meeting with a delegation from the junta on Sunday. The negotiators led by Chambas, with pressure from the U.S. and the European Union, are expected to push the junta to agree on a concrete roadmap for democratic elections to restore civilian rule.
Experts say that two wild cards remain, including the succession of power. In Camara's absence, his deputy has stepped in. It's unclear if Gen. Sekouba Konate, believed to be loyal to Camara, will be willing to hand over power of the mineral-rich nation to civilians. One encouraging sign is that he sent an emissary to speak to a top opposition leader the same day Camara was evacuated to Morocco.
A second unknown is what will happen if Camara recovers from surgery. As head of state, he has diplomatic immunity. There is no international warrant for his arrest. However, a United Nations commission that was in Guinea this month investigating the army-led massacre is expected to recommend prosecution in its upcoming report.
If Camara is named responsible for the killings, the International Criminal Court could issue a warrant — forcing Morocco to detain him. Diplomats are divided on whether Morocco will detain him without legal cause.
Pham, who wrote several articles about Conte's prolonged illness, said the Guinean government bought at least three villas in Morocco for Conte's use during his final years, including one intended for medical visits. It's located just minutes from the hospital in Rabat, Morocco's capital, where Camara is being treated, he said.
"If Morocco decides to keep him, they won't even have to foot the tab of putting him up — they can just put him on a gurney and wheel him over to the villa," Pham said.

Belgian professor and Africa expert speaks on situation in DRC and Rwanda

By Wayne MadsenOnline Journal Contributing WriterDec 9, 2009, 00:18
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(WMR) -- Noted Belgian expert on the history and politics of central Africa’s Great Lakes region and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Dr. Filip Reyntjens of the Institute of Development Policy and Management (IOB) in Antwerp, spoke at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University in Washington on December 3 and leveled a broadside on the policies of Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame in his nation’s looting of the DRC’s natural resources.
Reyntjens said that in 1997 and 1998, Kagame, a Rwandan Tutsi who grew up in Uganda, decided that the only way to deal with Hutus exiled to Zaire from Rwanda was to “exterminate them.”
Kagame is now lauded around the world by uninformed “human rights” groups and governments for the “suffering” he and his comrades endured after the mass killings of Rwandan Tutsis in the aftermath of the aerial assassinations of the Hutu presidents of Rwanda and Burundi by Kagame’s forces on April 6, 1994.
Eventually, Kagame became such a regional military threat by 2001 that his old ally, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, asked British overseas development minister Clare Short for permission to spend development aid from Britain on defense in order to protect against what Museveni believed was a Rwandan military threat. Rwandan troops began to appear in force in DRC’s Ituri province, which has a border with Uganda but not Rwanda. Rwanda also began supporting a rebel militia in Ituri, composed largely of Hema tribal members, that was originally allied with Uganda but turned against it with aid from Rwanda. Reyntjens believes that such “shifting alliances” are rampant in the DRC and are making it difficult for the central government to reassert its authority over the vast nation.
Essentially, Rwandan and Ugandan forces were competing against one another over the lion’s share of DRC’s rich natural resources, which were and continue to be looted by both countries from the DRC. In fact, Reyntjens pointed out that the expensive villas and office blocks now being constructed in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, are being paid with the profits from the looted natural resources from the DRC.
Reyntjens, like any journalist or academic who criticized Kagame and his dictatorship, stands accused by Kagame’s supporters of having a relationship with the former Rwandan government of assassinated President Juvenal Habyarimana. Reyntjens points out that such was not always the case with Kagame and his government, “I was a hero until I started criticizing Kagame.” Reyntjens says the Rwandan government engages in character assassination when dealing with its critics.
Rwanda is also involved in the illegal exploitation of resources in the DRC, according to Reyntjens. While admitting that Zimbabwe was also exploiting the DRC for its resources, the major difference, according to Reyntjens, is that Zimbabwe was dealing directly with the DRC central government -- a sovereign power -- while Rwanda was not.
Reyntjens cited a recent UN report that stated that in the DRC illegal aircraft movements are the rule rather than the exception. He also said Rwanda used prisoners from Rwandan jails to mine diamonds in the DRC, a clear violation of international law. Reyntjens called what is happening in the DRC the “Luxembourg Effect,” comparing the situation to what the German people would think if tiny Luxembourg wielded control over a large portion of German land and resources.
One of the biggest problems for the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC) is the presence of Rwandan-backed Congolese Tutsis in the FARDC command structure in eastern Congo. Reyntjens says the situation on the ground in eastern Congo is that Congolese Tutsis integrated into the FARDC are fighting Rwandan Hutu rebels within the DRC’s borders. Reyntjens does not believe the Rwandan armed forces should be allowed to operate in the DRC in any respect. He believes what the DRC needs is a real army and a real state.
However, since Kagame and his government constantly and astutely use the “Genocide Credit” with international donors, the aggression and interference of Rwanda in the internal affairs of DRC is never discussed. Moreover, Reyntjens said there are now “dozens of American” researchers now operating inside Rwanda and that this is a new development.
Summing up the problems for all of Africa, Reyntjens said that while the DRC must re-establish central control over its territory, including preventing Rwanda from unrestricted border crossings between it and the DRC, many Congolese, like most Africans, are suspicious of central state governments. Most Africans associate “the state” with police, rackets, and prisons, said Reyntjens. Ironically, the United States, through its military incursion into Africa with the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), is trying to extend the control of state military structures over the nations of Africa, except, of course, where U.S. and certain foreign economic interests do not find such state control advantageous, as in DRC and Sudan.
Reyntjens is hopeful that a federal DRC will be able to reassert Congolese authority over its territory and cited the 25 new provinces of the DRC where revenues from each province will be distributed as follows: 50 percent to the central government in Kinshasa, 40 percent to the provincial governments, and 10 percent to an equalization fund that will be used to balance the financial disparities between rich and poor provinces.

Wounded junta leader Camara unable to communicate, says official

Guinea junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara is unable to communicate after being shot by an aide and operated on in Morocco for a head wound, his foreign minister said in an interview on Monday.
"I have seen President Dadis. He recognises his entourage," Alexandre Cece Loua told Radio France Internationale from Rabat.

Asked whether he can engage in conversations, the minister said: "No, not for the time being. On the advice of doctors, he cannot yet communicate."
Cece Loua had previously said the junta leader underwent surgery for a head wound and his condition was "very favourable."
"His life is not in danger," he said.
He has indicated Camara may address the nation in the coming days.
Camara was wounded Thursday when his aide de camp, Aboubacar Sidiki Diakite, allegedly shot him in what a junta spokesman said was a bid to seize power in the west African country.
Opposition leader and former prime minister Cellou Dadis Diallo denied there had been a coup attempt and called the shooting a "a settling of scores between two people who were accomplices but who have since fallen out."
Guinea has been tense since junta soldiers carried out a massacre of opposition supporters at a stadium rally in September.
Camara seized power in a coup a year ago following the death of longtime leader Lansana Conte.

Kenya denies claims of harboring wanted Rwandan fugitive

The Kenyan government on Monday denied claims by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Hassan Boubacar Jallow that its harboring wanted Rwandan fugitive, Felicien Kabuga accused of bankrolling and participating in the Rwanda Genocide in 1994.
Government spokesman, Alfred Mutua told the press in Nairobi that the government is not aware of the whereabouts of Kabuga noting that he could be anywhere in the world including Kenya or neighboring countries.
“We find these allegations to be unjustified and not based on the reality of our co-operation with the United Nations and other countries,” said Mutua.
“The Government has issued a statement to the United Nations Security Council in which it points out that the international community might be over concentrating on Kenya, whereas the fugitive could be comfortably living elsewhere,” said Mutua.
He said that the Government is working on a comprehensive reply to the UN over continuous allegations its harboring the fugitive.
He said that the Kenya police have been working together with UN investigators in searching for Kabuga.
In addition we have had the American Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) working in Kenya to search for Kabuga, the spokesman said.
The FBI set up an office in Kenya for over two years and issued a reward of US$5 million to whoever leads to the apprehension of the fugitive.
“So far the FBI and other agencies have been unable to locate Kabuga in Kenya,” Mutua said adding that Kenya has been cooperating with the international community to apprehend the fugitive.

DR Congo rejects calls for more commitment in fighting impunity

The Democratic Republic of Congo has rejected calls by members of the UN Human Rights Council to suspend or prosecute soldiers found to have committed serious abuse, according to UN report.
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The report, which was adopted by the 47-state member council, 11 recommendations "did not enjoy the support of the Democratic Republic of Congo."
They include a call by the United States for Kinshasa to "significantly increase its commitment to fight impunity," by suspending and prosecuting soldiers found to have comitted serious human rights abuses.
DR Congo also refused to "arrest and transfer to The Hague Bosco Ntaganda," a former rebel chief wanted by the International Criminal Court.
Ntaganda, the former chief of staff of the rebel National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) is accused of war crimes, notably for enlisting child soldiers in 2002-2003 in the northeastern Ituri region.
International bodies have called for his arrest since he defected to join the government in January and was brought along with other rebels into the general ranks of the Congolese army, bringing some stability to the restive eastern Congo.
In October, the DR Congo government said it was not in favour of arresting Ntaganda as it could weaken the fragile state of peace in the country.

South African Diplomat Shot and Injured by Congo Army

Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- A South African diplomat was “seriously” injured after she was shot at by soldiers while driving in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo today, according to the foreign ministry.
The vehicle of the diplomat, Maryse Ash, was fired upon by members of the Congolese Republican Guard after she took a wrong turn while leaving the vicinity of the Congolese president’s residence, according to an e-mailed statement from the South African embassy in Kinshasa.
Ash suffered “serious facial injuries from glass and shrapnel” and remains in hospital but is in a stable condition, the statement said.
The South African government is “conducting an investigation” into the shooting, Saul Kgomotso Molobi, a spokesman for the Department of International Relations & Cooperation, said in an interview on his mobile phone.
Ash will be flown back to South Africa later today for further treatment, Molobi added.

Former Rwandan official warns of violence

KIGALI, Rwanda, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- A former speaker of the Rwandan Parliament has warned his country could again spiral into a dark world of violence.
The warning comes 15 years after genocide killed up to 1 million people in the long-troubled east-central African nation.
Joseph Sebarenzi, who lost most of his family in the rash of massacres, told CNN Wednesday frustration growing in Rwanda over President Paul Kagame's concentration of power could repeat the violent history if not checked.
Rwanda will hold a presidential election next August, its second since the 1994 genocide. Kagame is expected easily to win re-election.
He said the reason Rwanda had a genocide was that then-President Juvenal Habyarimana had too much power. Sebarenzi accused Kagame of now doing the same thing, amassing power while failing to create strong institutions that could check his authority.
"Instead of having a president that is too powerful, (Rwanda) should have a powerful parliament, judiciary, and a civil society," he said.

Report: UN-Backed Effort Against Hutu Rebels in DRC Fails

Rwandan Hutu rebel carries a gun as he walks past a UN peacekeeper encampment in the village of Kimua, eastern Congo .

Researchers say offensive by Congolese, UN forces has only made life worse in Congo's North and South Kivu provinces, more than 1,000 civilians have been killed since offensive began in January.

A new report says a United Nations-backed military effort has failed to subdue Rwandan Hutu rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.In a report for the U.N. Security Council, researchers say the offensive by Congolese and U.N. forces has only made life worse for civilians in Congo's North and South Kivu provinces. The report says the fighting and related violence has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.A coalition of human rights groups made similar claims last month, saying more than 1,000 civilians have been killed since the offensive began in January.The offensive targets the FDLR, a group of ethnic Hutu fighters, many of whom fled Rwanda after the 1994 genocide.U.N. researchers say the FDLR is funding its operations through the illegal mining of gold and cassiterite, a material used in many cell phones.The U.N. has about 17,000 peacekeepers in Congo, providing food, fuel, medical and transportation support to Congolese government soldiers.Congo's government is still trying to assert control over North and South Kivu, more than six years after the end of a brutal civil war.Various rebel groups and militias continue to operate in the area, despite repeated attempts by the army and U.N. forces to stabilize the region. Efforts to integrate rebels into the army have been only partially successful.

UN-backed forces failed to disarm Rwandan rebels, say experts

UN efforts to disarm the Rwandan-Hutu rebels in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo have failed and international action is needed to restrict their financing, according to a new report by UN experts.
By News Wires (text)

AFP - Military operations have failed to contain Rwandan-Hutu rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo and international action is needed to restrict their financing, said a new report by UN experts.
In a major report for the United Nations Security Council, unpublished but seen by AFP, researchers said Congolese, Rwandan and UN forces have tried to disarm the FDLR rebels, who still pose a potent threat to regional stability, but have failed to impose order in a region still wracked by faction fighting.
"This report concludes that military operations against the FDLR have failed to dismantle the organisation's political and military structures on the ground in eastern DRC," the detailed 93-page document begins.
The report also alleges that the FDLR is managing to recruit fighters using profits from a corrupt international trade in minerals.
The militia sprang up in camps in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) housing mainly ethnic Hutu refugees who fled Rwanda after their leaders launched the 1994 genocide, which left some 800,000 people dead.
The campaign has been undermined by corruption and brutality within the official Congolese armed forces and by the FDLR's ability to fund its campaigns through the international mineral trade, it says.
Companies are buying minerals from jungle mines controlled and operated by Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) cadres, while middlemen are smuggling millions of dollars in gold to Dubai every year.
The document was researched on the ground in Congo and the region over six months by a five-strong stream of experts hired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in order to prepare a report for Security Council members.
It calls on international governments to step up measures to stifle the FDLR support network, which includes members of the Rwandan diaspora based in Europe and North America and foreign sympathisers in Catholic charities.
The experts also warn that since March an offensive against the militia by Congolese forces, some of whose officers have supplied weapons to the rebels, has made life even worse for the beleaguered civilian population.
"Scores of villages have been raided and pillaged, thousands of houses have been burnt and several hundred thousand people have been displaced in order to escape from the violence generated by these military operations," it says.
Official Congolese records show only a few kilos of gold exported legally every year, but the country's own senate estimates that in reality 40 tonnes a year -- worth 1.24 billion dollars -- gets out.
The UN report details how both the anti-Rwandan government FDLR and their enemies in pro-Kigali militias use the same ethnic Indian middlemen to smuggle gold to souks in the United Arab Emirates.
It also says the FDLR profits from the export of cassiterite.
In September, the British group AMC said it would stop buying Congolese cassiterite, insisting the trade was legal but complaining of "negative campaigning from advocacy groups and adverse coverage."
The UN experts also "collected information on individuals affiliated with the Catholic Church and other religious and charitable organisations ... who provide financial and material support to the FDLR."
This is said to include "regular financial, logistical and political support from individuals" linked to two Spanish organisations, including the Fundacio S'Olivar, which is funded by the government of the Balearic Islands.
The islands' regional parliament issued a statement defending the Fundacio, denying that it supports armed groups and insisting that it works "in defence of peace, justice and solidarity, always applying pacifist principles."
Meanwhile, FDLR leaders command their troops from the safety of Europe.
"Some of these supporters and leaders are suspected participants in the 1994 Rwandan genocide," the report says, going on to detail telephone traffic and cash transfers between exiled Rwandan politicians and militia warlords.
The experts tracked down 240 calls between German-based FDLR leader Ignance Murwanashyaka and militia commanders in Congo, while these commanders were in turn in touch with contacts in 25 countries in Europe and America.
The report was addressed to the chairman of the UN Security Council committee on September 9. It is not known when it will be published.

Rwandan priest acquitted of genocide charges

By SUKHDEV CHHATBAR (AP) – 1 day ago
ARUSHA, Tanzania — A United Nations court on Tuesday acquitted a Catholic priest charged with genocide, murder and extermination in Rwanda's 1994 genocide after the judge said the prosecution had failed to prove its case.
Father Hormisdas Nsengimana, 55, had been imprisoned for seven years since his 2002 arrest in Cameroon. Judge Erik Mose ordered his immediate release from the U.N. detention facility in Arusha.
"I wish for peace and reconciliation in Rwanda ... I thank God for this (release)," Nsengimana told the press after his acquittal.
At least 500,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during Rwanda's genocide, which began after President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was brought down in April 1994.
Nsengimana was alleged to have been at the center of a group of Hutu extremists that planned and carried out targeted attacks in the southern Rwandan town of Nyanza, where he was head of a prestigious Catholic school.
He also was accused of supervising at least three roadblocks that were used to stop and kill Tutsis, according to a statement by The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Mose said the chamber had assessed all the evidence supporting the three counts against Nsengimana and did not find any credible evidence to implicate him.
"One prosecution witness testified about this event. His credibility is doubtful ... The chamber has not found the allegation proved beyond reasonable doubt," Mose said during the 30-minute ruling.
The prosecutor, Hassan Bubacar Jallow, said they needed more information to look into an appeal.
"We have not received the full text. When we receive it, we'll study it and make our position," he said.
It was the second acquittal by The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda since Monday, when the appeals court overturned a conviction and 20-year sentence faced by Protais Zigiranyirazo, the former Rwandan president's brother-in-law. Zigiranyirazo, known as "Mr. Z," was sentenced to 20 years in December 2008. The Appeals Court said it found serious errors committed by the Tribunal in Zigiranyirazo's conviction.
The tribunal, set up by the U.N. to try key suspects of the genocide, has now convicted 39 people and acquitted eight.
Nsengimana is one of the four Catholic priests indicted by the ICTR. Athanase Seromba, a former vicar in western Rwanda, is serving a life sentence. Emmanuel Rukundo, a former military chaplain, was sentenced in February to 25 years in prison. Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, a former vicar at the Parish of the Holy Family in Kigali, is awaiting trial.

Rwanda genocide ruling overturned

The UN tribunal hearing cases from the 1994 Rwandan genocide has freed a man who had been sentenced to 22 years.
Protais Zigiranyirazo, the brother-in-law of ex-Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, had been found guilty of organising a massacre of 1,000 people.
But the appeals court judge said there had been serious errors in his trial and his conviction in 2008 violated "the most basic principles of justice".
Reporters say Mr Zigiranyirazo looked stunned and relieved by the ruling.
"God is great and justice has been done. I am very happy," he told the BBC's Great Lakes service.
Mr Habyarimana's plane was shot down on 6 April, 1994, sparking the 100-day massacres in which an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.
Mr Zigiranyirazo was accused of leading a convoy that attacked Tutsis who were seeking refuge on a hill a few days after the genocide began.
But Judge Theodor Meron said the trial judgment had "seriously erred in its handling of the evidence", AP news agency reports.
Mr Zigiranyirazo told the BBC he would be seeking compensation for the eight-and-half years he had already spent in detention.
Rwanda's justice minister told the BBC the government was very unhappy about the decision, but could not reverse the judgement
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based in Tanzania, was set up to try high-profile genocide cases.
Kenya warning
Meanwhile, the US ambassador for war crimes, Stephen Rapp, has called on the Kenyan authorities to arrest a key genocide suspect.
The BBC's East Africa correspondent Will Ross says officials at the ICTR have long maintained that Felicien Kabuga is hiding in Kenya and that the Nairobi government is protecting him.
Mr Rapp said he had received fresh reports that Mr Kabuga was in Kenya.
"The latest response of government authorities is, 'Oh he's left.' The ICTR says if he's left show us the evidence. And they say, 'Well we're still looking for that evidence,'" Mr Rapp said.
"If you are still looking for the evidence you cannot honestly say that he has left," he said.
The calls for Hutu people to exterminate the Tutsis during the genocide were broadcast over Radio Mille Collines, which was headed by Mr Kabuga, a wealthy businessman.

Girlfriend 'kills Uganda general'

Uganda's former army chief James Kazini has been killed at his girlfriend's flat in the capital, Kampala.
A BBC correspondent says Maj Gen Kazini died after being hit on the head with an iron bar during a brawl.
An army spokesman said he had been a victim of domestic violence. His girlfriend has been arrested.
He was sacked as army chief in 2003 after UN accusations that he plundered resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo when leading operations there.
He was in charge of Ugandan troops who clashed with their Rwandan counterparts in the eastern Congolese town of Kisangani in 1999.
The BBC's Joshua Mmali in Kampala says many people are shocked by the manner of his death.
Last year he was found guilty of corruption - charges unconnected to the Congolese allegations.
He went to jail, but was out on bail and facing further charges of subversion at the time of his death.
Denials
Allegations against Maj Gen Kazini were first made in two United Nations reports, at a time when Uganda had a heavy military presence in eastern DR Congo, supporting the rebellion against President Laurent Kabila and later against current President Joseph Kabila.
Although Maj Gen Kazini was withdrawn from DR Congo in 2001, the Ugandan government protested his innocence and appointed him acting army chief.
The government nevertheless set up a judicial commission of inquiry into the UN allegations.
As a result of the inquiry, the government recommended that action be taken against Maj Gen Kazini, and he was removed from his post as acting head of the army in 2003.
An army spokesman said at the time that Maj Gen Kazini's removal from office was unconnected with the UN accusations, and that he was being sent for further training.
Last year he was found guilty of causing the army financial loss, charges that stemmed from irregularities in the army payroll.
He was most recently facing charges that he disobeyed a presidential order, when he was army chief, not to transport large numbers of troops at one time.
Such actions can raise suspicion of coup plotting, our reporter says.

FDLR PRESS RELEASE NR. 01/SE/CD/NOVEMBER/2009

Terrorists and war criminals to prosecute and to bring to justice are to be found in the
RPF-Inkotanyi on power in Kigali and not in the leadership of the FDLR.
In response to statements made recently in Kigali by Ms. Rosemary Museminali, Rwandan Minister
for Foreign Affairs, urging the UN to declare the FDLR a terrorist movement to be fought and to
bring its leaders to justice by European countries, the FDLR inform the public that they are not a
terrorist movement but a movement of liberation of the Rwandan people from the yoke of the
fascism of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF-Inkotanyi).
Terrorists are to be sought in the movement that has attacked Rwanda in 1990 and caused the
displacement of over 2 millions of men and women inside Rwanda in less than 3 years, which has
sacrificed the people of the Tutsi community in Rwanda and caused their massacre, which killed
hundreds of thousands of peasants in the prefectures of Byumba, Ruhengeri and Kibungo in its
march to power in Kigali, which fired mortar rounds on IDPs without defence in Kibeho in May
1995 killing many hundred men, women and children, which fired heavy weapons at the camps of
Rwandan refugees in Goma and Bukavu in October 1996 and killed thousands of them, which
chased and massacred Rwandan refugees in the forests of Zaire, which has invaded and occupied
for several years a neighbouring country, which has pillaged that country, killed more than 6
million of its citizens and which continues to sow death and desolation in neighbouring countries by
undercover soldiers.
It is the movement that transformed the country it leads in a gladiator state on the service of foreign
conglomerates and vultures and has transformed its citizens into begging people which must be
declared terrorist and its leaders be regarded as such.
It is the movement whose leader has gunned down a plane
carrying two Heads of State, their aides
and a foreign crew killing them on the spot, which must be put on the register of terrorist
movements by the concert of Nations.
It is the movement whose leaders have been indicted by a prominent anti-terrorist judge recognized
worldwide in this field for their terrorist acts in Rwanda in 1994 which must be brought to book.
It is the movement whose leaders have been indicted by a prominent European judge for their
terrorist acts against a neighbouring country, for war crimes, crimes against humanity, crime of
genocide, pillage and rape of women and girls in a neighbouring country that must be banned.
That movement of criminals is the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF-Inkotanyi) which has usurped the
power of the Rwandan people and has subjected them to unspeakable atrocities.

The FDLR urge the hegemonic regime of Kigali to stop its campaign of demonization and
persecution of the leaders of movements opposed to this criminal regime and to decide without
delay to initiate a direct dialogue with the FDLR in order to find a definitive solution to the political
problem of Rwanda which is the basis of the catastrophic situation prevailing in the African Great
Lakes Region.
The FDLR remain convinced that neither the demonization and persecution of its leaders, or
campaigns of physical elimination or unfair judicial proceedings against them, nor unjust,
unnecessary and endless war waged against them, nor unjust, unjustified and counterproductive
sanctions imposed on their leadership, will make them bow down or distract them from their
objective which is and remains the total liberation of the Rwandan people from the yoke of the
fascism of RPF-Inkotanyi.
The Kigali authorities must acknowledge their failure in running the country and the calamitous
situation in which they have plunged Rwanda and the African Great Lakes Region and draw the
consequences.

The Kigali regime must understand that the liberation process of the Rwandan people is ongoing
and nothing and nobody can stop it.
Done in Paris on November 6, 2009
Callixte Mbarushimana
Executive Secretary of the FDLR
(Sé)

Charity Group: Congolese Army Attacked Civilians At Vaccination Sites

11/6/2009 7:11 PM ET
(RTTNews) - A French medical charity group alleged Friday that some of its measles vaccination sites in rebel controlled-territories in eastern DR Congo came under fire last month when security forces attacked rebel bases in the region while thousands of civilians had gathered at the sites for vaccinations.Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Friday denounced the army attacks on rebel bases when the aid group was carrying out vaccinations for children in the region, stating that "such actions seriously compromise our neutrality.""The attacks coincided with the beginning of our vaccination and put the lives of civilians in extreme risk. Thousands of people, and the MSF teams, were trapped in the gunfire. The attack was an unacceptable abuse of humanitarian action to fulfill military objectives," Luis Encinas, head of MSF programs in Central Africa, said in a statement.Saying that the charity felt that its vaccination camps were used as "bai(RTTNews) - However, the UN withdrew its support for an FARDC unit, the 213th Brigade, earlier in the week, accusing the unit of killing "at least 62 civilians." Following the UN move, the Congolese government suspended military operations in the area to allow an inquiry into allegations that soldiers had killed civilians. The presence of some 6,000-strong FDLR rebels along the Congo-Rwanda have been at the heart of years of unrest in the region. The presence of FDLR rebels along the border region prompted the armies of DR Congo and Rwanda to launch a joint offensive against the rebels in January. The joint operation succeeded in weakening the 6,000-strong Hutu rebels in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with over 90 rebels killed in the joint offensive. It was finally called off in late February after the joint offensive achieved its objective.
t" the Congolese security forces, Encinas asked: "How will MSF be perceived by the population now? Will our patients still feel safe enough to come for medical care?" He was apparently referring to a UN-backed October 17th army offensive against Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebels in eastern Congo. The offensive targeted all seven MSF vaccination sites in the Masisi territory of eastern Congo, which under rebel control at that time.
Earlier, MSF had launched a mass vaccination campaign in Masisi district on 17th October to support the Congolese health ministry in its efforts to tackle a measles epidemic. MSF maintains that it had informed all the parties to the conflict, including FDLR rebels and Congolese military, about the vaccination campaign, and had received security guarantees from them.However, the Congolese army launched attacks on each of the seven MSF vaccination sites when the charity's medical teams were vaccinating thousands of children in Ngomashi and Kimua regions of the Masisi district, which was controlled at the time by the FDLR.The MSF claim came amidst international concerns over the alleged atrocities committed by Congolese security forces during the UN-backed offensive against Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). The United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic (DR) of Congo had backed the army offensive against the FDLR rebels by providing rations and fuel to the army troops, helping in planning operations and evacuating injured Congolese soldiers by UN helicopters.
(RTTNews) - However, the UN withdrew its support for an FARDC unit, the 213th Brigade, earlier in the week, accusing the unit of killing "at least 62 civilians." Following the UN move, the Congolese government suspended military operations in the area to allow an inquiry into allegations that soldiers had killed civilians. The presence of some 6,000-strong FDLR rebels along the Congo-Rwanda have been at the heart of years of unrest in the region. The presence of FDLR rebels along the border region prompted the armies of DR Congo and Rwanda to launch a joint offensive against the rebels in January. The joint operation succeeded in weakening the 6,000-strong Hutu rebels in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with over 90 rebels killed in the joint offensive. It was finally called off in late February after the joint offensive achieved its objective.
In addition to the joint offensive against the Hutu rebels, Rwanda had also agreed to use its influence over the Tutsi rebels to end the ongoing hostilities in eastern DR Congo.It was the first act of cooperation between the two neighboring countries in thirteen years after Congo cut off diplomatic relations with Rwanda in 1996 after Rwandan forces, along with Tutsi militia, invaded eastern Congo to hunt down Rwandan Hutu fighters who sought refuge there after the 1994 genocide.The Hutu FDLR rebels had fled Rwanda to Congo after taking active part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which over 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in a period of 100 days.

Clinics used as 'bait' in DRC war

Medecins Sans Frontieres, the French aid agency, has said that it believes its vaccination centres in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have been used as "bait" by the military to attack Rwandan opposition fighters.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Friday that thousands of civilians came under heavy fire on October 17 at seven of their vaccination clinics when the Congolese military launched attacks.
"MSF denounces this clearly unacceptable abuse of humanitarian aid for military purposes," the organisation said in a statement.
Children had been receiving measles vaccinations at the sites.
Forced to flee
Women and children were said to have been forced to flee. "They are now in unknown locations and thus cannot be vaccinated," MSF said.
"We feel we were used as bait," said Luis Encinas, the head of MSF programmes in Central Africa.
"The attacks coincided with the beginning of our vaccination and put the lives of civilians in extreme risk."
An army spokesman has questioned whether the agency had contacted the operation's headquarters before the attacks.
MSF said that it had told the government, Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) opposition group and UN peacekeepers about the clinics and received guarantees from warring factions that the vaccination programme could go forward.
A military spokesman for the UN mission in the Congo said it was not aware of the incidents.
'Continuous contact'
Maynee Nicolai, MSF's Operational Director, told Al Jazeera: "We were working in the eastern side of the DRC ... our teams were aware in October of a measles epidemic [and] decided to vaccinate.
"We informed all different armed actors that we were going to vaccinate. We asked their security guarantees. And we explained exactly when and where we were vaccinating.
"Part was done on fixed sites in government held areas and part was done using mobile sites in rebel controlled areas.
"The day we came to vaccinate in rebel-controlled areas ... we were to vaccinate on seven sites. On the day we arrived the Congolese army opened fire on villages where the MSF teams were vaccinating.
"Our teams had to flee on foot into the hills," she said.
Nicolai added: "We are in continuous contact with the various groups."

DR Congo army 'used aid as bait'

The Democratic Republic of Congo army has used vaccination clinics as "bait" to attack civilians, says aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).
Thousands of Hutu civilians were targeted when they visited sites set up to combat a measles epidemic, in areas controlled by the rebels, MSF said.
It denounced the attacks in North Kivu as "an abuse of humanitarian action".
On Monday the UN withdrew its support for a government army unit, accusing soldiers of killing 62 civilians.
MSF said the clinics were targeted despite security guarantees from all parties to enable the mass immunisation scheme to be carried out in the Maisisi district north-west of the city of Goma.
It said it was operating in support of the Ministry of Health, whose workers were unable to access regions controlled by the Hutu rebel group, the FDLR.

"We feel we were used as bait," said Luis Encinas, head of MSF programmes in Central Africa.
"How will MSF be perceived by the population now? Will our patients still feel safe enough to come for medical care?"
The targeting of civilians has been a major concern for charities operating in DR Congo and UN support for the government had been dependent on it respecting the neutrality of civilians.
The Congolese government says military operations in the area have been suspended to allow an inquiry into the UN allegations that soldiers had killed civilians.
The UN had been helping the army tackle the FDLR since January 2009.
The rebels have been at the heart of years of unrest in the region.
Their leaders fled to the area in 1994 after being accused of taking part in Rwanda's genocide and have since been fighting with the local Tutsi population and government troops.

Human Rights Watch Chalks New Allegations Against Congo, Rwanda Troops

Congo News Agency - November 3, 2009
Four days after Congo Government spokesman Lambert Mende lambasted Human Rights Watch about what he called “exaggerated” allegations on the situation in eastern Congo and the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) military operation (Kimia II) against the Rwandan Hutu militia (FDLR), the NGO responded with new allegations against the FARDC and their Rwandan Defense Force (RDF) allies in another operation (Umoja Wetu) earlier this year against the FDLR.
The NGO is now claiming that Congolese soldiers killed “at least 270 civilians between the towns of Nyabiondo and Pinga in a remote part of North Kivu province since March. Many of them had been killed during two massacres in August at Mashango and Ndoruma villages”.
The NGO claims that “Congolese army soldiers had deliberately killed at least 505 civilians from the start of operation Kimia II in March through September”.
The NGO also now claims that “another 198 civilians were deliberately killed by Congolese army soldiers and their Rwandan army allies during an earlier five-week joint operation, known as Umoja Wetu, in late January and February”.
Human Rights Watch has published countless “reports” on the situation in eastern Congo. The Congolese Government, mainly through its spokesman, has claimed it is under “attack” by the NGO. It has accused the NGO of making “unfounded” allegations, and even having an hidden “agenda” in eastern Congo.
In an interview on Top Congo FM on July 2, 2009, responding to another damning “report” from the NGO, Lambert Mende said that if Human Rights Watch “has a score to settle with Joseph Kabila, they shouldn’t try to use the situation in eastern Congo to do it. They are simply trying to weaken and demoralize us in our existential right of resistance against terrorist movements”.
He also accused the NGO of turning a blind eye on the crimes of the FDLR, most of whom committed the Rwandan genocide in 1994 before fleeing to eastern Congo, where they have since been accused by other respectable NGOs and the United Nations of committing numerous exactions against the Congolese population.
Lambert Mende told Top Congo FM that “Human Rights Watch has said almost nothing against the FDLR and LRA (Ugandan militia) that are attacking us. All the attacks from Human Rights Watch are aimed at the Congolese government. Enough is enough!”.
He accused the NGO of pursuing a hidden agenda in the Congo. He said he wondered why the NGO has focused its “attacks” on the Congolese Government, which is only trying to protect itself against “terrorist groups”.
On Wednesday, responding to a call made by the NGO for the Congolese army to stop its military operation against the FDLR, Lambert Mende said it is “nonsensical” for the NGO to call for a return to the “status quo”.
He said that some NGOs are more interested by the “effects” of war instead of solving its root cause (FDLR).
More than 5,400,000 have died in Congo over the last decade, in big part due to the presence of the Rwandan Hutu refugees and militiamen (FDLR) who fled to eastern Congo after the Rwandan genocide.
The current Rwandan authorities have used the presence of the FDLR in eastern Congo as a pretext to invade eastern Congo during the Second Congo War. After withdrawing their troops in 2003, they supported the Tutsi rebels led by warlord Laurent Nkunda who also claimed that he was protecting “his people” against attacks from the FDLR.
Laurent Nkunda an his men wrecked havoc in the region before the Congolese and Rwandan governments decided to mount a joint military operation (Umoja Wetu) to attack the FDLR. Umoja Wetu also led to the arrest of Laurent Nkunda by the Rwandan army.
Since then the FARDC have launched a military operation (Kimia I) against the FDLR in North Kivu province that has led to an improvement in the humanitarian situation of the population in the province. A second fase (Kimia II) is now underway in South Kivu province to finally rid the area of this scourge of the FDLR that has led to so many deaths in the Great Lakes region.
The United Nations News Service reported on October 16, 2009 that:
The top United Nations envoy to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today voiced optimism that calm could soon return to the country’s volatile eastern region, while noting that a number of challenges still remain.“There is now a real prospect that the conflicts that have long blighted the eastern Congo can be ended,” Alan Doss, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for DRC and head of the UN peacekeeping force there, told the Security Council.
Highlighting progress on a number of fronts, he stated that operations by the Congolese Army, known as FARDC, in North Kivu, South Kivu and Orientale provinces have significantly eroded the capacities of the Hutu rebel Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) and Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
He also said that it would be a mistake to stop now the military operation against the FDLR. Clearly, Mr. Doss doesn’t agree with Human Rights Watch approach.
By only attacking one side of the conflict, the Congolese government, the NGO often gives the impression of protecting the other side, the FDLR. Are human rights violations one-sided?
The NGO has recently been criticized in an op-ed article in the New York Times by its founder, Robert Bernstein, for this kind of approach about the Israeli palestinian conflict.
“As the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics,” he wrote.
“Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.”
“Only by returning to its founding mission and the spirit of humility that animated it can Human Rights Watch resurrect itself as a moral force in the Middle East and throughout the world. If it fails to do that, its credibility will be seriously undermined and its important role in the world significantly diminished.”

DR Congo: Arrest Bosco Ntaganda

President Kabila Should Enforce ICC Arrest Warrant on War Crimes Charges
February 2, 2009

(New York) - The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo should arrest Bosco Ntaganda, a former rebel commander charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Human Rights Watch said today in a public letter to President Joseph Kabila.
Human Rights Watch expressed deep concern that the government is considering appointing Ntaganda to a top position in the Congolese army, despite the accusations that he had responsibility for using child soldiers, as well as for committing several atrocities in Ituri district in northeastern Congo.
"For senior Congolese officials to hold a news conference with an alleged war criminal is hardly the way to promote respect for the law," said Param-Preet Singh, counsel to the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. "Kabila's government has a legal obligation to arrest Ntaganda, not to promote him."
Since April 2008, Ntaganda has been wanted by the ICC at The Hague for the war crime of enlisting child soldiers and using them in hostilities. Ntaganda is a co-accused in the trial of Thomas Lubanga, another Congo militia leader, which began on January 26.
In early January 2009, Ntaganda, formerly the military chief of staff for the rebel National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), claimed he had supplanted Laurent Nkunda as the head of the group. On January 16, in a joint news conference with the Congolese minister of the interior and the head of the police, he declared that instead of waging war on the Congolese national army, he would join its troops in fighting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a group with some leaders who participated in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 that has been operating in eastern Congo.
Congo is a party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, and thus has a legal obligation to cooperate with the court, including apprehending persons under arrest warrant and surrendering them to the court.
In addition to the ICC charges, Ntaganda has been accused of commanding troops that massacred 150 civilians at Kiwanja in North Kivu province in November 2008. He also commanded troops accused of having killed at least 800 civilians on an ethnic basis in the town of Mongbwalu, in Ituri district in 2002, after his troops took control of the rich gold mines in the area.
In 2005, Ntaganda was put on the United Nations sanctions list for having violated an embargo against arms deliveries to Congolese rebel groups.
"Giving an officer accused of such heinous crimes responsibility in military operations increases the likelihood of more attacks on civilians," said Singh. "The government is risking the lives of its people, as well as ignoring its legal obligations."
Human Rights Watch also sent letters to the European Union, the United States and members of the UN Security Council expressing deep disappointment that they had not publicly called on the DRC government to arrest Ntaganda, and urging them to use their influence with President Kabila to carry out the arrest.
Human Rights Watch also called on the United Nations Mission in the Congo (MONUC) to assist in arresting Ntaganda, as requested by the Congolese government in May 2007. MONUC has a mandate to help the government restore accountability in Congo and to ensure that those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity are held to account.
"ICC arrest warrants should not be ignored when they are politically inconvenient," said Singh. "The arrest of Ntaganda is important for Congo and for international justice worldwide."

UN drops Congo army over killings

The UN has withdrawn its support for an army unit in Democratic Republic of Congo, accusing soldiers of killing 62 civilians, a top UN official says.
UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said he had information that the army had "clearly targeted" the civilians.
Rights activists have persistently said ethnic Hutus were being killed by the Congolese army, and have accused the UN of doing little to stop the killings.
The UN has been helping the army tackle Rwandan Hutu rebels since January.
Following a tour of the region, Mr Le Roy said the army had killed at least 62 civilians between May and September this year.
"We have decided that Monuc [UN's peacekeeping operation] will immediately suspend its logistical and operational support to the army units implicated in these killings," Mr Le Roy told UN-backed Radio Okapi.
He said the killings took place around the village of Lukweti in North Kivu province, about 100km (62 miles) north-west of the provincial capital Goma.
Years of unrest
Rights groups estimate hundreds of civilians have been killed and thousands of women and girls have been raped by rebels and soldiers since DR Congo and Rwanda launched a joint offensive in January.

Last month a UN investigator said the army had massacred refugees and gang-raped women at the Shalio camp in North Kivu on 27 April.
The UN move comes after days of intense fighting between government forces and FDLR rebels around Lukweti.
The BBC's Thomas Fessy, in North Kivu province, says the army has announced it is suspending all military operations around the village so the alleged civilian deaths can be investigated.

Ivan Cyomoro Kagame: President’s son on to military training (07.09.09)

Kigali: Ivan Cyomoro Kagame, President Paul Kagame’s son is to join the prestigious American military academy West Point – rated by Forbes magazine as the best US college even top to Harvard University, reports say.
Cyomoro Kagame successfully passed his entry exam at the same New York-based Academy, the New Times reported Saturday in an unassigned article.
Mr. Kagame’s son has just completed his high school at another prestigious school in the US graduating on May 31 this year.
Another Rwandan national Roland Kalisa is now in his last year in electronic engineering at the West Point academy, rated in the latest Forbes magazine issue at the top of American colleges. Princeton University where Michelle Obama studied is second, and Harvard University – where President Obama went is on fifth position.
Until about a few years ago, no foreigners were allowed at this institution officially called the United States Military Academy.
Source

Congo troops 'massacred refugees'

troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo shot and beat to death about 50 Rwandans in April and burnt their refugee camp, a UN investigator says.
Philip Alston said about 40 women were also abducted and it prompted a revenge massacre by Rwandan Hutu militia.
His report said military operations this year carried out by the army supported by UN peacekeepers in the east had produced catastrophic results.
They have been pursuing Hutu rebels who have been based in DR Congo for years. The BBC's Thomas Fessy in the capital, Kinshasa, says Mr Alston gave horrifying details of his investigation.
He said the attack on the makeshift refugee camp of Shalio in North Kivu happened on 27 April.
"Some 40 women were abducted from the camp. A small group of 10 who escaped described being gang-raped, and had severe injuries - some had chunks of their breasts hacked off," AFP news agency quotes him as saying.
Repercussion fears
The government troops involved were the newly integrated rebels from the Tutsi-led movement which threatened to take over the provincial capital Goma a year ago.

At least 96 civilians were massacred in a neighbouring village by Rwandan-Hutu militia in revenge for the Shalio killings.
DR Congo's Information Minister Lambert Mende said the authorities were aware of the massacre.
But he said they feared repercussions if they arrested former Tutsi rebel commander - Colonel Zimulinda - who Mr Alston alleges orchestrated the Shalio massacre.
"Zimulinda's arrest would have had worse consequences than the crimes of which he is accused," Mr Mende said, according to the Reuters news agency.
In his report, the UN expert said the UN Security Council had transformed the peacekeeping force into a party to the conflict.
Earlier this week a joint report by several international aid agencies said the offensive against the Hutu FDLR rebels in the east had had "disastrous" humanitarian consequences.
Instability has been rife in eastern DR Congo since ethnic Hutus accused of taking part in Rwanda's 1994 genocide fled to the area.
Their presence inflamed ethnic tensions with the local Tutsi community, with rival militias battling one another.

Congolese troops killed 50 Rwandans in April rampage: UN

AFP - Congolese soldiers killed 50 Rwandan Hutu refugees and abducted and raped around 40 women during an attack on refugee camps in eastern DR Congo last April, a UN special rapporteur said Thursday.
"At Shalio in Nord-Kivu province, it seems that the DRC Armed Forces (FARDC) attacked a makeshift Rwandan refugee camp on April 26, 2009," UN rapporteur Philip Alston told reporters in Kinshasa.
"The FARDC surrounded the place, shot and beat at least 50 refugees and then entirely burned the camp."
Alston, who is special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings, said that at least 40 women were kidnapped from this camp. A small group of about 10 who escaped gave evidence of mass rapes. The women showed severe wounds and some had had their breasts cut, he said.
The fate of the 30 other women was not known, added Alston, who spent 12 days in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Rwanda president lauds China's role in Africa, slams West

Rwandan President Paul Kagame Sunday defended China's programme of investment in developing African countries, while slamming Western nations and firms for polluting the continent.
"The Chinese bring what Africa needs: investment and money for governments and companies. China is investing in infrastructure and building roads," said Kagame in an interview with German daily Handelsblatt to appear on Monday.
In contrast, the West's involvement "has not brought Africa forward," the president was quoted as saying.
"Western firms have to a large extent polluted Africa and they are still doing it. Think of the dumping of nuclear waste in the Ivory Coast or the fact that Somalia is being used as a rubbish bin by European firms," he added.
Kagame called for a reorientation of development aid towards investment.
"I would prefer the Western world to invest in Africa rather than handing out development aid.
"There is a need for help -- but it should be implemented in such a way as to enable trade and build up companies," he added.
"In addition, it would help Africa much more if industrialised countries allowed us the same trade rights as they give to each other," he said.
In May, China announced it was boosting its state-run Africa investment fund by two billion dollars (1.36 billion euros).
Since its launch in 2006, the China-Africa Development Fund has invested some 400 million dollars in the continent.

Hutu rebels deny kidnapping Catholic officials

Hutu rebels deny kidnapping Catholic officials
(AFP) – 1 day ago
KINSHASA — Rwandan Hutu rebels operating in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo denied on Monday that they kidnapped two Catholic officials and held them for a 5,000-dollar (3,400-euro) ransom.
The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) "have always condemned and continue to strongly condemn all kidnappings of civilians and demands for ransoms that have taken place in the east of the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), including the abduction of the two religious officials," Callixte Mbarushimana, the group's executive secretary, said in a statement.
The Catholic priest and a seminarian were kidnapped late Friday when rebels attacked their parish in the town of Ciherano, in the eastern province of Sud-Kivu.
Both were released early Saturday morning after the ransom was paid.
Colonel Delphin Kahimbi, commander of military operations in the province, told AFP on Saturday that the FDLR were behind the pair's abduction, a claim which the FDLR's Mbarushimana described as "lies" in the group's statement.
Sud-Kivu is one of the country's most unstable regions due to the presence of various Congolese armed groups and exiled Rwandan Hutu rebels.
Since July, the military, with logistics help from United Nations peacekeepers, has intensified its operations to track down FDLR members accused of committing abuses against civilians

FDLR PRESS RELEASE NR. 01/SE/CD/OCTOBER/2009

FDLR PRESS RELEASE NR. 01/SE/CD/OCTOBER/2009
The coalition of the RPA (RDF) and the FARDC should abandon the use of permanent falsehood and
demonization of the FDLR as a weapon of war.
The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) refute the false statements propagated on 3 and 4 October
2009 in the international press by Colonel Delphin Kahimbi, Commander of operation Kimia II in eastern DRC
by which elements of the FDLR would be involved in kidnappings for ransom.
The FDLR have always condemned and still condemn strongly all acts of abduction of civilians and demands of
ransom that occurred in eastern DRC including the abduction of two Catholic clerics in the territory of Walungu.
The FDLR remind the public that they do not need to engage in criminal activities of this kind to reach their
objective which is and remains the liberation of the Rwandan people from the yoke of the fascist regime of RPFInkotanyi.
Before blaming the FDLR in cases of kidnapping, officials of the coalition of the RPA (RDF) and the FARDC
should first ask themselves why the FDLR would kidnap innocent civilians who have nothing to do with the
ongoing war in eastern DRC when they voluntarily free and hand over to the International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC) soldiers of the coalition of the RPA(RDF) and the FARDC captured on the battlefield without
demanding ransom or consideration of any kind (see Press Release Nr. 05/SE/CD/SEPTEMBER/2009 of
September 21, 2009).
The FDLR request the media and the public not to be distracted by stories fabricated by Kigali officials in order
to smear the FDLR and its leadership.
The FDLR remind Colonel Delphin Kahimbi and his colleagues that the FDLR have always shown exemplary
discipline which is far incomparable to that of elements of the coalition of the RPA (RDF) and the FARDC and
even of those of MONUC.
The FDLR call upon Colonel Delphin Kahimbi and MONUC officials to be cautious and urge them to look for
the perpetrators of all crimes committed in eastern DRC elsewhere rather than continuing to spread lies in the
media with the only criminal intent to tarnish the good reputation of the FDLR and its leadership.
The FDLR remain convinced that lies and demonization campaign orchestrated by the Kigali regime and its
agents against the FDLR will not solve the political problem of Rwanda but rather through a frank and direct
dialogue between the Kigali regime and the FDLR.
Done in Paris on October 5, 2009
.
Callixte Mbarushimana
Executive Secretary of the FDLR
(Sé)