As DRC President Joseph Kabila named 28 ministers in his new government most of whom are technocrats and not well-known by the public, thousands of Congolese fled heavy fighting in the Eastern part of the country.
The fighting allegedly resulted from attempts by the DRC troops to neutralize deserters from the regular army believed to be loyal to former rebel leader General Jean-Bosco Ntaganda.
However, Gen. Ntaganda has denied any involvement in the recent deadly clashes between the regular army and its defectors.
“I am not involved in the clashes pitting the FARDC (regular army) against the soldiers who defected,” Jean-Bosco Ntaganda told western press, in reference to army deserters who previously fought in his rebel group.
Gen. Ntaganda also told press, “I’m on my farm near Mushaki. My military hierarchy knows I’m here and I was allowed to stay. Even the head of state (Joseph Kabila) knows. I am not involved in the clashes that occur between the FARDC (DRC Armed Forces) and the military who defected.”
The whereabouts of Gen. Ntaganda have been uncertain for a while and this encouraged rumour about his possible involvement in the defection of more than a dozen senior officers.
Ntaganda is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
Ntaganda’s CNDP was incorporated into the army in 2009 following a peace deal with Kinshasa.
But a group of several hundred CNDP loyalists, including roughly a dozen senior officers, defected from the army earlier this month, citing unpaid salaries and inhumane living conditions among other complaints, and regrouped as a rebel force.
Earlier the DRCongo Chief of General Staff of the army, General Didier Etumba said on arrival in Goma that “those who do not want to submit to the republican order will be hunted down by the army.”
Gen. Etumba was referring to the defection of some FARDC officers from the former rebel CNDP in North and South Kivu for over a week.
“We have a very clear idea. There are some that we must hunt down and undisciplined they are being hunted, and the most radical. This is not necessarily a question of claim. Someone who is undisciplined is not to submit to the constitution of the Republic, the laws of the Republic, someone who does not follow the instructions of President Supreme Commander of the armed forces.”
“Someone who refuses to be Republican cannot serve under the flag. And when it manifests itself, when it takes up arms, well, he is hunted to be neutralized and those problems that are legal they will have to answer for. ”
Some of the defectors attacked army troops on Sunday at Mwesa in the volatile Kivu Nord province, which borders Rwanda, and clashes have continued in the surrounding areas.
The army said Monday that it had launched an offensive to reclaim territory lost to the rebels and the United Nations reported more than 2,000 civilians had been displaced by the fighting.
In an exclusive interview with IGIHE, the head of Nkamira refugee camp in Western Province of Rwanda, noted that Congolese refugees arrived in large numbers from the eastern DRC. For the moment the camp looking for the main materials to help those displaced since they arrived empty-handed.
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