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Rebels Issue Ultimatum to Congo Forces in Goma Fighting Breaks Standoff Between Rebels and Congo Forces
(about 9 hours later)
KAMPALA, Uganda — Congolese Army units and United Nations peacekeepers faced a well-equipped rebel force ringing Goma, one of Congo’s largest cities, on Monday, awaiting the government’s response to an ultimatum from the insurgents. KAMPALA, Uganda — Heavy shelling and gunfire on Monday broke a tense standoff between Congolese rebels on the outskirts of the eastern Congolese city of Goma and government soldiers backed by United Nations troops who were hunkered down inside, as fears also rose of a direct military confrontation between the Democratic Republic of Congo and its neighbor Rwanda.
The rebel March 23 Movement, or M23, which has been fighting the Congolese government since April, reached the outskirts of Goma on Sunday night in some of the heaviest fighting since 2008 and issued an ultimatum to the government to announce direct negotiations with the group within 24 hours. The Congolese government rejected an ultimatum made by rebels Sunday night to withdraw from Goma and accused Rwanda, which a United Nations panel has said has links to the March 23 rebels, of sending two battalions of troops over the border into Congo to fight on their behalf and firing a rocket that injured five civilians in Goma.
“To allow a peaceful exit,” a rebel statement on Monday morning said, the rebels also demanded “the complete demilitarization” of Goma and the international airport in eastern Congo, although U.N. peacekeepers would be allowed to stay. Rwanda has called the accusations “absolutely false and diversionary” and said Rwanda was “exercising restraint as of now,” according to a military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Joseph Nzabamwita. Rwanda’s military accused the Congolese army of bombing the nearby Rwandan border city of Gisenyi, killing one and injuring two others.
Otherwise, the rebel group said, it reserved the right “to take all necessary measures,” including “following its its resistance against the government of Kinshasa up to its fall.” Amid the back and forth, Sekombi Katondolo, a radio journalist inside Goma, said that Congolese troops were aligning along the border and that fears of an escalation in the battle were high.
On Sunday, a rebel spokesman had said that rebels had no intention of advancing on the city. “It’s really scary,” the radio journalist said, as fighting between government forces and rebel soldiers around Goma city broke out Monday afternoon. “We knew it would happen, but we didn’t think it would happen all of a sudden.”
Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province, is home to nearly one million people and United Nations peacekeepers who have a mandate to use force to protect civilians. Witnesses in Goma said heavy explosions pounded central Goma on Monday afternoon and a general panic by local residents resulted in a mass exodus of civilians from the city center. Tariq Riebl, a humanitarian officer for the organization Oxfam in Goma, said that there had been reports of “fighting, looting, complete panic” across parts of Goma by Monday evening and that it was unclear whether rebels had come to control certain areas of the city.
Goma remained largely quiet on Monday morning. Some shops were open, civilians there said, but Congo’s military spokesman said the army was digging in. A United Nations official stationed across the street from Goma’s international airport said he could hear bombs exploding around the airport.
“We are now in a state of reinforcing our positions,” said Col. Olivier Hamuli. Scores were believed to be injured in fighting Monday, and several killed, but there was no clear tally of casualties.
Violence erupted between rebel forces and government troops last week and both sides claimed to have inflicted heavy losses although they provided no numbers. On Saturday, the rebels captured the town of Kibumba and continued to advance on Sunday. Despite ground battles with government troops and aerial strikes by United Nations helicopters on rebel positions, the insurgents pushed to within two miles of central Goma, long an objective in Congo’s 15-year civil war, displacing tens of thousands of people in a humanitarian camp. A rebel offer to withdraw from Goma in exchange for concessions from the government did little to bring the two sides together. “To allow a peaceful exit,” a rebel news release circulated Monday morning said, “our Movement demands” the “complete demilitarization of the city and the airport of Goma,” except for U.N. peacekeepers, and also “direct political negotiations with the Movement of March 23.”
“They were able to bypass all of the positions we had,” said the United Nations chief in Goma, Hiroute Guebre Sellasie. “We are not facing a conventional force.” But Congo’s government rejected the ultimatum, and turned attention toward Rwanda. “We are resisting an aggression that Rwanda is launching against us,” said a Congolese government spokesman, Lambert Mende, “We have not yet declared war, but we are ready to face it. This is our country, our duty.”
“The deadlock depends on so many things,” Ms. Guebre Sellasie said. “I cannot project what will happen in the next 24 hours.” The United Nations expressed bewilderment and frustration at the rebel attack.
The M23 group is made up of soldiers from a former rebel army that signed a peace deal with the government on March 23, 2009, and was integrated into Congo’s national army. But last spring, hundreds of them mutinied, claiming that the government had failed to meet their demands under the 2009 agreement. “They were able to bypass all of the positions we had,” said Hiroute Guebre-Sellasie, who heads the United Nations peacekeeping office in North Kivu Province, where Goma is situated. “We are not facing a conventional force.”
The figurehead of the group is believed to be Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, a former rebel and high-ranking army officer wanted by the International Criminal Court to answer charges that he committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ms. Guebre-Sellasie said that while U.N. soldiers had prepared for certain attacks, rebels were filtering “beyond sight” through a national park and “coming from other sides.”
The rebellion broke out as Congo and foreign governments called for the arrest of General Ntaganda. Since then, Rwanda and Uganda have been accused by a United Nations panel of experts of aiding the rebel movement, a charge that both countries deny. The sequence of events for people in Goma is strikingly similar to events four years ago when many of the same rebel soldiers, under a different name, also captured large swaths of territory.
A new wave of fighting erupted last week, with the army claiming to have killed more than 150 rebels and the rebels capturing the town of Kibumba, about 18 miles from Goma. “The presumption by most of us was that there wouldn’t be this type of fighting in Goma, but that there would be a resolution,” said Mr. Riebl. “It is probably worse than people expected.”