Yearbook 2008
Congo. Shortly after the turn of the year, a conference
of about 600 participants was launched in the city of Goma
in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo with the aim of ending the country's last
armed conflict. Despite threatening statements during the
conference, Militia leader Laurent Nkunda wrote after more
than two weeks of negotiations under a peace agreement with
the government. A total of 22 armed groups operating in both
Kiwi provinces promised to lay down arms and respect the
rights of the civilian population. Nkunda, who said she was
fighting to protect the local Tutsin minority, had for
several years been regarded as the greatest threat to the
residents of the region.
Despite the peace agreement, the situation remained tense
in North Kivu. In early August, both Nkunda's militia
National Congress for the People's Defense (CNDP) and the
army were reportedly preparing and recruiting, and at the
end of the month fierce fighting broke out. The UN force
MONUC tried to prevent CNDP's advance, but without much
success. During a few autumn weeks, about 200,000 people
fled the fighting and joined the more than a million who had
already lost their homes earlier during the conflict.
While Nkunda threatened to "liberate" the whole of Democratic Republic of the Congo,
the UN, the African Union (AU) and the EU tried to put an
end to the fighting through mediation, and the UN Security
Council decided to increase MONUC's number by 3,000 to a
total of about 20,000. At the same time, the UN force was
ordered to place more soldiers in the Kivu region and place
more emphasis on protecting civilians. A UN investigation
accused all the local forces involved of serious abuse
against the civilian population. After the army's local
allies almost collapsed, President Joseph Kabila first
replaced the Defense and Home Affairs Ministers and then the
Army Chief and was forced to begin negotiations with Nkunda
in December.
In February, Army Colonel Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, with a
past as militia leader in the Ituri region, was arrested and
flown to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The
Hague. There he was brought to trial along with another
Ituri warlord, Germain Katanga who was arrested in 2007, for
killing more than 200 people in the attempts to wipe out an
entire village in 2003. They were charged with 13 points for
war crimes and crimes against humanity.
According to
Countryaah reports, Former Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba was arrested in
Belgium in May and also brought to the ICC. He is charged
with assault that his then militia committed when it helped
defeat a coup attempt in the Central African Republic in
2002.
In Western Democratic Republic of the Congo, in March, fighting broke out between the
army and members of a religious and political community
called Bundu Dia Congo, which was accused by the government
of trying to create a state in the state. At least 68 people
were killed in clashes, and President Kabila withdrew
recognition of the community as a nonprofit.
The Ugandan rebel movement The Lord's Resistance Army
(LRA) was accused in December of killing over 400 villagers
in northern K. Previously, Ugandan forces in collaboration
with the governments of K. and South Sudan had launched an
offensive against the LRA's last hiding places in northern
Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The 83-year-old Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga resigned
on age grounds in October and was replaced by former Budget
Minister Adolphe Muzito. In the early 1960s, Gizenga was a
close associate of Democratic Republic of the Congo's first Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.
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