Congo Kinshasa
Clashes in north-eastern Congo uproot thousands

afrol.com, 24 January - The clashes between ethnic Lendu and Hema peoples in north-eastern Congo Kinshasa (DRC), which have produced a massacre killing at least 150, are now driving more people from their homes. In addition to those fleeing into Uganda, an estimated 10,000 Hema have reportedly fled west, towards Kisangani, inside the DRC, according to a new UN report. 

On 19 January, rival Lendu and Hema militias killed at least one hundred and fifty civilians in the town of Bunia, next to the Ugandan border. After the massacre, heads were paraded around Bunia. "Vehicles went around town parading cut off heads that had been spiked on sticks - it was horrible," a rebel official was quoted saying. Bunia is the administrative centre of a region now controlled by DRC rebels in cooperation with Ugandan government troops.

The fighting between Lendu and Hema stems from an old conflict over land resources, but has been fuelled by the present conflict in the DRC. The recent fighting is reported to have claimed hundreds of lives in the Ituri area of the DRC. Over the past 10 days, thousands of Hema have flooded into western Uganda, which already host 100,000 internally-displaced persons.

After the horrors of the 19 January massacre, civilians continue fleeing the area in large numbers. From Uganda, the UN refugee agency UNHCR reports the arrival of 50 new refugees this weekend in Kyangwali, south of the border town of Bundibugyo. The refugees, who are mainly Hemas, claimed that the Lendus were targeting them as well as some Lendu moderates accused of being Hema sympathisers. The refugees say the attackers operated in large groups and were armed with guns, spears and bows and arrows.

UNHCR workers have collected statements from the refugees. "They killed my father, my mother, my brother and my kid. They came in large numbers. I ran away during the attack and I later saw my home in flames," one Hema refugee in Kamuga transit camp was quoted. In a bid to avert friction with local farmers, UNHCR and the Ugandan authorities have identified two temporary grazing areas in Chibuki and Mutungamo for the refugees' 25,000 head of cattle. The refugees' herds are also being vaccinated, according to UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski.

"Conflict fuelled by Uganda"
Several local observers believe that Ugandan support for the Hema, a local minority people related to the Hima people of Uganda, has aggravated the long-standing ethnic conflict. The two peoples have been in conflict over the fertile lands for generations, in a situation somewhat comparable to the Hutu and Tutsi further to the south. The Hema are traditionally pastoralists, while the Lendu are mainly farmers. 

In the past two years, Ugandans have recruited and trained both Hema and Lendu to serve in the forces of the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement (RCD-ML), a rebel group which is backed by Uganda and which nominally controls this area. Within the last year, however, at least some Ugandan officers have reportedly favoured the Hema, the traditional ruling minority.

In June 1999 Brigadier General James Kazini, then commander of the Ugandan People's Defence Force (UDPF) in the Congo, ignored objections of the RCD-ML and created a separate province of Ituri with Bunia as its capital. He named a Hema to head the new administration. The installation of the new governor coincided with an outbreak of violence between Lendu and Hema [see below], with the Lendu and others seeing Uganda and the RCD-ML as increasingly committed the Hema. In the months of violence that followed, an estimated 7,000 persons of both groups were slain and 200,000 fled their homes. 

At the end of 1999 the RCD-ML replaced the Hema governor of Ituri by a person from neither of the rival groups. In the following months, the ethnic fighting diminished but it revived several weeks ago after Col. Muzoora named a Hema as interim head of the province and placed the governor named by the RCD-ML under house arrest. The colonel later "deported" the deposed governor to Kampala, where Ugandan authorities continue to hold him without explanation.

Suliman Baldo, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch who returned from the region last month, warned of the gravity of the situation in Bunia. "What makes these attacks so dangerous," said Baldo, "is the way the two groups are now identifying with the Hutu-Tutsi categories that figured in the Rwandan genocide. The Lendu are now thinking of themselves as kin to the Hutu, while the Hema are identifying with the Tutsi. The two groups have competed for control of the land for a long time, but these identifications and the connection they have to genocide threaten to transform the struggle into something far more devastating."

Uganda denies stirring up trouble between the Lendu and Hema peoples. According to an Ugandan Government statement, there have been deployed additional troops around Bunia to restore the order and avoid further bloodspelling.

Sources: Based on UNHCR and Human Rights Watch

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