Sources: AllAfrica.com, Misna, Mai-Mai, IRIN
September 9, 2002
- Presidents Kabila of the DRC and Museveni of Uganda signed an accord on Friday in Luanda for the withdrawal of Ugandan troops from eastern DRC and a normalisation of relations between the two countries. Starting from 7 September, Uganda will have five days to withdraw itts forces from Beni and Gbadolite. It will have 100 days to complete the withdrawal of its final two battalions from Bunia, northeastern DRC.
- President Kabila announced the resumption of the inter-Congose dialogue later this month.
- RCD-ML is furious with Uganda, its former ally, for a series of acts of war against it Thursday in the Ituri region. Lambert Mende, spokesman of RCD-Bunia, said that Ugandan troops stormed Mahagi, around 120 km from Bunia, seizing the city after violent fighting. Mende claims that there was also fighting in Nyankunde, 35 km from Bunia, between Hema and Lendu, resulting in an unconfirmed though high number of victims. The location is now controlled by the Lendu. On Thursday there was fighting in Bunia between Hema militias of Thomas Lubanga and the Ugandan garrison stationed in the city.
- The troops of Bemba (MLC) and Lumbala over the past days seized the strategic mining town of Watsa from RCD-ML of Busa Nyamwisi. MISNA sources referred that the men of the MLC have so far conducted a real 'Nanade hunt', the ethnic group to which Nyamwisi belongs.
Quotations from IRIN:
18 September - UN confirms start of Rwanda troop withdrawal from Kindu.
23 September - MONUC confirms RCD-Goma has lifted its ban on Ngongi.
24 September - Paris Club announces immediate cancellation of about $4.64 billion of DRC's external debt.
25 September - Kinshasa announces a ban on all armed Rwandan groups operating in the country, and declares their leaders "personae non gratae".
27 September 2002 - Rwanda begins withdrawal of troops from North Kivu Province in eastern DRC.
27 September - Uganda and Kinshasa create joint commission to establish peace in Ituri.
29 September - Col Tharcisse Renzaho, suspected of having committed crimes against humanity during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, is arrested in Kinshasa and transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
5 October - MONUC confirms withdrawal of 20,941 Rwandan soldiers from 21 assembly points.
7 October - Radio Okapi expands service to Bukavu, broadcasting on 98.6 FM. Bukavu becomes the ninth location in the country to have a local relay.
13 October - Burundi agrees to withdraw its remaining two battalions of troops from the DRC, while Kinshasa pledges that its territory will not serve as a rear base for Burundi Hutu rebel groups.
14 October - Mayi-Mayi militias capture Uvira from RCD-Goma following two days of intense fighting.
14 October - RCD-Goma suspends relations with Kinshasa following the capture of Uvira by Mayi-Mayi militias who, the RCD-Goma alleges, were backed by Kinshasa forces.
17 October - Amnesty International, in an open letter to the UN Security Council, warns that "deliberate incitement could lead to the possibility of genocide" in Ituri.
19 October - RCD-Goma retakes Uvira from Mayi-Mayi forces. Thousands of civilians flee.
21 October - Second UN report on illegal exploitation of DRC's resources adds more damning accusations against Rwanda, Uganda and "elite networks" behind the plunder.
23 October - UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Carolyn McAskie warns that unless the international community acts to forestall incitement of ethnic hatred in the eastern DRC, the country would face "a massacre of horrific proportions".
25 October - DRC public prosecutor announces it will open its own inquiry into allegations made by latest UN report on the illegal exploitation of the natural resources of the DRC.
25 October - UNHCR in Rwanda reports that forcible repatriations from Rwanda of Tutsi refugees who fled eastern DRC in the 1990s to escape ethnic persecution appear to have ceased.
29 October - Breakthrough in power-sharing talks as MLC says it would accept, with certain conditions, a power-sharing agreement with Kinshasa and RCD-Goma.
30 October - Kinshasa officially bids farewell to armed forces of Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The allied forces halted an armed offensive on Kinshasa launched in August 1998 by rebel groups backed by neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda.
31 October - UN Special Rapporteur probing conditions in the DRC reports that massive violations of human rights are still continuing in the DRC, especially in areas controlled by the MLC and RCD-Goma.
31 October - HRW urges the UN to increase MONUC forces to protect civilians against slaughter in eastern DRC, including Ituri.
October 2002 - Humanitarian agencies encounter difficulties in securing flight permissions to land in Bunia. Relations between the UPC, which controls Bunia, and humanitarian agencies remain strained.
2 November - Kabila dismisses leaders of state diamond mining company, Miniere de Bakwanga (Miba), two weeks after its head, Jean-Charles Okoto, is named in UN expert panel report on illegal exploitation of DRC's natural resources. Kinshasa, however, denies the dismissals are linked to UN report.
6 November - UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that access to at least 900,000 internally displaced persons IDPs in eastern DRC remains "impossible".
6 November - FAO reports that between 10 - 30 percent of the population are suffering from acute malnutrition in many areas of eastern DRC. Those most affected are women and children.
11 November - Kabila suspends six government officials whose names appeared in UN report on the pillage of the DRC's natural resources.
15 November - Warring factions gather in Pretoria to begin another round of talks aimed at reaching a peace deal.
20 November - Humanitarian community launches appeal for $268.65 million in aid for 2003.
20 November - MONUC announces completion of first phase of repatriation of Rwandan ex-combattants based in Kamina.
18 November - A new law promulgated by Kabila would soon abolish the Cour d'ordre militaire (Military Order Court). The new law, however, states that judgments already rendered by the court would remain valid. The court was instituted in August 1998 when war erupted between the Kinshasa government and rebel movements supported by Rwanda and Uganda.
22 November - Cholera epidemic that erupted in September in Kasai Oriental Province continues to spread. As at 19 November, a total of 1,156 people were reported affected while another 80 were reported to have died.
22 November - Orientale governor (and former Ituri governor), Joseph Eneku, killed in an ambush 20 km from Mahagi.
November - Progress on the Ituri Pacification Committee remains stalled due to insistence of Lubanga that Ituri be recognised as a province, not a district. Kinshasa refuses.
4 December - UN Security Council approves nearly 3,200 additional peacekeepers for MONUC, raising the ceiling to a total of some 8,700 troops.
6 December - RCD-Goma, MLC announce they are uniting against the government, saying the Kabila administration is not giving them a fair role in the future administration.
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