DATE=9/14/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CONGO REBELS (L)
NUMBER=2-266498
BYLINE=SCOTT STEARNS
DATELINE=DONGO, CONGO
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Rebels in northern Congo have retaken ground
in fighting against the army of President Laurent
Kabila. V-O-A's Scott Stearns reports civilians in
the area say government troops executed people
suspected of being rebel sympathizers.
TEXT: Rebels continue their push down the Ubangi
River, regaining ground lost to President Kabila's
troops during a government offensive earlier this
year. That offensive drove some 200 kilometers into
territory controlled by the rebel Movement for the
Liberation of Congo [,the M-L-C]. Those rebels have
now scored a series of victories, again taking them
closer to the strategic town of Mbandaka.
The latest rebel victory came here in the village of
Dongo, where government troops withdrew after five
days of heavy fighting, leaving behind thousands of
rounds of ammunition and several heavy guns.
Civilians here say that before government troops left
last week they executed as many as 40 people believed
to be rebel sympathizers.
Cornette Maboso sells peanuts and dried fish in the
local market. She says government troops murdered her
grandmother, Marie.
/// MABOSO ACT, FADE UNDER ///
Ms. Maboso says Kabila's soldiers started killing
civilians because they said people here in Equateur
province are backing the M-L-C rebels and their
leader, Jean-Pierre Bemba.
Local farmer Papilu Wenda says his older brother was
killed when he went to the river to get water and was
arrested by three government soldiers.
/// WENDA ACT, FADE UNDER ///
Mr. Wenda says they took his brother to a house with
50 other prisoners who, he says, were all eventually
killed. When Kabila's troops abandoned Dongo, Mr.
Wenda says he went to the house, where he found his
brother's body shot in the head. He says other people
appeared to have had their throats slit.
It was not possible to independently confirm the
deaths. Rebels showed reporters two fresh mass
graves, where they say they buried the victims. The
graves are next to a house where a shoulder-wide track
of blood leads to a back room where pools of blood are
still standing, sticky in the equatorial heat.
The killing is supposed to be over in Congo, where all
sides agreed to a cease-fire that no one respected.
Local rebel commander Alengbia Nzambe says it is
President Kabila who started this fight along the
Ubangi River.
/// NZAMBE ACT ///
Major Nzambe says after the peace accord, President
Kabila's troops advanced to within 17 kilometers of
the rebel stronghold at the village of Libenge.
"We were obliged to push them back," Major Nzambe
says. "Now we are in defensive positions at Dongo."
With prospects for a real peace deal fading, there
will likely be more fighting in Congo. These rebels
may keep going down the river, opening another front
around Mbandaka. Combined with gains by rebels in the
east, anti-government forces now control more than
half of Congo.
President Kabila says it is not a rebellion at all but
an organized invasion by rebel sponsors Uganda and
Rwanda. (Signed)
NEB/SS/KL/JP
14-Sep-2000 09:48 AM LOC (14-Sep-2000 1348 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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