DRC, Angolan Leaders to Discuss Congo Fighting
By VOA News
21 November 2008
Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila is expected to meet Friday with his Angolan counterpart to discuss the continuing unrest in DRC.
Mr. Kabila will meet with Jose Eduardo dos Santos in the Angolan capital, Luanda. Angola has already pledged to send troops to DRC to help Mr. Kabila's government battle rebel forces led by renegade General Laurent Nkunda.
The United Nations Security Council has decided to send 3,000 more peacekeepers to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The council unanimously approved the temporary surge on Thursday, but U.N. officials warned the new deployment could take weeks or even months.
The mission in Congo, the U.N.'s largest, already has 17,000 peacekeepers.
U.N. officials in Congo say a spike in violence since August has overstretched the mission. Peacekeepers have been redeployed in recent weeks from other parts of Congo to North Kivu - the center of the violence. About 6,000 peacekeepers are in that area now.
A spokesman for the rebels, Bertrand Bisimwa, reported clashes Thursday near the village of Katoro. He and others say the fighting involved the pro-government Mai Mai militia and possibly some Congo-based Rwandan Hutu rebels.
Government forces and Nkunda's rebels have clashed repeatedly in the eastern DRC since August, following the collapse of a January peace deal. Nkunda says he is fighting to protect minority Tutsi communities from Rwandan Hutu extremists who entered the region after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
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