United Nations Radio

A new front opened up in the ongoing conflict in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo over the weekend. This happened just as regional African leaders were meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, to try to find a political solution to the conflict in the country. UN Radio's Derrick Mbatha discussed this latest fighting with the spokesman for the UN Mission in the Congo, Madnoje Mounoubai on the line to the Congolese capital, Kinshasa.

MOUNOUBAI:Last weekend, I would say, Friday, Saturday, there was fighting in Ngungu which is on the border between North Kivu and South Kivu. It lasted for a couple of hours. It was between the CNDP and we don't know yet, we think it is some Mai Mai group in that area. But the fighting has subsided and there is no more fighting going on now.

MBATHA:And, of course, the CNDP is referring to fighters loyal to Laurent Nkunda.

MOUNOUBA:Yes the CNDP that's Laurent Nkunda's group.

MBATHA:Now, how has the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo responded to this latest fighting?

MOUNOUBAI:Well, it's worrisome for us because we are trying to keep up the ceasefire. We want it to strengthen and to last as long as possible. First of all this will allow us to bring assistance to the many IDPs. As you know, in the past three to four weeks 250, (000) IDPs has been created to the one million IDPs that we have already in the area. That's a lot of IDPs. Secondly, we think that if we have no more fighting going on, then this will give more chance for talk and for dialogue between all the parties.

MBATHA:Now is this breakdown of the ceasefire only in this Ngungu area or is it being broke in the other areas in the eastern past of the DR Congo?

MOUNOUBAI:Well, I would not qualify it as a breakdown of the ceasefire.

MBATHA:Right.

MOUNOUBAI:I would say that there has been an incident in the ceasefire because there is no more fighting going on as we speak. So the ceasefire is on.

MBATHA:O.K. Now of course, as you know, this comes just after Friday's summit which was held in Nairobi which called for the ceasefire to be respected and also called for a political settlement in Kivu. Does this latest fighting indicate that the summit in Nairobi is a failure?

MOUNOUBAI:Well, I would not say that the summit of Nairobi is a failure. Many lessons can be learned from the Nairobi Summit. The first lesson is that we see that now no longer is the problem in the eastern part of the Congo is only a UN problem. All the countries in the sub-region have taken up, noticed what is going on. So this is good. The second is we have some kind of discussion even if it is not direct discussion, we have some kind of discussion between the DRC and Rwanda, which is good. And the third thing is the Secretary-General, who was at that meeting had the chance to explain to all those heads of state the mandate of MONUC, it's limitations and its resources, what it can do and what it cannot do and stressed to them that within its means and capacity, MONUC has been very active in protection of the civilians contrary to what most people have said. And finally, in the framework of Nairobi, we have seen that two new special envoys have come. President (Olusegun) Obasanjo from the United Nations and Minister (Ibrahima) Fall from the African Union and also the former president (Benjamin) Mkapa from SADC. So objectively something good came out of this summit.

PRESENTER: That was Madnoje Mounoubai, the spokesman for the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo speaking with UN Radio's Derrick Mbatha.

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