Congo News Updates 9/30/97 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source:congo-news@thor.cmp.ilstu.edu Wed Oct 1 00:57:17 1997 Reuters Africa Highlights 04:58 p.m Sep 30, 1997 Eastern LUSAKA - Democratic Republic of the Congo President Laurent Kabila asked for a U.N. probe team investigating alleged massacres in the former Zaire to leave the country immediately. ``We request (U.N. Secretary-General) Kofi Annan to ask them to leave,'' Kabila told reporters at Lusaka airport shortly before heading home after a visit to neighbouring Zambia. KINSHASA - A second day of shelling from the Congo Republic capital Brazzaville killed three children in Kinshasa, neighbouring capital of the former Zaire, residents said. Shells fired on Monday from Brazzaville, where rival supporters of President Pascal Lissouba and his predecessor Denis Sassou Nguesso have been locked in a bloody power struggle since June, killed 17 people in Kinshasa. BUJUMBURA - Burundi blamed neighbouring Tanzania for a weekend incident involving an exchange of fire between Burundian and Tanzanian troops but said calm had since returned on the frontier. A government statement issued by the ministry of defence in Bujumbura said Tanzanian troops from an area known as Kagunga had opened fire first, targeting a Burundi navy patrol boat on Lake Tanganyika. KAMPALA - Around 15,000 Ugandan students took to the streets of Kampala in a march of support for 19 colleagues held by Sudan-backed rebels in northern Uganda since last year, witnesses and police said. The students waved placards which read ``we want peace, end wars.'' DAR ES SALAAM - The U.N. food agency in Tanzania has asked its headquarters for 76,000 tonnes of emergency food aid to offset the effects of drought, a senior aid official said. CAPE TOWN - South Africa's opposition Democratic Party accused the government of wasting millions of rand (dollars) on commissions created to perform tasks from investigating an Afrikaner homeland to promoting gender equality. JOHANNESBURG - An early onset of an El Nino drought in South Africa and its southern African neighbours could spell disaster for the region, South Africa's National Maize Producers' Association (NAMPO) said. FREETOWN - Waterfront residents of Sierra Leone's capital Freetown briefly left their homes overnight after fresh shelling of the port by a Nigerian-led force policing an economic embargo, witnesses said. U.N. council concerned over spread of Congo conflict 08:15 p.m Sep 30, 1997 Eastern By Anthony Goodman UNITED NATIONS, Sept 30 (Reuter) - Security Council members expressed grave concern on Tuesday over the possible internationalization of the conflict in the Republic of the Congo following the firing of shells into the neighboring Democratic Congo, formerly called Zaire. In a statement to reporters after council consultations, the council president, Bill Richardson of the United States, said members urged all parties to show restraint. He said the 15-member body, after a briefing on the shelling, ``expressed concern at the possible internationalization of the conflict in the Republic of the Congo,'' where supporters of President Pascal Lissouba and his predecessor, Denis Sassou Nguesso, have been battling since June 5. Shells fired from the Congo capital Brazzaville killed 17 people on Monday in Kinshasa, across the Congo River. Shelling was reported to have resumed on Tuesday during another day of heavy exchanges between supporters of Lissouba and Sassou. The reports said it was not clear who was firing the shells that landed in Kinshasa, prompting President Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Congo to cut short a visit to Zambia. Richardson said council members urged the parties in the Republic of the Congo to agree on an effective ceasefire and a political settlement, and supported the mediation efforts of President Omar Bongo of Gabon and others. Bongo, and U.N. special envoy Mohamed Sahnoun have been trying to mediate an end to the fighting, which derailed a planned July 27 presidential election. Sahnoun told the Security Council last week that leaders in Congo-Brazzaville were consumed with ``blind ambition'' and were holding an entire country hostage with their violence. ``There is hardly any antagonism between communities or ethnic groups or regions,'' he said. ``The violence here is largely the result of conflict between leaders whose ambitions know no limit and no decency.'' Two-day Kinshasa shelling toll hits 31 -officer 01:39 p.m Sep 30, 1997 Eastern KINSHASA, Sept 30 (Reuter) - Two days of shelling from the Congo Republic capital Brazzaville have killed 31 people in Kinshasa, neighbouring capital of the former Zaire, a military officer said on Tuesday. The officer, from the armed forces of the renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo, presented a list of names of the dead to visiting Congo Brazzaville Prime Minister Bernard Kolelas at an army camp. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytaf-10.01.97-16:25:04-26966