Congo News updates 10/14/97 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source: congo-news@thor.cmp.ilstu.edu Tue Oct 14 23:38:31 1997 U.S. to Name and Send Team to Kabila's Congo 06:47 a.m. Oct 14, 1997 Eastern By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States will name a three-man team shortly in an effort to revive a stalled U.N. probe in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations says. ``We understand the Americans are very close to announcing their choice of an envoy and we expect that the envoy will be coming here in the next few days for consultations,'' U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Monday. Donald McHenry, a former U.N. ambassador and professor at Georgetown University in Washington, is expected to lead the U.S. mission, according to diplomats. The two other members on McHenry's team are expected to be Donald Payne, a Democratic Congressman from New Jersey, and Howard Wolpe, a former chairman of the House subcommittee on Africa from Michigan and the current U.S. special envoy to Burundi, they said. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Oct. 1 recalled all three leaders of a team sent to probe alleged massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees by forces loyal to President Laurent Kabila before and after he seized power from Mobutu Sese Seko in May. But it left 13 other experts in Kinshasa, the capital of the former Zaire, pending a final decision on whether to go ahead with the probe or scrap it entirely. Eckhard, who would not name the U.N. emissaries, however, said the team from Washington would be in New York, probably this week, to speak to Annan as well as the recalled members of the U.N. probe. Annan originally wanted to decide by Oct. 15 whether to end the U.N. human rights mission in the Congo or to send back the leaders of the team, currently in New York. But Eckhard said that date would ``slide a bit'' in order for the United States to get its mission underway. The U.N. team has been blocked in carrying out the probe on its own terms and Kabila has accused its members of ``issuing statements from posh hotels in Kinshasa'' rather than going to the eastern part of the country where most of the alleged massacres took place. The team wanted to start its probe in the west of Kabila's Congo but the government refused. Congo officials have argued civilian refugees from Rwanda were held hostage by soldiers and militia responsible for killing an estimated 800,000 Rwanda Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994. They fled during the mass slaughter to the Congo, then Zaire, and other countries for fear of retribution. Kabila's army together with Rwandan Tutsi troops are accused of attacking the Rwandan Hutu refugee camps in the then eastern Zaire last year, provoking the return of up to 700,000 of an estimated 1.1 million refugees. The remaining refugees fled west into the jungle where relief workers and local witnesses say many were massacred by Kabila's forces and its Rwandan backers. Several Western powers, including the United States and the European Union, have linked future aid to Kabila's government to its cooperation with the U.N. probe into the massacres. But Washington, fearing a lack of reconstruction aid would further destabilize the region, is eager for the investigation controversy to be solved as soon as possible. Battle for Brazzaville intensifies; UN asks for arms embargo 8.24 p.m. EDT (024 GMT) October 14, 1997 By Louis Okamba,(c)Associated Press KINSHASA, Congo (AP) -- The battle for the Republic of Congo's capital grew more violent Tuesday when a former military leader launched renewed, concentrated attacks on Brazzaville's airport and presidential palace, diplomats said. Forces loyal to President Pascal Lissouba managed to repel at least one wave of attacks. The opposition militia vowed to begin another offensive against government positions and appeared to be gaining ground in the city, diplomats in Kinshasa said on condition of anonymity. In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked the Security Council on Tuesday to slap an arms embargo on the Republic of Congo and send a military team to nearby Gabon as a preliminary step toward a U.N. peacekeeping force to halt the fighting. But council action on both the advance team and the peacekeeping force hinged on U.S. approval. Council diplomats said the Americans were reluctant to commit to such a force, citing President Clinton's 1994 guidelines to limit peacekeeping operations. An opposition military official in the Republic of Congo, speaking on condition of anonymity, said his forces had taken control of the airport and the palace, although diplomats insisted they were still under Lissouba's control. However, France Info radio said "independent sources'' confirmed the fall of the airport and palace to troops backing Gen. Denis Sassou-Nguesso. The report also said radio and television have stopped broadcasting, an indication the city may have fallen. In an exclusive interview with Associated Press television, Lissouba said Brazzaville cannot count on outside help to defend itself. "We will decide what we are going to do to save our city ourselves, but it's us alone,'' he said, speaking from an undisclosed location. "It's not the international community. Don't count on them.'' Sassou-Nguesso's militia already controls much of the north of the country, as well as large parts of Brazzaville. The shelling of neighborhoods under Lissouba's control Tuesday sent hundreds more people fleeing Brazzaville, some crossing the Congo River to Kinshasa. Jets on Monday bombed positions controlled by the president's forces, killing at least 20 people, Republic of Congo's U.N. Ambassador Daniel Abibi said in a letter to the Security Council. His report could not immediately be confirmed, but witnesses reported jets flying over the area. A French soldier guarding the embassy in Brazzaville was injured Tuesday when several mortars fell near the office in an area controlled by Lissouba's allies. The soldier was not badly injured, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jacques Rummelhardt said in Paris. A Belgian woman was seriously injured Tuesday when a shell fired from Brazzaville landed in the garden of her home in Kinshasa, blowing shrapnel through her window, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hubert Cooreman said in Brussels. The Republic of Congo's four-month civil war began when Lissouba tried to disarm Sassou-Nguesso's militia ahead of presidential elections. Sassou-Nguesso, a candidate, accused Lissouba of provoking the violence so he would have an excuse to delay the election and hold onto power. All 15 U.N. council members have insisted on an effective cease-fire before they would dispatch a peacekeeping force the Republic of Congo. But the crisis has taken on new urgency with reports that Angola had intervened in the fighting on behalf of Sassou-Nguesso. That raised the specter of the conflict spreading through Africa's most volatile region. Pressed by African nations to respond, the council met Tuesday afternoon to discuss options with Annan. "Given the involvement of neighboring countries, given the possibility that this will spill to other countries in the region, if we do not act now and put pressure on them and ensure action, it may be much worse later on,'' Annan said. Britain joined the United States last summer in refusing to send a peacekeeping force to the Republic of Congo. But council diplomats said the new Labor government appeared to be reconsidering that position, in large part because the effectiveness and image of the United Nations was at stake. U.S. to Name and Send Team to Kabila's Congo 6.49 a.m. EDT (1049 GMT) October 14, 1997 UNITED NATIONS -- The United States will name a three-man team shortly in an effort to revive a stalled U.N. probe in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations says. "We understand the Americans are very close to announcing their choice of an envoy and we expect that the envoy will be coming here in the next few days for consultations,'' U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Monday. Donald McHenry, a former U.N. ambassador and professor at Georgetown University in Washington, is expected to lead the U.S. mission, according to diplomats. The two other members on McHenry's team are expected to be Donald Payne, a Democratic Congressman from New Jersey, and Howard Wolpe, a former chairman of the House subcommittee on Africa from Michigan and the current U.S. special envoy to Burundi, they said. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Oct. 1 recalled all three leaders of a team sent to probe alleged massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees by forces loyal to President Laurent Kabila before and after he seized power from Mobutu Sese Seko in May. But it left 13 other experts in Kinshasa, the capital of the former Zaire, pending a final decision on whether to go ahead with the probe or scrap it entirely. Eckhard, who would not name the U.N. emissaries, however, said the team from Washington would be in New York, probably this week, to speak to Annan as well as the recalled members of the U.N. probe. Annan originally wanted to decide by Oct. 15 whether to end the U.N. human rights mission in the Congo or to send back the leaders of the team, currently in New York. But Eckhard said that date would "slide a bit'' in order for the United States to get its mission underway. The U.N. team has been blocked in carrying out the probe on its own terms and Kabila has accused its members of "issuing statements from posh hotels in Kinshasa'' rather than going to the eastern part of the country where most of the alleged massacres took place. The team wanted to start its probe in the west of Kabila's Congo but the government refused. Congo officials have argued civilian refugees from Rwanda were held hostage by soldiers and militia responsible for killing an estimated 800,000 Rwanda Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994. They fled during the mass slaughter to the Congo, then Zaire, and other countries for fear of retribution. Kabila's army together with Rwandan Tutsi troops are accused of attacking the Rwandan Hutu refugee camps in the then eastern Zaire last year, provoking the return of up to 700,000 of an estimated 1.1 million refugees. The remaining refugees fled west into the jungle where relief workers and local witnesses say many were massacred by Kabila's forces and its Rwandan backers. Several Western powers, including the United States and the European Union, have linked future aid to Kabila's government to its cooperation with the U.N. probe into the massacres. But Washington, fearing a lack of reconstruction aid would further destabilize the region, is eager for the investigation controversy to be solved as soon as possible. Switzerland discloses six Mobutu allies asking asylum 5.35 p.m. EDT (2135 GMT) October 14, 1997 ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) -- Six people from the entourage of the late Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko have entered Switzerland and requested asylum, a Swiss official said Tuesday. The asylum applicants included Mobutu's distant relatives, former presidential bodyguards and members of the Zairian army, Roger Schneeberger, spokesman for the Swiss Federal Office for Refugees, told Swiss television. They arrived in the last few days at border crossings and at the Zurich airport and their applications are pending, Schneeberger said. Mobutu himself was barred from returning to Switzerland during his final months. The Swiss government has frozen all assets belonging to the Mobutu family or associates in response to a request from Laurent Kabila, the rebel leader who overthrew Mobutu in May and renamed the country Congo. Kabila claims Mobutu and his allies looted the country. ================================================================= 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-10.15.97-18:16:37-24458